DONORS CHOOSE: Hamden High Technology Project

Hamden High School Social Studies teacher Salman Hamid strives to find ways to reach his students beyond the traditional lecture and textbooks. Visuals, he has found, can touch a student and increase their interest and ultimately, their grades.

But the technology required to provide visuals in the classroom is both expensive and scarce. School budgets of late have been so tight that things like projectors are luxuries that routinely don't survive the budget process.

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So Hamid is thinking outside the box -- and that thought process let him to donorschose.org, where he can post his request and people will place donations on the project until it is funded.

Hamid's request can be found here: 

http://www.donorschoose.org/project/projecting-the-past-visualizing-the-fut/891832/

He writes:

My Students: Our school is diverse; there is no ethnic majority. We are classified as "moderate poverty" because the community includes children of Yale University professors and parents on EBT. Many of my students this year do not even have access to the Internet at home.

We are a large comprehensive public high school. We use Freshman Teams to help bring the high school experience down to size and keep students engaged in their education. My own students are approximately 40% white, 40% black, 15% Asian and Middle Eastern, and 5% Hispanic.

My Project: Over the course of a decade, I have added numerous materials to my lesson plans and units. What I have come to realize is that none is more important than visuals. Students can read about Columbus or study about the Women's Rights Movement, but visuals make the topic interesting and help students relate or connect. With a projector I can readily pull up an image to enable students to comprehend the topic better. Also it reduces time spent signing up and setting up a projector or utilizing the computer lab. On average, my students' grades have increased 15% since I introduced visuals into my classroom last year.

Ours is a society dominated by visuals whether on billboards or television. A projector helps students focus on the materials and allows for a more interactive experience than the traditional textbook.

My students need visuals, and a projector lets everyone see what there is. Our department of 20 teachers shares a projector on a cart, but that only goes so far.

His project request is for an Epson PowerLite 93+LCD projector that can be purchased at Best Buy for $590.99.