The Spectator ● June 16, 2014
Page 5
News
Jake Brimberg / The Spectator
SMART Boards In A Smart School: A Closer Look at Classroom Technology
Señora Montserrat uses a Promethian board while teaching her Spanish class.
By Julia Ingram and Claire Jin SMART Boards, activity boards, ELMO’s, Macbooks, and projectors are some of the few items that distinguish a 21st century classroom from its predecessors. These gadgets are becoming a leading part of the future of education and beginning to appear more frequently in many schools, Stuyvesant being one example. However, the technology usually costs thousands of dollars and can leave people questioning whether the investment is worthwhile. There are approximately 20 multimedia boards located in various rooms throughout Stuyvesant, though they are not equally distributed among the school’s departments. “Some departments prefer to have rooms with SMART Boards and technology, more than other departments.” Principal Jie Zhang said. “The social studies department has more smart boards than any
other department.” The justification for this allocation is that subjects in the humanities usually require more visual learning, whereas subjects such as math do not. Humanities subjects also consist of more interaction and involvement, and multimedia boards can facilitate both. Overall, the concentration of boards is greater in the language and history departments than in the math department. When planning the purchasing and distribution of these boards, the administration considers the funding available as well as the demand from the various departments. SMART Boards are usually given to teachers who request them. However, the school is rarely able to fulfill all the requests at one time. Due to Stuyvesant’s wide variety of available electives, most of the funding provided by the Department of Education (DOE) goes towards running these courses instead of purchasing multimedia boards. “We don’t have the luxury to say ‘let’s just buy 30.’ So
whenever we have the money, we buy two here, three there,” Zhang said. Funding courses is priority, whereas purchasing boards is a luxury. The price of a board usually ranges from $3,000 to $5,000, which drastically limits the number that the school can afford. Besides DOE-provided funding, multimedia boards can be installed on the basis of grants. Stuyvesant has recently gained the approval of a $60,000 grant, which will be used to install 10 to 12 SMART Boards to be used this fall. In the past, some grants have been given to Stuyvesant and are still being given in small amounts through Annual Appeal Donation Forms, which allow individuals to donate money to the school. The Annual Appeal aims to raise $500 per student in Stuyvesant each year. Additionally, Stuyvesant depends on the money the Parents’ Association raises to enhance and improve the quality of education for all of its students, which can be used to fund technology like the interactive boards. Social studies teacher Brenda Garcia is one of the many social studies teachers who uses multimedia boards in her teaching, and finds them to be an advantage. “I do my lessons with Powerpoint presentations, so that’s where I display my presentations. I use a lot of artwork in my lessons, so I like to use the writing feature to mark important spots on the images,” she said. Garcia also thinks that multimedia boards are more productive than chalkboards. “With the [limited] time in class, and we have to share rooms and we only have five minutes between periods, so in the time it takes me to write the aim on the board, I can already set up the Powerpoint presentation.” Junior Karen Akilah Marks, who has Global History and Spanish in classrooms with mul-
timedia boards, thinks that the technology can be a very useful tool. “It makes history more comprehensive when you have the media right there at your fingertips,” she said. “[Assistant Principal of World Languages] Ms. Ubieta uses the SMART Board to play audio exercises from our Spanish textbook, but also to play Spanish songs, folk poems, and show movies and clips of news broadcasts. She also uses the writing feature to write down the spelling and meaning of new vocabulary. In that case, the smart board helps with the full immersion aspect of foreign language.” Some endorse interactive boards because they provide a good visual learning experience. “SMART Boards motivate students because it is a creative and engaging technology integrated into learning,” said freshman Monami Waki, who has a Global History in a classroom with a SMART Board. “Diagrams and graphs can be displayed on the board in a more efficient and clear manner that the teacher won’t be able to draw on a traditional black board.” But some teachers, like math teacher Melissa Protass, prefer the traditional chalkboard. Protass has a SMART Board in her room but prefers not to use it. “Well I don’t know how to use it. I’ve never had any training,” she said. “At first we didn’t even have a computer in the room, and when we got one my lessons were already planned out [for the chalkboard]. Within Stuyvesant’s pool of multimedia boards, there has been a shift starting in 2013 to using only Promethean, one brand of board, rather than SMART, the similar and more widely-known board. The shift has occurred because the school wants variety in the technology that it uses, and to determine whether the Promethean technology is
in fact superior to the SMART equivalent. “We try to have a variety of different technology platforms,” Assistant Principal of Technology Services Edward Wong said. “We have both Mac computers and Windows computers, we wanted to even it out.” Promethean Boards tend to be more expensive than SMART Boards. Although both boards have prices that range from $3,000 to $5,000, SMART Boards are often more towards the $3,000 price range whereas Promethean Boards are more towards the $5,000 price range. There isn’t a significant difference between the two types of boards, though the Promethean Boards boast a few features that SMART boards do not have. Some teachers, however, prefer the SMART boards to the Promethean board. Garcia uses both and prefers the SMART board. “With the Promethean board you have to use a special kind of stylus, and when I want to use PowerPoint presentations I have to import them into its program.” Spanish teacher Abigail Carpenter is one of the instructors whose preference is swayed by her familiarity with SMART boards. “I only have the Promethean for one class, so I’m more familiar with the SMART board. So I like it better, but I haven’t had much practice with the Promethean,” she said. Though it is unclear exactly what course Stuyvesant will set itself on in purchasing new technology like interactive boards for classrooms, Zhang believes anything and everything done will be in service of a singular ultimate goal. “We have a lot of academic freedom for teachers, so instead of pushing down one method, it’s more important that the teaching and learning takes place,” she said.
