21st Century Transformation Toolkit!

Saturday, October 25, 2008

School 2.0 Transformation Toolkit - A Recommended Resource for Innovative Educators to "Let the conversation begin!"

A long-time fan of School 2.0, I only just recently discovered their “Transformation Toolkit." It appears to be a wonderful tool to help bring teaching, learning and leading into the 21st Century and seems like a terrific guide to all the great School 2.0 tools. Below is an overview and outline of what you’ll find inside this 77 page guide.

The Transformation Toolkit: Let the conversation begin!

These Transformation Tools are designed to provide individual schools and school districts with a menu of meeting facilitation tools, templates, and activities that enable the broad range of stakeholders - students, teachers, principals, chief technology officers, parents, community members and policymakers – to engage in a series of conversations that support strategic planning for education and technology.

These visioning and planning activities can be used in the order they are presented, or can be selected and combined in any fashion to meet school or district needs. The capstone of this collection is a process for developing and monitoring an implementation plan that includes the identification of responsible persons and timelines.

Theses tools lead to the creation of a set of living documents that capture the community’s education vision and that serve to guide the school or district through the process of creating learning environments that are future-focused and which leverage technology to be both engaging and productive.

Table of Contents

I. Give One, Get One
This opening activity provides participants with an opportunity to get to know each other while
exploring ways that integrating technology into the instructional program can enhance learning for all students.
II. Technology Shared Language Activity
This activity provides participants with the background knowledge and shared vocabulary necessary to meaningfully participate in the technology visioning and planning activities.
III. Introduction to School 2.0 Map
It is important that participants become very familiar with the School 2.0 map. This activity provides an opportunity for participants to explore the map in depth, reflect on the interdependent components and discover new ideas and practices.
IV. People Wheel Activity
Assuming that the ultimate goal of stakeholders in School 2.0 is to design the “next generation of
school” that ultimately prepares students for the 21st century, this activity provides an opportunity for all participants to understand the perspectives of the different stakeholder groups in a school community.
V. Process Area
Now that the specific needs and roles of each stakeholder have been established, participants will identify ways technology can enable stakeholders to address the identified needs.
VI. TechTacks Activity
This activity provides participants with the opportunity to use what they have learned in the previous activities to create a technology equipped 21st century classroom.
VII. Technology Visioning Process
This visioning activity provides participants an opportunity to efficiently draft an instructional technology vision for their district or school.
VIII. Give One, Get One for Technology Administrators and Principals
This activity sets the stage for Chief Technology Officers, Directors of Technology, Principals, Lead Technology Specialists, and Central Officeb Instructional and Support Staff to participate in writing a vision statement for their district.
IX. Challenge Scenarios
This activity provides opportunities for groups to focus on and respond to some common technology challenges faced by school staff and communities, and central office and school-based administrators.
X. Introduction to Strategic and Technology Planning
Strategic Technology Plan: This activity provides a foundation for the technology planning process. It allows participants to gain the information and background knowledge necessary to begin their own process for developing their strategic technology planning. Implementation Plan: After completing the creation of the Strategic Technology Plan, use this activity to develop an implementation plan that supports the previously-developed technology vision and sets their strategic plan in motion.