Engaged classroom

I'm creating this blog as a part of a program I'm involved in called "21st Century Engaged Classroom". The program is a series of classes, meetings, and work in the classroom. The goal is to get us and the other educators in our building to integrate technology into our classrooms, and get our students exposed to and working with some of the new, fun, techy stuff that is available. Students will be transforming knowledge and skills into products, skills, and new information.

One of the best parts of this project is all the great gear we get for our school and classroom. Our school got a "mobile lab" as a part of this program, which consists of twenty macbooks in a rolling cart that we can bring to our classrooms. We'll also get a variety of other tools like document cameras, digital cameras, digital video cameras, projectors, software packages, ir remotes for student response, audio enhancement systems etc. Needless to say, it's a no-brainer to sign your school up for this program. I'm really excited to push my class in this direction in the coming year.

In the last few days of inservice, basically classes for teachers, we've been exposed to a befuddling array of new software, and we've been working in new programs to learn them, assembling portfolios, publishing, and sharing what we've done through wikis, social bookmarking sites, and now blogs. By tomorrow afternoon, we'll even have RSS feeds up to subscribe to. It's a lot to take in, but it's one of the best professional development classes I've had the opportunity to participate in.