TechieTeacher5280

In our district, anxiety over CMAS and PARCC online testing has been steadily rising as the testing window approaches. Concerns over student tech skills hampering performance have continued to grow as teachers have increased the use of technology in their classrooms and realized that students' tech prowess may not be up to par. Back in March, I blogged about our department's work around determining the tech skills students will need to be successful on the CMAS & PARCC . Since then, an increasing number of teachers and principals have taken an especially hard look at their students' keyboarding abilities and realized that typing speed (or lack there of) may sabotage their kids' ability to show what they know on the state tests. 

Oh budget cuts, how I loathe thee. We recently learned that our district would not be getting as much money from the state this year as expected, and so, our budgets have been slashed. Any money left in our classroom budgets is gone (and I had plenty!). Any outstanding receipts will most likely not be reimbursed (there goes $200!!) We have been given 3 reams, yes a measly 1500 pieces of paper, for copies, which is expected to last us until the end of the year. God forbid the copier jam! Thank goodness I have the lowest copy count in the school, thanks to the nature of my job, though I pity our poor language arts teachers--1500 pieces of paper/170 students a day = very few assignments will be printed out anymore. Hope those kids can hand-copy at a reasonable pace! So for those of us in the same boat, or with limited budgets to begin with, I thought I'd focus on free software available online, either as downloads, or Web2.0. This week, I'll be taking a look at keyboarding softw...