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Saturday, April 20, 2024
Across the Carroll ISD teachers, coaches and administrators took part in a myriad of activities during the district’s Staff Development Day on Monday, Oct. 13. Each CISD campus hosted a series of events ranging from guest speakers and workshops to interactive uses of technology in the classroom.
Teachers at Carroll Elementary School spent the afternoon discussing campus, individual teacher data and areas of strength. The kindergarten through fourth grade teachers also shared lesson strategies and explored using online resources for lesson plans.
Campus safety and security measures were also reviewed among school staff members. Eubanks Intermediate School hosted a Safety Q & A session while Dawson Middle School took part in a walk-through evacuation drill late in the afternoon. Teachers at Rockenbaugh Elementary spent time reviewing the district’s Emergency Operation Plan.
CISD Curriculum Coordinators also hosted sessions for teachers from multiple campuses in an effort to align lessons. Today’s professional development activities also produced a first in the district, the first time all kindergarten through twelfth grade choir teachers took part in an afternoon training session.
While most of the day’s sessions focused on exploring the use of technology to enhance classroom instruction, presentation also showed faculty members how the right online tool can simplify communications and paperwork.
Today was Carroll’s first Staff Development Day since the first day of school. Prior to that, Carroll teachers spent four days during the district’s annual Professional Development week held every year the week before school starts followed by the first Teacher Work Day of the school year that was held on Friday, Aug. 22. The next Teacher Work Day (student holiday) will be Monday, Jan. 5, 2015.
Dragons, it’s almost time for Carroll ISD’s 2nd annual Virtual Technology Conference! Don’t miss out and make sure to register for your sessions as well as the opening and closing session. Angie Bakke, the Instructional Technologist at Carroll High School said close to 150 participants have already registered.
“I have been getting phone calls from area school districts asking if their teachers can join,” said Bakke, “We are not quite ready for that, but it is growing.”
Carroll Independent School District will host its second annual Virtual Technology Conference Thursday August 9. Last year’s event was successful with 125 attendees. Topics for this year’s conference range from cell phone and video use in the classroom to interactive assignments and books to use for teaching biographies. This event is organized by Bakke, Lisa Young, Gay Grissom, Jennifer Waldroop and Kristie Johnson.
Angie Bakke, the Instructional Technologist at Carroll High School said she first thought of hosting an online conference for CISD after attending a few herself.
In the past, she has hosted “Webinar Wednesday”, an online conference, every other Wednesday throughout the year. She said the classes held 75 attendees and that they usually filled up.
“This is amazing,” said Lisa Young, the Coordinator for 21st Century Learning and Professional Development, “you can participate in the conference from your own home or even from Starbucks. A wireless connection and a computer are all that is needed.”
Young also said that the Virtual Conference will be much easier for faculty to attend for developmental training. She said in past years, teachers would be out of town on vacations or would just have a hard time making it to the training. She hopes that hosting a webinar will result in higher numbers of participants for the developmental training.
Instructional Technologists for CISD will be hosting the individual webinars and teaching the material. The conference is not currently open for teachers to be presenters; however, those interested in presenting next year have the opportunity to be moderators at this year’s conference.
To help gain a larger audience, door prizes will be offered at this conference. CISD’s We Care sponsors have donated several gift cards. Grand prizes include an iPad and Dell Tablet. To be eligible for a grand prize, participants must attend all sessions and be present at the closing session.
This year’s event will give attendees up to 6.5 hours of Flex credit for attending the opening and closing sessions as well as four core sessions. These Flex credits may be used on the Monday or Tuesday before Thanksgiving which are paid days and would otherwise have to be made-up with other developmental training.
The CISD Virtual Technology Conference does require participants to register online through Eudorphia Workshop. The Conference is broken up into four sessions with CISD Superintendent presenting the Opening Session. This event runs from 8 o’clock in the morning to 4 o’clock in the afternoon.
Gay Grissom, the K-6 Instructional Technology Specialist, and Bakke will be presenting the idea of a virtual conference for staff development training at the Texas Computer Education Association’s System Administrator and Technical Support Conference in Austin, TX., in February of next year. Bakke, along with Grissom and other CISD Instructional Technologists, will also be presenting a wide variety of workshops about using different technologies in the classroom.