Sharpening the Saw in the Tech World    

As we continue to evolve at integrating technology into the classroom, professional development takes priority over any tool/application that we can offer. It has been a focus of the District Technology Team to offer a variety of ways to expand the knowledge of our teachers to best use technology as a tool this school year.

Over the past few months, staff has had the opportunity to attend ‘in-house’ staff development sessions. This started with 4 hours during the summer of district-wide professional development with a focus solely on technology.

From that point, each building has established a technology committee consisting of grade-level teachers and facilitated by the Media Specialist/Integrationist. This group is the voice for sustaining training at the building level. In the past month, the High School staff had the option of attending sessions on Google Docs, Schoology or iPads in the classroom. Both Elementary schools were trained on iPad Apps/Tips and Tricks. The Middle School session is scheduled later this month.

Our focus is going to be on sustaining training throughout the year and to focus on collaboration between teachers, departments, buildings and a district as we use similar technology tools and applications moving forward.

Going outside of our school has also proved to be fruitful with staff members attending such conferences as Minnesota Educational Media Organization, Skyward Training, Apple Conference and soon a Technology in Education Conference.

Both the ‘in-house’ trainings and area conferences have helped continue our focus of using technology to be a tool to enhance and accelerate excellence in education. All of which fall under our Leading and Learning Technology Strategic Plan which can be found at http://www.sartell.k12.mn.us/technology