background

Background:
DeLaSalle Education Center Charter High School, is located in an urban setting, in Kansas City, Missouri. We serve approximately one-hundred-fifty students that enter on a rotating basis. We allow several groups of students to enter perodically throughout the school year.So our population is always changing. As students exit for various reasons, others are allowed in to sustain a certain number of students. One-hundred-fifty students is the ideal amount of students for us. Many of the students are behind on technology use and are in need of training. In order to train the students effectively starts with the teachers.

Right now we have two technology labs; combined we have twenty-seven computers. Many of the classrooms do not have a sufficient number of computers for the number of students in the classrooms. Teachers are not taking advantage of the computer labs as much as they can. The reason for this is that many of the teachers are not skilled using technology. Many of the teachers use the computers for internet informaion and word processing. Powerpoint and spread sheets a sometimes used. We do not house any smartboards or things of that nature so teachers are unaware of how to use them. In addition to the lack of technolgoy training, computers in the classrooms are not up-to-date; they run slowly and printers do not work sometimes. We have one technology administrator who works overtime trying to keep technolgy working for all. However with our old building and wiring, things shut down at times.

Teachers are hungry to learn more about what is out there technology wise. Any current effective software and hardware out there will benefit the teachers at DeLaSalle. After obtaining some good working classroom computers, teachers need a series of staff development workshops to educate them on what is out there in technology software for high school students. They also need training on what is out there in hardware. After being introduced to new technology, teachers need to select what they can use as a school and for individual classroom purposes, and then decide who is going to do the training.