In the July 2011 issue of Tech & Learning there is an article titled "Award-winning Strategies," which features the stories of four schools which applied for grants and received them. An elementary school in Massachusetts which was rapidly falling behind NCLB standards applied for a grant to turn their school into an immersive technology environment, in which all students have access to iPads, iTouches, and interactive whiteboards. The school framed these improvements as a "curriculum-delivery system" overhaul and won a grant for it. After the improvements, students met AYP. Another elementary school in New Jersey won a grant so they could launch a project for their fifth-grade students. The fifth-graders produce a daily news program, called the Falcon Report, which is streamed live over the Internet. The people who put that project together say that if they were to do it again, they would "involve the school district's IT department in the process earlier," because they had a few problems implementing the new technology.
This article would be helpful for any teacher or administrator looking for funding to start a new project. The descriptions of the projects are useful as inspiration or a springboard for brainstorming new projects, but i think the parts that are really informative are under the headings, "Why they think they won," and "What they'll do differently next time." I think the article could have been even more helpful if it walked readers through the process of applying for grants.
I believe the reason the Massachusetts school saw an improvement in test scores might not be as strongly related to the influx of technology as it may seem. It may just be that with the improvements came a new sense of pride that someone believed in the school enough to give them money, and that pride got the teachers excited about teaching again, and the students excited about learning.
Careless, J. (2011, July). Award-Winning Strategies. Tech & Learning, 31, 12.
This article is also published online at: http://www.techlearning.com/article/award-winning-grant-strategies/48104
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