The First Week of the Practicum: technology observations

It was interesting to see what technology Sage Creek had available to students and teachers. I was surprised how little technology Sage Creek actually had. I have taught in title 1 schools in the past that had more technology available than this school. My classroom in Sage Creek has two computers. One is the teacher's computer, hooked up to the internet (but no wireless is available), and the other is a student computer that is used for reading and math tutoring programs. The computer screen can be displayed on the tv screen, but it's small and I don't think would really lend itself to this first grade classroom learning environment.
My teacher wears a microphone, sometimes, that projects her voice into speakers so all the students can hear. She said she wrote the grant to get the microphones and speakers a few years back. Now all of the new classrooms come equipped with that technology.
On Friday we visited the computer lab. The teacher takes her students to the computer lab on her own. There is not a computer technician or specialist that I know about. Our students were learning about telling time. There was a link to a game called "beat the clock" on the school website. The game timed how fast students matched the time up to the clock and their job was to get the best time, or beat the clock. There were also several links to other fun games on the school website, categorized by grade level.
Keyboard instruction starts in grade 3 at this school, and the younger grades don't do as much with technology.