Technology Used By California Teacher

I spoke to a Ms. Leticia Elias from Redwood Middle School in Thousand Oaks, California several times in the month of October. Ms. Elias is a Life Science teacher at Redwood and states that she uses technology in her classroom on a daily basis. Upon further questioning, I did learn that although she uses technology in her classroom daily, it is more of a teacher tool rather than a student tool.

These are some excerpts from an email between Ms. Elias and me, " I also have a LCD projector mounted on my ceiling. The LCD projector is connected to my computer, my DVD/VHS player, and my visualizer. I'm not sure if you are familiar with
visualizers. They are document cameras, which means you can place any
regular textbook, worksheet, picture, etc. below the camera and the
visualizer is constantly taking a picture and projecting it on the
screen like a video camera.

I use the visualizer, LCD projector and my computer to teach each day.
I have Internet access on my computer so I can show any science video
clips and interactive websites I find online on the LCD projector."

She told me that her school is very similar, if not better equipped with technology, than other schools in her area. I asked Ms. Elias about several of the iTunes podcasts that we listened to this semester and the Google tools that we also used, but she seemed very unfamiliar with these and stated she had never used them before.

I was actually very surprised at the use or maybe "lack of" use of what I considered technology in her classroom. I guess I kind of figured that us Gulf Coast, Easterners, were "behind the times" when it came to California. But I am glad to say that with the education our class received this semester about tools and technology, we've got one up on them!!