Digital Tools for Today's Learners: Clarkstown Teachers Share Their Stories at Google

This past Thursday and Friday, the Clarkstown Central School District participated in the Google Apps EDU Certified Training for Chromebook Event Series at Google’s New York City headquarters.  For Thursday’s event, John Calvert (district learning facilitator), Amber Klebanoff (grade six English), Michael St. John (middle school social studies department chair and teacher) and I participated in and presented at Google’s big event. Mike Aglialoro, Clarkstown Education Foundation president, also attended, learning first hand how Google Apps and Chromebooks transform student learning and engagement.  

The following day, John Calvert and I attended, and again the district was well represented, this time by Wayne Merkert (grade six science teacher), Heidi Bernasconi (North High School biology/marine biology teacher), and Superintendent Dr. Margaret Keller-Cogan.

After first participating in a digital scavenger hunt, reviewing some of the key features and functionality of the Google Chromebooks, we were fortunate to hear a motivating and inspirational opening to the session by Jaime Casap, Google Education Senior Evangelist (yes, that’s his title).  He focused on education and student learning, and shared the variety of ways technology has changed in the past few years.  In contrast to these changes, we also examined how the structure of education and traditional classrooms remain largely unchanged.  

The juxtaposition of these two facts reminded of a video I share with our teachers from time to time, which illustrates how much technology has changed in the past few years.  It’s best viewed in fullscreen mode.

Casap focused on the reality that today’s students learn differently---in fact they view the world differently--compared to even just a few years ago.  His jokes about yellow pages and training cd’s were well received and drove home the point, as did his reference to paper maps!  The bottom line is that our students do learn differently, and relying on outdated models makes is often ineffective or counterproductive.  In the upcoming weeks, my New City Patch blog will focus on the Clarkstown Central School District’s commitment to providing students with an education that meets them in their space and provides relevant and engaging learning opportunities.

After Casap's opening comments, our teachers shared their stories and each did a wonderful job engaging and encouraging the more than 70 educators and Google employees at each session, highlighting how current digital tools have transformed learning. The question/answer period was also engaging, and our teachers provided their own experiences, well thought out answers and areas for discussion that subtly revealed their depth of understanding.

I look forward to sharing a variety of learning success stories from our schools in upcoming blog posts, as well as the district’s vision for purposefully infusing technology. The 2011-12 school year holds terrific promise for our teachers and the students they serve!