By
Rodger Robbins
5th Grade MINTs Teacher
Gotsch Intermediate School

The following are general observations and suggestions from a teacher who has successfully taught for the past 3 years in a self-contained 5th grade classroom involved in the MINTs Project. The classroom contains 15 student computers, a teacher computer workstation, Smartboard, scanner, digital camera, printers and a high speed Internet access. This page was created to help teachers manage the incorporation of technology (i.e. computers and the Internet) into their classrooms. By no means are these the best or only ways to manage technology in a classroom. Each teacher has to decide what works best for him or her in their particular situation.

The Teacher's Attitude

To teach in a technology enriched classroom the teacher must first realize that they will be giving up some control. This is difficult for some teachers to do at first. By incorporating technology into the classroom, we are creating students who will become more independent learners. Therefore, the teacher will become more of a facilitator, and direct instruction will start to lessen. Patience and flexibility. Think of the all things that happen in a traditional classroom that interrupt the daily routine, and then toss in the technology and the problems that can occur with it. Patience and flexibility are a must.

The technology may be used to replace, supplement, or enhance parts of your current curriculum and textbooks. The goal of the teacher should be to figure out when and how to incorporate the technology into daily lessons.

Classroom setup

Depending on the amount of computers that are available to you, it is a good idea to arrange your classroom so that the students' computer screens are visible to you and others. This will help to make sure the students are working on their assigned tasks. It is important that you have some way of displaying what is on your computer for the entire class to see. This can be done through a projector onto a SmartBoard or by using a television monitor. This will allow the students to follow software instruction, supplemental information from the Internet, and allow the students to present their work to the class. By allowing them to present their work to their peers, they are more conscious of the quality of their work.

The Start of the Year

Just like the start of a new year in a traditional classroom, the start in a technology-enriched classroom sets the tone for the whole year. When introducing the students to the software and hardware they will be using in class, I found it is best to set aside a couple of hours each day during the first week of school. I then teach my students all the basics they need to know about the computer and the software they will be using throughout the year. I do this for several reasons. The first is I can find out how familiar some students might be with the software and the hardware. If I do this at the beginning of the year then I do not have to take the time throughout the year to teach it. Although I end up showing them more advanced things as they become more comfortable with the equipment. I also allow the students to experiment with different fonts, colors, sounds, and animations at this time. This allows them to experiment early on. I then set guidelines for font size, color, and type. Now that the "experimentation phase" is over they start to concentrate on the substance and quality of their assignments. It is extremely important to show the students from the beginning how to properly name and save their assignments. They have a tendency to save their assignments so that identification is difficult. By teaching them to name and save properly, both of you will be able to retrieve assignments more quickly. This starts by having them create folders for each subject and then teaching them to save their assignments in the folder that corresponds with the subject. Students who share computers can create their own file with subject folders in them.

Teach them how to use search engines effectively. They need to learn how to find what they're looking for and get to the site quickly. Teach them to read the description of the site and decide if it is what they want or worth their time to go there.

Make sure your computers are networked. This can be done by using a district server or by networking all the classroom computers together and using one of them as the server. This allows you to access their computers and view the progress of their work. You can send them assignments and web site addresses. By sending them addresses you take away the chance that they will type in a wrong address. One mistake while typing an address could result in them accessing an inappropriate site.

Create a classroom website. This allows you to keep parents informed about the classroom and school. A classroom/school calendar allows parents to see when tests and special days are. You can post the daily assignments to allow parents to keep track of their child's homework. A links page allows parents and students to visit educational web sites at home. You can create a daily student page that posts the websites that are going to be used that day. This alleviates the problems that come when the students try to type in the addresses.

I have found the less the students "mess" with the computers desktop properties the fewer problems I have to worry about. Students love to save pictures as their desktop background. They are allowed to change them once a month. They are also not allowed to access the Properties" file and make any font or color changes to the desktop icons. They must realize that the computers are not toys, but educational tools.

Go over your district's Acceptable Use Policy (AUP) the first day of school with your class. Stress how important it is for the students to follow the guidelines, because it is for their protection. It is a good idea to post the rules for using the computers and the district's network in the room so the students are constantly reminded of them. Even though parents must sign the AUP, I go over it with the parents at Open House and stress its importance. I reassure parents that I will try my best to monitor their child's Internet usage and to protect them from inappropriate material. I also discuss the fact that the Internet has too many valuable things to offer education to let inappropriate sites dissuade us from using it.

When dealing with improper use of the equipment and the Internet, I have found that the way you handle this problem is like any other classroom misbehavior. It must be handled immediately, and the punishment needs to fit the misbehavior. The students are told throughout the year that I can check their history and their caches, so I know if they have been somewhere they were not suppose to be. They are told if they accidentally go to a sight that is inappropriate they are to turn off the monitor and tell me immediately. I have found that if they try to "back out" of the site they may open other sites that are equally inappropriate. I can usually determine whether the site was accessed accidentally or not by talking with the student(s). If I determine the site was accessed accidentally, and the student(s) were following directions and on task, I discuss with the student(s) the things they did correctly and no punishment is given. I erase the site from the history and clear the cache. I then call the parents and inform them of what happened. I also ask them to discuss it with their child. The principal is also informed.

If the student(s) access the site intentionally, they are removed from the computer for two weeks. Any assignment that the class is doing on the computer they do on paper. They use reference books to do their research. I erase the site from the history and clear the cache. The parents are called and told of the incident and what the consequences are going to be. The students must put in writing their actions and the length of their punishment. Everybody involved then signs it and I keep it in their file.

Substitute teachers present a dilemma. You have to look at how responsible the students and the substitute are. If I can't trust one or both of them then I turn the electricity off at the breaker box and the computers are not used that day. If you feel comfortable with the responsibility level of the class and the substitute, make sure you ask the substitute to monitor the students' computer usage closely.

Helpful Tips

It is wise to save all of your students' work until the end of the year. If everything is well organized you will be able to keep some of the better quality work for future examples. After reviewing their work at the end of the year, you should delete the subject folders so the next class can learn to create new ones. Your students will more than likely download quite a few images from the Internet. They should save all their images in one folder labeled "Images". This will allow them to easily delete images they are no longer in need of.

If you allow your students to "surf the net" during free time or indoor recess you are asking for trouble. I allow them to go to preselected educational activity sites only during indoor recess. If they have free time they usually work on some type of project that is in progress.

Elementary students should use student oriented search engines such as Yahooligans or Ask Jeeves for Kids. The sites offered are safe, and the links associated with the main site are somewhat reliable. However, I do not allow the kids to go farther than two links outside the main site page. If they can't find any information using student search engines I search adult search engines for the topic and then send them the web site address through the server.

Parents need to realize they may not see their child with homework as often because the assignments involve working on the computers in the classroom. This concerns some parents because they will not be able to help their child as much as they did in the past. There are two reasons why they can't take computer projects home. First, many of the projects are created using PowerPoint or HyperStudio software, and they are too large to fit on a disk. Secondly, the student may transfer a virus from a home computer to the computer at school, and possibly into the entire network.