I figured I should start looking for articles of teachers and schools using technology in the classroom in our own neighborhoods and found an article in the Providence Journal from August of 2013. The article was impressive. It said that recently a lot of grants have allowed two schools in particular, West Warwick’s Wakefield Elementary School and Pleasant View Elementary School, to expand their technology usage. In West Warwick, 300 laptops were purchased and at Pleasant View, iPads and SmartBoards were purchased. Both of these schools have seen improvements after gaining this technology. The author implied major advantages to having this technology through reporting Pleasant View Elementary School having no suspensions the year before and their math proficiency tests had doubled in score. It was interesting to see how technology in the classroom is being taken seriously all around us.
Another interesting thing I found in this article was the creation of two virtual-learning schools last year. These schools, the Village Green Charter School and the Sheila “Skip” Nowell Leadership Academy, are created for students who have trouble staying in school during the day. Both of these schools are enrolling high school students. The article says that the Village Green Charter School will have students in a large computer lab all day, which sounds a lot like the vision Will Richardson feared having about school in years to come if we did not change the way we think about schools. These two blended learning digital schools seem to be flourishing, so it was interesting to see how kids are benefiting from technology right in Rhode Island.
teachingandlearninginadigitalage 