(Cross posted at LeaderTalk)
I have targeted my efforts in increasing the capacity of web 2.0 in our district towards administrators. It is my firm belief that until these tools become part of the regular work that our district undertakes on a regular basis, we will never see saturation in the classrooms. So I thought I would take some time here to highlight the ways our district has begun to infuse new technologies into the work we do.
- Our district web site is now syndicated with RSS
- The Assistant Superintendent of Support Services began the Bow Tie Blog to keep the community up to date on the construction of new facilities.
- All of the Board meetings are made available via podcast.
- One of our high school principals makes a weekly phone call to the homes of all the students. He then converts the files each week to MP3s and posts them on the school web site as a podcast so that families who missed the call on Sunday night can still access the information.
This is an exciting start towards becoming district 2.0. There is still quite a lot of work to do and some of it is in the works. Our Superintendent challenged the textbook adoption committee to look beyond the textbook for materials and to make a greater use of technology. The elementary level embraced this idea and is going textbookless next year for Social Studies and instead will be relying heavily on technology for information needs. However, our high schools are still buying a book for every student. The middle schools are, well, in the middle. They are purchasing a class set of books for each teacher and using the remaining money on technology.
I would like to see more blogging and reflective practice coming out of our Instructional Services department. I understand the time challenges, but how can we expect our teachers to use these tools with their children if we don’t model good use of the tools for them?
