We Will Rise Despite Every Obstacle!

Funded Sep 21, 2020

Once again, I am truly grateful that you chose to fund my project. Please trust and believe that these materials are being put to good use. I received the computer mice and the headphones, just as my students were returning to the school for physical instruction.

I purchased Ziploc bags and labeled each bag with each student's name and placed a headphone and a mouse in each bag for them. I also purchased crates to separate the materials for both of my classes. This ended up benefiting my partner teacher, because we came up with a system where the students travel with the materials throughout the day, so that they can use them in her class as well. We keep them in the classroom at the end of the day, to make sure that they will have them to use each day.

Receiving these resources has been so instrumental for my students and I. Most of my students have special needs and are easily distracted or frustrated. Some of my students are just not too familiar with using the mouse pad on a laptop, and this causes them to slow down on completing assignments or to become easily frustrated. The mouse has helped to eliminate this issue. I have noticed that since receiving the materials, my students are more focused and are able to complete more assignments.

I will share an example of how this has helped us. Myself and a few students were placed on quarantine for a few days. The remainder of the class had to still report to school and I taught from Zoom. Imagine all of the students in the classroom, on Zoom, without headphones, listening to me teach and responding to my questions. Not a great idea. That could have been a nightmare. How do I know that? I had a few students who took a while to plug in their headphones right away. The feedback from the devices was horrible. Every time I tried to speak, or one of my students in the classroom tried to say something, the noise was just so overbearing. Once we got everyone to connect their headphones, the feedback went away.

These materials have made such a difference in my classroom and I am so grateful. My students are now programmed to grab their bag with their materials each morning before they start their day. We are able to differentiate instruction throughout the classroom more easily, because I can have students working on different activities at the same time, and it does not become too chaotic. For example, I have had students working on interactive programs, playing different learning games, completing required assignments, while I had other students using auto read features, such as having stories read to them aloud, or having assessment passages read aloud to them while they are doing a test, and it does not become a distraction to others. This is amazing that every student in my classroom is able to use these resources to eliminate distractions and focus better in class. I have even seen some improvement in their grades, especially in my SPED class, and I really feel that these tools have helped to make this possible.

Again, I thank you so much for your contribution to my classroom and I will never forget this moment.”

With gratitude,

Mrs. Baker