When I started teaching in South Carolina, almost seven years ago, I was very impressed with the technology available to students and educators. There are Smartboards, Dell projectors, portable computer labs, and a surround sound system with wireless microphone capabilities in every classroom. This is a far cry from the chalk dust and overhead projectors I was accustomed to in my previous school district.
My district is currently working to get a personal computing device into the hands of the 25,000 plus students in our district. Schools that have received their devices have already implemented a paperless and bookless system. The dusty copiers and printers are no longer churning and spitting out warm worksheets ready to be collated and stapled. The quiet whispering of student conversations replaced with the repetitive tapping of secret Google Chat banter now fills these classrooms.
While this movement is exciting and innovative there is an underlying apprehensiveness lurking in the teacher workrooms and creeping into staff meetings. "How am I going to teach my standards if I can not use books?" "Can I give a test using this tablet?" "What! No Microsoft Office?"
The transition is overwhelming and will take some time to completely implement. My goal is help teaching professionals make the shift from textbooks to tablets (iPads, Chromebooks, Thinkpads) successfully by teaching them how to CLICK!
