School Use of Technology - Bryant Elementary

School Use of Technology

Bryant Elementary, Seattle Public School District

Bryant Elementary is an urban school with great support and involvement from the PTSA. I interviewed one classroom teacher as well as the librarian to get a snapshot of how technology is used by individual teachers and well as efforts to integrate technology that apply to the entire student body.

Mrs. Connie Bernard, 3^rd grade

It is interesting that Mrs. Bernard does focus on integrating technology in her classroom, whereas she reports that other teachers do one project every week. Her students take the MAP testing on computers, as all students do, but other than that they do not spend much time in the computer lab. They do some keyboarding practice, using http://www.teachingkidscomputers.com (Krazy Keyboarding). As n side note, we surveyed the students after their math MAP testing, asking if they liked the computer format better than the paper format of MSP testing. Surprisingly, more students gave thumbs up to the traditional paper type test.

There are three computers in Mrs. Bernard’s classroom, one personal teacher computer and two student devices. All are desktop style. The students use the computers for some research during group projects, but mostly for game time during “rainy day” recesses or class free time. Besides computers, there is a document camera and television. The TV was used only once during the time I was visiting for my practicum, however the document camera was used on a daily basis. Morning work, directions for math assignments, science journal write-ups and many more activities entailed the document camera.

The school provided the document camera while the PTSA distributed the carts that they rest on.

Mrs. Anne Aleverte, Librarian

Mrs. Aleverte is very tech savvy and very knowledgeable about district and school policies and use of technology. In her library periods, students use the computers to learn research skills, both in the library catalogue and online, as well as Web 2.0 applications. Third graders are introduced to PowerPoint presentations, including symbols and animations, and in 4^th and 5^th grade students do extensive internet search projects. She mentioned that often she herself learns something new from the students as they experiment with programs and discover tools and tricks of their own.

As a very active librarian, she seeks out trainings and collaborations with parents of current students to help with bringing in new technology to the school.  She also writes grants, two of which earned her digital microphones as well as ten kindles. She is pushing to bring e-books into the library. We discussed the purchasing of software, and she told me about a recently resolved issue regarding the number of e-titles purchased for multiple kindle machines. With the help of a parent, and Mrs. Aleverte’s husband who is also technologically minded, they were able to purchase only one title that they could then load onto five machines. Other software programs are bought through the school and come specifically from the building budget.

All the computers have MS Office Suite, provided by the district. Online subscriptions are also credited to the district, such as glogster.com, an online cloud-based poster making program. Other resources online available to students include NoveList (K-8), Culture Grams, TumbleBook Library and World Book Online. Students get a username and password and can access these anywhere. Teachers and parents can access the school server from home; parent’s get log in information upon student registration. All teachers are supposed to have their own webpage linked to the main Bryant Elementary Seattle Public School site. It is required that passwords change every six months.

Technical support comes in the form of Oleg, a student from UWired of the University of Washington, who is onsite a few hours a day for a few days a week. This service is provided by the PTSA. Other financial support come from levies. The most recent levy passed has allowed for Bryant to receive 137 new computers next winter (2012). Mrs. Aleverte said currently talks were in progress between various members of the faculty as to where the computers should be distributed.