Bette Manchester - The Maine Learning Technology Initiative

Bette Manchester
Content, connectivity,

Where do you want to go and why?
Equity of Resources for Students and Staff
Increase Student & Educator Learning
Increase collaboration among students and educators
Project-based learning
Technology by itself does not raise test scores, what you need is an effective teacher in the classroom who knows how to use technology.
All teachers had opportunity at the end of 4 years to give up laptop and go back to the old methods of teaching, not one teacher decided to go back.
Now the program is going to the high school level.
Culture in the school is everything and it is set by the building principal
Damage is less then 1% and it can be tracked to the leadership in the school
Teacher's voice was taken into consideration, teachers who collaborated.
Project is for every kid and teacher
Build team in building: principal, tech coordinator, teacher, and liberian.
Project ownership is at the building level. Someone who supports rick taking and trying new things. Building staff sets the purpose.
Many tech coordinators have taught in the lab so they understand teaching with an application and they don't necessarily know collaborative project learning.
Deep learning at all levels

Rich learning opportunities for kids in and outside the school
Assessment for Learning
practices that hook students into their own learning
laptops kids were showing evidence of learning in so many ways
Need is showing for increased broadband across state
Technological Pedagogical Content Knowledge (TPCK)


Book - Handbook of Technological Pedagogical Content Knowledge (TPCK) for Educators (Paperback), by The AACTE Committee on Innovation and Technology (Editor)

Science - Ecoscience studying ecological issues in Maine
students learned to use Logo

Cyclical energizing
Work should be hard fun - Papert
Pay attention to energy levels
Implementation Dip - Year 4 you will hit a dip, when doing the program so plan for it with building leadership teams
Celebrate accomplishments -

State writing scores have gone up and held for the last three years, if kids regularly write
Technology moved it for the kids
especially for special kids

Leadership
Green Eyed monster - people kill off each other
People get mocked for using technology
disturbing part of culture - put down what is different or new

Capacity Building through networks
communication - use StudyWiz
Learning communities - within building, district, region, state
Virtual networks
Principal, Teacher Leaders, Librarians, Tech support
student teams

size of Maine - you can take all New England states and put the geographically inside of Maine
connectivity for all schools


Main International Center for Digital Learning
Professional Development
Research
International Collaboration

http://www.mainelearns.com/

If they could do it again they would do 7th grade and 12th grade and let them meet in the middle year after year. 9th graders want to blend in so they would not have been a good group at the high school level to start the project.

Leadership layers of teachers
Don't use innovators use the next layer down
innovators usually don't have a following of other teachers but they usually follow the next level down

Leadership - Learning communities - start with what's working from those in attendance
Blocking is not what you want to do, it is about educating appropriate behavior

Working on making policies for "what if" so there is a policy to be followed