Hello!! !!
Welcome to our first issue of the Ed Tech office newsletter. If you are a teacher in LBUSD, you will by now have heard of Chromebooks, iPads and G Suite and more than likely have even used one of these tools at a district training, school training, or possibly in your classroom with your students. As of February 27th our district had 25,691 Chromebooks and 10,962 iPads distributed throughout our schools and departments - and more on the way! In addition to the devices, every teacher and student has received a Google account and an Office 365 account. The explosion of mobile devices and the access to cloud-based digital tools for everyone at sites necessitated the addition of two Integrated Curriculum Coaches.
Who We Are
The Ed Tech office is under the office of OCIPD and has been in our district for 18 years. It has been headed by Vanitha Chandrasekhar and it has had tech coaches in the past funded by various grants. For the 2016-17 school year, the district has funded two Curriculum Integration Coaches: Lynn Gay and Javier de Santiago. Both of them come with experience using technology with students in the classroom. Lynn has an elementary background and Javier has a secondary background.
What We Do
The bulk of our work this year has been focused on the integration of technology in the classroom. Typically, we get an email from an administrator who has just received Chromebooks at their site and wants to support his/her teachers with how to use them effectively with students. After a couple of surveys to gather data from both the administrator and the teachers, a PD plan is created and training is customized to fit the context, pedagogy, and content of the teacher. The Technological, Pedagogical, and Content Knowledge - or TPACK - framework has become the foundation for all of our work. The framework focuses our efforts on building the technological knowledge of the teacher who is the content and pedagogy expert.
What We Offer
No matter what technology you are using at your site: iPads, Chromebooks, Mac's, PC's, Office 365 or G Suite the Ed Tech office can support you with personalized professional development. We offer various one-hour trainings that can be delivered during a faculty meeting or department meeting. We also offer three-hour trainings when the site is able to release their teachers during the school day. These three-hour trainings have been very successful in getting teachers comfortable with multiple Google apps and Chromebooks. Our main goal after each training is for the teacher to walk away with something concrete that they can use in their class right away. We have created several Self-Paced Learning Opportunties in myPD for teachers to access handouts and resources for their classroom. We are constantly building and adding resources to myPD, but if there is a resource that you need and it is not currently available, simply contact our office.
Staying Connected
To stay up to date on new resources, tech tips, and trainings we highly suggest that you click on "Subscribe to Our Newsletter" on the top right of this page to subscribe to this blog with your email. That way when something new gets posted you will be notified. You can also follow us on Pinterest and Twitter to receive weekly tips.
myPD
In an effort to provide personalized professional development using our district's very own myPD system, we have created various self-paced learning opportunities for anyone wishing to increase their technological knowledge.
- Course #3587: Assigning Wonders ELA Digital Assessments and Resources
- Course #3619: G Suites Handouts
- Google Docs
- Google Slides
- Google Drive
- Google Calendar
- Google Forms
- Google Calendar
- Course #3620: Video Support for Google Classroom
Tech Tip
One awesome aspect of Google Suites is the ability to SHARE what you create! Teachers are sharing their work and making it available as a “View Only” document. That’s where "File → Make a Copy" comes in. When someone shares a Google file with you as “View Only” - you can easily make it your own. Just click on FILE → Make a Copy and Google will put a copy of that file into your Google Drive. Click here for a short video showing you how!
Approved for Publication:
Pamela Seki, Assistant Superintendent,
Curriculum, Instruction and Professional Development
Approved for Publication:
Pamela Seki, Assistant Superintendent,
Curriculum, Instruction and Professional Development
