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Significant Take-Aways: What Did We Learn, What Can We Use
Page history last edited by Paula 2 yrs ago
- Minnetonka has a $45million bond over 10 years sitting behind its technology effort. Passed the bond in 2002, have spend the $45million, and are going out for another bond next year. Clearly, a designated and consistent funding source has a huge impact.
- I asked a board member: What was technology like in the schools in Minnetonka 6 years ago (pre-bond)? Without missing a beat, she replied, "Random acts of greatness." That sounds like where we are in some of our schools.
- With that money, they set forth a district-wide path and established goals for all schools, classrooms, and staff. They invested in changing the teaching environment, with the following for each classroom:
* Ceiling mounted LCD projector * SMART board * Sound Field system (the surround sound kind of thing for the classroom) * DVD/VCR combo * Blackboard, K-12 (not just secondary)
- With an investment in the teaching environment, the professional development to support these changes moved from optional to expected. No one left behind. At the same time, I never got the impression that this was top-down or heavy-handed. It felt like a direction was established and support mechanisms put in place to assure everyone's success. It felt like teachers wanted to be part of training, since it was a total-school, indeed total-district, effort. The fact that PD was now the expected thing makes a huge difference. In our own district, I think we may have taken voluteerism about as far as it can go.
- They took the "random acts of greatness," combined that with a strategic and funded initiative, and created a "firestorm" - cool.
- I would point out that (except for Blackboard), the Minnetonka initiative is squarely aimed at teachers and delivery of instruction. We certainly saw kids using technoloy (computers, cameras, mics, specialized software etc), but the list above changes the teaching environment. In PAUSD, we have aimed more at access, both student and teacher. We have far more computers in the hands of kids than I saw in Minnetonka. We've invested more of our resources in the learner side, so to speak. After my visit, I'm thinking it's time to keep the learner side going with equipment refresh plans, but to significantly impact the teaching environment, the instructional delivery side. (Yes, the two - teaching and learning - are really integrated efforts, flip sides of the same coing, but you can delineate trends and needs on both sides.)
Significant Take-Aways: What Did We Learn, What Can We Use
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