Conference highlights ways to integrate curriculum and technology in area classrooms

  • Patricia Faulhaber
  • March 10, 2013
  • 329
                        
Summary: Integrating Curriculum and Technology conference offers area primary and secondary school teachers and administrators new insights for using technology in classrooms. Main Article: Technology continues to change the way people live, work, have fun and learn. From having technology at our fingertips everyday in everything from microwaves to changing the channel on the television, to driving cars that can parallel park themselves, technology touches almost every aspect of our lives these days. Business, industry, government, and community organizations were quick to adapt to the onslaught of business computing and other technology. Education rapidly equipped buildings and classrooms with computers, wireless networks and the Internet. In the early days K12 school districts used computers to teach keyboarding starting in the elementary grades. From there, teaching math and other subjects using educational games on the computers became the norm. Next, schools started using the Internet for research and communicating with students from around the world. Today, primary and secondary education is taking using technology to a whole new level. Area teachers joined others from around three states at the Integrating Curriculum & Technology Conference hosted by the East Central Ohio Educational Service Center (ECOESC) to learn about new tools and techniques to effectively expand their use of technology in the classroom. “The ECOESC sat down with area school principals to see what they were interested in for a conference, they said they wanted to see area teachers presenting the many ways they were using technology in their classrooms,” said Cindy Laughlin, ECOESC and co-organizer of the event. “The conference is an opportunity for teachers to see and hear from other teachers. We teamed up with eInstruction and CIM Technology to bring in teachers from around Ohio, West Virginia and Pennsylvania,” she said. There were also technology vendors setup for teachers to see what’s on the horizon in hardware and software. The registration fee included a continental breakfast, lunch, conference materials and contact hour credit. There were 53 breakout sessions for teachers and 15 for administrators. “We wanted to keep the cost reasonable while providing a vast array of technology presentations,” Laughlin said. Nic Brown, director of IT for the ECOESC, said area schools are making a transition to digital in several ways. For example, Brown said Indian Valley schools are giving students Netbooks to use as digital textbooks instead of printed textbooks. “One of the main reasons we started hosting this conference is to provide the opportunities for teachers to learn by example from their peers,” Brown said. The keynote speaker was Ed Settles, superintendent of Jersey CUSD #100 in Jerseyville, IL. He along with Alan Churchman, a principal at one of the schools in the Jersey CUSD #100 district, shared their plan to convert to their district to digital. Plans include converting grades 5-12 by the beginning of the 2013-2014 school year and the lower grades by 2017. “Our district promotes, advocates and endorses training each other,” Settles said. One of the concepts Settles said has been helping the district with their digital conversion was assigning teachers and others to be digital coaches. These coaches are considered the eyes and ears on the ground, problem solvers, trainers and facilitators. A secondary benefit is that the digital coaches are teachers helping and relating to other teachers. Settles talked about the ways they found the money for the conversion through repurposing district funds and finding grants. He suggested the following components must be in place for a successful conversion: • Support for the change of practice • Ready digital curriculum • Getting the infrastructure prepared • Lots of planning and project management • Student management software A few of the breakout session topics for teachers included tech tools for teachers, building quality online courses, iPad apps, Web 2.0 tools to engage students, key shifts in common core state standards, beginnings of BYOT (bring your own technology), project based learning and using SMART Boards in the classroom. For administrators, topics included critical information systems, lesson design and an update on STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics) initiatives in Tuscarawas County. Megan Farver, Garaway Local Schools, was demonstrating Web sites and other tech tools for teachers in her breakout session. She provided sites for students to get help with math, reading and other topics. “I’ve found that today’s technology tools help teachers integrate the common core standards and help students with higher level thinking skills,” Farver said. Kelly Ferdinand, central region trainer with eInstruction, feels software is the driving force for many educational product providers. She presented a session on making 1:1 learning a reality using Insight360 and the iPad. “The future of technology in the classroom is moving away from providing hardware and to primarily offering software for the classroom which is leaning towards using tablets, the Internet and Cloud computing,” Ferdinand said. The conference was held on March 8 on the campus of Kent State University Tuscarawas.


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