If you’ve been anywhere near me in the past week I’m sure I’ve asked you once (or more!) the question, “Have you voted yet today??”

My amazing teacher friend and colleague Jesselyn and I wrote up this proposal in an attempt to win $100,000 for our downtown Toronto school library. I wanted to share our idea via my blog in hopes to get the word out a little more! We are currently sitting in 24th position, nowhere near the top 10 where we need to be to get into the judging round. I’m hoping we can gain a few extra votes from my trusty blog followers – especially since Justin Bieber, Drake, Prime Minister Trudeau, Members of Parliament, Mayor Tory and others haven’t responded to us on Twitter 😉 (it was worth a try, right?).

Please vote daily until Monday, May 16th here: bit.ly/techitforward

Here’s our proposal, have a look and if you like it please pass it on and VOTE VOTE VOTE!!

Thank you in advance for your support!

Idea Description:

Imagine this… you hear a buzz of people even before you step into the space. You know that this is the place you were looking for. Open and airy, filled with light and all different walks of people. They are paired together, different ages all engaged, pointing to a screen, brows furrowed wickedly solving problems together and there, right then a crack of a smile as the solution is found. Welcome to the LLPS learners hub. The hub of our project would be in the Lord Lansdowne Public School *new* Learning Commons Media Centre. We want to help build community and connections through our Tech it Forward project in which we would reach out to local senior communities in order to build teaching and learning relationships with senior citizens, new immigrants, ESL learners and newbies to technology from our surrounding community. They would come to our school and learn all about new technologies: smartphones, ipads, internet, etc. from our elementary school students. In turn, community members could forward their own learning to others within their family and other community circles.
Learning becomes meaningful when it is made real in an authentic way. Our students are in dire need of these real-time experiences where they can affect their communities. As teachers we are always looking for ways to make learning authentic and meaningful for our students. Research on the internet and texting on their phone are natural extensions of their day-to-day. It cannot be denied that this ease within the digital world has made them leaders in this capacity. This access to people around the world has made theirs smaller than ever before. Those who do not have these skills are left vulnerable to being excluded from these learning communities. Inclusivity can be made accessible to those in our society who are most vulnerable, the lonely amongst our elderly, those new to the country within the wake of the Syrian refugee crisis and those who have no access due to financial constraints. Many of the new strands in the English and French Ontario curriculum documents centre around media texts, being digitally literate, digital citizenship, and having an overall sense of how technology works and how to use it to enhance their learning.
Our parent board, the Toronto District School Board, is promoting the use of technology, digital fluency, collaboration and seeing the students as leaders. Our project hits on all of these aspects, we are just in need of the equipment necessary.

Who we are:

Jesselyn Dungo and Larissa Aradj are teachers from Lord Lansdowne Junior & Senior Public School in Toronto, Ontario. They both have a passion for technology and infusing it into their teaching. This idea would mean bringing more technology and collaboration to our school community. The children at our school are completely engaged in technology and have a thirst for being digitally literate, but it’s difficult to push them in this direction without the resources they need. The students from our school who we consider “digital natives” are so willing to teach teachers who are “digital immigrants” all about new technologies. We thought we would take this notion and give it a wider scope through the lens of connecting the senior citizen community and new immigrant community with our students so the students can take what they know and “Tech it Forward” to others who would like to learn. Larissa has built up Lord Lansdowne’s virtual identity since she moved to LLPS last September. She has created a Twitter & Instagram account for the school (@LL_TDSB) and the School Blog: www.lordlansdowne.wordpress.com where parents and students go to find information, photos and videos of the wonderful things happening at Lord Lansdowne. A digital presence is important part of our schools these days, it builds community and keeps everyone on the same page. Our hope is to build up the more hands-on aspect of our community through this Tech it Forward project. When we see how these new technologies make the world a smaller place, imagine teaching someone’s grandmother or great-grandmother how to Skype with their grandchildren or seeing photos of their grandchildren via email from across the world, through this project we will open doors for seniors that they never thought they’d never be able to walk through and discover new ways of connecting.

Lord Lansdowne Junior & Senior Public School:

Lord Lansdowne Jr. and Sr. Public School is located in the heart of downtown Toronto at Spadina Avenue and College Street. We are a small but mighty school hub of diverse cultures whose parent population includes ESL learners and new immigrants. We are in close proximity to various senior communities and steps away from the Scott Mission for the homeless. Our school is a caring and giving outlet of community support and this project of Tech it Forward would be a natural extension of our commitment to serving the community via helping those understand how to use and access technology. Currently, we are at a stalemate within our funding for technology at our school since we are in the middle of the LOI, Learning Opportunity Index used by the TDSB. We find that we are in an interesting position as those schools who are positioned on the lower end of the index are eligible to receive funding and resources from various community partners in addition to equipment and professional development of which we do not qualify. However, our school community does not have the financial means as those in wealthier neighbourhoods to outfit the school with much-needed technology and as such we find ourselves being the “forgotten middle” when in need of functioning laptops for community projects, and general teaching and learning of 21st century skills. The power of Tech it Forward could give avenues to those students who might not otherwise have opportunities to serve their community in such a real way, fostering empathy, compassion and social responsibility.