Just prior to school ending last year, I wrote the first project, E-instruction mobile interactive whiteboards. After writing the project, I sent emails to all my students parents asking for donations. The greatest thing about the process is during the first week, all your donations are matched dollar for dollar up to $100! This promotion only lasted for the first 7 days of the project and during that time I asked everyone I knew for a donation. Most of this project was funded within 7 days.
A few weeks later, during my summer vacation, I wrote the second project for the IPad 2. I have always desired to explore how to engage students by using this technology. It took about six weeks to fund this project and for the first seven days the donations were matched dollar for dollar up to $100!
In funding these projects, I let everyone know what I was doing and asked for donations. I started with parents of former students and this is where I received most of the support. I also asked family members and people I attended church with. I posted to my Facebook, Twitter, and Linked-In pages; however, I only received one donation from social media connections. If I had not gotten funded after asking friends, family, and parents, I would have started approaching businesses because the donations are completely tax deductible.
Within 4 months of getting and using my devices, I am required to submit a thank you package to www.donorschoose.org . This package consists of pictures and thank you notes written by the students. By completing this task, I will earn points to use in writing another project. You need points to be able to write projects and you earn points by correctly submitting projects, following all guidelines, and meeting all deadlines.
Currently, I do not have Wi-Fi in my classroom, but the IPad 2 is still quite useful. I use the Ipad 2 for taking pictures, creating videos of students presenting concepts, and the Educreations app for students to use as scratch paper. Some students have also recorded their notes. Many times when I have students come to afterschool tutorials, they write notes using the Ipad 2 and this really engages them. I plan to find more apps to use and even though I only have one IPad 2 and no Wi-Fi, this technology is quite useful for my reluctant students.
My students use the Einstruction mobi to show and explain math problems. Two students can be working at the same time and each student in the class can see the work they are doing. I engage the rest of the class but allowing them to use mini white boards and dry eraser markers. My classes do not use the devices every day but on average about 2-3 times a week.
The use of these technology tools is not the formula for the "perfect class", but they are very helpful resources.
