Ed Tech's Chromebook PD Energizes Instruction

Chromebooks Are Here!

Recently, IT began delivering hundreds of Chromebooks and over 70 Chromebook carts to BVSD schools. (See Chromebooks @ BVSD for more details.) This isn’t the first introduction of Chromebooks into the district, but it’s certainly the largest. Many schools are supplementing their existing Chromebooks with these classroom sets, while others may not have had much previous experience with these devices.

Chromebooks integrate well into our existing Google environment. Since moving to Gmail and Google calendar in early 2012, Google Apps have become integral to many classrooms. Students collaboratively edit documents using Google Drive, teachers post YouTube video lectures on their Google Sites, and office staff schedules appointments with Google Calendar. Because Chrome is a Google product, it supports all of these apps and is ideal for running cloud-based software.

The Classroom is Changing

Moving to an online, collaborative environment is one of the fundamental changes happening in education. Students are becoming authors, editors, collaborators, and artists on the world stage, not just in their own classrooms. Of course, merely delivering a classroom set of Chromebooks to a school doesn’t create that change. The real change happens when instruction becomes student-driven. The Chromebook (or any other web-enabled device) is just a tool: the learning is the outcome.

Ed Tech supports teachers as they make this shift to 21st century instruction with a variety of professional development opportunities. Many of these trainings use devices, such as Chromebooks and iPads, but the focus is always on instruction and learning outcomes, not on the tool as a separate entity.

Chromebook PD Opportunities

Here are several upcoming opportunities that are available to any BVSD educator. Check the Ed Tech PD Opportunities website for a complete calendar of events.

• May 3, 2014 — Digital Innovative Learning Day
• August 19, 2014 — District PD: Elementary Literacy Using Chrome
• October 11-12, 2014 — Google for Education Colorado Summit
• Please note that the Google for Education Summit is put on by a professional development company called The EdTechTeam™. Attendees are required to pay a registration fee just as they would for any other conference.
• November 3, 2014 — Chrome Learning Day
• January 14, 2015 — Chrome Learning Day
• April/May 2015 — Digital Innovative Learning Day

Early Literacy eBook Collection

BVSD’s youngest readers now have access to quality, narrated eBooks. Our libraries recently acquired an early literacy eBook collection, offered for free as a product of a collaboration between Douglas County Libraries, the Colorado Library Consortium (CLiC), and Unite for Literacy. These organizations partnered to offer picture-book-style eBooks for young readers with multilingual narration. A recent article by Jamie LaRue in American Libraries Magazine, “The Price is Right at Unite for Literacy,” details the history of the partnership and the need for early literacy eBooks.

Each eBook has a variety of narration languages available.

Students, parents, and teachers can access the Unite for Literacy collection from the Unite for Literacy website. Clicking on an eBook image opens the title in the web-browser, where readers can select their narration language.

The Unite for Literacy website is arranged like a bookshelf for easy viewing.

These books are also accessible through district’s online catalog. Clicking on the link in the book’s description will take readers to the Unite for Literacy website.

eBook collections such as Unite for Literacy are part of the hybrid environment that is developing in many library collections. We anticipate more libraries in our district adopting a combination of digital and traditional library materials in order to best support their students.

Increasing students engagement using video technology - Media Cast

 

Media Cast

A loaded Treasure Trove

I’ve been playing in the big box of media content called MediaCast. If I put aside my just- Google-it goggles, I found that using some patience and very basic search skills (think: digging for treasure), there are some really good video resources. It’s truly like a jumbled warehouse of media (18,848 items!). I could wander for days looking at all the cool stuff. It’s loosely organized by topic, with a search bar that allows me to look for media by title (if I know it) or a keyword in the description. I can also narrow down my search using the filters on the left side - publisher, copyright date, grade level. I suggest starting with a keyword search before using the filters.

Last week, one of the providers for MediaCast, CCC!, uploaded a bunch of new material. The flyer is here. Check out all those new titles! We’ve got access now to a BBC series of Shakespeare theatre, as well as animated version of several Shakespeare plays (pages 1 and 9 of the flyer).

I am particularly interested in videos from the National Science Foundation and Inventions that Shook the World (pages 2 & 4). It was easiest to find those videos by using the title search. Many librarians have talked about using augmented reality in their libraries. The National Science Foundation has a short video about augmented reality in the operating room and combat zone. Amazing stuff! Here is a link directly to that video.

