NCCE Notes

I put together this Prezi with my thoughts and takeaways from this year's NCCE Conference. The conference was a great experience full of great learning and great people.
  Here's a link in case the embed doesn't show up.

NCCE Livebinder

http://www.livebinders.com/play/play?id=1288261&backurl=/shelf/my


This livebinder includes notes from three sessions at NCCE.

Digital Learning Goals

I asked to borrow this image to give us ideas about a simple digital learning goals from a small, rural district in CO for our District Tech Plan.

Here is another one from a small, rural district in WI:

Most Important Goals:

• Ensure that we are utilizing existing technologies to their fullest potential.
• Integrating technology effectively into teaching and learning.
• Creating students who are 21st Century ready.
• Maintaining and expanding the district's infrastructure.

Challenges:

• Tight budgets/having to share equipment throughout schools/district
• Adequate professional development, in-service and training for educators.
• Finding time in busy schedules and curriculum to fully integrating technology into all content areas
• Complete support and "buy-in" among all administrators and staff members.

Here's another one from another small, rural school in CO:

What are the most important goals for updating teaching and learning in your classroom, school, district or organization?

1. Integration of technology into curriculum with a meaningful purpose
2. Internet safety and appropriate use education in curriculum
3. Elementary access to electronic devices

What are the biggest challenges you and your colleagues must address to achieve these goals?

1. Bandwidth - this is our largest factor.  We currently very limited by the amount of bandwidth (6 MB ) we have available.  We also pay an exorbitant price of $200/MB.  We cannot add any more devices or curriculum until we have the bandwidth too support it. 
2. Staffing - We have a 5/7 time technology coordinator.  We continue to add devices and technology needs but we do not increase the time for our technology staff.
3. Infrastructure - We made a great deal of progress this past summer with the additional of wifi access throughout the entire school.  As we continue to see more devices including byod, we will need to build upon our infrastructure.
4. Professional Development - With limited staff, time and money, we need to provide more professional development to our staff to help them integrate technology into their curriculum.

NCCE 2014 Tweets

Here are our District Tech Committee's tweets from the NCCE 2014 conference. Our tweets capture our learning and the resources we collected and curated at the conference. We will use what we learned as we develop our district's tech plan.

MOOC Unit 5 Professional Dev

Unit 5 of the Digital Learning Transition MOOC speaks to Teaching and Professional Learning.

The two questions for week five are:

How well prepared are teachers and administrators for the changes in their knowledge and practices required for a successful digital learning transition?

How can effective professional development be provided to prepare teachers and administrators for the changing expectations involved in digital learning?

This week there were two specific resources on professional development that stood out for me.

The first was the article: Project Tomorrow Speak Up National Findings, May 2012. This article includes a summary of the teacher component of the National Speak Up survey. The focus is on the way that educators use technology for student learning, and how this reflects their own online learning, social network and digital content experiences.

Personalizing the Classroom Experience: Teachers, Librarians and Administrators Connect the Dots with Digital Learning

http://www.tomorrow.org/speakup/pdfs/SU11_PersonalizedLearning_Educators.pdf

The second resource was the audio of the Unit 5 Expert Panel discussion. During this discussion there were many different approaches to effective professional development, examples included; professional learning communities, online learning, peer coaching, teacher feedback and more.

Other strategies for professional learning formats were suggested such as encouraging teachers to provide leadership and support in creating the professional development activities, and to provide a learning experience that exemplifies effective classroom practice. This 45 minute audio/video is well worth the time.

The experts participating in the discussion forum, are:  

Lorie Kaplan, Executive Director, eMINTS National Center, University of Missouri – Columbia

Joellen Killion, Senior Advisor, Learning Forward

Thomas Murray, Director of Technology and Cyber Learning, Quakertown Community School District, PA

Barbara Treacy, Director, EdTech Leaders Online, EDC, Newton, MA

http://www.hipcast.com/podcast/HWcbtk0s

I agree with this panel, effective professional development for our Chimacum staff will be essential as we integrate Common Core State Standards, technology and our teacher evaluation system TPEP. As Technology Committee members, we need to be thoughtful about making PD recommendations within our Technology Plan.