Technology infused in a Tennessee classroom!

Jordan Haney is doing a new thing in his classroom at Rocky Hill Elementary School in West Knoxville. The 29-year-old teacher said he's always emphasized technology in the four years he's taught, but this year he was given the opportunity to do even more.

Haney was this year's winner of the Oak Ridge Associated Universities' Extreme Classroom Makeover, so his classroom received a $25,000 grant to go toward technology and other enhancements.

His fifth-grade classroom receivee 15 iPads, 12 iPod touches, 3 iMacs, 10 Macbooks, a flat-screen TV, a miniMac, iTunes giftcards, a saltwater tank, a garden, a document camera, 4 flip video cameras and supplies to build new furniture for his room.

Haney has infused technology into many aspects of his classroom. For reading, he says the students get on the iMacs and use an interactive website. Students use the iPads for reading, too, picking novels from an application called iBooks. On the iPad, students can make notes and use a dictionary application to look up words they're unfamiliar with. Haney purchases books with the iTunes giftcards he received.

'I could have taken all paper out,' he said. 'I'm using 90 percent less paper.' Haney said his students can take quizzes on the iPod touches, which connect to the Active Board he already had in his room. He assigns the students to work on worksheets on the Macbooks. Haney said he's trying to find a good balance of technology use in his room, because he wants to get them ready for next year, too, which won't look quite like this.

Learning with the World is a project in which the students have chosen several locations around the world, including Pennsylvania, California, Kansas, Germany and Brazil, and write to their 'e-pals' in those places. One student explained, 'We write letters to the other e-pals on the computer so that we can be friends with someone across the world.'

Soon they will even begin to Skype with their e-pals, Haney said.

Each student also has a blog that they update weekly. This way parents, grandparents and even their e-pals can access the blog to see what the students are up to in the classroom, all while students are practicing writing.

Haney said all students learn at different speeds, and that is taken into consideration. 'Technology gives me a wide range of teaching to all levels,' Haney said, explaining that he can
make adjustments to focus on a child's needs. 'On the laptops, I can put them on all different levels. … It's their own. No one sees what level, and they can work at their own pace.'

The use of the technology has allowed Haney to connect all the things the students are learning, providing a broader educational experience and allowing them to apply things they learn. 'There's deeper learning, instead of just rhetorical, repetitious learning, which only lasts a month,' he said. And as a result, he has students coming in early and leaving late, updating their blogs or listening to Podcasts. 'Our goal was not to be consumers this year, but to be creators.'