By Jeremy Elkayam, and Hyun Jin Kim To the average Stuyvesant student, $1.25 is a very small amount of money. With $1.25, one can buy half of a ride on the subway or settle for a bag of potato chips or a few pieces of candy. Shockingly, many people around the world struggle to earn this amount of money every day. These people often do not have a home and many do not know when they will be able to have their next meal. People making less than $1.25 a day are said to be living in extreme poverty, according to Dr. Donald Lee, a United Nations representative who was invited to Stuyvesant by history teachers Kerry Trainor and Michael Waxman to talk about worldwide poverty on Tuesday, May 27. Dr. Lee mentioned that although poverty is often based on income, it is not limited to that parameter. Poor health, lack of education, low standards of living, poor quality of work, and threats from both physical and psychological violence can all be factors qualifying an individual or a group as living in extreme poverty. After he touched on the technical definitions, Dr. Lee engaged the audience by explaining a life of poverty. He mentioned that many poor
people with families have to make difficult decisions on a daily basis regarding how to allocate food and other necessities. Although parents are often willing to skip meals to feed their children, they must sustain themselves enough to continue working or searching for work. Dr. Lee then mentioned that poverty puts families in a cycle of despair because the children of the poor cannot afford to receive proper education. Destitute children can get scarred emotionally from an early age after witnessing their parents being stigmatized by the labels of society, such as “lazy” and “dishonest.” Dr. Lee shared that these labels are often inaccurate and are bestowed unfairly upon the extremely unfortunate. Dr. Lee continued to present more shocking data, which included the fact that child mortality rates rest at the high mark of around 600 million deaths per year in developing third-world countries. Dr. Lee then discussed a plan to decrease poverty and the conditions associated with it called the Millennium Development Goals, which was created by major world development institutions and many of the world’s countries. All 189 UN member-states as well as 23 international organizations agreed to help achieve these goals. The plan entailed
working towards a number of measurable targets, with the objective of achieving them by 2015. “These goals represent the major development challenges of our time,” Dr. Lee said. The Millennium Development Goals aim to eradicate extreme poverty and hunger and achieve universal primary education. Other goals included promoting gender equality, reducing child mortality, improving maternal health, and combating diseases like AIDS. The initiative has largely been a success. Dr. Lee mentioned in particular that poverty rates have been reduced by half since the year 2000. By 2010, maternal mortality rates had decreased by 47 percent since 1990, and by 2012, deaths of children under five years old had been reduced to 6.6 million from 12.4 million in 1990. Dr. Lee also talked about trying to engage girls and women in politics and decision making, and trying to make sure that they receive quality educations. He reasoned that when women become more empowered within households, they try to direct more of the family’s resources and expenditure towards their children than do men. Dr. Lee ended the discussion by talking about how students can help. He mentioned a number of websites where the general public can discuss
world development issues and vote on solutions, and that even now, students everywhere can speak out and sign petitions to help stop poverty. He also recommended saving up extra money to give to charity. Dr. Lee encouraged people to talk to their friends and family about global poverty in order to spread the word. He even issued an open challenge to Stuyvesant students to organize an event for the International Day for the Eradication of Poverty on October 17, 2014. At the end of his lecture, Dr. Lee and Mr. Waxman opened up the floor for questions from the audience. One student asked why the aid has been less
effective, mentioning that some of today’s statistics fall short of the targets and goals set forth by the Millennium Development Goals. Dr. Lee’s response was that regional conflicts and civil wars within developing countries are currently hindering the world’s ability to do all it can to fight poverty. For additional information on global issues of poverty and the Millenium Development Goals, Dr. Lee suggested that students visit his website at globalsocialchange.com and myworld2015.org to vote on solutions. In addition, students are encouraged to discuss these issues with friends and family and engage to affect change.
Courtesy of Ioana Solomon
UN Representative Discusses Ending Global Poverty