New York’s Commissioner of Education Visits District

NYS Commissioner Dr. David Steiner

Dr. David Steiner, New York State’s new Commissioner of Education, visited the GST BOCES region on October 22-23.  While in the area the Commissioner took time out to make his first official school district visit and specifically asked for the opportunity to tour the Odessa-Montour Central School District and see how the district has succeeded in intergrating technology into the curriculum.

On Friday, October 22nd Dr. Steiner visited Mrs. Lewis’ 4th grade class, Mr. Gardner’s Business Math class, and Mrs. Smith’s 1st grade class, seeing how all three teachers have incorporated Promethean’s technology and transformed their classrooms into 21st Century learning environments.

Later in the day Dr. Steiner met with the editorial board of the Star-Gazette.  During his meeting with them Dr. Steiner called his visit to O-M “the experience of the day”, proclaiming that “Odessa-Montour will stick in my mind.”

To read the full article, click here.  A WENY TV news crew also followed the Commissioner during his visit and the news report can be viewed below by visiting the district’s webpage.

ActiveInspire – 6 Reasons to Make the Transition

 

Since Promethean’s new software, ActivInspire, was released several months ago teachers have been considering whether or not to make the move away from ActivStudio.  ActivInspire offers some new features and it makes many tasks in flipchart creation simpler, but there is a transitional learning curve, especially for those for whom using ActivStudio has become second nature to them.  I’ve spent quite a bit of time with ActivInspire since it was in beta and I can tell you it’s worth switching over.  In no particular order, here are six reasons why teachers should make the jump from ActivStudio and get ActivInspired!

Get Inspired with ActivTips

Everyone using Promethean’s ActivClassroom suite of products is currently either evaluating their new Inspire software or jumping in and making the transition.  That’s a good thing because, in my opinion, Inspire makes lesson creation easier and faster than ever before.  To help everyone make the transition a little smoother, Promethean has added a number of new instructional videos to their great “ActivTips” feature.

Promethean Announces New Partnership

At NECC Promethean held a special event in which they announced an exciting new partnership that brings the ability to create ActivExpression assessments linked to your state standards.  

Get Ready to Enter the ActivArena

ActivArena Pens

Yes, it’s here – ActivArena made its big debut at the NECC ’09 conference in Washington, DC this week.  For those who haven’t heard about it, Promethean has launched a new enhancement to their ActivClassroom arsenal that makes it possible for there to be two users at the ActivBoard at a time.  This new enhancement opens a world of new options for teachers to create collaborative or competitive activities. 

ActivExpressions Flexing Their Muscles

One of the exciting new enhancements Promethean announced at NECC was the upcoming release of Inspire version 1.2.  The new update features an enhanced compass tool, the ability to search resources, a pdf to flipchart converter, and the ability to resize the clock widget.  But the biggest and most exciting change that awaits teachers with ActivExpressions – integrated self paced assessments.

Emma Leacy-Jones

Emma Leacy-Jones, one of the people integral in the development of the ActivExpressions, demonstrated this new functionality this afternoon at the Promethean booth.  This new feature of Inspire will allow teachers to embed multiple questions on a flichart page.  The groups of questions can include all question types and the teacher can define a difficulty level for each question.  What happens when the teacher activates the question is that each student is sent a question and responds at their own pace.  When a question is answered the result is sent back to the teacher and the next question is automatically sent to the ActivExpression.

Education Transformation That Works

Sonny Magana

Yesterday I was fortunate to spend an hour at a presentation by Sonny Magana, the Director of Education Strategy for Promethean, where he discussed the current results of research done by acclaimed researcher and author Dr. Robert Marzano.  Dr. Marzano, who Sonny refers to as the “Eric Clapton of education”,  conducted independent research into the effects the implementation of Promethean’s ActivClassroom products on student learning.  The Odessa – Montour Central School District was approached to be a participant in the study, however we declined the invitation because we were a little far along in the process of implementation and didn’t want to take a step backward as was required for some of the research .  So it was a point of interest for me to see the results of the study to see if it confirmed what we already deeply believed the impact would be.

NECC Keynotes Focus on the Future

 

Helen Padgett

Sunday night’s keynote addresses shared a common theme – celebrating the present successes of technology integration in education and envisioning and even brighter future.  ISTE’s (International Society for Technology in Education) president, Dr. Helen Padgett (pictured at right), talked about a common comment on today’s classrooms by students is that they feel walking into school today is like stepping back in time.  The challenge, she says, is to create an environment where students enter school and fell as though they are taking a step into the future.  “It must be our job, our focus – our mission – to make going to school a step into the future for our students,” Padgett told the capacity crowd. “A future defined by an educational environment enriched with technology that will engage them, challenge them, inspire them, and prepare them for all that life has to offer.”  This is an even greater challenge today as schools continue to try to accomplish more in fiscally challenging times.  But the goal is attainable with a strong commitment and passion for creating dynamic learning environments where students are engaged the moment they enter through the doors.

Welcome to the OM Technology Blog!

In the ten years that I have been the Director of Technology in the district, I am constantly in awe of how far we have come in the preceding years.  OM Tech Talk is the latest effort in trying to provide information about Odessa Montour’s technology program to staff, parents and students.  In the coming months we hope to provide a lot of insight into the usage of the great educational technology tools available in our district, up and coming technologies that we are looking into for possible implementation in the district, and information for parents about topics that may help them at home.

Next week I will be attending the National Education Computing Conference (NECC) in Washington, D.C. where I will have a chance to see some of the latest educational technology products in action as well as see how other districts across the country are making innovative use of technology resources in the classroom.  During the week I’ll be updating the blog showcasing some of what I’ve seen and experienced while I’m there as well highlight some of the technology ideas that I will be bringing back with me.