Observation #3

Observation #3

Today's classes are supposed to be smaller and they are being introduced to classlink.

During the first class, we found that the passwords that students were supposed to use were different. There was a request sent in for the technology department to change them over to the correct password. During the day we found it seemed to be just that class that had the incorrect passwords.

There are several classes during the school day, most of them are back to back without any break time. The computerss lose energy during the day with so much use and have to be switched out.

The elementary students really fall behind when they don’t pay attention and time has to be spent catching them up to the rest of the group. There are three of us: Tran, Collins, and myself walking around helping students with their progress.

It is obvious the students who have computers at home compared to others. Some students have no literacy skills at all. It is also obvious the teachers who don’t spend time with their classes in the computer labs.

A puzzling finding is that some students can't seem to spell their own last names, I think this is anxiety from using the computers and its obvious that these students have no computer time. It was painful to find that so many students lacked basic technology skills and evident why Tran is doing these classes for the students.

Overall it was a good reminder to the days when I used technology in the classroom, that things don't always run smoothly. An Instructional Technologist must have some computer 'know-how' in order to address things that may come up. Tran and I were able to get most students to their own computers and logged in correctly.