Classroom Technology Crowdfunding

adam42381

Forgive me if this isn't the right place for this. As some of you know, my wife and I are both Special Education teachers who recently moved to North Carolina. One of the best tools for teaching our students is an interactive whiteboard, commonly referred to as a smartboard. These things are awesome and have been utilized on a daily basis in our classrooms for years. That is, until we moved here. Unlike Florida, North Carolina does not provide these tools in every classroom. Because our county will not pay for this technology for my wife's classroom, she has set up a crowdfunding campaign to try to raise the money to get one for her room. The cost is approximately $3000.

If you want to help out, we would greatly appreciate it. Here is a link to her campaign:

https://www.gofundme.com/NormanWhiteboard

deadendp

SMART boards are a technology that every child can benefit from. What may help your cause is to write a description as to why and how this board will benefit your children. There are beautiful photos of children, but y'all need more. What people want to know is how these boards can enhance learning for kids, particularly in this case, your kids.

My thoughts?
SMART boards aren't intellectually exclusive. I hope that I don't offend by saying that. Every child is able to use it. Lessons come to life. Quizzes can be done with "clickers" and by using these, data is immediately compiled and teachers are able to see what is being learned and areas that need to be covered more thoroughly. There are specific "projectors" that allow teachers to project their work on screens. So many more features . . .

Retroactively installing such items can be expensive. Carts for SMART boards (I don't know if that is the route you are going) are expensive also. I suspect that a portion of your costs are involved in that. You have Promethean, Eno and SMART boards. Different boards offer different benefits. I believe that one can be used as a white board. Others cannot.

I was PTA president at an elementary school in Northeast Ohio a few years ago. Because the school system would only provide something like 6 SMART boards, we were given the task to raise money for all of the rest. (I believe 22 rooms were what we were responsible for.) In a year and a half, we trimmed, scrimped, saved and raised money through restaurant fundraisers, cookie/pastry dough sales, a Walk A Thon and a variety of smaller things. Combined, we were able to raise $22,000 and give a total of $27,0000-- the largest check that I have ever written. Our SMART boards were purchased, installed and ready to go by the new building opening. What boards were delayed? The ones that the school board was purchasing.

Since we ordered these in mass as they were installed in a new school, new and more experienced staff were given the task of utilizing them. Some of the older staff was old school and reluctant to use them. Some took off running. I can tell you that in all of the classrooms that utilized them, it seemed as though the kiddos really enjoyed them.

Good luck with your fundraising efforts!

adam42381

Thank you for posting that. I will ask my wife to update her page to be more specific.

adam42381

Thanks to some very generous donations, the campaign is fully funded. Thanks to all who donated.