Module 5

For my grant proposal, I have chosen to write a request for Google Chromebooks to be used in middle school reading/language arts classes. I am not a classroom teacher, however I plan to be involved with education and my primary goal is to promote literacy skills through the use of 21st century methods.

During my undergraduate courses, I noticed how sharply students declined in reading/language arts courses during the middle school years. Most students that I interviewed gave me the excuse of "It's boring." Upon attempting a lesson that involved technology use, the students did surprisingly well for loathing reading. They read, analyzed, synthesized, and cited information within the web-based Prezi presentation tool.

Therefore, my goal is to integrate technology into middle school reading/language arts classes through the use of Google Chromebooks. Google Chromebooks are a relatively less expensive version of a laptop because it utilizes cloud storage capabilities. (Students would also have the ability to access work from another computer source.) The Google Chromebook costs roughly $250 per computer, and my goal would be to fund the cost of 25 Chromebooks. The total cost would be approximately $6250. The Chromebooks would be available to the reading/language arts classes to support and integrate technology into their instruction and curriculum.

My targeted contributor would be the IRA Award for Reading and Technology. This is a k-12 grant that awards educators who are making outstanding and innovative contributions to the use of technology in education. The deadline for this award is November 2014.

The goal of my project is to ultimately increase literacy levels at the middle school levels through the use of technology and web-based resources within the classroom. I would like to begin by implementing my project in the first grade of middle school. There would be plenty of teacher workshops and collaboration to teach the proper use of the Chromebooks. After a year of teaching reading/language arts through technology, I would evaluate the students' test scores. It would be my hope that I would be granted more funding to purchase Chromebooks for the subsequent reading/language arts grade levels.