Our Plan for Greater and More Effective Use

In alignment with our district goal of "developing a plan for greater and more effective use of technology by students and staff in their direct work", classroom teachers spent a half day learning more about technology and how to integrate it into their classrooms most effectively. Along with the campus ITS, teachers explored several technology tools, discovered how they were aligned to the Texas Technology TEKS, and made plans for implementation in the classroom. We continued to learn more about Google, specifically Google Drive, Promethean ActivInspire to refine our use of interactive whiteboards and student response devices, online collaboration and learning environments, and various web 2.0 tools. The campus ITS will continue to support the teachers beyond their training day, co-teaching with them as well as offering in class lessons.

Vikings Gone Google ~ The Amazing Race

As part of their beginning of the year staff development, teachers participated in a pseudo-Amazing Race style adventure as a way to learn a little bit more about Google Apps. Eight stations spread throughout the school, teachers had one hour to complete each task with their grade level team. At each station there was a 'virtual teacher' instructing them on how to complete the task. Challenges included creating groups in Contacts, adding campus and district calendars, and creating labels and applying filters, to name a few.

Technology Workshops

Our primary classroom teachers attended a half day workshop on technology integration hosted here at Voigt. Together with the campus ITS, we focused on ways to further integrate technology into their lessons that would target both technology TEKS and grade level curriculum TEKS. Teachers also had the opportunity to explore various types of software and create templates for future use. We used Wikispaces to record ideas and plan for future lessons. Click here to see our work.

 *photo courtesy of Microsoft Clip Art Gallery