Technology on the T's

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A brand new program entitled Technology on the T's has been initiated!

On Tuesday or Thursday of each week personalized technology training is offered after school to the staff of The Learning Center. Days are varied and posted such that educators can work the Professional Development into their own schedule thus giving them the flexibility they need in order to attend.

Last week's starting focus was upon the website Lesson Writer.

Lesson Writer allows an educator to easily construct higher-order thinking prompts based upon online or teacher generated content. Not only can higher-order thinking prompts be produced, but the website also extracts vocabulary word lists from the content and allows for scaffolding of questions. Since these are merely a few of the features offered by the website it will be a continuing topic of investigation for the next Technology Tuesday.

Once educators became familiar with Lesson Writer the training became more personalized. For example, the online digital game for middle school pre-algebra students, Lure of the Labyrinth , was introduced to one educator while another began brushing up on SMARTBoard skills by diving into the online gallery.  Another educator was given instruction into the advanced searches that Google can provide while another was shown features of our current e-mail system. This personalization can occur since educators are given the option to state their learning objectives prior to the event.

The purpose of Technology on the T's is to give educators personalized training that maximizes their use of time. Too many times technology training is not obviously relevant to the needs of educators and/or does not allow them time to try out what has been learned. With Technology on the T's, The Learning Center is hoping to make the implementation of technology practical, useful and desirable.

See you on the T's!