According to the La Grande Observer, the Joseph Charter School in La Grande, Oregon, recently received a $650,000 federal grant to purchase classroom technology devices, training and implementation. The grant will largely support improvements to technology in the arts at the school.
Many of the devices that make up a classroom's tech identity, like a tablet computer, document camera or
DLP projector, support network integration that can connects students to resources well beyond the classroom while expanding multimedia capabilities within it. Many IT coordinators note that the technology is only as good as the people that utilize it, including IT workers as well as skilled teachers familiar with a given device's capabilities.
The federal funding awarded to the Joseph Charter School will be given out over the course of three years, according to the source, and the first $226,000 installment will go to various professional development services for the staff.
Technology projects at the school are likely to span all subjects throughout the curriculum. Dave Yost's agriculture class, for example, recently used design software to create wildlife brochures on PCs earlier this month. In social science classes, students use multimedia devices like classroom projectors to compare network news coverage on political major events.
