Mrs. Benay's MBS Blog

Our Ospreys are growing up in a digital world.  As educators, we have the joy and the responsibility of introducing our students to this world.  Here at MBS, integrating technology into our curriculum is a primary goal.  Vermont recently published the “Vermont Technology Grade Expectations,” (http://vermonttges2010.pbworks.com), which outline the key areas we focus on.  These are creativity and innovation; communication and collaboration; research and information fluency; critical thinking, problem solving and decision making; digital citizenship; and technology operations and concepts.  Every classroom in our school has a projector and an interactive whiteboard.  We have one “fixed” computer lab and two mobile labs of netbooks.  In a few classrooms, we are piloting the use of individual devices such as ipods and ipads.  Our goal in the future is to increase the flexibility of the tools we use in order to enhance our instruction.

For technology is not the end itself; instead, we see technology as a powerful tool to engage our students, expose them to the world, increase communication opportunities, and help them work collaboratively to solve problems.  Our students are writing and commenting through our “Young Writer’s Project” digital classrooms or on their own blog sites.  They are researching on the Internet and using critical thinking to determine whether they have found a source of reliable information. They are collaborating to create glogs (interactive posters).  They are representing mathematical thought using spreadsheets and graphs.

With great power comes great responsibility.  We take this responsibility seriously, structuring lessons in a manner that teaches civility and responsible use of technology.  There are dangers – our students are still young, and not able to fully understand the implications of some technology such as texting and social networks.

We hope you will partner with us in teaching our young Ospreys about safe use of technology.  In November, we are offering a parent/educator workshop called “TECHNICOOL.”  Developed by Prevent Child Abuse VT, this is a very informative and useful workshop that will help you to keep your child safe while s/he explores technology.

The workshop will be on November 8th from 6:00-7:30 p.m.  Please call to register – 264-5900.  I hope to see you there!