| PitCrew Home | The Team | Lesson Plans | Tech Tips The Independence school district has acquired numerous technology resources over the past three years. During that time, many efforts have been made to provide productive professional development for the teachers and administrators. Some attempts have been more successful than others. The PIT Crew Team project takes a more concentrated approach to professional development, rather than attempting to target ALL district faculty and administration with direct inservice and training. Online resources and software applications will be utilized extensively. Extended professional development activities after school, on special technology staff development workdays and during the summer for teachers targeted by this project will be provided. The final outcomes of this project include more complete use of technologies by students and teachers in meaningful activities and online resources for all district personnel, students, and parents. The online resources will specifically target reading, math and science, but will also address other academic skills. The purpose of the program is to fully integrate technology into teaching and learning by providing teachers with the technology training support necessary to help all students learn. Currently hardware, software, and online resources are available to and accessible by all teachers. However, the integration of these components into the curricular areas to enhance learning is lacking. By providing a training and support team of teachers FOR teachers, we plan to help integrate technology into the student learning process. The program has representatives from all grade levels and curricular areas so that integration into reading, math, and science and other core curricular areas is addressed. The focus of this project is on meaningful classroom applications; developing projects in collaboration with classroom teachers to meet a variety of curricular needs. The projects created by the team and its "teammates" will be developed to address these core curricular areas. The projects will be designed to utilized engaging and effective software and online resources as an integral part of school curriculum. PIT Crew Member and Teammate Tasks- 6 Training Workshops during the summer of 2001 {Teammates will be offered the opportunity to attend some or all of the workshops, but will not be required to attend any.}
- Tentative Schedule:
- Two-day workshop on FrontPage 2000 during the second week of June
- One-day workshop (½ on network administration basics and grant review, ½ on PaintShop Pro)
- One-day follow-up workshop on FrontPage and time to work on web posting procedures at USD 446
- Two days to complete newsletter for September and plan newsletter for October
- Production of a monthly newsletter (online and in print), which includes a submission by each PIT Crew member and each Teammate. A submission will include at least one technology-integrated lesson plan or technology-integrated activity and at least one “How To” article. A procedure will be in place to avoid duplication of lesson plans/activities and “How To” articles among all K-12 teams. The PIT Crew members will be responsible for final preparations of both their own and their teammate’s submissions for print and online publication.
- Each PIT Crew member will present three workshops during the school year each at least two hours in length (the workshop may be given over several days). PIT Crew members are responsible for planning, scheduling, enrolling and presenting the workshops. Their teammates are encouraged to assist with workshop tasks.
- Two “Open House Technology Nights (or “After School Open House” are to be presented for the parents / general public. One will be scheduled during October or November and the other during March or April. The purpose of this activity is to demonstrate the use of technology at each of the district’s sites. It may include student demonstrations as well as teachers at the site, regardless of whether they are directly involved with the PIT Crew program. PIT Crew teams may split this item as they choose (all teams may work together for both events or split them (e.g. half of the building team works on the November presentation, the others on the April presentation. Splitting does not work very well for IHS and Eisenhower given the odd amount of teams!)
- On five days during the school year, each PIT Crew member will be provided with a full-day substitute in order to participate in further training for ½ day and to work with their teammate on planning and producing the materials and tasks required above. The teammates will be provided with a substitute for five ½ day periods and will not be required to participate in the trainings.
- Laptops and software licensing will be provided to all PIT Crew members for use during the grant period, however these laptops are the property of USD 446 and will be shared [with other faculty members upon request throughout the grant period] when not needed by a PIT Crew member or Teammate. At the end of the grant period, the laptops will be distributed as determined by the District Technology Coordinator and/or Business Manager.
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