Comment

Comment by Pam Dion on July 27, 2010 at 11:28pm

Hi. My name is Pam. I am a co-director of an online school which works with brick and mortar schools in expansion of curriculum offerings, and home school solutions. We are an accredited online school and offer our partner schools online curriculum to offer their own students. Most of our partners use our teachers, but post grades on their own transcripts. Students work independently and at their own pace, either in a school computer lab or by logging in at home. We currently offer 20 Advanced Placement, Honors, 6 World Languages, Credit recovery and more.

I am a huge proponent of integrating technology into the classroom. I would love to be a part of this group, and brainstorm on additional ways we can meet the needs of todays students.

Comment by Tim Yates on May 4, 2010 at 11:01pm

Rebecca
Thank you for your input it was very helpful.

Comment by Rebecca Kelly on April 27, 2010 at 10:50pm

Tim - I know this is an older conversation, but I have some thoughts. We are in a school district looking at implementing a 1:1 in our high school. We are starting with the freshman, who are housed in their own building on the hs campus. Our building admins are getting trained in LoTi http://loticonnection.com/ and we are looking at changing our supervision/evaluation model to include teaching 21st Century skills and technology integration. Our plan is to create a supervision model where teachers who do not integrate higher order learning/teaching in their curriculum (made easier through technology) will be offered PD that addresses this need. The hope is that their teaching becomes more rigorous, the students improve on assessments, and that the teacher's progression can then be followed through their yearly evaluations. If the focus/goal for the high school is teaching 21st Century skills, and the necessary scaffolds are put in place for teachers to achieve this goal (i.e PLCs, various professional development, instructional coaches, supportive admin) most teachers will strive to meet this goal. The ones who don't will find that it adversely affects their evaluations. As long as administration is committed to this, teachers will follow - especially when they discover how engaged students can be in their courses when they make their teacher relevant to students' lives.

Comment by Tim Yates on January 7, 2010 at 12:40pm

Thanks Cindy and Brian for your thoughts. We have those things in place that you have suggested, But we still have one HS that the staff is just dragging their heels to implement the technology. It is like they would rather teach with paper and pencil or would even be happy to go back to slates. I s just frustrating that the staff has the tools and the students have the tools and the they don't use them. Don't take me wrong here they students use the tools after they school for the day, but the staff does not want to use the tools during the school day. Just frustrated !

Comment by Brian Kuhn on January 7, 2010 at 9:45am

Hi Cindy - we're not quite your size of District as you know but... have successfully integrated MAC and Windows where MS AD is the authentication and group permissioning/control at the core. I can hook your people up with my people if you like :-)

Comment by Brian Kuhn on January 7, 2010 at 9:44am

Tim - we've not found mandating to be too effective with professionals. We have found that a good staff dev model - we use learning teams or professional learning communities for this - works very effectively. Colleagues working together because they chose to... it spreads like a (positive) virus. This approach has turned the push of tech into a pull by most teachers in our District. We have around 1850 educators in 70 schools.

Comment by Tim Yates on November 21, 2009 at 10:17pm

Hi, I'm Tim Yates, technology director of Pueblo County School District 70 in Pueblo, Colorado. Currently in the second year of a 1:1 program at our 3 high schools. I'm currently looking for policy that would mandate the use of technolgy by the instrctional staff.

Comment by Lee R. Jordan, Jr. on November 16, 2009 at 8:21pm

Hi, I'm Lee Jordan, Tech director/CIO of a school district in south central Kentucky.