Amy Wawrychuk, a fourth grade teacher and “tech LITE” at Paradise Canyon Elementary School, said that the mimio allows her to share lesson plans with her colleagues, and engage students in a new way.
“Kids that normally never like to participate will be the kids that will be the first ones with their hands up because they get to come up to the board and do something with technology,” Wawrychuk said.
Students are fluent in the language of hand-held devices and video games, said Pamela Watts, a second grade teacher at Paradise Canyon. Programs like the mimio allow teachers to communicate with students who have grown up surrounded by technology.
“I think we need tools that make us, in some ways, more marketable to the students,” Watts said. “So the information is [delivered] in a palatable way. It may be the same information we needed to teach over the years, but we need to do it according to the way their brains are working, and I think their brains are working differently than when I was in school.”
The role the foundation and PTAs have played in the district’s technological development cannot be overstated, Kwok said. La Cañada Unified, like so many other districts, slashed its technology spending because of state budget cuts. But the foundation and PTA have worked to backfill that loss. Last year, they paid to replace 230 aging computers. For the current school year, the foundation donated $73,000 for technology. The foundation also funds the high school Information Resource Center, and pays the high school librarian’s salary.
“In the current budgetary cycle, it has been 100% foundation and PTA [funding] because at the end of the day the district’s priority is making sure we have money for teachers,” Kwok said.
