10 Essential Tips For Meeting Tech Needs of Low-Income Schools | MindShift.
- Keep goals and mission in mind.
- Tech should complement not replace.
- Involve families.
- Don’t let trends dictate decisions.
- Support teachers.
- Use tech to free up teacher time.
- Track data.
- Expect excellence, not achievement.
- Understand start-up world.
- Build relationships with vendors.
This is a good list.
Many years ago, when my son was in grade 2 his school had a parents meeting to discuss the purchase of new computers. They’d come into some money and wanted to buy some new equipment.
My husband (also a computer scientist) and I sat in the meeting for some time, listening to their tech guy talk about the features of the computers they wanted to get – they sounded cool – they had all kinds of bells and whistles. After some time, we stood up and asked what the school planned to do with the computers, you know, how they intended to use them for learning. The room went silent. They had been so busy looking at hardware and other do-dads, that they had not actually thought about why they wanted them in the first place. We made some suggestions, but the conversation went back to hardware features and cool do-dads as soon as we were done.
The school ended up wasting a pile of money on computer equipment they had no idea how to fit into their curriculum.
I suspect that in most schools very little has changed.
