New Caney Elementary
BrightBytes Information
Overall NCE campus is considered Proficient
What this means
What we can do:
Use online discussions (with students and fellow teachers) to share ideas or ask questions, view or create webinars instead of face-to-face meetings, utilize shared spreadsheets and documents to enhance collaboration, adopt cross curricular ePortfolios to keep and showcase student work, etc.
Snapshot of our teachers
Teachers ask students to receive feedback from others in the classroom
Teachers ask students to collaborate online
Teachers ask students to write online
Why this matters
Students who are able to write regularly for a virtual audience, such as through blogging, showed increased independence and confidence in their writing and also showed enhanced ability to revise their own work (McGrail & Davis, 2011).
Students in one study agreed that the “diversity and creativity” offered by working in peer groups far outweighed that which is attainable when working alone (Chao & Lo, 2011).
What we can do:
Technology tools such as GoogleDocs, Google Slides, Padlet, and real-time polls are already being used by some teachers in our school to let students share and collaborate. We need those teachers who are successfully implementing these tools to share what they are doing with their grade level team, department, and our campus.
Teachers can also begin looking at others ways to create opportunities for collaboration...maybe blogs?!
Teacher knowledge of online safety
Time spent per year teaching about prevention of cyberbullying
Teacher knowledge of how to recognize and prevent cyberbullying
Why this matters
Cyberbullying is preventable.
Schools need to create a culture of respect and tolerance among students as well as create and enforce a code of conduct related to appropriate technology use (Battista, 2013).
What we can do:
Teachers already teach Digital Citizenship lessons to students at specific times during the year. What if we ensured that these lessons are delivered as a consistent message throughout the year? Teachers can teach one of these lessons at the beginning of the year and before embarking on any technology-based project.
Snapshot of our Students
Frequency of computer use in the classroom by students
Why this matters
Children will develop traditional literacy skills of speaking, listening, reading, and writing with digital media and they will also learn about keyboarding, problem solving, and communication when using Web 2.0 technologies (Barone, 2012).
Students are asked to share their work with someone online
Why this matters
For some, collaboration is considered to be just as important as academic knowledge. For students to meet the expectations in the classroom and workforce, they need many opportunities to collaborate, especially using technology.
What we can do:
Use any number of technology tools (Twitter, Google+, Hangouts, etc.) to begin collaborating and working with other classrooms. Collaboratively identify a project or learning outcome that would be relevant to all of the students involved.
Students are taught how to act respectfully online
Why this matters
Elementary students need ongoing exploration of what digital citizenship means (Crichton et al., 2012).
What we can do:
Have teachers work with their team to identify digital citizenship skills students might need—or the issues they may encounter—in their next lesson that has students collaborating with others and/or using technology in some way.
Access to Technology
of students have access to Internet and Wireless at home.
of students have access to a desktop, laptop, or tablet computer at home.