"It's All About The Money"

This article is called "Show us the Money! Planning and Persistence Can Help You Get Ed Tech Stimulus Funding" and it is by Davis H. Brock and from August 2009.

The article discusses how "there is a disconnect between students’ technology experience outside of school and what they use in the classroom." For instance, "at home many students play and learn with an array of tools that are restricted, banned, or, in many cases, just not available at school." These statements are important to understand for future teachers and the article brings up a point- which many of us are already aware of- that "effectively infusing technology into the classroom does make a difference with students by motivating them, increasing their achievement, and engaging them in powerful ways." The overall message and idea of the article is that "with the passage of the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 (ARRA), we have an opportunity to make significant strides in bringing technology into the classroom in meaningful ways and ending the digital disconnect." The article also states that "as we think about how to use these once-in-a-lifetime funds, we must consider how the goals of the ARRA can help pay for technology purchases and professional development, and how that can affect our students and transform learning environments for our 21st-century learners." This is where it is important for us as future educators to be aware of this situation and understand how to ask for the money we need for different technology tools.

The article gave very helpful tips and guidelines to help educators ask for the money they need. I really enjoyed learning about this tips and I plan on using them in my future when I have my own classroom and I am in the situation where I need to ask for more money and funds. For example, I need to start by creating a plan and then I need to do some research on different results and find success stories. Then it is important to find out what is available and the next steps would be to create a spreadsheet, include professional development, make it look good, develop relationships and lastly to keep knocking on the door and never give up. I found these tips to be very helpful and I plan to use them in my future when I find myself in this situation. I know that through this class we have all found very interesting articles on different tools to incorporate in the classroom and I know many times we have all realized that we will need to have the funds available to actually have and use those resources and tools. So I wanted to learn more about the process it takes to ask for funds and I hope this will be a guideline for my future and for other future educators as well.