Technology and Urban Schools

Urban schools have tons of challenges. I hate to be negative, but my experience tends to lend itself to the fact that these schools are usually more concerned with safety and test scores than with obtaining the newest and latest technology with regards to student education. With that said, Gallagher makes some good points. Technology although important, is expensive (p.31). When I was teaching kindergarten, 64% of my class was on free and reduced lunch. Why do I know this—besides its obvious who brings and pays for lunch and who does not---I had to ask the PTA for funds for these children so that they could go on the fall field trip.


Technology also competes with programs that are deemed more important and which also provide immediate results. “Technology must compete with these programs and other, such as preschool education, for the limited funds available for the district. All of these programs are important and many produce more immediate, quantifiable results than technology, so they are more likely to get funded” (p.33). However, couldn’t there be a line item note for technology in each of these programs. Take the head start program, and after the funding for food is calculated, couldn’t administrators and community leaders tag on a technology expense as well?

I love the idea that one of the suggestions was to rearrange the class schedule. When I was teaching kindergarten, it was dictated when my core subjects would be taught. It was more effective in my mind to teach science and math together in the afternoon than to teach Language Arts and Science in the morning. I would have rather taught Language Arts and Social Studies together and therefore having opportunities to extend the teaching block. Since I tend to integrate Social Studies and Language Arts together anyways. My Kindergarten class always was scheduled to go to the computer lab right before lunch at 12:45. That was a pain because despite having snack before the lab, the students were focused on lunch and not on being productive in the lab. I would have much rather preferred an earlier lunch, recess and then lab after recess to settle them down and get them focused back on learning. I don’t think that many class schedules use time effectively for technology, but I also understand it is hard to coordinated a large number of classes for specials and lunch.


LeBaron, John F., et al. (2001). Technology and its place. Successful technology infusion in schools. Jossey-Bass, California: San Francisco. (Chapter 3).