Rollout ideas for a large district...

Submitted by tim.hawes on Fri, 09/05/2008 - 8:20am.

Posts: 2

Hi all.

We have recently licensed DE Streaming for our district and are planning a large "splashy" rollout to the schools (160 schools in Ottawa, Canada) in the next 2 months.

We have a professional development day in November, where every school will put aside 2 hours for teachers to be introduced to DE S and get some hands-on experience.

So my question to you veterans is:

If you were trying to create a real impact and get teachers excited, how would you use the 2 hours???

Any feedback is welcomed!

./tim

Fri, 10/10/2008 - 3:18pm

njwalter

Posts: 3

Hi Tim,

When we introduce it to our teachers we spend only a short time making sure everyone gets an account set up. We also make sure to help them set their preferences so they will be successful with their downloads. We are on Macs so for the sound to work they have to download as a QuickTime and that is not the default. Then we do a short demo showing them the different features, like the keyword search, advanced search, where they can search for grade level, subject, state standard, etc. We also show them that there is more than videos. The clip art, articles, sound effects, songs, lesson plans, etc. all show up on the left when you search for a topic, such as "frog". The main part though is to have them come prepared with a teachers manual or some ideas of a unit they'd like to find materials for. Then give them time to explore and sit back and feel their enthusiasm as they see how easy it is to find high-quality content at their fingertips. Congratulations. Your district made a great choice! Judy

Sat, 10/11/2008 - 7:15am

tim.hawes

Posts: 2

thanks, Judy.

For anyone else considering a large rollout, here is what we have planned:

- we have given advanced access (and 1/2 day training) to 40 "lead" teachers from around the city

-the will act as ambassadors in their family of schools (some are classroom teachers, others are resource teachers/consultants)

-we have filmed various segments with a couple of lead teachers in their classes using DE streaming. That footage, along with a video tutorial will get pressed to DVD and distributed to all schools

-on a system wide PD Day (Nov 14) every school will set aside 90 min to introduce DE. They will watch the DVD as a group (along with some microwave popcorn we will provide :-) and then head to a lab/computer to setup their own account/get started

-we will be running various contests that day to really encourage them to hit the ground running (e.g. school with highest % of staff with accounts wins prize, school with most videos watched, etc. as well as a "scavenger hunt) within DE

-teachers will then be provided with some time that day to do shared planning (e.g. all the grade 9 science teachers in a school will sit together and bookmark the DE content that they will use to support that course)

It is a bit ironic that we are using a DVD to introduce DE streaming, but with 160 schools to try and cover in 1 day this seemed like the best approach.

I'll post back after Nov 14th to let folks know if this was successful...