Technology in a Rural School
My article Instructional Technology for Rural Schools:
Access and Acquisition talks about the uniqueness of Rural Schools and the
difficulty in obtaining instructional technology compared to Suburban areas
schools. When you think of the education
requirements that the government places on the states such as No Child Left
Behind, or Race to the Top, everyone wants to be successful and larger
districts plan to be successful by meeting the requirement but then the
question is asked how do we fund this and therein lies the problem with low SES
rural districts.
Many teachers agreed that technology is an excellent tool to
help them facilitate teaching, and the benefits for Special Needs and ELL
students closing the gaps were significant but many teachers and rural districts
are still left with creative ways to bridge the gap and include technology in
their schools. Another factor that hindered technology being used in the
classroom was professional development teachers were not getting to explore the
technology this study showed that if the teachers were being taught and shown
technology the teachers used the technology in the classroom. The last problem was support and
resources. Many districts do not have
the funds to provide the resources needed to support the teachers
learning. Though it did mention that
teachers usually saw the necessity and with bought the resources themselves or
found free resources.
I also teach in an large district where money is allocated
for technology and we have current and up to date technology but talking with
my sister-in-law who lives in a rural community I see the difference there
school district is constantly doing fundraisers for to upgrade the items that
they need be it books, technology, buildings you name it. As our discussion progressed she made mention
that they were doing a fundraising to buy the whole school district i-pads and
to do away with textbooks and we discussed the pro’s and con’s of being able to
access the books needed via computer versus lugging an outdated book around
school.
I felt that this article gave a lot of valuable information
regarding technology integration and how costly it can be to incorporate it in
a school district. It affects my class
in that because we are always looking to improve technology integration and the
latest new gizmo that sometimes what you have being low tech or high tech needs
no improvement. Just find what works for
the classroom that you are working with.
References
Sundeen, T. H., & Sundeen, D. M. (2013). Instructional
Technology for Rural Schools: Access and Acquisition. Rural Special
Education Quarterly, 32(2), 8-14.
Having been employed by two rural area schools, I can definitely relate to your article. It's extremely hard to bridge the gap between learning and technology when schools don't have the funds to purchase a variety of technology tools. Unfortunately, these schools are having to rely on desktop computers alone to try to meet their educational technology needs. Also, as you stated, if they are able to provide the technology, they aren't able to acquire the funds to provide for someone to evaluate which technologies would be most useful and for professional development on how to use them. At one of the schools I worked at, those types of things were usually left up to the two of us that taught business and technology courses. So, not only did we have our classes to teach, we had to find time to put together professional development presentations for the technologies that our administrators thought we needed to use, whether it was actually useful or not. Very good article and an extremely important factor in educational technology!
ReplyDeleteI think the differences being addressed between urban and rural is very interesting. I too teach in an urban area with lots of resources, I don't think much about rural areas for I don't live there or teach there, but I am sure they face their own struggles. I wonder what positives rural children have that urban children don't have in school.
ReplyDeleteI always get a bit down for the teachers and students when a classroom does not have everything they need to be successful. Steffanye you capture the article well. People do not believe me until a couple of years ago but even big districts sometimes have too many schools for their money and low urban schools are treated just like rural schools. Always getting the left over technology at least five to ten years old. Always thinking of creative ways to have fun raiser to get the most basic of computer software or hardware. I totally understand and again good post.
ReplyDeleteI think that your article addresses a really important issue. I never really thought much about the rural schools, but can see that there is a "lack there of'. I teach in a larger urban district that is making great strides, but I feel is still way behind the suburban districts. I think there are still many extremes in education, and wish that all students could be equally taken care of, from the large district, to the smallest.
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