Technology Budget Analysis

We have a budget of $40,000 in our education account from a grant we received

recently. These funds may only be used for technology--hardware and software that will

primarily align with what we already have in our school. I will present to you the

technology that I believe we should purchase with the allocated funds, that will in turn,

help our students reach higher scores in reading and writing.

After observing teachers in their classrooms, I have noticed that the SmartBoards

are not being used as they should. Often, they are a substitution for a projector or movie

screen. I believe it is essential for us to train our teachers on the Smartboard, and utilize it

to it's full potential. We will be sending our employee, Ms. Knowitall, to a 3-day course

so that she may become an expert in using the SmartBoard. She will then become our

own SmartBoard instructor, passing her knowledge on to all our teachers during staff-

development day.

Currently, we have only 30 IPads for student use. I propose that we purchase 30

more tablets, with chargers, for a total of 60 tablets, thereby allowing up to 3 classrooms

at a time usage. Software for these IPads would include, but not be limited to: Imagine

Learnings Bookster, and Reading Rainbow (for grades

K - 2). This software supports reading literacy, vocabulary, fluency, phonics and

comprehension. I also propose purchasing Kindle Books ( for upper primary grades).

This software provides complete books for reading, book samples and dictionary look-up

capability. Cost would depend on what books we purchased for our virtual library. This

cost could be anywhere form free to $13.99 for classic novels. We will still need to

investigate what books are needed and which are available to us.

Naturally, we would need to manage the usage of the tablets during the school

year. To do this, we will need Absolute Manage MDM, which tracks and oversees tablet

usage, and is a relatively inexpensive purchase.

Many students use their listening skills to help them learn new things. That is

why we need CD Disk players in every classroom. Having these disk players available

would aid reluctant readers in hearing and seeing the text and/or characters onscreen and

helping them understand subjects in textbooks more completely. I originally allocated

$230.00 toward CDs, but I am now aware we will need more than 20 interactive reading

CDs for the 3-level reading classes that we presently teach. I propose that we increase the

total by ten.

Lastly, in each of our classrooms we have an ELMO document camera available. As I

have observed, many educators are using it primarily as an overhead projector. I have

found an inexpensive alternative to a paid instructor as a way to enhance our usage of the

projector. A website called ELMO Academy, has How-To videos (3), each one 90

minutes, that may be viewed by teachers during their preparation period. The budget

would allow two sets of these videos that could be checked out in the library.

Please refer to the attached itemized listing for the type of technology proposed,

price quantity, how it meets the needs of SIP, and total cost. We have kept

approximately $5,000. of the grant in a separate account to be used for any unseen costs,

such as adapters, battery packs, connectors, etc.

That concludes my presentation.