4. Edutopia

Harrison Central High School
The most interesting tool I thought this school used was the "EClicks" in the American History classroom. Not only are students able to review for tests in this game type situation, the teacher is also able to actually print off which students missed which questions & etc. What an awesome tool for teachers to have. Not only is it helping students learn, but it's also not putting students in the "hot spot" so that if they miss the question they look dumb in front of the whole class. Awesome!

Mary Scroggs Elementary School
The most interesting tool I found this school to use was the Tech @ Home Program. This program is designed for students who are on the free lunch program to receive a free computer and low cost internet. What a great way to reach out to less fortunate students! The teachers at Mart Scroggs Elementary School felt that technology was great because it not only cut down on paperwork, but also they were positive that information was getting to the parents via the computer instead of relying on a student to take a letter home in the book bag. Also, the parents thought it was good because they could easily track their child's progress and contact a teacher via e-mail instead of trying to track them down on the phone. Tech @ Home...what a great program!

A Product of Learning
This school district uses Project Based Curriculum. The fact that stood out to me is the fact that 60% of the students in this school qualify for free or reduced lunches. This tells me that the students come from fairly "poor" homes and it surprised me at the opportunities they were still given in terms of technology. The school does cooperate with local businesses to help them in their projects. For example, the business will donate products and in turn the students will help the business with a task, such as CD covers. My question though, where else does the money come from?

Leading with Laptops
I found this video interesting because I have also heard my dad talk about how he has incorporated laptops into his school (Little River) as well. Each student has a laptop and the curriculum is based on that theory. Teachers had to be trained with how to teach the information and how to present the information to the students. The teachers like the laptops because the students are able to teach themselves by obtaining info by using google. I think that this could be a great idea, but I want to know who funds this???

Home Visits
Due to this school district having 140 suspensions in one year and the parents feeling intimidated by the school and the teachers, this school designed the Home Visit Program. Teachers visit the home of students twice a year to ask questions (how long have you lived in the area?; how many children do you have?; where did you move here from?; what do you want from me as a teacher?) and also to give the parents an update on their child. The teachers were first trained on how to deal with parents and different situations that might come up. I think this is a great concept and something I had never thought of before due to being in a small town. Here everyone knows everyone else, but I think it could still be used in a small town to maybe really get to know the family and not just what you hear around town.

Curry School of Education
The problem was that graduating college students knew the content area that they were going to teach, but were unsure on how to actually teach it. In the Curry School of Education, students start observing at the Sophomore level and after that gain more exposure until student teaching. Classroom management is as important as the actual lesson, because if the classroom is not being managed successfully, the lesson won't matter because they won't learn.

After Katrina
1,800 people died....715 schools were shut down. Hurricane Education Leadership Project (HELP) as designed to help schools as something like this will happen again (if it be a tornado, another hurricane, an earthquake, etc.) what will do we do when it happens? It was sad to watch the video to see all the destruction and to hear the students say that they just have to take it a day at a time because they don't know what tomorrow will bring.