Part Three Realities II: Teachers' Tales
Stories from teachers about how they actually using the Internet and computer technologies in the classroom, and the realities they encounter.

Dr. David M. Marcovitz, Ph.D. - Loyola College, Baltimore, Maryland
Dr. Marcovitz responded by suggesting that his paper What Really Happens in Classroom Internet Projects from the SITE 99 (Society for Information Technology and Teacher Education) conference might be relevant. It is, and he has kindly allowed me to post it here.

R.B. - Cedarhurst, New York: Teacher, Middle\Secondary school
School_Descrip: Suburban religious day school. Wealthy community, school with good financial resources. Many children from fine backgrounds whose parents have been successful in this generation. Therefore the children are indulged with what the parents probably think they did not have enough of when they were children.

Comments: Have used the internet to research projects for classes. Once presented the Internet for a conference of day school art teachers with moderate success. Few of the teachers were even minimally computer literate. Plan to bring an entire class into the computer room to use the interactive perspective program by Olearz, which I think is extraordinary. You can find it in the internet under the heading one point perspective.

R.B. also sent me an email comment: "I have just spent a considerable amount of time on your web page, and I think it's terriffic."

G.N. - Carlisle, Kentucky: Teacher, Elementary\Primary school
School_Descrip: My school consists of grades K-8 in a small town. We are 99 percent white with a high rate of families on food stamps/low income.

Comments: This is my 3rd year teaching computers in a K-8 computer lab. We currently go in 3week cycles for all grades at 35-45 minutes a day per group.

T.S. - Houston, Texas: Teacher, 7th Grade Science
School_Descrip: Suburbs of Houston, country atmosphere, community politics is football, ethnic diversity, 30/30/30. High socioeconomically disadvantaged population. We are considered a wealthy district because of our tax base, but our tax base is high because of industry and refinaries within district boundries. Majority of parents, no college background.

Comments: My support, training and encouragement came this summer when I won two grants. One was with Intel Teach to the Future Master Teacher Program. The other was a Summer Teacher Internship with Texas Parks and Wildlife. My subject taught is Science, 7th grade. I teach in a lab setting. Until this year I had one computer in the room. I was connected to the Internet in February of 2000.

Activity #1 My students started with viewing Africam.com. Great site with web cams placed in remote spots in Africa. We have watched unbelievable animal behavior in the wild. The time zone difference between Texas and Africa became a lesson in itself. My morning and noonday classes would get to watch late afternoon and sun set activities, while my afternoon classes would only get to view sites with artificial light sources provided.

Activity #2 texasparksandwildlife.com environmental issues followed, hunting seasons followed, State Parks studied and classes participated in TPWD web casts. This past spring TPWD had a camera set up off the Texas coast at an offshore drilling rig. The cameras were underwater. The students watched a live web cast of several scuba divers. The students could type questions and "experts" would relay those questions to the divers. The divers would in turn answer the kids questions....I thought my heart would stop when the diver said, "Hello C.E. King Middle School, keep the great questions coming in!"

Activity #3 I used the Internet to review and expound on our classroom lessons on the Human Body Systems. I found the site through the search engine, askjeeves.com. I think I typed in Human Body Systems, and found some age appropriate sites with already created web quests.

Activity #4 I've started this school year by teaching every one of my students how to use a digital camera, save photos on a disk, create a folder on our class room computer and insert those pictures into an excel formatted page. I am going to teach them power point in two weeks, some of them already have basic skills...PPt, brochures, and creating web pages to publish on our district network system, will become a vital evaluation tool.

There's more, but I will stop here. A couple of details I'd like for you to know. I teach on a modified block schedule. I see my students for 90 minutes every other day. I teach NO pre-AP, EXCEL, or Gifted and Talented Classes. I average 165 students. My subject is Science, not Technology. I work very much as an independent. My dept. does not follow the same plans that I use. I know teachers are starting to notice and ask questions on "how to do some of these things. I'm having a blast, I love my job, I love my students, and they RISE to the expectations. I've had GT and Pre-AP training and live by the thought "What's good for the best is good for the rest."

Anne - Brewster, Massachusetts: Librarian, Elementary\Primary school
Comments: I am a school librarian. My experience is that teacher's give up on technology for various reasons including:
1. Unreliable Internet connection
2. 4 yr. old computers that cannot handle all the software we try (and need)to use on them. a. for example running Netscape Navigator, ClarisWorks, HyperStudio and Mario Teaches Typing on a MAC networked computer causes crashes.
3. One Technology person (working at our school 2 days a week) to run a networked computer lab (25 MACs),prepare for and teach 10 classes a week, and troubleshoot all computers and printers in the school.

Teachers are committed to using technology but they have put all their wonderful ideas and projects on hold till the system can be simplified and run problem-free. The ideal would be to take a class to the computer lab with a specific project and have the computers function as a tool leading to the completion of the project.

Right now, at our school, teachers leave the lab feeling frustrated and the students have not accomplished their goal of tapping into the info on the Internet or working on a HyperStudio Project, etc. Teachers do not want to waste students' time hoping the computers will "work this time." Back in the classroom the old reliable blackboard works every time - never freezes-up, never crashes!

Michal - Kansas
I am assistant technology coordinator for my district. First and foremost in keeping us from reaching our technological goals is $$$$.

First, you need to define technology. Technology is only technology to those who were born before it was invented. My 13 year old son does not view computers as technology. Ninetendo 64 is just an improved version of his orignial Ninetendo. He does not remember Atari, nor has he ever experienced playing on those monstrosities at the mall.

Our current technological goal is to provide each classroom with telephones. This is not a reflection of our status in technology. Currently, we have one fully functioning computer lab with internet in each grade school. We have three in the high school. Each classroom teacher district wide has a laptop computer with internet access. All grades and attendance are done via intranet. All this has been done in the past three years. We teach 287 students in our K-12 district. We also have the hookups to convert the images on our computers to either television or large screen, depending upon which building you're in.

Our computers play a large part in our educating process. Not only do students access the internet on a regular basis, but reading comprehension is done with every student through STAR and Accellerated Reader (or EBS at the high school). All students have prepared at least one power point presentation by 5th grade.

I don't pretend to know if this is really helping educate our students. I do know that we have always strived to be first to try something new, even at the risk of failure. Currently, we are the only school in Kansas that has grades 7-12 graduation requirements. We were one of the first to move to block schedule. I don't believe this makes us superior - just that we as a faculty do strive towards improvement on a daily basis.

Mark C. - Atlanta, Georgia
Mark has just resigned after four years of teaching. His experience was less than fulfulling for a variety of reasons, not the least of which were student behavior and a lack of direction and support from the school administration. His school system was "shoving technology down their throats," and he initailly viewed the changes in a positive light. However, there were many difficulties, and though administrators made an effort to gather teachers' suggestions and complaints, Mark saw few changes result.

Mark found most students to be computer literate across a broad range of socio-economic backgrounds. Attempts to integrate the Internet and computer technologies into his classroom were hampered by technical problems, student preparedness, and student behavior. His having to deal with any kind of computer glitch could significantly slow down the teaching-learning process for the whole classroom. Pencil and paper often seemed a better and faster solution. Students came to him with a wide range of learning skills; many could not take notes nor manage their workload. Without proper skills and discipline lalready in place, technology was not much help. Group collaboration too easily deteriorated into bull sessions where little work was accomplished.

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