Managing the Classroom with One Computer

This chapter talked about different ideas to effectively incorporate computer use in an elementary classroom, when only one or two computers are available in that classroom. In the second grade classroom I help out in, only one computer is available in the classroom and that is meant to be the teacher's computer. The rest of the computers are located in the IMC. They even have a special time every week that they visit the IMC to do projects and learn how to type. I was never at the school when they went to IMC, but I also never saw the teacher incorporate much technology in her lessons when I was around. The strategies in this chapter are very important and useful to know so that every child can be associated with technology and how computers work.

It was also said in the chapter that these options for managing the classroom with one computer should match your teaching style. One that I really liked was called reward time. This is for students who complete their work early. This will motivate less productive students to finish their work on time to get the reward of having computer time. I also thought that a rotating schedule works well too. Students are allowed a half hour on the computer to do educational activities, then they are responsible for handing the computer off to the next student on the list. This way, everyone gets equal time on the computer and the teacher doesn't have to intervene. The only problem I saw with this is that it may disrupt other lessons that are going on at the time. It is important for students to have quality experiences with technology, even if not much is available. These ideas on managing the classroom with one or two computers really were interesting and useful.