Calvin ArmstrongAppleby Collegecja26@drexel.edu

Nec temere, nec timide Neither rashly nor timidly

•700 students in a co-ed, boarding-day independent school on Lake Ontario near Toronto•100 faculty, 6 assistant headmasters and 1 headmaster•6 member IT staff responsible for network, tablets, web sites•Every student, every faculty member has a tablet PC•Wireless and wired networks throughout campus•All classrooms have a docking station, projector & Smartboards•School uses Blackboard for courses and administration tasks

High Tech…but sitting on the bleeding edge

HardwareTarget Tech

Connectivity

Mid TechContentTarget TechPD

High TechIntegratio

nHigh Tech

HardwareTarget Tech

Connectivity

Mid TechContentTarget TechPD

High TechIntegratio

nHigh Tech

Building a technology-active community

Communicate / Collaborate•Ensure involvement from all components of the school community•Provide both online discussion groups and face-to-face discussions•Survey present skill level, tech integration at home and at school•Find and distribute research to support questions and conclusions •Bring together a technology team with diverse backgrounds and skills•Publish all materials on a wiki for the entire community•Blog your experiences throughout the process•Model the online behavior you hope for by using educational technologies and provide professional development links for those interested

Getting everyone from here to there

Mentor groups•Always being concerned for their well-being, technologically and personally•Design an overall PD plan for each teacher based on existing skills•Develop each teacher’s digital portfolio (lesson plans, tasks, video, etc)•Plan for observation between teachers, formally and informally•Allow for failures, even spectacular ones, so that we learn from them

Use the technology as a guide•Find non-mission critical ways to draw people in (email, blogs, discussion groups) and at the same time construct an online communication space to use in the future•Every opportunity should be used to highlight new technologies; for example, the use of whiteboard movies or online surveys and then PD offered to show how it can be used in classrooms.

How will we know when we get there?

Observations•Classroom information being posted electronically, starting with syllabi and then moving to daily homework and then assessments & group projects as the years progress•Catch them doing well through formal & non-formal observations•Use external feedback (research, conferences, AP scores) to confirm our plan’s success

Documentation•Collect feedback from their small mentoring groups’ leaders, their students and the parents•Read online through their blogs or wikis, and their students’ published work

O brave new world That has such people in't!

•Change should not only be about new technologies, but developing opportunities for good teaching, learning and community building.

•The new technologies that are available allow us to be active constructors of our and our students’ knowledge - eschew passivity everywhere!

•We have tools to develop and display our understanding in a variety of ways - use them continually.

•Lead by example, but plan for each teacher to grow within their own zone.