Grateful for Gifts and Grants

The new technologies that we have acquired this year at Riverside Elementary School is like waking up to a room full of presents on Christmas morning!

This year we have been fortunate to add 20 iPads and 25 MacBooks to our technology arsenal. Our ESO was kind enough to buy all of our teachers an iPad this past fall. The Riverside Casino and Golf Resort's Washington County Riverboat Foundation, through a grant this winter, allowed us to purchase the MacBooks and the resulting mobile lab for our students. I (we) want to thank everyone who played a part in allowing us to receive these gifts and this grant.  

I am a firm believer that putting new technology in the hands of students leads to increased student engagement, and increased student engagement leads to increased student achievement. It is evident that the students really look forward to using the devices and they enjoy having them in their hands as a learning tool. As a result, seeing our students use these devices is fun. Watching the students exhibit a high level of respect for these devices while using them is neat to see, too. 

However, using the iPads and MacBooks are a new experience so there is a learning curve that goes along with that. After we received the iPads, we were able to send two teachers to a three-day course at the Grant Wood Area Education Agency (AEA). Throughout this course, our two teachers learned about iPad basics, as well as incorporating QR codes, screen casting and story telling applications, and student blogging. These two teachers, along with our Grant Wood AEA technology consultant and myself, have been responsible for passing along this learning to the rest of our teaching staff throughout three professional development sessions. Additionally, we have created a forum for sharing educational apps amongst staff on a regular basis. The MacBooks are still pretty brand new, and the learning for these devices has been fairly informal up to this point.

It is common knowledge that a picture is worth a thousand words. Because of this shared understanding, I have included, below, some of my favorite pictures that I have been able to capture, this year, that shows our students and teachers with some of our new technology.