Meeting with Director

This morning I had a meeting with the director of the center where I am in placement. Dawn opened up the meeting by explaining to her what Digital Bridges is and what the non-profit wants to accomplish in Milledgeville. Then we began talking about how my scholarship fits in with Digital Bridges. When we began discussing the possibilities of projects here at this center, the first thing the director said was about the use of interactive boards. The University also donated 40 computers to the school last year, but because of funding, there is only one computer in each classroom with Microsoft Word on it. The computers are using a program called Ebuntu which neither Dawn nor I had ever heard of before this meeting. One really large-scale idea for the project was finding or creating behavior programs for these students that would help with social skills. One of the largest issues with the program is the huge turnover rate in teachers because of how difficult the type of students that these teachers are dealing with, and teacher burnout happens very quickly. There are also no computer programs here like Steep or Successmaker, which help students improve their math and reading skills. These programs also provide the teachers feedback as the students progress throughout the program. The students also need to be learning more of the basic computer skills like PowerPoints, copying, and pasting. The school does have a program called Bookshare, but there is no memory on the computers to use the program. All of the programming for math is extremely expensive to buy. The school does not have a tech support until something is actually physically broken and beyond repair. The students could take online CRCT tests, if they were comfortable enough to use the computers in the first place. Even the idea of teaching teachers how to better use PowerPoints in the their daily lessons would be a huge advantage and change in the classrooms.
After the meeting today, there is a ton to think about and plan. Dawn and I are meeting tomorrow to get the ball rolling on some ideas. The director is going to send out a survey to all of the teachers to find out what they would like to see happen with technology in the center and what ways that I could help support these teachers with my project. I really believe that I have the backing of the director, which is amazing. If there is one thing that I have learned from doing the project so far, it is that you cannot be the only one wanting the project to work. I am very excited to be partnering with this center and excited to see where this project goes. In the next couple of blogs, I am going to go into much greater details and thoughts about the potential projects. I just thought that it was important to get the gist of what happened at the meeting up onto the blog, and then take adequate time to explain the concepts completely.

Restated here are the bullet points from out meeting:

Smart Boards

Ebuntu

Behavior Programs

Teacher Networking

16 Social Skills

Success maker and Steep with feedback

Using Computers in general

Basic Computer Skills

Write Out Loud in IEP

No tech support

No computer Memory

No Microsoft Word

Lack of Comfort with Technology

Lack of Incentives

Lack of use of Technology in the classrooms

Lack of funds