In the Inventions that Shook the World series, the flyer has the inventions organized by decade. MediaCast has it organized strictly by title of the invention. I’m partial to my Prius, so I watched The Hybrid Car video. I hadn’t realized that an American man invented the hybrid engine in the 1970’s, and that the US government wasn’t interested in pursuing the technology!

Related to these series is page 5, Greatest Human Achievements. Search for these videos using the titles in the bottom half of the page, not by the inventor names. These videos are perfect for Grades 4-12 STEM, and they are short and sweet.

Drive Thru History looks like a lot of fun as Dave Stotts drives through historic locations around the globe (page 3). Again, use the titles listed as your search term.

For students who are thinking of their future, there are two pages (pages 6 & 7) of titles for career choices called Major Decision. The copyright date is 2011, so most of the information is quite current.

What I really liked, while I was wandering through the new material, was the My Favorites feature of MediaCast. I didn’t have time to watch everything that interested me, so I clicked on a title and added it to My Favorites. When I have a moment, I’ll check out the videos and then manipulate them to fit my needs. I can snip the videos into segments that pertain to a teaching unit. Then I can add captions to those parts of the video that students need to pay attention to, to clarify something, or ask a question for the students to think about during that segment. I have been creating unique URLs for these segments, which I can then embed in emails, websites, or presentations.

I suspect MediaCast is a little-used wealth of media. I encourage you to take some time to browse what we have at our beck and call. Let me know what gem you’ve uncovered!

How to snag a segment How to create a URL

How to add captions CCC! new material flyer

by Rae Ciciora

Professional Development at BVSD

Attendance is on the rise at Ed Tech professional development opportunities, and not just at our many in-district trainings. More and more teachers and administrators are attending regional, state, and national events, then bringing back what they learn to their schools. A growing number of teachers are increasing their presence outside the district by presenting at conferences and collaborating with nationally recognized educators. This cycle of learning and sharing through high-quality professional development is helping to create a culture of learning while integrating technology, which is in alignment with the mission and vision of BVSD.

The Ed Tech team provides many opportunities for staff to engage in professional development throughout the year. We have even been able to fund attendees to regional and national events. This school year, we are excited to offer many venues to collaborate with colleagues and experts both inside and outside of the district. Upcoming opportunities include:

Ongoing professional learning groups

• Teacher librarians and technology contacts attend monthly
• 21st Century Cohort members meet throughout the year and participate in an online community

Mini-conferences

• BVSD Technology in Education (TIE) Learning Day - Nov 2, 2013
• Chrome Learning Day - Oct 29, 2013
• iPad Learning Day - 120 attendees in April 2013, another coming up April 2014

Trainings

• Core Software
• Core Software Open House - Sept 25, 2013
• Elementary Core Software Days - Oct 21, 2013
• Secondary Core Software Days - Oct 28, 2013
• Core Software PD Digital Storytelling - Nov 6, 2013
• Core Software PD Flipped Classroom - Feb 26, 2014
• Core Software PD Social Networking - Apr 23, 2014
• Google Ninja refresher training - Feb 5, 2014

Full-length conferences

• InnEdCo Conference (formerly TIE) - June 2014
• In 2013 we were able to fund 40 attendees
• Colorado Association of School Libraries (CASL) - Sep 28, 2013
• We are funding 8 teacher librarians to attend
• Google Apps for Education (GAFE) Rocky Mountain Summit - Aug 2014
• In 2013 we had 121 attendees from BVSD, 9 of whom were also presenters--there were over 300 people from around the country at this event!
• Watch the 9News story on this event
  
  

We encourage teachers and administrators to take advantage of professional development opportunities offered by BVSD and outside the district. Visit our PD Opportunities website for a current calendar of events, and read more details about what’s in store this year on our Ed Tech blog.

Core Software in BVSD: From Many to Most Impactful

What tools are your students using in the classroom? What types of devices are in your school? Students in Boulder Valley have access to iPads, laptops, Chromebooks, netbooks, PCs, Macs, and more, in addition to their personal devices. This shift in the variety of tools that students use in turn impacts educational software: it needs to be available on any device, anytime, anywhere. This requirement has driven a fundamental change in Core Software in BVSD.

For several decades, the number of Core Software titles grew until they were unsustainable. We began to experience incompatibility issues between older software titles and newer computer technology. At the same time, the nature of how we delivered instruction using technology also changed. The need to purge and reassess became imminent. We realized that we needed to refine our software titles and adoption process, similar to how teachers continually refine their lesson plans.

