Photo by Rodion Kutsaiev on Unsplash

What is the reality of education technology in your context (district, school, classroom, etc.)?

This post marks the start of my journey to complete my Master’s degree in Education Technology. I was initially drawn to the program because I like to use technology and I want to better understand how I can incorporate it into my teaching practice. I’ve been reflecting on what was discussed and shared in our first class. My peers and I are a diverse group of learners with a variety of interests and experiences with technology. I’m confident that we’ll have engaging discussions and moments of learning over the course of the program. One thing that has stuck in my mind since our last class is the various school districts we are a part of and what that means in terms of access to technology. Let me be clear – I’m curious about whether or not access to technology is equitable.  

The reality of technology in my context is that I work for a district that is rather abundant with technology. We have a concentrated team who researches and approves platforms for teacher and student use. In addition to the platforms we have regular access to, every year my district purchases additional licenses for certain platforms based on a lottery system. For example, a teacher will have access to most of the platforms, but they can request a classroom set of licenses for specific platforms such as MathUP or Adobe Creative Cloud.  

My district believes in the access and use of technology and encourages multimodal instruction. Beyond all the extras the district purchases, the staff and students have access to the Office suite year-round. I personally use Microsoft Teams as a way to assign and collect student work, post class messages, share extra videos to support their learning, and respond to direct messages. One of the interesting aspects of my district’s technology use is the access to assistive technologies. Within platforms such as Microsoft Word, students can use the voice to text feature to capture their ideas and thoughts. They can also use the immersive reader function to have texts read to them. Having these features readily available for students permits many learners to participate independently in class activities.

Beyond this, my school has multiple laptop and tablet carts that teachers can reserve for student use. All grade levels are able to reserve these but they’re most often reserved by upper intermediate teachers. My school is in the process of upgrading some of the laptops in the carts. As the school purchases new laptops for the carts, the older laptops are distributed to the upper intermediate classrooms. Currently, in my classroom I have more than a laptops and several tablets for student use. In addition to the mobile devices, each classroom in my school also has a tech cart with a projector, AppleTV, and document camera. The classrooms also have a FrontRow speaker system installed which can be used with a wearable microphone or connected to your tech cart to project sound.  

What I have observed in my classroom is that the students enjoy having access to technology and a variety of platforms. They have been able to learn new skills, collaborate with peers and demonstrate their learning in pretty incredible ways. I have enjoyed teaching and learning with my students, and I look forward to exploring new learning opportunities this year.