ConnectedTalk

I have been away from this blog for far too long. The summer has had some unexpected turns for me that have re focused my priorities with my family. I believe I have come back to a place of balance and hope to be posting on a regular basis again so here we go.
Jeff Utecht has just posted his latest thoughts on his blog about starting his school year and one of the projects he is undertaking with teachers in his school learning to use laptops in their teaching. He has a good plan outlined in his post today. I appreciate the time he has invested in the planning and I feel as though the project I begin tomorrow is similar to his. In my district we have moved to data driven technology pilots, no longer will we just say ok, this looks good let’s try it. We began this approach last year and found success and also were able to collect data from the participants to assist in making a decision to expand the opportunities to others.  This is what our technology pilots include.
First of all our teachers have to fill out an application to participate. The application outlines the various peices one has to agree to complete in order to participate. For example this school year 2007-2008 we are piloting AirLiner slates made by SMART Technologies using SMART notebook software. As a participant one would get the AirLiner, bluetooth connector, wireless mouse, an LCD projector,  and speakers, which all come on a mobile cart with locking cabinet. All of our teachers have laptops and the SMART notebook software will be installed on them so teachers have the ability to use at school and home for the creation of lessons. The slates connect through bluetooth to the laptop and you are able to write on the slate with a pen, much like a pen used with a SMARTboard, or a wireless mouse, within 46 feet of the computer. So you are able to stand anywhere in your room, use the slate with through your computer, capture all you do, save it if you want to, and also have the ability to pass the slate to students so they participate without leaving their seats.  All teachers were eligible to complete and application. The application covered the following. If interested one had to commit to two days of summer training learning the software and also using the slate, had to agree to creating and using 27 lessons with the AirLiner during the course of the school year – 6 by November, 12 - January, 18 -March and 27 – end of year. Attend four after school sessions in each of the mentioned months to talk about successes, challenges, sharing of lessons, anything that relates to the pilot. Everyone also had to answer the following questions -
1. How will this tool impact student achievement?
2. How will this tool change classroom instruction?
3. How will you evaluate the effectiveness of this tool?
4. What challenges do you foresee in implementing this tool?
Teachers were able to apply individually or as grade level or content area teams. We will have everyone contribute their responses to the questions above again at the end of the end of the year as well to compare and evaluate their thoughts on the impact of this tool in the classroom.
This is the same model we used last year when we introduced podcasting which we had great success with. I am hoping this goes as well. Tomorrow is the first training day, I will post again after the training the feedback from participants and will also talk about it as the year goes on. I am looking forward to working with everyone on this, should be fun and the classrooms I will be spending quite a bit of time in this year. Does anyone else have a standardized way they introduce new technologies