Creating Successful Corporate Partnerships

In this chapter, written by John Richards (2001), finding and maintaining corporate relationships is discussed. An effective partnership is one where there is a united purpose, commitment and vision. There are several reasons a business may seek out a school partnership; products which are marketed directly to education, research opportunities, those that have a financial interest in education, fostering a positive public image, or marketing products to students. In addition, partnerships with businesses can provide "real life" materials or opportunities to prepare students for the job market.

In Stafford, the county's biggest business push is the Adopt-A-Classroom program. With this program, teachers create a profile page on their classroom and things they would buy if adopted. Any individuals or businesses can adopt the classroom and donate $500. The teacher then buys items from supply companies which are business partners with the Adopt-A-Classroom company. I was lucky enough to have been adopted this year and I can see the pros and cons to this idea. It is great to get $500 to spend on items for your classroom but you have to be accountable for everything you buy and can only buy from select companies. When you look at it as a whole, the process is a kick-back for the Adopt-A-Classroom company. The county pays for the service and the companies pay to be a supplier and all Adopt-A-Classroom has to do is maintain a website.

Richards, J.(2001). “Strategies for Creating Successful Corporate Partnerships” Technology In Its Place. Jossey-Bass: San Francisco.

Staff Development for Technology Integration

It is great when schools are able to purchase and set-up technology in their schools, but if the teachers don't know how to use the technology it becomes a waste of money. Creating technology staff development is very important but we have to use new methods to instruct teachers. This chapter deals with four different methods of technology staff development.

Collier (2001) states that teachers need hands-on experiences, interaction with the software, examples of well-designed lessons, instruction on finding and evaluating resources, instruction in techniques and technologies for student inquiry, and instruction in the creation of new resources. In order for teachers to do these things there needs to be technology mentors, teachers who know a little about technology and pass along this information to other teachers. There also needs to be a teacher technology requirement and student technology requirement.

I am glad we have a TRT at our school to help create and learn about technologies at our school. Although they are a great resource, I do wish I had more time to play with technology and create lesson plans. I feel that the administration wants us to use the technology but forget about the time and effort needed to create lessons based on technology.

Collier, C.(2001). “Staff Development for Technology Integration” Technology In Its Place. Jossey-Bass: San Francisco.

Technology in Urban Schools

The gist of Chapter 3 "Technology for Urban Schools" was that urban schools do not have the monies to hire technology knowledgeable teachers, buy computers, keep them running, wiring the schools, and connecting to the Internet. They have to tap into federal funds in order to accomplish these tasks. Once the technology is up and running, urban schools need to develop professional development seminars that help teachers to integrate the new technology into their lessons.

As I have never taught in an urban school district, I do not have any first hand knowledge of these problems. Although urban schools have a further uphill battle to integrate technology, all schools have problems creating professional development for their teachers. Even if they do have seminars, there is no guarantee teachers will use what they learn.

Gallagher, E.M.(2001). “Technology for Urban Schools: Gaps and Challenges” Technology In Its Place. Jossey-Bass: San Francisco.

Planning for technology instruction

According to both LeBaron(2001) and Jarvela(2001) planning is essential when creating lessons which involve technology. Lessons should be meaningful to students with a solid foundation in the curriculum. By using technology, students can do more than memorize facts. They can search to find meanings and understanding behind the curriculum. Technology lessons also create motivation in students to become involved in their education.

There seems to be a lot of planning and extra thought needed in technology lessons. Not only do you need to decide what part of the curriculum the lesson will address and how you will implement it but you will have to look through websites, create WebQuests, create your own rubrics/grading options, decide which type of technology you will use, and figure out who much teaching time is needed. You also have to ask yourself, "Will I need to plan for an extra day to teach how to use the technology to be used in the lesson?"

