Teach21 at NCTIES

Teach21 Bolton will tell its story at next week's annual North Carolina Technology in Education Society Conference in Raleigh, NC. The presentation is entitled Teach21: Building Capacity. It will highlight the process, the teachers, the students, and the technology that has started to transform our classrooms into 21st Century learning spaces and change the way we are teaching. It's a story worth telling and hearing!

It's Contagious

It's Contagious

Seeing students create with technology is exciting! When other colleagues see its power and begin to explore using it in different ways then we know our initiative is working. Mrs. Patten, who is not a member of the initial Teach21 team, has gotten on board and tried something new using a product called voicethread. Mrs. Patten is a small group resource teacher who wanted a new way to get students excited about reading so she chose some plays, assigned students their roles, and used a digital camera and voicethread to put a new twist on readers theater. Her fifth grade students posed for pictures to illustrate the play with everything down to props and costumes, and then narrated the play by posting audio comments.
It was something new, and something she wasn't totally comfortable with, but Mrs. Patten took "the leap." The product is pretty impressive, and you can view the play about Franklin Roosevelt by clicking on the play button above this post.

Making It Routine

At our most recent Teach21 collaborative meeting the team shared their first tries at making Smart Board lessons. The varied lessons showed creativity, some fresh thinking, and some new twists on some older ideas. Their use of their Smart Boards helped them with not only instruction and assessment, but also basic management of student information and managing their day. One thing was crystal clear - having the Smart Board in the classroom to use every day is a critical piece to success. We also discussed how me might share our Smart notebook lesson school-wide so the we benefit from each other's creativity and lighten the already overwhelming workload.
An interesting aside came about in a recent casual conversation with a colleague here at Bolton. That person was refreshingly forthcoming saying they were skeptical as they watched the beginning phases of Teach21 as they unfolded this year. However, now that they've seen just how impactful it has been they have changed their perspective. They now realize how a technologically rich environment can engage and motivate students. If we as educators can make that routine, then we are bound to educate our students with variety and depth.

Pics from Our Smart Board Installation