This Teacher Maximizes Her District’s Technology Investment

Here’s how Katie, a teacher, maximizes her district’s technology investment…

How are you working with tech roles and admins to maximize their technology investment in schools?

I work with our school administration and School Improvement Coordinator to help in professional development and teacher education and training on the use of apps, websites, and services to keep our faculty and staff up-to-date with the latest trends in technology and social media.

Technology is constantly evolving, as a teacher how do you stay informed about your school’s technology program?

I stay informed about our school’s tech programs by utilizing our district IT personnel, and especially our students who use technology more than any of our faculty and staff.  I follow our tech applications on social media to learn about new updates and programs and try to use each piece of technology or application to its advantage in the classroom so I can help my colleagues out when needed.

What practices (e.g., trainings, edtech days, PD sessions) does your school perform for teachers to ensure your student device initiatives enhance learning?

We have at least one EdTech professional development day each year, in which teachers attend “breakout” sessions to learn about how to best utilize our classroom technology.  We also have IT professionals who are willing to come into the classroom and help us utilize classroom tech with students on any given lesson.

What internal and external resources (e.g., LMS, CMS, Websites, Apps, etc.) does your school provide to help teachers maximize digital learning in your classroom?

Our school provides a number of internal and external resources to maximize learning. Basically, anything we want to use in our classroom can be pitched, approved, and paid for through our classroom budgets; if it exceeds our budget, it can be paid for through a community fund or foundation grant. In grades 6-12 We use Discovery Education, DyKnow, EdReady, Hudl, Remind, GooseChase, Canvas, InfiniteCampus, Prodigy, and a variety of others. Technology has been a large and important initiative in our school district in the past five years because we were so behind in it and were playing “catch up”.  Now, we’ve reached 1:1 capacity for our students 6-12 and our PK-5 students are utilizing technology on a daily basis.