A1 iTeacher August Training

With just three Instructional Technologists serving 14 schools, our army of iTeachers is critical to the success of our 1:1 initiative. We started with just one teacher per school to help with professional development at the school level and our district conference. Throughout last year, we continued to add teachers to our iTeacher program and provided training on presentation skills. These teachers presented at our Transform 2015 Conference.


Over the summer, we selected another group of iTeachers to add to our growing army. For many schools, we now have one iTeacher per grade level! In order to prepare them for the year ahead, Team Innovation planned a fun day of training.

Team Building
We started the training session with professional headshots by David Hearne for iTeachers to use as profile pictures on Twitter, Google+, blogs, and classroom websites. Following the headshots, iTeachers were treated to a craft session with Toshia Leistein from Burlap and Ribbons. The adorable apples seen below will be used to decorate their classroom doors this year!


Model Classrooms
The next portion of training focused on creating model classrooms. This school year, our district will be hosting a Digital Transformation Institute for leaders in other districts to come tour classrooms and learn more about our 1:1 initiative. We are counting on our iTeachers to create model classrooms for this event and for others in our district to visit.

We began with a discussion about what makes a "model classroom" using AnswerGarden to create a word cloud of  responses. Next, we split the teachers five groups and asked each group to narrow the indicators for one of the ISTE Standards on a Model Classroom Rubric using a Google Doc. After showing how to make their own copy of the Doc, each teacher used it as a self-evaluation. Finally, the iTeachers moved into grade-level groups to share ideas and reflections.

iTeacher Training - Created with Haiku Deck, presentation software that inspires

iTeachers discuss #modelclassrooms & create a #rubric for self-evaluation #a1digitalinnovation pic.twitter.com/5s4fgRBXxG

— Jessica D. Preisig (@PreisigJessica) August 4, 2015

Working on a model classroom rubric with iTeachers #a1digitalinnovation pic.twitter.com/Iyq4S4NR3k

— Tamara Cox (@coxtl) August 4, 2015

Our iTeachers are hard at work #a1digitalinnovation pic.twitter.com/bxNLWzmQEL

— Jessica D. Preisig (@PreisigJessica) August 4, 2015

Sharing ideas for addressing weak areas on model classroom rubric #a1digitalinnovation pic.twitter.com/NRRoFU60Ur

— Tamara Cox (@coxtl) August 4, 2015

It was a great day at iTeacher Training! #a1digitalinnovation #thanks pic.twitter.com/oFEYGDDkED

— Jessica D. Preisig (@PreisigJessica) August 4, 2015