LHRIC Honors Local Educators for Innovative Use of Technology

The Lower Hudson Regional Information Center presented four teachers, one director of technology and representatives of the Bronxville School District with Pioneer Awards May 15 during a special ceremony held at the Edith Macy Conference Center in Briarcliff Manor.

The Bronxville Schools tech team, from left: Mara Koetke,
director of Curriculum & Instruction, Superintendent David Quattrone,
Director of Technology Jennifer Forsberg, Brad Ashley, K-12 instructional
technology specialist, Tricia Murray, principal of Bronxville Elementary School,
and Lawrence Daniels, LHRIC network specialist.

The annual awards ceremony honors school districts, teachers and administrators who work collaboratively with the LHRIC and in particular, recognizes their efforts to go above and beyond in making 21^st century instructional technology available to their students.

The Bronxville School District was singled out for its efforts to instill innovation, leadership, critical thinking and engaged citizenship by way of a framework called The Bronxville Promise. The initiative is designed to guide students, help teachers organize teaching and learning activities, and engage parents and the larger Bronxville community around technology issues.

Jesse Lubinsky, center, pictured with his award, along with Irvington
Superintendent Kris Harrington and other administrators
from the district. 

Jesse Lubinsky, director of technology for the Irvington School District, received the Director of Technology Pioneer Award for his work on Project Lead the Way, a STEAM initiative that incorporates instruction in computer science, engineering and biomedical science.

He was also recognized for helping teachers develop “20% time” projects in their classrooms, similar to a policy that Google uses in its workplace where employees get to work on projects outside of their official job descriptions. He has also been responsible for introducing students to immersive game-based learning platforms and helping to redesign a middle school classroom into a flexible learning space.

The teachers who received Pioneer Awards included:

• Marcus Eure of Brewster High School who has successfully blended various technologies into his English instruction, including student-run subreddits, which is an online bulletin board system; Google Apps for Education; Medium.com for student publishing and collaboration, as well as Twitter.
• Amanda McArthur-Gawron of the Lakeland School District who was recognized for taking the lead on a Chromebook one-to-one laptop initiative that started with her third-grade class and spread to all five of the district’s elementary schools.
• Jill Rogovic of the Ardsley School District who successfully integrated technology into her second-grade classroom, including iPads and other digital devices.
• Patricia Satalich, a technology teacher at Pelham Middle School who has taken the lead on several STEAM projects at the school. 

This year’s event began with a keynote presentation from the Los Angeles-based Apple Distinguished Educator and Google Certified Teacher Kenneth Shelton, who talked about ways that technology can be used to enhance learning and how proper usage, voice and the appropriate amount of responsibility on the part of teachers and parents can help accelerate learning.

Photos of the event can be viewed on the SWBOCES/LHRIC Flickr page.

Canadian Principal Sees Technology as Opportunity for More Personal Learning

There’s nothing impersonal about George Couros. In fact, everything about his recent Technology Leadership Institute presentation spoke to relationships, both personal and professional, and this philosophy has helped the Canadian division principal of innovative teaching and learning transform the way learning takes place in his own school and in schools across Canada and beyond.

George Couros delivers keynote presentation at TLI event

The affable educator and international speaker was the keynote presenter for the LHRIC’s Annual Pioneer Awards Celebration, which is hosted each year by TLI and are held at the Edith Macy Conference Center in Briarcliff Manor.

In his presentation titled, “Create, Innovate and Voice,” he talked about the need for educators to use technology as a way to make learning more personal and engaging for students.

“Educators are becoming irrelevant to kids,” he said. “And school looks irrelevant to the rest of the world. “ However, Mr. Couros contends that if schools give students the ability to create something meaningful, allow them to be innovative and empower them with a voice, they will succeed long after they graduate.

Mr. Couros said three areas are essential to building a learning organization that fuels such a process. They include:

Creativity – students should have the opportunity to “create” and be active in their learning. Examples include the creation of blogs, various media-related presentations as well as the traditional forms of literacy.

Innovation – the opportunity to share learning openly with each other and the world.

Voice – because we live in a world where everyone has a voice that reaches far and wide, it is imperative that students know how to capitalize on this.

Mr. Couros said the biggest shift that educators must make is not a shift in skill set, but rather a shift in mindset. “Seventy-year-old teachers have done the most innovative things, so it’s got nothing to do with age and how you grew up. It’s your mindset and what you are willing to do to create,” he added.

