Digital Learning Environment Inventory

Kelly Mayer (2014-2015)

The digital tools and resources available to teachers and students vary throughout Alexandria City Public
Schools. The following Digital Learning Environment Inventory assesses the technological tools and resources
available to teachers and students at George Washington Middle School.
1. What tools, software, operating systems, and equipment are available in your school and classroom?
At George Washington, teachers receive a laptop for professional use. It is a PC employing Microsoft
Operating Systems. Teacher laptops are equipped with Internet access via Internet Explorer, Mozilla,
and Google Chrome. In addition, teacher laptops contain Microsoft Office Suite (Word, Excel, Outlook,
Publisher, Access, etc.)
District employees use Zimbra for email and scheduling purposes.
At George Washington, teachers and students use Google Drive for document sharing. Technology
integration specialists help teachers and students set up an account when they first arrive at the school;
for students, this is in the sixth grade.
Throughout the district, teachers use Power School to record student grades and attendance. Students,
parents, and teachers are able to access Power School from home via an online portal.
Throughout the district, teachers use Blackboard as a learning management system. Various
instructional tools are available on Blackboard including wikis, blogs, and discussion boards.
At George Washington, all classrooms are equipped with a projector, document camera, and wireless
internet. Several classrooms contain SMART boards and/or response systems; in most cases, the
teachers in these classrooms attended workshops outside of contract hours to earn the SMART tools.
At George Washington, a limited number of digital cameras, Flip video cameras, earphones, and
microphones are available for check-out from the school library.
At George Washington, Polycom and Skype are available for videoconferencing.
The district has established a strong firewall that blocks numerous websites from teacher and student
use, including most social media sites (Facebook, Twitter) and many other sites due to key word
searches deemed inappropriate. As of this year, Skype and You Tube are no longer blocked.
At George Washington, each team of teachers is assigned one mobile cart of twenty-four laptops for
student use. The team of teachers must share and coordinate usage of the cart. The library also has a cart
for research purposes.
At George Washington, students are not allowed to use personal devices such as cell phones, i-Pods, or
tablets at school except with permission of a classroom teacher.
The district also subscribes to numerous databases for student and teacher use at the middle school level:
o Brain POP
o Discovery Learning
o World Book Online Reference Center
o Britannica Online
o ProQuest Databases
o Gizmos from Explore Learning
o Education Index Online
o Atomic Learning
o SOL Pass
o Think Central Math Expressions
2. How does your school make use of school and/or teacher websites?
Alexandria City Public Schools has a website that provides access to district news, calendars, and links to
individual school websites. It also provides access to the districts social media sites. Here is the link:
http://www.acps.k12.va.us/. Each individual school has its own website which contains specific information
such as supply lists, teacher contact information, and extracurricular opportunities. Here is a link to George

Washingtons website: http://www.acps.k12.va.us/gw/. At George Washington, each teacher is required to

maintain a site through Blackboard; at a minimum, teachers must post their contact information, important class
documents, and upcoming due dates for assignments. The teacher sites are password protected; only students
and parents have access.
3. How are you currently utilizing technology for learning?
On a daily basis, I use Blackboard to facilitate school-home communication and deliver instruction. I post
announcements, upload materials for major projects, and share links to websites that correlate with what
students are studying in class. I also require students to contribute to wikis, participate in discussion boards, and
take exams on Blackboard. On a daily basis, I use my LCD projector and document camera to share student
work, show video clips, and model instructional activities. The girls in my extracurricular program, Global
Citizens in Action, use Polycom and/or Skype to participate in monthly videoconferences with peers in
Afghanistan. In between videoconferences, they communicate with the girls in Afghanistan via the social
networking site, Google+.
4. From the list of global e-learning sites included below, which are available and which sites are blocked by
your firewall?
All of the following websites are accessible by students and teachers at George Washington:
a. Skype www.skype.com
b. iEARN www. iearn.org
c. ConnectAllSchools http://www.connectallschools.org
d. Peace Corps Speakers Match http://wws.peacecorps.gov/wws/speakersmatch/
e. ePals http://www.epals.com
f. Global Nomads Group www.gng.org
g. Omprakash http://www.omprakash.org/about
h. Primary Source www.primarysource.org
i. Edutopia http://www.edutopia.org
j. Outreach World http://www.outreachworld.org
k. The UN Works http://www.un.org/works/
l. Global Education Conference http://www.globaleducationconference.com
m. Online Newspapers http://www.onlinenewspapers.com
5. What sites and tools are colleagues in your building using?
Technology usage at George Washington varies drastically by teacher. Some educators use little or no
technology while other teachers have paperless (or almost paperless) classrooms. Here is a list of resources that
many technology savvy teachers are using, but which I have not yet incorporated into my classroom:
a. Edmodo: https://www.edmodo.com/
b. Newsela: https://newsela.com/
c. Tagxedo: www.tagxedo.com
d. Audacity: http://audacity.sourceforge.net/
e. Voki: www.voki.com
f. Class Dojo: www.classdojo.com
6. Is there a system for evaluating student technology literacy in your school? If so, how effective or helpful
have you found the assessment?
Currently, George Washington does not have a system in place for evaluating student technology literacy.
7. Gather suggestions from students on their ideas for integrating technology into their learning.
I held a class discussion with my students. Here are their ideas for integrating technology:

The school division should purchase additional laptops. Currently there is only one cart per team of four
teachers. Therefore, students can only use laptops in one of their classes per day. Additionally, there are
only 24 laptops per cart which means there is a shortage of devices in the larger classes.
The school division should institute a 1:1 computing initiative at the middle school level.
Students should use i-Pads more frequently in their classes.
Students should be allowed to use virtual textbooks and notebooks which would alleviate the need to
carry around so many items from class to class.
Students should be allowed to submit assignments virtually using Google Drive.
Students should be allowed to use cell phones for academic purposes.

8. What tools that are not presently available, would help to achieve district objectives?
In order to prepare students for the 21st century, the following steps should be taken:
Institute a 1:1 computing initiative at the middle school level.
Embed the use of technology into existing professional development.
Require teachers to complete technology-specific professional development every school year.
Create a rubric which specifies the technological skills students should master at each grade level in
order to be prepared for college and the work force.
Evaluate student technology literacy on a regular basis either each school year or at specified intervals
during their time in Alexandria City Public Schools.
9. Using your Digital Learning Environment Inventory, develop a solution or suggest an improvement
customized to your circumstance and curriculum. Create, implement and evaluate one change in
a globalized lesson plan to use technology for learning in a meaningful way. To document and reflect on this
change, please submit two paragraphs:
one paragraph describing your creation and implementation of one change in a globalized lesson plan to
use technology and
one paragraph evaluating what you learned in the process of creating and implementing one change in a
globalized lesson to use technology,
Last week, I asked students to respond to the essential question Why do people move? using the website Poll
Everywhere. I permitted students to respond using computers or cell phones. I projected the website so students
could see their classmates ideas. Afterward, we engaged in partner and classroom discussions. This question
started our unit on westward expansion; we will return to it various times throughout the year as we study other
human migrations such as past and present-day immigration, the Great Migration, and Japanese internment.
During this activity, student engagement was extremely high100% of learners were on task. Students loved
being able to use computers and cell-phones. However, I noticed that the quality of students writing was not as
high as when I ask them to respond to an essential question in their interactive notebooks. Students responded in
fragments and used a lot of text lingo. In the future, I would create and share the criteria for success before
allowing students to use their devices. In addition, I would consider posting an exemplary response from which
they could model their replies.