“If we teach today the way we were taught yesterday we aren’t preparing students for today or tomorrow.”
—The Fred Deutsch Education Blog
85% of students currently living in Sunray Elementary’s school zone are eligible for the federal free and reduced lunch program.
2010
In an effort to develop a 21st century classroom environment for students attending Sunray Elementary. Equipment, resources and training were provided to teachers and support staff. All classrooms Kindergarten – 5th grade were fitted with an interactive SmartBoard, a LCD projector and a Document Camera. Two classroom sets of remote handheld responders were also made available for any teacher to use in their classroom.
In the summer of 2010, Ms. Skelly and Ms. McQuatters took on the challenge of teaching Sunray Elementary’s first 1 to 1 classrooms. Forty-four used laptops were repurposed and issued to each 4th and 5th grade student in Ms. Skelly’s and McQuatters’ class.
The District of Pasco County School offered trainings and grants to bring new 21st century tools to the classroom. Two teacher’s Ms. Jaworski and Ms. Davis were awarded a grant that helped purchased 12 Apple iTouch devices for their classrooms. Three more teacher’s participated in programs offered by the District and our school received 10 more Apple iTouch devices.
2011
All classrooms teachers, continue to have access to an interactive SmartBoard, a LCD projector and a Document Camera. Additional training was offered to teacher to maximize the use of their 21st century teaching tools.
After a challenging first year, the program continue. Ms. Skelly’s 4th graders were offered the opportunity to continue in a 1 to 1 classroom and were promoted into Ms. McQuatters 5th grade 1 to 1 classroom. Ms. Skelly, took on 23 new 4th graders and began to transition them into a 1 to 1 classroom.
Because of the success of the 5 teacher’s that pioneer the use of iTouch (iOS Devices) in the classroom. The school purchased additional devices so that all intermediate grade teachers and students (3rd, 4th and 5th grade) had access to 5 iOS devices to use in their daily classroom instruction.
2012
All classrooms teachers, continue to have access to an interactive SmartBoard, a LCD projector and a Document Camera. Additional training will be offered to teachers on Cloud Computing, Web 2.0 tools and iOS device applications.
Three new teachers, Ms. Birkett, Ms Radcliffe and Ms. Wall join Ms. Skelly and Ms. McQuatters to increase our 1 to 1 classrooms to a total of 5. Ms. Birkett will pilot our first 3rd grade class. Ms. Radcliffe and Ms. Wall will add to our 4th and 5th grade 1 to 1 classrooms. Ms. Birkett and Ms. Radcliffe will pioneer our first iOS 1 to 1 classroom. Their students will have access to an iPad or iTouch device instead of a laptops.
Because of the success of our intermediate teachers, all our 2nd grade teacher’s will also receive 5 iOS devices to use in their classrooms.
