Technology for Planning and Teaching to the Common Core

Brian Balaris, Chris Morel, Todd Reed
As you are implementing technology, there are several ways to provide necessary Staff PD to help inspire, prepare and support your teachers.   In their district, they use independent contractors and send teachers to conferences to see what is going on

• boot camp - at the beginning of their school year, one day (paid) is devoted to technology training using a boot camp model. There are a variety of workshops that people can sign up for. They get low or no cost presenters (the price of lunch for some) and teachers can sign up for the things they need, such as Google sites, Google forms, iPad basics, SMART, Edmodo, etc.  

• Site early outs - on some of their early out Wednesdays, they continue with the staff PD for tech, which is especially helpful as teachers have begun using the technology and have some new and more complex questions and challenges.  

• Grade level pull outs - these would address specific grade level needs

• Pedagogical PD

ITSE NETS   (National Education Technology Standards) for Students NETS-S and teachers NETS-T - It is essential to know technology standards for teachers and students and use them in backwards planning of units and your school year. Here is an interesting resource I found while poking around ITSE , an implementation wiki for NETS standards! They also recommend a coaching model - to provide help with how to, to model lessons, research and share new ideas, generally, to spread the wealth. Coaches can take what they see at one school, one classroom and pollinate it throughout their district. 

This session blurb said it would  "provide teachers and administrators with a detailed understanding of the technology needs embedded in the common core and how to start the process of using these skills. The integration of more technology into engaging teaching and learning activities are the themes presented." My slight frustration with this year's CUE started with this presentation. I know WHY we need to use technology with common core, I want to know HOW to best implement real projects with tech+common core!  They had some great ideas to support staff using technology, but no actual projects, lesson plans, nor implementable strategies.  I am hoping to follow Balaris, Morel and Reed and do some investigation into how they actually are implementing tech+CCSS in their schools going forward.