School Districts in Florida, Illinois, Pennsylvania, and Washington
to be Featured for Outstanding Technology Initiatives
Alexandria, Va. (Dec. 19, 2012) — The National School Boards Association’s (NSBA) 2013 Education Technology Site Visits will give education professionals the opportunity to see firsthand the best ways to use technology in classrooms. Registration is now open for next year’s tours, sponsored by NSBA’s Technology Leadership Network (TLN).
Four school districts across the nation will demonstrate how visionary leadership and the latest technology strategies are improving student learning. The 2013 line-up includes:
Miami-Dade County Public Schools, Miami, March 6–8, 2013
Township High School District 214, Arlington Heights, Ill., March 13–15, 2013
East Penn School District, Emmaus, Penn., April 28–30, 2013
Vancouver Public Schools, Vancouver, Wash., May 1–3, 2013
“NSBA’s Education Technology Site Visits showcase digital learning trends that have implications for district policies, funding, and questions of equity and access,” said Ann Flynn, NSBA’s Director of Educational Technology. “These highly interactive visits help decision-makers consider those implications in light of real-world examples and innovative solutions through classroom observations, focused briefings, and conversations with school board members, teachers, administrators, and students in each of our host districts.
”In Miami, which won the recent Broad Prize for Urban Education, examples of innovative technology solutions from the arts and physical education to the district’s iPrep Academy will be highlighted during the site visit. Led by tech-savvy Superintendent Alberto M. Carvalho, the district is reinventing its classroom instruction and strategic use of technology with the focus on improving student achievement.
“Education decisions at Miami-Dade reflect a deep understanding that technology can enable today’s students to learn, create, and connect in new ways that will be essential to their future success,” said Flynn. “The district’s vision seeks to eliminate the digital divide by extending access to electronic resources, 24/7, across all subject areas.
”In Illinois, Township High School District 214 use of a cloud computing infrastructure and mobile devices have produced documented gains in student achievement. With the school board’s support, technology has been integrated throughout instruction and operations, and the articulation with seven elementary feeder school districts has strengthened the technology skills of students moving into high school. Paperless classrooms, the use of iBook Author for the creation of digital content, and a comprehensive high school with a “STEM for All “ focus that creates multiple career pathways are among the highlights that will be showcased.
In Pennsylvania, the East Penn School District, with 8,100 students, is a leader in academic excellence that uses educational technology to support project- based learning and problem solving skills through various mobile technologies. With its Virtual Learning Environment, Moodle, and providing a hybrid model of on-demand learning, the district is “open” 24/7. The East Penn visit also offers attendees an opportunity to visit Lehigh Career and Technical Institute to experience a state-of-the-art program that prepares students for 21st century careers.
And Washington’s Vancouver Public Schools district is identifying, resourcing, implementing, and supporting the enabling conditions for 21st century flexible learning environments. Their strategic initiative includes standard classroom equipment, wireless deployments, one-to-one/mobile concepts, professional development, and a digital learning space/learning management system. The district also is deploying performance management tools, such as a learner profile, which collects and portrays data related to individual student learning as well as classroom, grade level and school-wide achievement. Additionally, the district is implementing a data dashboard based on its milestone benchmarks—high-leverage and high-yield indicators predictive of student success. To further personalize education, the district offers nearly two dozen programs of choice. The new Vancouver iTech Preparatory, for example, is an early college, STEM magnet school that provides a technology-rich environment for middle and high school students.
More details on the technology site visits are available at www.nsba.org/tlnsitevisits.
TLN, launched in 1985 by NSBA and its state school boards associations, helps advance the wise use of technology in K-12 education to support learning, operations, and communications.
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Founded in 1940, the National School Boards Association (NSBA) is a not-for-profit organization representing state associations of school boards and their more than 90,000 local school board members throughout the U.S. Working with and through our state associations, NSBA advocates for equity and excellence in public education through school board leadership. www.nsba.org