The principal Mrs. Cilento and the coding teacher Mrs. DiMeglio, and discussed their opinions about No-Tech January.
Mrs. DiMeglio did not like no-tech January because she teaches coding, and teaching coding would be difficult if she or the students didn’t have their computers.
Even though Mrs. DiMeglio didn’t like No-tech January for her coding class, she liked it for her Financial Literacy class. She used many other strategies that she used 10 years ago before her students had computers all the time.
“It was hard to not use the chromebooks,” Mrs. DiMeglio said. “They couldn’t use the program that we are supposed to be using for coding so she had to help students think about what coding means differently so students get a lot of hands-on things.”
She asked her eighth graders and maybe all but two of them had enjoyed not having the computers.
She would be okay with doing no tech on a limited basis in her financial literacy class but she wants her computer all of the time in coding class.
“I think it was a good opportunity for students and teachers to think about things differently,” said Mrs. DiMeglio, “and I think that it was fun. I support what Mrs. Cilento says and I am glad that she let me have the computers back for coding class.”
On the other hand, Mrs. Cilento loves No-Tech January and doesn’t dislike anything about it.
“I thoroughly enjoyed it so far,” said Mrs. Cilento.
She said the purpose of No-Tech January was to stop the reliance on chromebooks.
The idea of No-tech January came from Mrs. Cilento talking to students and teachers and also watching a video.
She said it is a good idea because students can talk more face-to-face and with eye contact. It also stops the reliance of teachers on computers.
“I think it’s a happy combination of both,” Mrs. Cilento said. “I think prior to doing this we used the chromebooks way too much. And I think both staff and students have seen that we use them too much now, after not using them for a period of time.”
Mrs. Cilento also said that after hearing some feedback from the students and also the teachers, she said that a lot of them enjoyed it most of the time.
