Salisbury21.org
It’s been ages since I have blogged. That’s due to the fact that I started a new job last July as Director of Data and Technology for the Salisbury Township School District. We are a very small district just outside Allentown, Pennsylvania. One of my charges is to work with a cross section of people - students, teachers, parents, community, school board, administrators, and principals to develop a new technology and learning plan. In the past the focus was on the stuff, with curriculum - what was actually going on in the classrooms and teaching- being spoken of very little.
At our second meeting last Monday, I introduced the group to three technology tools to help us with our work. You can watch how our use of these tools develops over the year by visiting Salisbury21.org. I’ve put together a blog so that we can share interesting articles and pieces of information we find and learn; a wiki so that we can organize those ideas; and a discussion board to talk about things beyond our monthly meetings. So far, there are some blog posts and a bunch of ideas in the wiki. I am very excited to see how things develop and what the impact of using these tools will be on our plan. (We’ll see if everyone does their homework before the December 19 meeting!)
Also, interestingly, at one of our recent administrative meetings, the team indicated that they wanted to learn about and start blogging. So yesterday I unveiled their new blog and showed them how to start. The posts that are there now are a bit lame, but my goal was for them to get comfortable with posting and commenting - content wasn’t really the priority. I am hoping that this will develop into a tool for their own professional development. Ultimately, I think the power will be in the fact that they will have learned about these tools by doing. They will have a greater understanding of the technologies and how to use them, being able to help their own teachers with their instruction and practice with these tools. Principals are supposed to be the instructional leaders, aren’t they?
So stay tuned!
Are you calling my comments a bit lame?
Posted by on 02/11 at 09:30 AM
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