How You Can Help
Directed Donation of the Month September 2014
Every month we will be featuring a different teacher, department or item which needs help. Part of the PTSA goal is to add value to your child's life and sometimes that takes money that the county (NO MORE TAXES!) will not provide.
This month we are supporting the students by helping to create a Makers Space.
To donate to this cause you can visit
http://www.donorschoose.org/project/middle-school-maker-space/1256278/?verify=1292522996
and you can also attend the fundraiser at Sweet Frogs at Harbor Center on September 25th.
The library is a busy place, where students direct their learning. At any time you can see students playing educational computer games, researching online or using books, creating projects, working collaboratively, or just kicking back with a good book.
My students come from widely diverse backgrounds, ranging from the wealthy to the large percentage eligible for free and reduced meals. One of the complaints I often hear from my students is that they see little connection between classroom learning and the world they live in, and we work hard to focus our instruction on student-driven inquiry. This can be difficult with limited technology resources, since technology is such an enormous part of the way we access and use information in today's world. We also have a large disparity in technological proficiency, particularly evident between the students who have computers at home and those who do not. It can take the latter hours to type a paper, simply because they do not type quickly or comfortably. We have a few carts of laptops and iPads in the school that are in near constant use, but it's not enough to address the disparity in our students' access to technology.
These mini-computers, which students can build, program, and tinker with, will go a long way to both intrigue my students who may not see how technology is relevant to their lives; and to give them some access to the world of programming, which is not taught in most middle schools. I will use them with my programming club, but they will also be freely available to students visiting the library as part of my effort to create a maker space. I want my students to be able to tinker, because that process is absolutely at the center of scientific inquiry. These computers would give them a simple, approachable interface that will make the field of computer science and programming accessible to them, and will give them an understanding of the technology we use every day. It is absolutely necessary that they have this understanding if they are to be proficient, creative users of the technology of the future.
This project will give low-income students access to technology in a way that is seldom available at the middle school level. It will present them with an opportunity to do something self-directed, hands-on, active, and engaging as they learn about computing technology - which is, as I stated above, absolutely central to everything about the use and production of information in today's world. It's also highly effective preparation for future careers!
My students need 10 programmable, low-cost computers to give them hands-on experience of how the technology we use every day works.