How+We+Began

=Talladega County 21st Century Learners Project - How We Began=

Beginning in January 2008, teachers from Fayetteville High School and Winterboro School began working to spread and scale the 21st Century Learners project to the entire Talladega County school system. Here's our timeline outlining how fast this happened. == = =
 * Spring 2006** - FHS teachers designed and implemented an interdisciplinary and multi-grade level project based learning experience for students on Global Warming. This FHS team was selected by Microsoft as one of twenty teams in the nation as Innovative Teachers.
 * September 2007**- FHS teachers attended Microsoft's Innovative Teachers Forum in Redmond, Washington; Began brainstorming ways to spread the "good news" to schools within our own system.
 * October 2007** - Began second year in the ABPC 21st Century Learners project; Began working on a proposal for our system
 * November 2007** - Made a presentation to our Board of Education about our Microsoft experience; Met with Superintendent and other key leaders about a plan to spread this initiative to our system and received immediate approval (after the Board meeting); Made a presentation the next week at the system-wide Principal's meeting about the 21st century learners project slated to begin in January
 * December 2007** - Deadline for principals to choose three participants for this program; Prepare participants for the launch in January
 * January 2, 2008** - First Session (agenda is below)
 * February** - Mentoring meetings
 * March 11, 2008** - Second F2F (Face to Face) meeting
 * May 13, 2008** - Third Session (TCBOE 21st Century Learners Showcase)


 * Materials used at the initial meeting to propose system-wide project:**

[| 21st Century Learners Project - tcboe.doc] Our superintendent quickly approved the allotment of professional release time for 21 teachers from 7 high schools and 3 middle schools for 2 days. Our first session is on January 2nd (already a staff development day) and our 2nd session is an after school meeting with a mentor. The other two days will require release time. Also approved were travel reimbursements for the participants and the facilitators of the project.


 * Materials/Information for Promotion of the project:**

Video we showed to the principals at the Sytem-Wide Principals Meeting (will upload asap)

Each of our 7 high schools could choose two participants and the middle schools could choose one participant for the program. (Four of our "high schools include the middle grades.) Factors we considered when setting the number of participants: how many each facilitator could reasonably mentor, size of our available computer lab, overall cost of substitutes.

Each principal received seven packets of the following information to share with interested faculty members before making their selection: [| 21st Century Learner Application.doc] [| Nine Excellent Reasons for Technology in Education.doc] [| Web 2.0 Teaching tcboe.doc] [| Basic Blogs.doc] [| Basic Wiki.doc] [| tcboe 21st century flyer.ppt]


 * Materials for Participants once selected by the principals:**

[| 21st Century Learners Agenda.doc] [| Technology Survey of Students.doc] [| Eager Teacher Handout.doc]