Wednesday, December 4, 2013

Creating vs Consuming

In my previous blog post I talked about my schools recent revamp of it's tech plan and tech vision. We came to the realization that we want to find ways for students to be creators and not so much consumers. More entrepreneurial and innovative. So to create these opportunities, we are looking at how to incorporate more STEAM opportunities for students in the form of MakerSpaces, an AV studioYour school and Googles 9 Principles for Innovation describes what we are trying to accomplish.  Creativity, Collaboration, Critical Thinking, and Communication are key components. I will keep you posted!
and video broadcasting, robots and programming and even revamping our scheduling of classes. It is an exciting time to be at my school and I am excited to be a part of the planning and implementation of the vision for our students. I feel that this is the right way to prepare our students for the future in order to help them to pursue their dreams and be innovative. This recent blog post:

The Best PD ever

If you want a professional growth experience that really makes you do some self evaluation, sit on a Technology Planning committee and go through a school tech plan visioning. The outcome could be
professionally life changing and refreshing.

My school recently went through its tri-annual self-assessment in this area and I being one of the technology coaches and teachers in the school, was part of this process. This was a three-day process and was facilitated by a professional facilitator. She took us through finding out what our philosophies were, what research was out there, examined other plans, what trends were occurring now in education and technology and in 10-20 years, what we could see students doing when they came to school, and aligned everything to our schools mission statement. Our schools mission statement I am pleased to say, is very progressive and it has guided all of our schools efforts towards improving all its programs. The schools mission statement lent itself to creating an exciting, forward-thinking student-focused tech vision, with the focus being on preparing students to be creative, collaborate, and be effective communicators. 


Although it was tiring and it took my weekend, I found this process to be professionally rewarding and invaluable for guiding my teaching and integration focus in the future. For those that were a bit pessimistic about the process, they to walked away with a sense of accomplishment and knowing they contributed to the schools future. So if you get a chance, do it. Our technology vision is awaiting official approval from our board, but once it receives the final go-ahead, I will publish it here.