To my administrators: You asked about our teaching needs, hoping to supply us with the best and the brightest. . . technology, not students. You are thrilled to provide us with "wired" classrooms, complete with computer, digital projector and a "real-live computer" in the teacher's desk.
We now have in our classroom:
We now have in our classroom:
- a chalkboard, but no chalk and one eraser
- the "wired" desk, which is on wheels, but anchored to the wall. When I sit at the desk, it comes just slightly below my neck, and the monitor (bolted to the front corner) blocks the view of the students.
- An overhead projector
- A TV monitor on the wall, with a dangling remote attached to the TV--across the room from the anchored teacher's desk
- metal tabletop podium, now rendered useless by the "wired" desk with monitor.
What do I need to teach? a classroom with:
- a functional desk, so I can spread my materials out
- reasonable temperatures, in other words, could you get the A/C to work so it's not 80 degrees in here?
- a whiteboard/chalkboard with erasers
- comfortable student desks--since I now have to use one if I want to sit down, I'd like it to be comfortable--after sitting there randomly, these students must really want to be educated to put up with these contraptions
- reasonable attention to janitorial tasks--emptying trash, cleaning the floor, wiping off the overhead screen
- an EASY digital connection to the projector
- orientation to use all the current variety of "wired" enhancements
I laugh, dance, crack jokes and do my best to be a palatable delivery system for freshman comp's MLA, research, essay-writing curriculum. So when you want us to petition you for more technology so we can "reach" our students and show off our "up-to-date classrooms" to the other colleges around (such a selling point), get real. I'd rather a decent classroom environment, a department chair who has my back, and I can cope with the rest.
