Mentor+Voices

//**Testimony from Teachers who mentor University of Maine Farmington Students:**//
//When asked the following question: How would a laptop requirement for all Secondary/Middle Education students who are participating in practicum impact you as a mentor? Mentor teachers for practicum students responded://

"Finally! Are you serious? I have been hoping for this for a long time--I use technology everyday in my direct instruction and have had to bring practicum students along, now they can teach me.” //**- Social Studies Mentor, Mt. Blue High School**//

"Great! I have had several student teachers who have used laptops on a regular basis and it really engages kids!" **//- Health// //Mentor, Madison Junior High School//**

"I think it’s a great idea. I would really hope that what they (UMF) are going to use for laptops will be compatible with our school system. In the past, practicum students have worked very hard on a presentation only to come to their practicum placement and be unable to make it work. Often they look to me to fix the tech problem and I am not able to--we loose valuable instruction time, and the practicum student and my students both feel cheated." //**- Social Studies Mentor, Mt. Blue High School**//

"We have Macs-what will you use?" //**- English Mentor, Mt. Blue High School**//

"As the Technology Integrator in our school, and having been associated with the MLTI laptop program for 5 years, I have seen countless UMF student teachers and practicum students who are placed in our school with very dated technology. Many of the laptops that are issued by UMF to the student teachers either have older versions of current MLTI software or no comparable software to the MLTI image or lack significant memory to support current uses. Such examples would be the current versions of Appleworks, Keynote (for presentations) and Google Earth. Thus, certain levels of frustrations have been demonstrated both by the supporting teacher here at MBMS and by the UMF student teacher. In addition, it is my opinion that when these student teachers are placed in a Middle School in Maine some background to the MLTI project should be given to them. The expectation of the student teacher to use Apple products and software to reaffirm that adaptive practices to the host school should be demonstrated, and not be underscored by the student's own preference to other operating systems. Hence, 'when in Rome, do as the Romans...' applies as the MLTI program will be the 'backbone' of technology in Maine Middle Schools whereupon these student teachers will be placed." **//- Technology Integrator, Mt. Blue Middle School//**

"I learn so much from having a practicum student, I can’t wait to learn more about how to use technology in the classroom." //**- Social Studies Mentor, Mt. Blue High School**//

"Knowing that students in EDU 301 Content Literacy, EDU 363 Teaching English in Secondary/Middle Schools, and EDU 330 Young Adult Literature have one-to-one computer access would cause a dramatic paradigm shift to the positive in course design. Exploring blogging, online collaboration, online research resources and methods, digital media, and net-based broadcasting would become guided experiences rather than independent ventures. Crafting technology-rich lessons to enhance their future students' content area understandings would move from theoretical to practical for our pre-service educators. As it stands currently, UMF pre-service secondary/middle educators tend to learn in one-computer classrooms at minimum, small-group shared machine classrooms at best. While this may be the future reality for the high school bound, it does a great disservice to our future middle-level teachers who will be entering one-to-one environments. One-to-one computing should not be a luxury for UMF students; it should be a necessity." //**- English Mentor, Dan Ryder**//