Vision…the PastVision…the Future...

Vision Statement

Educational leaders are devoted to providing a student-centered educational program that strives for excellence. Through the development of technology

skills, students will be better prepared to successfully complete his/her education as well as become life-

long learners. These learned technology skills will be the catalyst to prepare students to become effective

citizens whom are globally aware, intellectually competitive and responsive to community.

  

A Nation at Risk 

•A  Reporter spoke 10 years ago of how we sit in education like deformed plastic that waits to crack instead of making change. •Low time on task, teacher performance, fiscal reports and issues with preparation tracks… •Twenty years later, we have some of the same issues. Why?

       We Need True Stakeholders

 

•Statistics and world reports show a shift in jobs world-wide moving away from an industrial world and toward a technology rich connected world of jobs where qualifications are far more weighted than the ability to carry out physical labor. •By ignoring the “new” job market, we ignore the future of a nation of people and the security of our communities. •Promising verses action…we need to act now.

Learners will be Future Stakeholder...We Have Heard this Before…

 •“The safety of the US depends on witt (imagination), skill (ability to take on difficult tasks and work through them) and spirit (willingness to engage with important issues)” A Nation at Risk Report.  •If we are to create an ideal vision of students giving back to the community because they become stakeholders in it, then we all have to be true stakeholders...or again we fall on deaf ears.

In 2004 students were quoted expressing what they Desire:

 •"Hire people to keep the computers running, give us more bandwidth and less firewall, enable hookups from home, give the teachers more training and give us more computer classes. We're also interested in ITV and online classes."•In 2010 we have put technology position, put more rigorous stipulations on firewalls rather than using the interests of students to teach in the way they desire to learn. •What have we done in response? In 2010, we cut several media and technology positions, lost 21st century teachers, fed a splintered disassociated curriculum to a hungry student body and in this way disassociated the adults from students •The problem is that every stakeholder cannot rely on policy at the federal or state level or even funding for that matter. They have to rely on stakeholders to move from “promise to practice.”•Who are they? We are they. I am they…you are they.                                                    We are they.

 

The only way to discover the limits of the possible is to go beyond them to the impossible.Arthur C. Clarke, "Technology and the Future"   

     What are you willing to do?  

Where are we going...?

• We are moving away from teacher  as                           the classroom leader and teacher as the                                guide through lessons and moving towards                          the teacher as a facilitator of learning  

     and lesson designer. • Students are engaging in exploratory                            rather

than teacher guided lessons.• Student collaboration is a key fundamental 

      in teaching and learning.

How do we get there...?

Questioning that promotes higherlevel order thinking. Opportunities for student collaborationacross classes, grades, schools andeven countries.Technology facilitated as a tool to student engagementand creativity.Lesson plans designed with no clear expectations to allow thinking outside of the box.

Stakeholders that buy into the larger picture with action

Student Centered

In the 21st century, we must put our student's needs above our comfort and ease.  We must teach

students in a way that meets their needs by starting with them in mind.  Students should be making decisions about how they learn, what the learn,

where they learn and even when they learn.  Only when students are involved in the decision making

process will they start to buy into their learning.

Technology Skills

• Flexibility-to be able to use a variety of software as it is developed

• Communication-to use a variety of modalities to learn • Collaboration-to work with others in the same room, across

the country and around the world• Awareness-understanding local and global cultures• Problem Solving-think outside the box to find solutions that

may have not been solved by anyone else• Innovation-to create answers to questions that have not yet

been asked• Media Literacy-to be able to discern fact from fiction• Core subject knowledge

Life Long Learners

We have to instill into students the value and necessity of life long learning.  We have to show students that the knowledge we have

now may not be the most important knowledge in the future. If we encourage

students to be life long learners they will keep current as trends change.

Global Awareness

Students have to be aware and knowledgeable about other cultures and environments besides their own.  If students are

going to be competitive with other nations they must understand their competition.

Many students are not exposed to cultures beyond their own.  This is one of the responsibilities of a 21st century classroom-

not just telling students about other cultures but giving them opportunities to experience them.

Intellectually Competitive

The United States has declined in years past in the areas of Mathematics and Science.  If we are to be competitive in a global society we must increase the rigor in all academic areas to be intellectually competitive with those who have surpassed U.S. students.

Common Vision

As a nation and as a state we have a common goal and in essence a common vision.  However, we do not implement the visions the same.  Even in the same state counties are

drastically different in how the vision of the state is interpreted.  In some counties schools are not equal in

terms of equipment, professional development and motivation.

If we expect our students to compete globally we need to give ALL students the same opportunities for success.

How do we get the stakeholders to buy in?

Who are the stakeholders?     Teachers, principals, parents and community members. How can we get them to buy in?     We need to show our teachers, parents, principals and community members that since we are moving at such a fast pace in technology that we need to commit to keeping and involving our students in the journey. They will some day be the stakeholders of our communities.By being stakeholders, we teach them to take stock in their world.

continued...    We need to show the stakeholders what will happen to our

children if we don't take action now and commit to creating 21st century learners. 

    Many continue to believe that because our budget is becoming less and less that we need cuts in the most important fields of

learning. Our plan is to show these teachers how affect technology can be not only for the students, but also for the

budget crisis.     Teachers are becoming facilitators and students are guiding

their own way through exploring the technology and learning from it. This is what the children need in order to compete in the 21st century with other people from other more advanced countries.

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