Tech Chat! ADA Compliance Document
March 30, 2017

Welcome to Tech Chat!

Welcome everyone to this March 2017 edition of Tech Chat! We are delighted that you have all joined us. 

Just to let you all know, this webinar is being recorded. If at any time you are having difficulty with hearing the audio through your computer, feel free to join us by phone using the instructions on the bottom left side of your screen.

My name is April Drennan, and I am the Instructional Technologist for the Bureau of Standards and Instructional Support here at FDOE. 

Others present:
Ashley Palelis: Computer Science Specialist
Katrina Figgett: Director of Science, Mathematics & Instructional Technology

Today’s topic is Professional Development Models. Our presenters are Marian O’Leary and Lauren Hobbs from Dell EMC along with Terrence O’Leary from St. Lucie County Schools. We also have Caitlyn Distler and Melanie Kestory from Volusia County Schools. Finally, Bradley Smrstick from Hillsborough County Schools will be presenting.

Before we begin with the presentations, let’s review our schedule for today along with a few instructions for participating in today’s webinar.

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Today’s Agenda

3:00-3:05 – Opening Remarks and Poll Questions
3:05-3:10– Presentation and Q & A with Dell
3:10-3:25 – Presentation and Q & A with St. Lucie County Schools
3:25-3:40 – Presentation and Q & A with Volusia County Schools
3:40-3:55 – Presentation and Q & A with Hillsborough County Schools
3:55-4:00 – Closing Announcements

Remember to type your questions and comments in the question/chat box at any time during the presentations.	

Also, we have a Google Doc created for you to add any resources or announcements you might have.
To access this page, go to bit.ly/techchatpd.
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Poll Question: Would you like for us to continue Tech Chat! during the summer?
4 responses for “Yes, keep things just as they are.”
3 responses for “maybe/not sure”
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Presentation #1: (Dell and St. Lucie)
Our first presenters are from Dell/EMC. 
Marian O’Leary – Account Executive: 30 years in IT focused on education market
		Worked as sales executive at Microsoft, Hewlett Packard, Apple
		Experiences shaped her approach to building partnerships 
		private foundations, private business, public school organizations

Lauren Hobbs – Manager of Education Strategy, former educator
		supports institutions throughout the country in creating learning environments
		and systems to support digital transformation

Terrence O’Leary – Chief Information Officer, St. Lucie County Schools
		23 years experience project management, IT governance, systems development

PowerPoint Presentation: 
Rethinking Professional Learning: A partnership with St. Lucie Public Schools supporting the journey in creating Student Centered Outcomes

Speaker: Lauren Hobbs (Dell)
- Very happy to have this partnership with St. Lucie.
- Dell values the role students play in anytime anyplace learning
- Dell supports a personalized approach to learning
- These beliefs/values make this partnership a natural fit.

Speaker: Terence O’Leary (St. Lucie County Schools)
Goal: Develop a solution to increase student engagement aligned to our mission/vision statement
	- every child every day
	- being ready for college and career-ready
- The focus is not about technology but on curriculum and students.
- Professional Development plans were produced in less than 6 months.
- Under a short deployment timeline, the solution was both thoughtful and purposeful.
- We needed a solution that allowed anytime anywhere learning for students.

Our initial efforts focused on two high schools.
- Because schools have different needs and cultures, solutions must be customizable. Student voice, -  - We received feedback from students, teachers, and leadership to determine the needs of these separate groups. 
- We also worked with the community to be a part of the solution.

Speaker: Lauren Hobbs
Typically, there are “three buckets” of professional learning.
	- learning experiences such as conferences to explore new tools and ideas
	- training to help change practices in the classroom
	- professional growth to provide a process-based approach to impact daily teaching practice 	and student achievement
- Dell and St. Lucie used a professional growth approach.

Professional Learning:
- Provide sustained learning opportunities focused on learning outcomes and centered on meeting teachers at the point of need.

Major issue with Professional Development in Education:
- We have very structured and industrialized model of education.
- Now technology gives us the tools to use more individualized teaching strategies.
- Often, professional development is still provided using the industrial factory model of “stand and deliver.”
- Then we expect teachers to provide instruction to students using a student-centered approach.
- Dell and St. Lucie try to model more authentic learning experiences during professional development.

Speaker: Terence O’Leary

Initiative: Access Now (two high schools)

Each Child, Every Day:

“Our goals were not about the devices. They were about establishing the methodologies our teachers and students need to make student-centered learning successful. We engaged the professional learning services team to help us because it came forward with a holistic approach.”
(Quote from Terence)

- The initiative was led by the Chief Academic Officer.
- It had to be driven by curriculum.
-  There could not be silos between departments (IT, PD, etc.). We all worked together to meet the expected outcomes
- We included input from students to better understand their needs.
- We did a lot of pre-planning.
- We continue to move the program forward to other schools in the district.
- Our professional development modeled curriculum approaches we want teachers to use in the classroom.
- Technology shouldn’t drive the professional development.
- The focus should be on student-centered instruction.

