By Diana Leane
As technology continues to infiltrate the classroom, innovative technology facilitator Matt Hamilton decided it was time to start a program he had seen be successful at other schools. This program includes technology tutors who he decided to call “Mobile Knights.”
The Mobile Knights will work similarly to KLC tutors, but they can be rented by teachers when the teachers know they are trying out a new app or technology and need help in the classroom.
“The Mobile Knights can work with the students on the tech side of things while the teacher just delivers the lesson,” Hamilton said. “The way technology has evolved in the classroom, more and more teachers are utilizing it. We don’t want any teacher willing to try something new not try it because they’re not comfortable using it.”
The Mobile Knights will also help individual students’ technology issues in the same fashion KLC tutors help students academically; they will be stationed at the tutor table where students with technology issues can approach them for help.
Hamilton originally found volunteers to join the Mobile Knights through an email he sent out to the KLC tutors, but anyone is welcome to join. Junior Aleena Surenian, a KLC tutor, found the idea very interesting and useful.
“If a teacher needs help knowing how to run an app, [renting Mobile Knights] would save more time in class because [teachers] would spend less class time teaching [their] kids how to use [the app],” Surenian said.
Before the tutors will begin helping out peers and teachers, they will go through training to learn how to effectively help students and teachers and how to seek out students who may not initiate help when they need it.
“As we all know, most freshman students are not going to speak up,” Hamilton said. “They’re not going to say, ‘I don’t understand how to do this.’”
Hamilton hopes the program will end up helping students and teachers, but also teach the tutors life skills.
“As they go through tutor training, they learn how to work with other kids, how to be patient and how some people have a really hard time asking for help,” Hamilton said. “What I would look to do is have them as a role models.”