I
have been more surprised while doing this Action Research Project about what I
have learned. I had chosen the project that dealt with children in low
socioeconomic backgrounds knowing if they are ready for the technology that is required
in secondary schools. This is mainly due to the fact that many of my students can
play a video game either on a smart phone or a game station, but when they are
put in front of a computer and ask to write a report, they have no knowledge or
very limited knowledge about Microsoft Word, Powerpoint, or Publisher. So we
have spent each month on learning technology with the help of the COWS
(computers on wheels) and the computers in our classroom. We have been teaching
them by doing research writing reports on their research or even doing posters
or power point presentations for the class on their topic. The higher students
are catching on very quickly where as the lower students are having a harder
time being creative but in the end they can create something usually just not
something as detailed as the other students. Once the STAAR test is complete
next week, we are really delving into fun part of learning. We are researching
famous people and doing a presentation on the person. Which will be eventually
presented to the other students in class. The students are actually very
excited about it. We also have website that they log onto during literacy
centers to learn how to type more proficient and different programs. We learned
how to make posters in November using Publisher and then printed them all off
and we hung them around the classroom.
