Educational Technology Council for Sept 2014

The School Districts’ Educational Technology Council (ETC), also known as the Technology Committee, is made up of the Technology Specialist and Technology Educators at each school, the District Instructional Technology Specialist, District Technology Specialist, District Teacher on Special Assessment, Director of Instructional Technology, Executive Director of Educational, and me, Thomas Kennedy, as the Citrus School Board Member Representative.

It goes without question that technology implementation is affecting every aspect of our schools and classrooms and this Technology Council brings together the many persons that are on the frontline of our school’s technology implementations.  Today school’s use of technology is not simply using a computer in a lab. It is digital gradebooks (Skyward), student individual technology devices (iPad), digital textbooks, ebooks, and computer base testing. I mean a LOT of computer base testing (CBT). CBT is now required by the state for ALL state assessments from 5^th grade through high school End of Course (EOC) assessments, and next year will include 4^th grade CBT.

At the meeting new hardware, applications, network and other issues are discussed and training is offered to assist these professionals. During this meeting we learned about Stoneware, a single logon solution that the district is using for teachers.  This single logon allows teachers to use just one logon and password to access nearly all of their many accounts.  This facilitates a time saving. Eventually the district hopes to have a single logon solution for students as well so that they don’t need to remember many passwords, just one.

At this time nearly all our schools have some form of one-to-one student iPad implementation. Many of our teachers have asked for an option to be able to freeze students’ iPads while they give specific instructions to them.  Through the district’s AirWatch device management system our teachers can now use an app (at no additional cost) called Air Watch Teach and Air Watch Learn to control students’ use of their iPads during instruction time to better focus instruction.

At ETC and during a recent school board meeting, Beth Bedee , Teacher On Special Assignment for Social Studies shared with us her new web site Social Studies in Citrus Schools (www.citrussocialstudies.net). This is an excellent resource for teachers looking for Social Studies, Florida and American government lessons.  In addition, Ms. Bedee did a great job of incorporating some wonderful old Citrus County photos.

Technology is one of the biggest challenges in education today and I believe it is important that we continue as a district to provide the necessary tools, professional development and staff resources to not just be effective but to be highly successful.  I am proud of the outstanding work our education and technology staff have done in the past and are doing today.  I am proud of the commitment the district and school board has made to the critical importance of these technology mandates and requirements.

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