Ms. Keller stands half-way through her fourteenth year of teaching. While she appreciates the affordances of technology, she rarely provides opportunities for her students to encounter it through hands-on experiences.
Westlake Middle School as a whole focuses heavily on print-based literacy and seems to resist technological integration into core classes. Technology exists but primarily as a resource for teachers and either a reward or means of testing for students. Cellphones are not permitted anywhere on campus for students; thus, they are never used in class–except by teachers. Teachers are in constant contact with one administrators as well as the campus at large. Furthermore, Ms. Keller frequently displays pictures from or looks up information on her phone. She proves that she is not the “master-possessor” of knowledge and consults online experts without batting an eyelash.
Every classroom is equipped with an ELMO (document camera), a hung projector, an iPad, and at least one computer (Ms. Keller has four–of differing ages). Teachers attempt to bring technology into tge classroom through videos and PowerPoint presentations, but students rarely create with or process through it. Students are acknowledged as possessing “innate” skills with technology and occasionally one student will be asked to use the iPad to record student presentations or switch inputs in the ELMO or something similarly simple, but these prove mindless tasks–not a means of processing.
The school has two computer labs. One computer lab houses a semester-long elective, and the other provides access for students of the after-school program who have finished their homework. This second lab can also be used during the day by classes–should teachers wish to reserve it–but rarely seems to be used as such. The other primary purpose of this lab is providing tri-annual, campus-wide SRI testing. There is a class-set of iPads rumored to exist, but I have yet to see them and am not yet sure how they could be reserved and obtained for class use.
Unfortunately, with the PLC based curriculum planning, it seems unlikely that neither the iPads nor computers will ever be used frequently, for one set cannot be split amongst three simultaneously occurring clases. Things to be considered and further explored.