Technology at Our School

By design, we use technology in limited age-appropriate ways to support our Montessori curriculum. Our teachers have access to technology allowing them to research, learn, and communicate. We do, however, feel that human to human live interaction is the very best way to enhance our intimate and powerful community of learners.

CHILDREN’S HOUSE

We do not have computers or tablets in our Children’s House classrooms. If children interact with technology at all it is in a larger group presentation and only with a teacher explaining what the child is seeing. For example, when our students were exploring the work of Christo and Jeanne-Claude in Art History, our Art teacher showed a very short video where students could see an example of the work fluttering in the wind.

Elementary I

Currently in Elementary I we have two computers and four tablets. We use our technology to enhance learning by activating student interest with Mystery Doug or other educational videos, to conduct research and to simulate real world experiences. For example, students learned about and drew compass roses. Then, using an app on I-technology they were able to use a compass to find things in a classroom scavenger hunt. In addition, we are currently utilizing Class Dojo to send pictures home of students during the work period creating, exploring, discovering and collaborating.

Elementary II

We have four desktop computers in the Elementary II classroom that are primarily used for keyboarding and research purposes. Students practice keyboarding skills on a regular basis with a typing program designed to teach the proper finger positioning and to improve fluency with typing. Final drafts of written compositions may then be typed and saved in the individual student's Google Drive folder. Students requiring assisted technology for expressive writing may use the Voice Typing feature of Google Docs. For research, our teachers pre-select websites for topics pertaining to academic work, especially in history and science. Students access these websites from the toolbar independently and wear headphones so as not to distract others during the work cycle. Additionally, we have four tablets in the Elementary II classroom that students use as timers for science projects and math problems, as cameras to take photos of their work, as a devices for reading audio books, among other things.