Last week I took a team of 6 teachers to OETC in Columbus. The group consisted of Colby Kuhn, Jared Owens, Shay Sheets, Zack Rosenbeck, Kristie McCormick, Shane Leeth and me. Group members took several different tracks. Shane looked at Augmented Reality and Gaming in the school setting. Zack and Jared looked at some formative assessment tracks. Shay focused on ELA and technology links while Kristie focused on technology that would benefit visual arts and publising. Lastly Colby looked at tech that would be best utillized at our younger grades and some speech assistance software.
I chose to look at what other districts were doing to prepare of Next Generation Assessments. I quickly discovered that there were many strategies. I particulary like the sessions put on by Bay Curriculum Director, Char Shyrock. Her first session surrounded Tech Intergration and how important it is to have students ready, particularly the special ed population, for NGAs. The slides for that presentation may be viewed here. I also attened her afternoon session titled, NGAs are coming. Are your students ready? Those presentation slides may be viewed here.
Lastly, Char inspired me to start this blog and to have it serve as a rescource for our district, similar to the one she created. I am excited to strart this new journey and to share some of the things I learn and gather as I travel to various meetings and sessions across the state. I will also use this blog to share various links to important sites as it relates to PARCC, OTES, SLOs, Resident Educator and other state initiatives. It is also my goal to post PRIDE meeting notes and summaries here. I am sure that this will be a process and will be something that evolves as I learn more and more everyday. Let the journey begin.
