Arlington County’s Kenmore Middle School was named the first-ever SMART Showcase School of the Year for its high-tech classrooms equipped with SMART boards, iPads, cameras and much more. The man to thank? Goodman, who has been Kenmore’s instructional technology coordinator for 13 years. Schools need a lot of things these days. Why is technology a priority for you?
Daniel Haidle My undergraduate degree is in technology education, and I have a master’s degree in instructional technology. I think the students that we have nowadays are native learners. These students don’t go a day without the Internet. As educators, we have to adapt to that role. I feel like it’s my role at Kenmore to train teachers to be able to effectively communicate through technology with these students.
Still, iPads ?– that’s swanky. How are they used in classrooms? We have two classes of autistic students and each of those students have iPads. We found that these students sometimes have difficulty moving to different places, that different environments stimulate them in different ways. The iPads are nice, small mobile devices they can have at their desks, instead of having to move to a computer lab or somewhere else. Our school has ongoing professional development, so it’s not just about equipment, but helping to integrate it in the classroom.
What advice would you give to other school systems looking to go high-tech, but who don’t have the cash?
The money doesn’t have to always come from the school’s budget. Look for ways to form partnerships; for example, we had a partnership with the Library of Congress called Primary Sources. We had teachers who took 10 hours of professional development and did a project, and from that they actually earned an LCD projector. That’s $700 to $1,000 per teacher that we got for free. You’ve got to be creative when looking for funding for school priorities.
Lisa Gartner