When talking to other teachers, one question I hear about technology is "When do I have the time to do technology lessons when we haven't covered (subject) yet?" I sometimes find myself thinking this as well. Many times I hear myself saying, "I'll try to get computer lab time in, but I'll have to wait until next year to do fun technology lessons." I know this is wrong but being a first year teach I am so overwhelmed with learning the curriculum myself then teaching it in a short period of time, I have a hard time getting started.


LeBaron, J. F.(2001). “Curiculum Planning for Technology-Rich Instruction” Technology In Its Place. Jossey-Bass: San Francisco.

Jarvela, S.(2001). “Technology and Learning: Getting the Story Out” Technology In Its Place. Jossey-Bass: San Francisco.

How NCLB affects me...

After looking over a few websites to refresh my memory on NCLB, one thing caught my attention. According to NCLB, all students should be able to read. I did not see anything about comprehension. For me the two should go hand in hand. A student might be able to read the passage on a test but if they can't comprehend it how can he answer the questions correctly? The same thing is true for math. Not all problems are a number sentence/model written out. Higher level math problems include critical thinking and comprehension. For my second graders, they not only need to know how to read a word problem, they need to comprehend and use clues to decipher if they are going to add, subtract, pattern, group, etc.

NCLB has helped to create a consistency throughout the state in terms of curriculum and mandated testing (SOLs) but sometimes I wonder if the curriculum we hold them accountable for is a little advanced for them developmentally. As for accreditation, is it truly fair to punish a school because they have low marks for tardies and absences? Administration can only do so much in ways of gentle reminders to parents. In the end it is the parent's responsibility to get their child to school.

Teaching for Understanding pt 2

The third, fourth and fifth chapters in Teaching for Understanding deal with how to create lessons and units that peak students' interest and incorporate technology. Wiske (2005) states the topics should connect to multiple important ideas across subject matter; be authentic, accessible and interesting to students; be interesting to the teacher; be approachable through several entry points' and generate continued inquiry. Subject matter they suggest teachers use "teaching for understanding" are literature, biology, history, social sciences and math.

There are several questions teachers should ask themselves before creating lessons; What topics are really important but difficult for students to understand? and How can I use technology to create lessons students find interesting yet help them to understand the topic? After addressing these questions, teachers need to create clear cut goals and objectives for the students. Without these goals, students are unclear about what they are learning or trying to master. Basically, there needs to be a lot of prep time before implementing the lesson. If you are introduction a new technology, you have to teach the students how to use the technology before hand.

These chapters are fairly self explanatory on how to create the lesson plans and give examples of real world applications. Being a first year teacher it is very overwhelming to try to implement these kinds of lessons. I would like to try it out but given the short time allotted for teaching subjects, I feel like I have to fall back on reading chapters in books, lecture and worksheets. It would be nice if someone could come in before school started and help me plan out how to introduce technology to my students. It would make implementing these types of lesson plans seem less overwhelming.


Wiske, M.S., Franz, K.R., & Breit, L. (2005) Teaching for understanding with technology. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass

Using Technology Wisely

Friel (2001) states that once the computers are hooked up and we are ready to go online we still need to look at how are we going to use the internet, what types of resources should the students have access to and how are we going to show the students the correct way to use the internet? Students need to understand copyright issues, how to site work of others and acceptable ways to use the internet. Friel also brings up the debate of using filters throughout a school district or only at specific schools. She also touches on privacy issues.

In Stafford Co. we do have internet filters, at least in the elementary schools. With these filters it will not bring up websites that contain explicit language, porn and dating services. Personally, I am glad they have these filters but they only work so far. One day I was trying to look up meteorologists for my second graders. I used ask.com to see if there was a site to explain about the profession. The first two website addresses that came up had blurbs that had explicit language in them and I told the students to go away until I found a better site.

I did have a problem with the Privacy Issues section in the article. Yes, we should explain to the students that it is wrong to try to read, copy or change other people’s e-mail but school e-mail is not a good example. Since public schools are funded by the state and county all of our e-mail falls under the Freedom of Information Act. At and time, school or state officials and parents can request to see our e-mails.