We recognized early on that we needed a partner.
- Dell helped us to deploy 3,000 laptops. 
- They up a system and process in place to make things run smoothly.

What is Working Well
- We did extensive pre-planning. 
- The deployment plan worked well.
- We held weekly collaborative planning meetings.
- We created a safe risk-free environment accepting teachers at all levels.
- Leadership opportunities for teachers and aspiring administrators
- We saw a boost in school spirit among students.
- It has become easier for student to complete homework.
- Students and teachers have easier access to resources.

Positives:
- We have a higher level of communication.
- The schools have fewer discipline problems.
- There is more school spirit.
- Differentiation was easier to implement for students who required it.
- There are options for learning that go beyond the school day.
	- CTE opportunities-access 24/7 for project-based learning
- There is an increase in student engagement.
- There is an increase in student feedback
- There is more individualized instruction that is standards-based.
- More teachers are requesting Professional Development.
- There is increased access for Edgenuity/Credit Lab.
- Teacher reflection is impacting instruction.
- We have also assigned technology coaches for teachers.
- We now Provide opportunities for collaborative planning

What Needs to be Refined
-  We needed to address the appropriate use of laptops.
-  Further work needs to be done with digital citizenship and social media use.
-  There are still issues with connectivity outside of school.
-  Teachers often overestimated students’ abilities on computers.
-  More opportunities for family involvement are needed.

PD for Teachers
- We used a multifaceted approach and mostly teacher-initiated.
- Our pre-planning focused on the basics of Office 365 and TIMS.
- We provided differentiated instruction on PD days
- We offered one-on-one teacher-initiated training with a tech coach.
- Authentic, job-embedded collaborative planning time with departments once a week was required.
- We have a PD channel featuring model classrooms.

Faculty Council wanted you to know:
- They were hungry to technology.
- They consider technology to be an equitable platform to teach all students.
- Faculty have a more efficient work life
- This initiative has rejuvenated growth mindset and empowered teachers and students to be continual learners
- Students have better collaboration skills.
- The technology allows ESE students to be more focused in class and allows teachers to update data right at IEP meetings to increase efficiency.

Observed: Impacts Schoolwide in 9 Weeks
- Homework completion has increased.
- Students are working at lunch time.
- There is increased collaborations between students.
- There has been an impact on communication
- We have seen reduced discipline problems.
- Students have asked for Project-Based Learning.

Graduation Rates
- Our graduation rates are at an all-time high of 86.8%.
- We have had the 4th largest gain in the state.
- We have increased the graduation rate 11% in one school year.
- We have seen bigger differences when considering different demographics.
	- 14.1% increase for black students
	- 9.8% Hispanic students
	- 10.5% white students

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Q & A for Dell/St. Lucie

Question for Presenter: 
- Can you please expand on the connectivity outside of school? Are you putting emphasis on a vendor or a local ISP?

Answer: 
- Our district is doing multiple things. We went to businesses and put up stickers where students could leverage Wifi. 
- We have used the low-cost Comcast solution.
- We have applied for Sprint solution
- We have also worked with HUD program to increase access outside of school.

Question for Presenter: 
- Can you please share about the CTE laptop being referenced earlier?
Answer: 
- Every student had a laptop. 
- Students can download and have available CTE materials required to complete projects 24/7.
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Presentation #2: Volusia County 
Now we will hear from Caitlyn Distler and Melanie Kestory from Volusia County.

Caitlyn Distler – Learning Technologies Specialist, former classroom teacher
		helps to implement best practices for using tech in classroom
		loves helping others learn about transformative learning through technology

Melanie Kestory – Lead Facilitator of the Digital Classroom Plan for Volusia
		Previous experience: Blended Learning Specialist, Academic Coach, classroom
		teacher
		Passion, helping teachers reach full potential for personalizing learning through use 
		of technology integration

Professional Models and Practices in Volusia County
- We put an emphasis on importance of personalized learning for students and teachers.
- We are being a Future Ready school district.

PLAYDATE: People learning and Asking Y: Digital age teacher exploration
- The PLAYDATE event was the culminating event for Digital Learning Day held at night.
- We got idea from Learning Forward modeled after Maryland School District

Playdate
-  The playdate format offers teachers the opportunity to play with technology.
-  One of our misconceptions was that a playdate followed the EdCamp format…
-  In reality, it is meant to give teachers a chance to explore new technologies.
-  Teachers told us what technologies they wanted to play with.
-  We organized the stations by 4 essential skills.
-  Teachers moved through stations and were the drivers of their own learning.
-  Students brought in their own technology and taught teachers how to use it.
-  There have been many requests to have students at future trainings.

