Smart Solutions K-12 Digital Academy Success
May 29, 2009
Hello! My name is Michele Gasser and I am a recent addition to the Smart Solutions K-12 team. In my role as a Professional Development Specialist, I work with Ohio school districts to help teachers learn 21st century technology tools to enhance student learning. When I joined the team in January, I hit the ground running with my first project, a Digital Academy designed for Brunswick City Schools in Brunswick, Ohio.
Kicked off in February, the nine-week program included three groups of elementary, middle and high school teachers from throughout the district. These teachers met once a week for face-to-face sessions and supplemented their learning with a Moodle course custom-designed to their needs.
The focus of the academy was to learn about the exciting ways that web 2.0 tools would enhance not only their personal learning but their teaching style as well. By the end of the nine weeks, I was hearing comments from teachers on how much more engaged their students were. The new technology certainly made an impact in their classrooms. We covered a broad range of topics including Social Bookmarking, Blogs, Wikis, Moodle, SMART Notebook software, SMART Sync classroom management software, Google Docs, Google Forms and more! (By the way, you may be familiar with some of these tools and some of them you may not. Look for more information on these in future posts.)
One of the goals of the Digital Academy was for participants to learn how to collaborate and make a team wiki. The wiki would be used to share quality lesson plans and as a one-stop-shop technology resource for the other teachers in the district. The resulting Brunswick etoos4teachers wiki is a great example of their collaborative effort and mastery of the new skills learned throughout the course.
It was exciting for me as an instructor to watch the enthusiasm for technology grow and it was just as exciting for the teachers to see the same results in their students. Just days after the Digital Academy finished up, I received a wonderful email from a kindergarten teacher with a link to a Mother’s Day project her kindergarten students made in Voicethread (one of the tools we explored in class). Their slide-show presentation consisted of students’ drawings of their mothers accompanied by audio clips of the students’ Mother’s Day greetings. It is absolutely delightful to see children this young interacting with technology. What a great way to introduce them to the 21st century!
Results like this are what make my work so rewarding. I look forward to sharing more success stories with you in the future.
Technology “Boot Camp” for Educators
October 16, 2008
Laura Henderson from the Independent School Educators network asks:
I am the “computer teacher” at a small PK-5th grade school of about 250 students. I have a Mac lab of 25 computers. Our principal is very tech supportive. Any teacher who wants a computer and an email account can have one. Only about half choose to. Most choose not to have computers because they do not feel the need to integrate technology into their classroom. Most who do decide to have a computer in their room use it primarily for email. The students rarely touch them. Right now the teachers basically just hand me their students once or twice a week and entrust me to their computer/technical training. I love it and I feel I do a good job. I focus on keyboarding skills, internet safety and research, MS Office skills, etc. My job description does not include any technical support for the teachers or staff who do have computers, but I do try to help them when I can. Most of the questions are quite simple. “How do I make my font larger?” is a common one. Long story short, I would love some recommendations for tech training for our school. We really could use someone to come in and give everyone a basic computer and MS Office intro. There are so many wonderful things our teachers could do with technology and I would love to see that door opened for them. This is something I do not want to do myself. I really think we need a professional who is used to coming into a VERY low tech environment and giving some “boot camp” style training. I would also love any feedback or advice anyone could throw out there for me. I feel technology integration is a VERY slow process for us and I would like to give it a kick start.
What you are describing requires a lot of different components, and is very challenging for a small 250 student school to achieve.
Let me give you a general outline of how I would approach this problem from a leadership level.
1) Work through your administration to convince them that technology training should be a priority FOR THEM given the changes that are happening in the world today. (I wrote a blog post about the role of teachers in effecting change in education.)
2) Think LONG-term. The “quick fix” you describe of having someone come in for professional development in basics for the teachers is not going to be a long-term sustainable solution for your school. You may personally choose to change school districts and all the momentum may be lost. Your school leadership team, school board, school community, and all stakeholders need to be on board with a change management plan for technology. If your school leadership team is not on board with a plan, then aggressively recruiting teachers and community members to join an informal “tech committee” may be a suitable approach to build ground level support.
3) When talking about school technology basics, you should rethink the basics. Is there a technology budget? Do you have a technology plan? How is your school infrastructure/desktop support? Does your school want to move in the direction of thin clients, 1:1 computing, or desktops? Is there teacher buy-in to the technology plan? Does your technology professional development component of your plan support the curricular goals of the district?
4) Find a strong technology vendor to help build your infrastructure/support to truly take care of the “basics” of managing technology in a small district. (Blog post on choosing a vendor.)
5) As you build your plan, make sure that there is a significant emphasis on professional development to help get your administration and teachers up to speed with technology. Try to build capacity within your school by using the most advanced teachers as leaders to propagate change throughout the district.
For more information on supporting technology integration in a small district, please read this other blog post that I wrote.
We have helped change the technology culture at clients much larger than your school within a 12-18 month time period. Therefore, it IS possible – so please do not give up! 
If this was useful to you or anyone, I encourage you to comment on this message or e-mail me at njulka@smartsolutionsonline.com.
Cleveland Technology Town Hall Meeting with Senator Sherrod Brown
April 1, 2008
I had the pleasure of attending a Technology Town Hall Meeting with Senator Sherrod Brown a few days ago.
There were at least 20 individuals from the technology sector in Cleveland, Ohio including leaders from Nortech, WVIZ Ideastream, and OneCommunity.
The round table started with a discussion of stimulus packages that could help revitalize the region.
We also talked about technocratic topics such as tax credits and rent subsidization. Another theme of the round table was the region’s hunger for talent. This is similar to an interesting observation in a Plain Dealer article:
Despite an unemployment rate hovering above the national aver age, Ohio still has thousands of jobs in manufacturing, information technology and other fields that go unfilled for lack of skilled workers, officials say.
While the meeting went fairly well, Cleveland’s weak economic conditions is not something to celebrate.
Cleveland business leaders seem open to discussing ways to transform the region’s economy. Unfortunately, slim operating margins makes it challenging for businesses to invest in forward-looking initiatives that could bring about that kind of economic revival.
Many business leaders probably feel caught between wanting to invest in long-term workforce training and fearing that making those kinds of investments in a tough economic climate could force them into bankruptcy before those investments paid off.
Cleveland has the homegrown talent to succeed. But it is up to Cleveland business leaders to balance the short term interests of their companies with long-term investments in coaching, on the job training, and developing their existing employees.