Pinnacle Visits

There are things about my job that I love. You already know that I love to plan lessons and really look at curriculum and technology integration with teachers. The other thing I love about my job is the opportunity to work with our county's "Pinnacle Leaders."

What's a Pinnacle Leader you ask? It was a program started in the county by our Chief Technology Officer, Debbie Core. The premise is that teachers that really want to utilize technology with their students apply for the program. If accepted, these teachers receive technology to use in their classrooms as well as lots of professional development to help them along the way. Basically, these folks are our teacher leaders in the buildings showing the way in 21st century education. They may be called upon to help their peers with technology integration, deliver professional development in technology integration, or even be our guinea pigs to try new technology within our system.

For the past few days, I have been in nine of those classrooms ranging literally from Kindergarten to 8th grade, from a special needs class to an ESL class. The various personalities and technology comfort level of these teachers are very evident when watching them orchestrate learning using things such as student response systems, SMART Boards, laptops, desktops, and iPads. The excitement and the engagement of the students are almost palatable too. And when I hear someone say, "Kindergarten can't do those things with technology!" I know better and so do our Pinnacle leaders. 

Among my visits, I saw students researching and creating a visual representation of what they have learned, I saw students revisiting text and creating a presentation about the book, I saw students working collaboratively to create an eBook, and more.

These fifteen were charged with using their technology in student centered technology integrated centers. They are doing well, but with our changes in curriculum we can always use new ideas. So...if you had a minimum of five laptops or five iPads, a SMART Board, student response system, a couple of desktops, microphones, cameras, and a document camera, what would you have students doing in your classrooms?