Tech Academy gets teachers up to speed on laptop devices

Teachers of grades five through 12 are meeting this week for a Tech Academy on the convertible laptops that will be given to Central Junior High School students this fall.

"Each day is targeted toward one of our focus strategies or tools, and then the afternoon gives them that work session to begin putting that content and those strategies into place," said instructional technology specialist Ron Farrow, who had a group of 18 gathered Monday.

Farrow noted the key is for teachers to find something they can use right away so they can hit the ground running when school starts.

"You have a wide spectrum of ability levels ... so there are some teachers who are still learning to get that solid start with our core tools, such as Moodle and Google Drive. And you have other teachers who are already doing some advanced features," he said.

Students at Central High School received ASUS Transformer Books in January.

The original plan was to distribute the laptops one grade at a time at the junior high, but officials decided to implement them for the seventh and eighth grades this school year.

The next step is to distribute the devices to fifth- and sixth-graders at Central Middle School in 2016-2017, Farrow said.

"I can foresee us just doing it one grade level at a time, because sixth and fifth are kind of split and isolated between the two," whereas in junior high, teachers instruct both grades, he said.

Farrow said he thinks junior high staff have an advantage in the rollout because they were able to talk to high school colleagues to see what worked and what didn't. It also helps people in the technology department better train the junior high staff.

New teachers are encouraged to attend the trainings, although Farrow does offer brief instruction on some of the main teaching tools during orientation. Five-minute starter videos also are on the teacher resource site, which has a section specifically for new teachers.

Scott Gimmy, a seventh- and eighth-grade foreign language teacher at Central Junior High, said he had a fairly good idea of how to operate the devices, but plans to attend the full week's training.

"It will be an interesting transition since we're all used to the pencil-paper method. Ultimately, I think that using the technology will help us reach our digital learners."

If teachers go through the whole week, they earn continuing education credits.

rcampbell@semissourian.com

388-3639

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