To promote inspiration within the classroom, Mr. Couros suggested that teachers think about learning as “meaningful creation,” not consumption.”

“The biggest game changer in education is in social media and the use of iphones, Google Apps and the like,” said Mr. Couros, who considers himself an innovative leader who can get teachers and students motivated to change. “We need to get educators to think of themselves as innovators and to grow and take risks.”

TLI - Pioneer Awards Recognize Districts' Achievements in Technology

The Lower Hudson Regional Information Center chose two local school districts, a director of technology and an enthusiastic third-grade teacher as the recipients of its Annual Pioneer Awards, now in its 20^th year.

The awards ceremony, held May 16 in the Edith Macy Conference Center in Briarcliff Manor, gives the LHRIC an opportunity to showcase the efforts of educators and administrators who go above and beyond to make 21^st century instructional technology available to students.

It also honors school districts for embracing technology, including their willingness to use mobile devices to enhance the curriculum, their focus on data management and safety, as well as their professional development efforts and more. 

Here is a behind-the-scenes look at what it took for each of this year's recipients to make it to the winner's podium:

Amy Rosenstein, Ardsley School District

Students in Amy Rosenstein's class at Concord Road Elementary School in the Ardsley School District are savvy about the world around them, and it's not because they've traveled the globe. In fact, the students don't have to leave their classrooms at all. Ms. Rosenstein brings it all to them through regular Skype conversations with people abroad, including famous authors and others. 

About four years ago, Ms. Rosenstein came up with the idea when she was thinking about ways to stay in touch with a friend who had moved to Hong Kong. Around that time, the third grade curriculum was changing, with a more detailed focus on China.

After the first couple of Skype sessions, Ms. Rosenstein could see the students were really enjoying the interaction, so she decided to expand it by inviting authors on a Skype call, one of which was Robert Kimmel Smith, the author of "War with Grandpa," a book the students had been reading in class.

That collaboration turned into the self-publication of their own realistic fiction stories using the website Storyjumper and the subsequent purchase of the digital books by parents and others.  

"The experience for the kids has been phenomenal," said Ms. Rosenstein, upon receiving her award. "It has not only opened up the classroom, but it has also made them realize that the world is bigger than Ardsley, even New York, and that they are now global citizens."

Ms. Rosenstein has connected students to people in Albania, Brazil, England, France, Italy, Kenya, New Zealand and Sweden, and she has also shared her enthusiasm for Skype with other teachers in the school by providing after-school technology classes and other initiatives.

John Krouskoff, Clarkstown School District

The Clarkston School District's director of technology, John Krouskoff, accepted his Pioneer Award not purely as a reflection of his own efforts but based on what he described as a "lot of teamwork."

The affable administrator was happy to accept the award, but even happier to be among a roomful of what he described as "innovators and leaders" who not only make the technology work in the classroom but who also challenge the students to reap the benefits of it. In addition to promoting 21^st century learning, Mr. Krouskoff said, "We have the responsibility as leaders to really make things happen."

Part of what Mr. Krouskoff has made happen in Clarkstown is the creation of a Google Apps environment throughout the district. As recently as a year ago, students would have saved their work to a network drive, accessible only within district buildings.

Now they can save their homework and other projects to a cloud, creating a seamless transition from school to home while at the same time enhancing the collaborative nature of the learning and making it a fun and creative experience.

Mr. Krouskoff is also a proponent of teacher professional development, being readily available to instructors at all times and letting them know that the teacher environment is the first place where transformational technology takes hold.

Dobbs Ferry School District

Coming a long way in two years, with the installation of a wireless network in all three district schools, the use of smart phones by middle and high school students and a robust professional development strategy for teachers was the basis for awarding the Dobbs Ferry School District with a well-deserved Pioneer Award.

Superintendent Dr. Lisa Brady accepted the award on behalf of the district, reiterating the importance of technology advancement as a "moral obligation" in meeting the needs of students.

The district's transition to a student one-to-one computing environment began with an instructional technology audit that provided some really good data from students, teachers and administrators on their technology use, proficiencies, expectations and practices.

Simply training teachers on new MacBooks was not enough, though. It was also vitally important that instructors acquire a true comfort and ease in using the technology, something that would help them create engaging lessons for students and also get them excited about their own exploration of technology.

iPads for kindergarten classes through the third grade were purchased as well as tablets for the social studies and science departments at the middle and high schools. Social media channels were also created and administrators and other staff were encouraged to start using them.

