My Students

I have the best job in the world! I teach math to inner-city kids that have tremendous obstacles to their education; they come from diverse backgrounds, many speak other languages and struggle with English, and most have had little exposure to computers.

Fall River is an urban area with a lot of poverty.

It is estimated that only 16 percent of our adult population has obtained more than a high school education. Some of our students are trapped in a cycle of poverty which seems impossible to break. I believe technology is their ticket out, however most of our students don't even have a computer at home. I recently obtained 10 tablets through Donors Choose which revolutionized our classroom. Students were excited about learning on the tablets. Initially the tablets were a tremendous burden on me. Students forgot their usernames, passwords, and which website to go to. I felt frustrated, and thought I should give up. Then I realized that I was experiencing a symptom of one of the most severe obstacles to my students' success; their lack of exposure to technology!

My Project

Since this discovery I have redoubled my efforts to integrate technology in our classroom. Sadly we do not have enough tablets to go around. Each day one set of students has to rush through exercises on the tablets so the second set of students have an opportunity. I'd like to have one tablet per student so my students don't have to rush through assignments.

These HP tablets are vastly superior to the tablets we've been using.

They're faster, have clearer screens, and will be able to run many web applications we've been unable to run on our older, slower tablets. Students will be able to obtain instant feedback, and scaffold-ed instruction on them. And I'll be able to identify struggling students more quickly and accurately. The first ten tablets confirmed what I already knew; technology is a potential game-changer in the cycle of poverty.