Ed Tech Talk: 21st Century Learning Podcast

Jeff Mao Coordinator of Educational Technology manages professional development workshops. He makes sure things are headed in the right direction. He works in a school district with 4400 laptops for students. One of the teachnologies used is Studywiz. It is an online learning system. Once you log in everything is there from all of your classes, it is different from blackboard where you have to go into each class separately. It is teacher-student centered. The teacher can set up chats for a certain number of students at one time. I think this is a really nice way to integrate technology. The student have an opporunity to engage in the classroom from there home just as college students do.

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The laptops are deployed to 7 and 8 grade students. The district will work on 9-12 deployment next year. I also like the fact that there are professional development workshops for teachers and principles. The district ulitizes 4 levels of technology integration. The workshops for principles has an emphasis on how to become an effective leader and how to look for technology integration in the classroom. I like the fact that the principles are the only ones in the room and they have group work and discussions on how to improve.
Mao states “technology can be used as a solution to make the schools run smoothly". I would have to a gree. Because everything is at the tip of your fingers, it is less paper work, and the students are totally engaged in learning.
To listen click here Ed Tech Talk: 21st Century Learning Podcast.