The most important aspect of the district's growth is to "model what we expect from teachers and to give them the time to create 21^st century classrooms," added Dr. Brady.

Ossining Union Free School District

A ubiquitous technology environment in the Ossining Schools and the way that administrators implement it and teachers use it was the basis for providing the district with the second of the LHRIC's District Pioneer Awards.

Even students in the district's pre-kindergarten classes are using technology, specifically the Educreations app, an interactive whiteboard that captures a student's voice and handwriting. In the middle school, Makey Makey is a popular program that teaches students how to design circuits, and at the high school, students are creating competition-ready robots.

The LHRIC's panel of judges was also impressed by the district's many partnerships with outside entities, including the Jacob Burns Center, IBM, Pace University and the Stone Barns Center for Food & Agriculture.

Through those affiliations, second-graders have created public service announcements centered on sustainability projects they developed, older children in the elementary grades have used a "green screen" to animate sections of a documentary they created on their iPads, and middle school students have learned to program computers in a 3D environment, among other creative endeavors.

Superintendent Ray Sanchez said the district's technology team is continuously seeking ways to leverage technology throughout the grades. He credited Director of Technology Jeremy Luft and Assistant Director of Technology Jennifer Forsberg for putting the district on the "proper path and navigating the ever-changing world of technology."

Pioneer Awards Honor Outstanding Work in Local Districts

A science teacher and a technology director from a school district that also received recognition were among those honored at the LHRIC's 19^th Annual Pioneer Awards May 18, which was held at the Edith Macy Conference Center in Briarcliff Manor.

Each year the award ceremony recognizes individuals who have gone above and beyond in exposing students to the latest instructional technology initiatives. It also honors districts that are forward-thinking in their delivery of technology.

The ceremony culminates a year-long series of presentations by well known speakers in the field of educational technology, as part of the RIC's Technology Leadership Institute series.

Science teacher Jasper Fox was the first recipient of the Distinguished Technology Teacher Pioneer Award. He teaches general science and a Regents Earth Science class at Copper Beech Middle School in the Lakeland School District. As a teacher, Mr. Fox knows that some students have difficulty completing their assignments, so he created screen casts of the science experiments he would normally do in class using screen capture software. In the past year, Mr. Fox has posted a myriad of screen casts to the class wiki, which his students can readily access.

Mr. Fox has created a learning environment in education known as the "flip classroom." It's a new way of teaching, he said, one that has transformed the practice for many instructors, allowing them to become coaches and facilitators rather than just instructors delivering a lecture.

In his acceptance speech, Mr. Fox thanked administrators and others in the district for their guidance and support. "My students are not only gaining the skills to be successful, but are gaining additional 21^st century study skills," he said.

Mr. Fox also credited the online social networking service Twitter for inspiring him and allowing him to communicate with other like-minded instructors. "This whole initiative started out as a way to provide extra help for my students," he said. "But it has now warped into something way more powerful than that."

The City School District of New Rochelle had the honor of accepting two awards during the hour-long ceremony. Director of Technology Dr. Christine Coleman was singled out for bringing mobile learning to the district. For that, she was awarded the Distinguished Director of Technology Pioneer Award.

For the past year and a half, Dr. Coleman has invested much energy in the "Mobile on the Go!" program, a Federal Communications Committee-funded grant, which involved collaboration with Verizon, the RIC and Carrot App. Referring to her can-do attitude and persistence, New Rochelle Superintendent Richard Organisciak praised Dr. Coleman for her efforts. "We as a district are very proud of the ideas and creativity from people like Dr. Coleman," he said.

The initiative has helped raise achievement levels among participating students and has closed the digital divide, said Dr. Coleman. Looking for ways to prepare its students for the 21^st century workplace, the New Rochelle City School District has made incredible strides over the past year. Since winning the FCC grant, it has deployed over a thousand mobile-filtered devices to students. As a result, the Pioneer Awards committee felt it was deserving of this year's Distinguished District Pioneer Award.

According to Dr. Coleman, students participating in the mobile learning program are displaying an improvement in reading, writing and literacy, and the formal structure of the classroom has "flipped," creating an environment where they now work in clusters as opposed to working alone, and where engagement and interactivity are the primary goals.

The district's Board of Education president, Chrisanne Petrone, was equally delighted with the honor. "We know that our district is amazing, and we also know that all of our children can learn, but we must continue to ensure that we provide them with the tools to keep them learning," said Ms. Petrone.