Friel, L.L.(2001). “Using Technology Appropriately” Technology In Its Place. Jossey-Bass: San Francisco.

Technology in Schools

I can relate to Perry and Areglato’s (2001) assessment that computer and technology labs tend to be pushed off into a dark corner. Teachers are consumed by the paper work and constraints of teaching and they forget about computers and technology. Or, if they are older teachers, fear the unknown factor of adding technology to the lessons they have been teaching for the past ten to fifteen years.

Perry and Areglato (2001) state that along with teachers, principals need to change their practices with the introduction of technology. In the past, principals were managers who were problem-solvers, compromisers, bureaucrats, and task completers. With the integration of technology, principals now need to be leaders who have goals, develop new approaches to old problems, are comfortable with high risk and are intuitive and empathetic.
Principals need to form committees that will create a goal or vision of technology. From that vision, a strategy of how to fulfill this vision will is formed and it is presented to the faculty. From there, professional development needs to be implemented to update and inform teachers on how new and improved technology is used. This can be done in a “one-sized fits all” approach or in smaller more specific technology based groups.

I agree that professional development is important to help teachers understand new technology, but as a first year teacher, it would be nice to be brought up to date with what technology is available in the school. I have substituted/student taught in three different schools, which had three different types of technology. The school I current work at has different technology or programs I do not know a lot about. How am I supposed to use what is available if I do not know what is available?


Perry, G.S. & Areglato, R. J. (2001). “The Computers are Here!” Technology In Its Place. Jossey-Bass: San Francisco.

Teaching for Understanding with Technology

According to Wiske, Franz and Breit (2005) there are four basic questions which need to be addressed when teaching for understanding. What topics are worth understanding?, What exactly should students understand about such topics?, How will students develop and demonstrate understanding?, and How will students and teachers assess understanding?

They state that educators should choose topics that they find interesting or want to know more about. These topics should be cross-curricular with research tools easily accessible. Like PBL, they should be questions that have infinite answers or research ability. Student's understanding should go beyond rote memorization and rehearsed skills. They need to go past the who? what? and where? questions and work with deeper mean questions such as how? and why?. Students should be able to analyze and draw conclusions, basically they should be tapping into the higher levels of Bloom's Taxonomy. In order for students to explore these topics, units and activities should be planned for longer periods of time. Teachers should create and plan activities that introduce basic elements of the topic and later expand and build on that introductory information. Activities should start out teacher oriented and gradually give students more and more freedom to explore the topic, until finally they are independently searching for answers. Wiske, Franz and Breit suggest using rubrics to assess the level of mastery of the topic. These rubrics should be presented to the students beforehand so students understand what the teacher is looking for.

In an ideal world this would be a great way for students to learn but several factors can impede this philosophy. A few of these factors could be, standards based instruction, a class's ability/behaviors/dynamics and resources. I have noticed, especially with elementary there is a feeling of urgency when planning for units. We do not have the luxury of planning three or four week units on one topic. Sometimes we are lucky if we get two weeks to teach a unit. Some groups of classes do not have the maturity and/or social abilities to function in small group or individual inquiry. I do agree that we as teachers should be posing more how and why questions to our students.

Wiske, M.S., Franz, K.R., & Breit, L. (2005) Teaching for understanding with technology. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass.

Project-Based Learning

After reading the article "Using Technology to Enhance Student Inquiry" by Debbie Abilock, three important elements in incorporating technology in PBL would be collaboration, research and evaluation. In order for students to use technology in the research and evaluation process of PBL they first need to be familiar with the technology available. Students need to be exposed to techniques used to search, access and evaluate information on the internet. By collaborating with technology resource teachers to create lesson plans that give students this background knowledge, they are able to sift through knowledgable and non-knowledgable webpages. And finally, students can use programs such as Word and Excel to evaluate information they aquire through the creation of tables, graphs and notes.