Last year I was in a 100 year old building with wiring too old to run vaccuum cleaners in the rain. This year I am in a brand new building with 1.14M in new technology, including Smartboards in every room, including portable ones in the art and music rooms, a 30 computer lab, 12 document cameras, 10 digital video and still cameras, voice amplification systems for every teacher, digital projectors, airliners, and vBricks for every teacher. We have the creme de la creme of everything, thanks to being on a campus with a hospital that the neighborhood association wants to turn into a performing arts center and condos, to clean up the urban blight of a huge hospital that has been vacant for 10 years. We have the neighborhood association and the foundation from the hospital's funds as business partners for our school. Three of us also wrote EETT grants for the last 3 years and finally got another 140K for 3 laptop carts with 30 NEO2's on each, printers, cameras, and Destination Reading and Destination Math for our students.
Grants also covered the professional development needed to train the entire staff on most of this hardware and software. Training was expected to be attended, but not mandatory. My principal also got the foundation to buy Study Island for our students. We have waited all year for some of the hardware, half the year for some, and already experienced theft that made one of the laptop carts useless.
Next year I will be in a New Tech High School, with 1:1 computers to students. Teaching Digital Design in project/problem-based learning, I will team with a core content teacher. We will have digital cameras, ELMOs, voice amplification systems, digital projectors, and Smartboards. Our district's vision includes, becoming a premier district in the United States of America. The new technology and innovations they are implementing will enhance the possibility of making that a reality.
Lynn,
ReplyDeleteI am so very excited for your new environment-- a dream come true for every Full Sail EMDT student! I long for the day when the state and county officials will see the possibilities for technology across the board in all schools and classrooms. Unfortunately, my middle school only has computer lab access for students, a few document cameras and LCD projectors to check out as needed, and a wireless mobile lab of 15 laptops that hardly ever work. Often times we hear rumors of teachers writing grants and getting nice new technology toys, but it is rare. I have thought of writing a grant for my classroom, but I fear that as soon as I get the materials they will be left at that school and subject while I am transferred to another one within the county. (A trend that occurs quite often as a way to relocate staff instead of letting them go do to budget crisis. I have been moved the last 2 consecutive years already.) I feel that, even with the budget crisis our public schools are in, the money and supplies are still out there somewhere just waiting to be accessed. I am interested to know what tips you and your colleagues at this new school would have regarding successful grant writing?
Sincerely Inquiring,
Aimee
The Enhancing Education through Technology Grants are from the federal government, and I think they ended this year. We wrote one for four years before we got it, and I was part of the writing team for three years. We finally got it after our district coordinated all the grant writing teams into one council and we met regularly all year to to the required work and learn from those who had gotten grants in the past. There were two women in the administration dedicated to this pursuit, one handling the financial end and the other handling the technology end. When the process was streamlined, this way, everybody got theirs. It was a really successful method, but one best suited to huge districts like ours.
ReplyDeleteOne other thing, I would recommend finding a local foundation or funding source that is a stakeholder in your school's outcomes. It could start out as a local manufacturer, or even a small business with students in the district, though a bigger one is better. What manufacturing do you have in your county? They have a stake in the success of the students from your county schools, for their future employees. The public library also has a list of grants, and you can look them up on the web, too. We were blessed to have our new school built on the campus of a former hospital, and the foundation that used to run the hospital still has lots of money. They are our benefactor, and share in our progress, because they are trying to revitalize the community, reinvest in the building that has been vacant for 10 years, and turn it into housing and shops. Not likely unless we turn the educational outcomes of our students in the neighborhood around. So it is a win/win situation here.Now all we need are cooperative students. lol
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