In St. Dominic School, the students are not using technology on their own most of the time. The students mainly use worksheets and other tools to learn. When the students are using technology to learn, I do not see much software or hardware being used on the devices. Because the main device the students use happen to be iPads, they generally are using math game apps or academic websites to further their learning. Occasionally the students will use YouTube.com to watch a video or to watch and listen to a read along video. The technology that is offered to the students and faculty of St. Dominic School is all Apple products; Mac laptops and iPads. There are no desktops available in the classrooms, so the students only use iPads as a result of this when they have been instructed to use technology to learn.
Students have never been observed to use any type of software or hardware on the iPads before, on purpose that is. A student one time accidentally pressed on the email app on the iPad, but that was all. Students practice writing with a physical tangible writing tool and paper all the time. Students practice writing every day in a journal, on a worksheet, or even whole creating a project; their presidential biography.
Ms. C., my cooperating teacher uses software and hardware at times, but generally does not. She uses the Apple equivalent to ‘PowerPoint’ to run Jeopardy games with her classroom, but only occasionally. She does not use the Apple equivalent to ‘Word’, ‘Pages’, openly in the classroom with her students. Ms. C., said that when she is constructing a weekly letter, monthly letter, email, or any other document to print out or send to parents, guardians, or other cohorts within the school, she will use ‘Pages’ to draft these items first and then either print them or email them.
The last two pieces of technological hardware or software used in the classroom by Ms. C., is an ELMO document camera. She frequently uses this document camera to provide her students with an extra visual while completing a worksheet or packet. The ELMO document camera can be used to project any object onto a ‘SmartBoard’ or ‘PromethianBoard’. This use of technology is the most frequent of all when utilizing hardware products. These pieces of technology are extremely helpful for my cooperating teacher and her classroom because it helps her effectively explain and facilitate what she is teaching her students. They are able to see clearly what she is talking about and how to complete their exercises that have been assigned to them.
Educational Technology in the World| Soule 