We provided guiding questions for teachers participating in the playdate:
- When exploring new resources, consider the following:
	- How can this resource enhance your teaching?
	- Does this resource create new learning opportunities for your students?
	- How would you and your students access the resource?
	- Can the resource be accessed on laptops, iPads or Smartphones?
- We had a great attendance rate despite a last minute change of venue.
- We were very impressed with the diversity of the audience which included local college interns, administrators, and even teachers from neighboring districts.
- The feedback was remarkable. Teachers want to know when are we going to replicate this type of learning in the future.
- We were initially nervous about unstructured format of the playdate, but it worked well in the end.

Volusia Learns Summer Institutes
-  For our summer academy we trying to personalize learning for all individuals in district with a mix of traditional, extended amounts of times, unstructured, panels, etc.
-  We are going to have Think tanks.
	 – 3 hour time period – collaborative teams of teachers to use time and space for own 	independent learning and planning
- We are bringing in keynote Tom Murray
	-  “What is personalized learning?”

Putting together large events usually requires a team of people to organize things. Many times schools/districts don’t have this luxury.
- How can a person by themselves facilitate the learning of themselves or others?
- We are working to provide learning paths through our LMS.
- We are also using QR codes to give teachers the opportunity to work in an area relevant to them.
- We are also working on how to use badging and microcredentialing.

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Q & A
No Questions
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Presentation #3: Hillsborough County
Bradley Smrstick is a Senior Analyst for Information & Technology Architecture & Integration
		Spent nearly 20 years teaching physics
		part of Information Technology team in Instructional Technology
		Microsoft Innovative Educator Trainer, Surface Expert, et. al

Project Innovate
Professional Learning: 1:1 with Project Innovate Cohort 1 and 2
Overview of Presentation
- Talk about program “Project Innovate” 
- relates to sustaining professional development
- using Office 365 as the “hub”
- OneDrive & OneNote – Shared Notebooks
- Class and Staff Notebooks
- Excel Survey and MS Forms
- Office 365 Video
- Skype for Businesses, Kahoot & Twitter
- change way of work from what has been traditionally been done

Collaborating with OneDrive & OneNote
- We used Shared Notebooks for collaborating within schools and across the district:

- Project Innovate Schools
	- 26 schools, nearly 100 classrooms
	- across all subjects and grade levels
	- including ESE/ESOL support 

Class & Staff Notebooks are now being utilized by many teams to achieve different goals.
	- IT Department Teams
	- Elementary Science and Math Curriculum Supervisors
	- District Curriculum Guides
	- District LDCs (Learning Design Collaborative Lessons)
	- Collaborative STEM Lessons 

Connecting to Data with Excel Survey and MS Forms
- Our district has lots of data in a lot of different locations and needed a secure way to store it.
- We use Excel Survey and MS Forms. These give similar functionality to what you can do in Google forms or Surveymonkey.
- We can get direct feedback from stakeholders and be more responsive to their needs.
- We have used these applications for many different purposes:
	- Grants Department – closing the gap on multiple grant applications
	- APs – site based data collection via informal walkthroughs
	- History Fair – constructed a Rubric to “score” student projects/presentations

Closing the distance with Skype for Business
- We have used Skype to decrease travel and other costs.
-  Skype for business is related to Office 365. It is somewhat similar to Go To Meeting, Adobe Connect
- Library Media Services used Skype for businesses, Kahoot, and Twitter to hold a virtual “Quiz Bowl for the district.”
- Social Studies modified the traditional World of Wisdom (WOW) tournament by using Skype/Kahoots hybrid.
- Professional Learning Leadership Teams use Skype to maximize follow-up after training via Professional Learning Communities.

Next Steps…
- We continue to work on sustainability.
	 – identify, train & support internal experts
- We are holding our three day summer teacher academy.
- We have open registration courses (PDS).
- We utilize the Microsoft Educator Community (https://education.microsoft.com/
- We are also taking part in the Skype 4B “Expert” Series.
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Q & A
No Questions

Closing Announcements

-  Upcoming Ed Camps!
	- April 1 – EdCamp Hillsborough
	- April 8 – EdCamp Volusia
	- April 22 – EdCamp Branford
Learn more at www.edcamp.org

Upcoming Tech Chats! 
•	April Edition: Wednesday, April 19– 3:00 – 4:00 p.m. EST
      Digital Citizenship and Internet Safety
•	May Edition: Thursday, May 25 – 3:00 – 4:00 p.m. EST
      Minecraft

Archived Editions of Tech Chat!
http://www.fldoe.org/academics/standards/subject-areas/instructional-technology

Today’s Google Doc
http://bit.ly/techchatpd

Thank you for joining us!!!!