Update from Charles Howitt Public School

Yes, the TTLP is still alive and well at Charles Howitt Public School!

We started the New Year off with a Technology Teaching Materials display on February 23rd. The event was sponsored by Scholar's Choice, who offered our teachers no tax along with 10% off on anything from their catalogue.

Teachers were very supportive of the idea of being able to get resources at a discount, but most of them were disappointed that none of the resources on offer were connected to the curriculum in this province.

Are there any Media/Technology resources out there that are designed for this market?...Could creating an Ontario based technology resource for teachers become a future TTLP grant?

Tech Talk

After a brief conversation with Paul, where he told me about schools that have begun technology conversation sessions, I decided to try set up similar "Tech Talk" sessions at my school.

"Tech Talk" is an informal gathering open to all staff where we can meet and talk about anything related to technology and how it can be used to support students. My intention is not to lead these sessions but rather facilitate conversation, encourage others to take the lead, and build a PLN.

Click here to check out the "Tech Talk" Glog I created as a way to let teachers know about the sessions.

Sessions are currently being held twice a month during lunch. So far, the response has been fairly good with a handful of teachers taking part in the first two sessions. While I hope that over time the number of teachers coming to the sessions will increase, I take it as a positive sign that those who attended the first session came back again for the second meeting.

During our first meeting, we talked a bit about Twitter and the use of the Smartboard.

Our second session took place just this week. A simple question from one staff member about "safe sites" for kids to explore led to a great demonstration by our teacher librarian on "link to learning" and what it can offer to our students. While a couple of the teachers had heard of "link to learning" they were not sure what it really was, how to access it, or what it offered. The teachers seemed to find this very valuable and were excited to explore it further on their own time.

It was wonderful to hear from the teachers the next day who said how helpful and informative the sessions have been and how they hope to continue to grow and learn from "Tech Talk".

So what's next... hopefully more teachers attending "Tech Talk" and teachers sharing how their use of technology is supporting their students as learners.