Environmental Scan

Activity #1 Eddl 5151
Teaching Environment Scan

Context for my teaching environment.  I have been teaching in the same classroom since 1998.  In that time the only things that have changed are the white board, computers and the projector.  Even the tv is the same one all this time.  The carpets are the same, desk area and tops, blinds and ceiling tiles etc. 

My classroom is the main programming and business lab.  The teaching environment is not very well thought out.  The classroom has the work stations facing away from my teaching desk.  I am not able to view what is on students computers.  The desks were designed with heavy metal frame constuction and have been hard to adapt for differnt chairs and seating styles.  

Over the years we have adapted to the changing technologies in computers and computer science.  My first year I taught C and Pascal.  We are now teaching visual basic and android app design.  My web design classes use to use a note pad and html.  We now have dreamweaver and adobe photoshop.  

Due to the budget constraints of the past several years our computers have not been upgraded and are not likely to be.  With the current budget alloted for technology in my school we can buy 15 new computers next year and some printers.  For a school with 2100 students this will not facilitate much change.  

Hardware

PC computer with windows 7 operating system with Logitech speaker system

Acer Laptop with windows 10

Apple IPad mini

Apple TV

Asus 7 inch android tablet

Network HP laser printer

Panasonic stereo system

26 in cathode ray tube television wall mounted

NEC led HD projector. Cart mounted with Stereo receiver and two speakers, Philips DVD (non blue ray)

Student Resource Hardware

30 PC work stations quad core 8 mgs ram, network drive and storage.

30 LCD 20 inch monitors

Network Printer

Software

Microsoft office suite: Word, Excel, Power Point, Publisher, outlook most used programs

Adobe CS6: Dreamweaver, Photoshop, illustrator most used programs

Microsoft Visual Studio Express 2010, visual basic programming language used.

Online Resources used

Learnboost Gradebook online

Myeducation online attendance and mark entry

Weebly

Prezi

Youtube

Kahoot

PowToon

Audacity

Screencast o matic

Soundcloud

Mit android app maker

SumoPaint

Googledrive

School based wifi

Additional resources in school

4 * 30 IPad carts

1 25 laptop cart

14 pc stations with color printing in Library

42 inch TV private viewing area with DVD in Library

Modality of learning

My classes have in the past two years become more of blended/flipped class. All course work is available online on a weebly site. All videos are on Youtube for the students to view if they fall behind or miss a class. My classroom structure is that of a traditional setting, but my courses have for the most part become paperless. All work is either uploaded to my network drive for marking or to the students own weebly site. Students and parents are able to access all class assignments via the web even if they are away. By next year parents will be able to access my student's marks whenever they want via my online gradebook program. Parents will also be emailed results of their child on a regular basis.

Nature of interactions

My teaching environment is both synchronous and asynchronous. Students are taught in the classroom setting using all the tools available. They are then expected to also use the online resources themselves to complete they tasks and group work. Everything that I use in the classroom is available to them online or on my class website.

Role within the learning context

My teaching role changes depending on the classes I am teaching. My senior computer classes create the opportunity for me to be a more of an advisor and resource. They students are very self-motivated and work quite independently. My normal classes have me as a classic instructor but using a lot of web based tools.

Technical assistance available

There is virtually no technical assistance available for my class. As the senior computer teacher I am used as technical assistance for most software issues. We have a school tech coordinator who gets 1 block per term to manage our hardware issues. The school board now controls all software placed on computers. The school board does have tech support for hardware issues and user access issues for teachers. They do offer assistance for in class issues but the response time is such that we usually solve the issues ourselves.

Pedagogical or instructional design assistance available

Professional development conferences and online sites are available for teachers to develop their instructional design. The school organizes pedagogical workshops at least once a year for teachers to stay current and develop new ideas.

Tutorial assistance available for students

I offer assistance to my students at lunch and 30 minutes before school starts. There are no opportunities for students outside of my classes to get any tech assistance.

Technical assistance available for students

All technical assistance is provided by the tech coordinator or me at our school. There are very few issues other than students running out of storage space or losing their passwords. All teachers are able to change a student's login passwords from their personal PC.

Funding available for hardware, software and services

Approximately 20% of the schools learning resources fund is available on a regular basis for school hardware and software. ($20k) There are grants and special funding's that come on a non-regular basis. These are applied for and are not a certainty.

Professional development resources

The business teachers have a conference ever year where we can attend professional development seminars that pertain to tech in the business area. The computer teachers also have a conference. The main profession development days have limited tech resources due to the size and nature of the day.

Regulatory and/or policy requirements and/or limits that impact your technology classroom

The biggest issue that is creeping up is the use of USA based webservers and the storage of student data on them. At present I make the use of weebly optional with the parent's consent. I have yet to find a Canadian based web host that does the same job as weebly or webnode.

The schoolboard controls all software that is placed on a computer in the school. We are not allow to install a program even if it is free or paid for. Only the board can authorize a program for installation. This creates a difficult situation with wanting to try new programs with students or using existing software that comes with a text or program.

The policy that the school board must install all software is very problematic. I appreciate why they have that policy, but find it very restrictive. I had a book resource program that goes with my visual basic course. It took my IT department a year to get it loaded. I am currently trying to get android studio purchased and placed on my class computers and am finding this could take a term or two.

Opportunities

Having a computer lab as my classroom offers me many advantages over a regular classroom. I have found that I am able to move to a flipped class for several of my classes, and will hopefully be fully implementing that by next year. My students have been able to explore a large variety of new online resources this year. The lack of control over traditional pc based software has led to my classes finding tools online that we can use from the class or home.

One of the main area's I have started to explore is app building for android. Without pc based software we have still been able to find online app builders, tutorials and videos. The result has been the creation of a new unit that did not exist a year ago in my classes.

The use of weebly as my course sites has allowed my students to keep up with classes when sick or travelling. Parents have become aware of the change in my delivery and are asking for access to it as well. The development of my online grading site has opened up opportunities for me to have better interactions with my students and their parents. It is my hope that parents will have full access to their child's marks whenever they want by next fall.

Goal

My major goal now and for the last few years is to obtain a SMART board for my classroom. At this time there are no SMART boards in my school. The reason I would like to add a smart board is that it will provide more flexibility in how I present my class material and at the same time allow for more student engagement. SMART Boards provide new ways for teachers to teach, and student to learn. These tools support a wide variety of learning styles. The Boards come with touchscreen capabilities that allow tactile learners to touch and interact.

A SMART board will allows for integration of various technologies in order to improve the learning experience. For instance, it is possible to attach tools such as document cameras, cameras or video cameras to a whiteboard to aid in the learning experience.

Having the ability to stand at a board and use it like a touch screen computer will allow me to increase what and how I teach to my students.  Rather then being constrained by a mouse while sitting at my desk I would be free to walk and interact with my students.