The Getting Smart blog discusses MGSD and Project RED.  Read more here.

Read these blogs to find out what others are saying about MGSD's Summer Connection and Digital Conversion!

BrainPOP Educator Blog

Education Week Blog

 Alliance for Excellent Education Blog

Superintendent Panel Questions Continued...

What's your biggest challenge?

-keeping everyone on the same page

-educating new teachers

-communicating the vision and promoting the benefit it will create for students

-focusing on managing all the coming changes

-finding the funding

-transforming the classroom learning by supporting the teachers

-having the patience to go through the process

-changing the culture of education

-continuing the process while still building the plans

What are you going to do to ramp up your game to make a 1:1 initiative work?

-be in classrooms more, do tours, meet with community members, work with companies, share successes, be involved in staff development

-become more of an advocate within my community, communicate with staff our intended direction

-give teachers opportunities to lead, continuing pushing for progress

-communicate clearly with stakeholders, model for staff

-highlight great teaching and lessons, support staff

-create a buzz, allow staff to see 1:1 models first hand, provide resources for teachers to be successful

-learn from others as much as possible

-model expectations for staff

Superintendent Panel Overview:

Take-aways?

-superintendents have opportunities to change communities

-it's more about changing cultures and PLCs than about the technology tools

-caring about kids is most important

-creating a detailed plan of action with the right people in place is critical

-ready to build teams, collaboration, and an interdependence

-when the community embraces the vision, change is permanent

-put students first

-ready to help our teachers become successful

Why is this digital conversion topic important to you professionally and personally?

-have my own children and want the best for them

-seen how a 1:1 initiative can get students engaged in learning

-implementing a 1:1 takes us out of the cycle of education "rut" and increases learning in young people

-personal faith drives decisions for school

-aiming for excellence

-share the excitement with your teachers and school leaders

-passionate about what's best for students: whatever we have to do

-gives us an opportunity for a positive direction

-we celebrate learning

-it's a better way to do school

-kindergarteners teaching school admins...kids know more than we do

Tired of spending time on tasks like scheduling parent conferences?  Save time and paper by using http://doodle.com/ to schedule events such as parent conferences!

Here are resources for managing your classroom in a 1:1 setting. http://tinyurl.com/ct8z482.  Also, check out http://www.mentormob.com/

Visit our Digital Conversion website to see FAQs, a timeline for our implementation, and much more. http://tinyurl.com/n4xrn7

Need some ideas to get started on Challenge Based Learning Projects?  http://www.challengebasedlearning.org/challenges

Curious about icurio?  Visit their site and learn how they make learning personal. http://www.icurio.com/mktg/icurio/overview

Reading teachers and lovers, have you seen http://www.shelfari.com/ for sharing book recommendations?  MGSD teacher Sarah Dillard embeds Shelfari onto her website http://tinyurl.com/cu9xatn and students use the resource for book reviews!

Michelle Izzo has students use rubrics in Google Forms to evaluate each other while giving presentations in class.  Check out http://www.google.com/google-d-s/forms/ for information about setting up Google Forms.  Students can provide timely feedback to peers using this resource.

This 2010 Mooresville graduate shares his overseas experiences.  He credits MGSD for sparking his interests in world issues.

The middle school student in this video describes a way he extended a school project to meet his needs and show his creativity.

Four intermediate school students tell about an Ancient Wonders project they completed!  You can also find all the student testimonials in Angel.  Go to the 2012 Summer Connection group > Lessons tab > Student Testimonials Video folder > download the video file.