That need prompted an inquiry process that began in September 2011 by a group of community stakeholders called the Educational Technology Leadership Council (ETLC). This group helped guide the vision of the ideal learning environment in Boulder Valley. Building on that vision, an internal cohort of administrators, teachers, and specialists inventoried our software titles, which topped out at over 80, and planned a course of action to make necessary improvements.

The next steps included district-wide surveys, conversations with stakeholder groups such as teacher-librarians, curriculum directors, tech contacts, as well as all levels of IT. The results of these conversations led to weeding titles that were antiquated, for examples those purchased in 1985. New titles were measured against the ETLC vision for the ideal learning environment and balanced with financial needs and meeting anytime, anywhere access for students.

As a product of this work, Ed Tech has created a Core Software website that showcases a “Supported Core Software List”. For each educational software title, this list shows where it can be accessed, its instructional use, and related information.  Scrolling down the page, there are titles that have reached their “End-of-Life” and are no longer supported by the district. If your favorite title is on this list, you can find an upgraded alternative in the “Replaced by” section.

Schools seeking training on Core Software titles have many experts and training opportunities available to them. For example, each school’s Tech Contact and Teacher Librarian have been offered training on many key software pieces—these staff members are excellent resources. In addition to the expert in each building, Ed Tech is offering several Professional Development Opportunities starting with a Core Software Open House on Wednesday, September 25th. Check out the BVSD Ed Tech website for more resources about Core Software.

Tech Contacts: A Valuable Resource

Tech Contacts are individuals chosen to be liaisons between their schools and the district IT Department. Through their their role as technology leaders and with their support for technology integration, Tech Contacts help adopt processes, solve problems, and design steps for the future of technology in BVSD. This group meets once a month (usually the last Tuesday of the month) for a total of six times during the year. The Tech Contact site has resources and meeting details.

In the past, this group has shaped software purchases, device choices, and technology vision and plans. More recently, this group worked closely with IT to devise a plan for password changes, asked for weekly tips and tricks from IT, and requested that a professional development calendar be distributed to staff once a month. They have looked at software choices, advocated for the addition of Macs, iPads, and Chromebooks, and recommended Wi-Fi upgrades to our schools. This group will have input regarding the upcoming Tech Refresh model. IT leadership values Tech Contacts as a pertinent stakeholder group and uses their recommendations to inform technology decisions, so your school’s representation is very important.

Attendance at Tech Contact meetings have fluctuated throughout the year. Some schools send a representative each month, while some schools are not as present. If you want to have a voice in district-wide technology decisions, to receive professional development, and to influence the future direction of technology in BVSD, you should have a representative on the Tech Contact committee. Members of this committee did receive salary credit last year if they attended all meeting sessions. Please visit with Kelly Sain or Andrew Moore if there is a teacher from your school who would like to be a Tech Contact. We’d love to hear from you!

21st Century Teacher Librarians

As we continue to create innovative 21st Century educators and students in BVSD, we must also embark on a journey to create 21st Century libraries and learning centers. Recently, our teacher librarians and the Library Advisory Council developed a white paper and strategic plan to envision this evolving role of the teacher librarian. This plan drew upon resources from the Colorado Department of Education, the American Association of School Librarians, and teacher librarian expertise as part of the collaboration and revision process.

The strategic plan documents how the role of the teacher librarian is moving beyond the four walls of the library and into opportunities that include developing online collaboration and communities, teaching digital literacy and citizenship, as well as providing equitable access to information in a variety of formats and mediums.

Ultimately, the mission of the BVSD teacher librarian is to “provide equitable access for students and teachers to 21st century libraries staffed by 21st century librarians in order to create a culture of lifelong learners and a community of digital citizens” (BVSD Teacher Librarian Mission Statement, 2013).

As our teacher librarians continue to develop and grow, we invite you to explore the following resources to help you gain an understanding of the role they are pursuing. These websites will continue to evolve as our teacher librarians work towards becoming 21st century learners and leaders.

21st Century Library Website

Visions from our 21st Century Librarian Cohort

Our belief that “the school library functions as a vital instrument in the educational process, not as a separate entity isolated from the total school program, but involved in the teaching and learning process” empowers our teacher librarians to move beyond the four walls of their libraries to impact student learning and engagement and to collaborate with teachers and staff. (International Association of School Librarianship, 2003)

In order to see the growth and journey of our teacher librarians this year, we invite you to attend  our Teacher Librarian PLC Showcase at the end of the year as a way to see the various projects and collaborations they have participated in this year. Check out the commercial below!