I was blessed to get to help work on the nomination packet for Darla Kester, Assistant Principal Secretary at Kerr Middle School for Admin of the Year. She made the finals! And while she didn’t take the top honor…she’s tops in our books! Congrats, Darla! ” order_by=”sortorder” order_direction=”ASC” returns=”included” maximum_entity_count=”500″] […]
Join Simple K-12 on March 11th for this amazing line-up of information-packed webinars for teachers by teachers!
I’m so excited to be working with the teachers and administrators at KMS to put together their first annual Virtual Curriculum Night! Each grade-level department is making a video of the information they would normally share during Curriculum Night…with some fun, student-filled video skits mixed in!
Burleson ISD participated in Hour of Code week for the second time this year. All of our campuses took time during the first full week of December to encourage students to code and learn more about computer science.
Every year the Learning Technologies Department arranges digital visits with Santa. This year, we used Google Hangouts to connect with the North Pole. Students sent letters to Santa, which he checked twice with the students.
The Learning Technologies Department ran the green screen photo booth for the Special Services Department’s annual Best Friends Festival. This was our second year to run the booth and we had a wonderful time taking photos of the students and teachers…and photoshopping them into Tattooine!
We organized our very first EdCamp BISD on October 15th and we got a really nice turn out! We had 53 attendees from 9 different school districts. After a little work to get everyone on the wifi…we were off and running.
As part of our Chromebook roll out, we brought 4 teachers from every campus to a special, intensive Google training with Amy Mayer and Jessica Powell from FriedTechnology. These hardcore learners gave up three days (Oct 3-5th) to learn with us!
The amazing Board of Trustees and Superintendent of Burleson ISD approved a 1:1 Chromebook roll out for students in 3rd-8th grade for the 16-17 school year. We were thrilled that they wanted to take this initiative to so many students. That meant we had to pull together and everyone got […]
We celebrated Matthew Kitchen’s birthday at Babe’s Chicken House…and may have subjected him to a little public dancing in a pink cowboy hat! What a good sport! Happy birthday, Matt!
On September 12. 2016, our CTO had to give an update to the School Board on the Chromebook Rollout. We talked about the numbers of Chromebooks delivered, the hours of professional development provided…but the best part was when two of our middle school teachers spoke about having Chromebooks in their […]
The Technology Department hosted Mike Patterson from CDW for a Leadership Workshop on August 30th. Principals, APs, Top Techs, librarians, and teacher leaders joined together to learn about leading our district into a 1:1 environment. Mike shared some great resources and the whole group worked together, discussed ideas, and shared […]
Our first Top Tech meeting of the year took place at STEAM Middle School (thanks, Louise, for hosting)! We went over some information about the Chromebook roll out and then Lindsay introduced the group to Breakout Edu!
Thanks to Dr. Leslie Bender Jutzi, BISD’s Academic Innovations Officer, and in partnership with Texas Health Huguley Hospital, Clinkscale Elementary gained a 3D ZSpace lab! Right after Convocation, several teachers and the LT team headed over to Clinkscale to learn how to use this amazing learning tool!
Our first activity at a team this year was Convocation! It was great to finally get our new team members on board! We were all excited to see all of our teacher friends, to enjoy the festivities and skits, and to jump right into the new year! With the famous […]
BISD is growing and office space is at a premium. We’re very fortunate that our CTO arranged for the renovation of the Data Portable to allow it to house not only the Data team, but our department AND a training lab/conference room. We are very excited about getting to move […]
On June 24th, 2016, the zSpace mobile lab rode up to one of our elementary campuses so that students participating in summer programs could experience the amazing 3D virtual lab.
I was flattered and excited to be asked to participate in Burleson Collegiate High School’s summer bridge program. This new campus was bringing in all of its new students and doing a complete day of goal setting, team building, training, fun, and pizza.
The BISD Technology Department hosted the North Texas Google Summit from June 8-9th this year at Centennial High School. We hosted, set up all technology, and our team presented at the event. Our CTO, Stephen Logan opened the summit with a welcome speech.
The CHS American Studies humanities teachers, Yvonne Hensley and Patti Massey, decided to mix some TV with their course. We recreated the format of the culinary show Chopped to work with their final review for their students. Students were given boxes with mystery recipes and ingredients in them.
I got to stop by The REALM Parent Night presentations – which were set up like games…really cool! Parents and students were so excited to learn about their new campus. Some of those parents got really competitive playing the 1980s video game challenge prepared by Dean Cheryl Essex. Good times […]
We ran the green screen photo booth again this year for the Employee Banquet! What a fun group of teachers and administrators. We always enjoy adding some digital fun to the proceedings!
LT Teresa Sumrall supported students from two elementary schools in BISD who wanted to raise money, goods, and awareness for local charities. They used Google Apps for Education to collaborate between their separate campuses, communicate with participants, and to inform the community. One student even invited the Mayor via Twitter!
Spring 2016 brought with it the 2nd Annual CHS Lit Tank. This 11th-grade English assignment is a take on the popular TV show, Lit Tank. Students have five weeks to plan and create a product, service, or business that is literature or literacy based. Students create a digital pitch site, a […]
The LT Department helped with the STEAM Academy at Stribling’s Parent Night. We helped with Osmo, robots, and more. It was a great, hands-on night where parents and students could explore STEAM activities, hear a presentation about the new direction the campus is moving in, and ask questions.
I was invited to sit on a panel for the BrightBytes Conference at Region XI. I got to do a brief presentation on how our district uses its BrightBytes data, and then the panel took questions from the crowd. It was a great conference full of incredible speakers and I […]
This year we all got to go to SXSWEdu in Austin. It was VERY different from the usual educational technology conferences we attend. It was much more about big ideas, pushing limits, and a lot of the sessions were more geared toward post-secondary education. My biggest goal was to go […]
BISD created billboards for our district’s two TCEA award winners – Ryan Churchward and Teresa Sumrall! We couldn’t wait to run over and get photos of them! Congrats, guys!!!
Got to help with the two School of Choice nights for The REALM. It was great to hear the parents’ comments and listen to their responses to the campus presentations. This is getting really real and really exciting!
Tonight at the board meeting, all of our TCEA Finalists and Winners were recognized. Here they all are again!
Tonight was an update for the School Board about the BISD Gaming and Coding middle school, The REALM. I helped with sample schedules and assignments for the presentation. The Dean, Cheryl Essex, and the Principal, Dr. Beaird spoke…and so did the student Stewards of The REALM. I am so excited […]
This year, in our January Newsletter, we sent out the following challenge: This year…we’d like to ask every one of you – Teachers AND Administrators – to take the ONE THING Challenge! Choose one technology goal for the spring semester…that’s right…just ONE!
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