Introduction and Technology Integration

I work at Hadley Middle School in Homer Glen, IL. Hadley Middle School is a fifth and sixth grade building with about 800 students. Our district serves about 3,500 students in five different schools ranging from Kindergarten to eighth grade. I work for an outstanding district due in part to the great co-workers and administration, but also due to loving parents and a helpful community. Homer Glen is an expensive community to live in, which allows our school to have the money to spend on education. Homer Glen is situated in the Southwest suburbs of Chicago, Illinois. It is located between Orland Park to the east and Lockport to the west.


My job title at Hadley is Technology teacher. I have been in the district for two years. I teach four classes of keyboarding (typing) each semester along with four technology classes. The keyboarding classes are for fifth grade students only and it is my job to teach and show them how to become an effective typist. My technology classes are open to all sixth grade students who are not enrolled into our remedial reading class. The students will take my class every other day for one semester.


Within my technology class I have eight sixth grade classes each semester. My classroom has 30 IBM laptops which are all wired and wireless to the Internet and our network. I have one color laser printer in my room, along with a projector and a scanner. The software on the laptops is where I believe our school is lacking. We have all the Microsoft programs (Word, Excel, PowerPoint, Access, FrontPage, Publisher, Movie Maker, Photo Story) and a couple other select programs (Google Earth, Oregon trail, Mavis Beacon Teaches Typing).

I am very interesting is exploring and learning about new technology whether it relates to education or personal enjoyment. I enjoy reading e-newletters and magazines related to computers and techonlogy. The ever changing and evolving tools greatly interests me. Outside of school and technology related information I enjoy golfing and bowling.

By our class definition technology integration is seamlessly incorporating multimedia tools and other innovative tools to enhance the teaching and learning of subject matter. Within my classroom I try to incorporate and use any "innovative" tools that are avaliable; which sometimes is limted. We do have flip video recorders, elmos, tablet computers, and iTouch at our disposal however we have a very limited software suite.