In my field experience at St. Adalbert Catholic School, I noted many things about the use of technology in enhancing learning and teaching. Most significant people who help to put into effect the technology are the Director of Technology, Mrs. Arlene Polderman; the Principal, Mrs. Jamie Smith; the Grade Link Coordinator and the Technology Coordinator. These work as a team to advance students’ learning at St. Adalbert School.
At St. Adalbert School each classroom is well equipped with chrome-books kept in a cart for charging and safety. Each cart is having at least 15 chromebooks available in each classroom. These are the tools for learning and each student has access under teachers’ supervision. Each classroom has at least one desktop computer for teachers to use. Many of the classrooms are equipped with smart boards which makes it easier for the teachers to teach and students to follow. The school also has a computer room with 40 dell desktop computers for each of the students to have a computer class according to class schedule. There are also projectors in grades 5 to 8 classrooms which teachers use for power-point and videos. As a whole, the school is making a good use of digital technology to enhance teaching and learning.
The technologies at St. Adalbert School are readily available to the students and are in a good working order. This year the school purchased 25 new desktop computers to replace the old ones in the school computer lab. The school has routine maintenance from a company whenever they are damaged. A major check and inspection of all the computers is done when the students are on holidays. The repair costs are largely covered by school itself.
St. Adalbert School is in keeping with the Children’s Internet Protection Act (CIPA). This act addresses concerns about children’s access to obscene or harmful content over the Internet (https://www.fcc.gov/consumers/guides/childrens-internet-protection-act). It is for this reason that the school filters and blocks certain websites and applications that are distracting or potentially harmful to students. I personally observed that at St. Adalbert all social media websites are blocked when students sign in on school wifi. The school Director of Technology and Advancement – Mrs. Arlene, who is in control of the firewall, told me that the wifi (network) is filtered to allow only the access of the learning materials to the students.
Another thing that they do regarding firewall is to install filtering software onto the students’ chromebooks. This was necessary for them especially when students had to take their chromebooks home. It is a school effort to block access to distractive sites when students are using their school-provided chromebooks on their family’s home wifi.
Despite all these efforts, Mrs. Arlene admits that it is a challenging situation especially in our technological world today. Students know how to move around the firewall and access what they want over the internet. Moreover, the students are on the Internet all the time on their phones and it’s not filtered. Should we then educate students on how to safely use the Internet, or should we advance our technology in filtering those obscene contents?
Source:
https://www.fcc.gov/consumers/guides/childrens-internet-protection-act
Nicky's exploration of Educational Technology 