CSD Celebrating the 15th Annual Character Education Conference

By Dr. John Urkevich, Executive Director

Each summer Cooperating School Districts’ CHARACTERplus® program holds the Character Education Conference. On July 9 and 10, 2010, the 15th annual conference takes place in St. Louis, Missouri at the Hyatt Regency St. Louis Riverfront Hotel.

CHARACTERplus® works to advance the cause of character education and sustain its impact on the lives of educators and students by:

• designing, promoting and facilitating processes and best practices;
• serving educators and enhancing their commitment to character education;
• actively recruiting and developing community support; and
• continually evaluating the impact of our programs and services.

CHARACTERplus® has grown dramatically in the past sixteen years. We now serve over 186 school districts, more than 30,000 teachers, and 425,000 students in over 877 schools.

According to CHARACTERplus® Director Liz Gibbons, “it is our hope that this conference and the excellent presenters will inspire and motivate you to be the change agent for your schools and communities.  The difference effective character education can make in school culture, and in the community, is astounding.”

At the two-day conference, there are four keynote speakers: Marvin Berkowitz, Professor of Character Education, on “The Prime of Character Education”; Todd Whitaker, Professor of Educational Leadership, on “What Great Teachers Do Differently: 14 Things That Matter Most”; Barbara Lewis, Consultant & Former Teacher, on “Youth of Integrity Changing The Future”;  and Clifton Taulbert, President & Founder, on “Their Promising Future: our Goal.”

Other topics include: Going Green With Character Education, Film Clips for Character Education, The Culture of Character, What Does a Hero Look Like?, and NoMOre Bullying.

For more information on the 15th annual Character Education Conference, please visit the CHARACTERplus® website.

21st Century Technology Enhanced Learning Environment

By Dr. John Urkevich, Executive Director

Cooperating School Districts’ Virtual Learning Center provides instructional technology professional development to K-12 teachers in the St. Louis metropolitan area. Several of the trainings take place in the Technology Enhanced Learning Environment, or tele.

This spring, the tele received a major overhaul: two new interactive whiteboards (one SMART Board, one Promethean ActivBoard) with attached projectors, a new high definition Polycom 9000, a flat screen TV, and a new audio system.

The tele classes offered by the VLC assist teachers in integrating technology such as interactive whiteboards and videoconference equipment, plus Web 2.0 applications like blogs and wikis, into the classroom. By utilizing technology in their schools, educators are able to meet 21^st Century skills.

21^st Century skills set includes:

• Information and communication skills (information and media literacy skills; communication skills)
• Thinking and problem-solving (critical thinking and systems thinking; problem identification, formulation and solution; creativity and intellectual curiosity)
• Interpersonal and self-direction skills (interpersonal and collaborative skills; self-direction; accountability and adaptability; social responsibility)
• Global awareness
• Financial, economic and business literacy, and developing entrepreneurial skills to enhance workplace productivity and career options
• Civic literacy

We all know the importance of teachers utilizing technology to engage their students in their learning in the 21^st Century. Students enjoy collaboration and easily work with technology and Web 2.0 applications for problem solving and communicating. These skills will translate as they enter the workforce in the years to come. CSD strives to keep our students engaged in their schoolwork by providing teachers’ professional development to incorporate 21^st Century skills with technology use in their classes.

Allison’s Day: Technology and the Classroom

By Dr. John Urkevich, Executive Director

NOTE: Within this blog is a video link you do not want to miss! Before I get into my blog, I want to encourage you to watch this short video and think about our world today and the powerful role technology can play in our students’ education.

CSD of Greater St. Louis, Inc. was recently recognized by the Gateway Media Literacy Partners for our commitment to the promotion of media literacy education. We appreciate this recognition. As an organization, we remain committed to helping our school districts integrate technology into the classroom and promote media literacy. CSD is currently looking at our technology infrastructure and forming an internal committee to assess where we are at as we move forward in the 21st century.

Our students are competing on a global stage now more than ever. With social media tools, such as blogs, and students’ use of technology in their daily life, it’s essential that our schools integrate these tools in classroom instruction. I encourage you to become familiar with CSD’s Virtual Learning Center, a department focused on integrating technology into classroom learning. The Virtual Learning Center hosts regular videoconferencing for teachers and students that allow them access to the world beyond classroom walls. To learn more about these videoconferences and other programs, including technology training for teachers, visit the VLC’s blog called The Wired Classroom.

Each year, CSD sponsors the Midwest Education Technology Conference (METC) and we are currently exploring the possibility of holding a one-day Technology Integration Summit for our member districts to share best practices and further develop knowledge of integrating technology and the use of Web 2.0 tools into the classroom.

We’ll keep you posted on our efforts in technology as we continue to help our districts network in this area and leverage our cooperation to help students succeed in school and in life.

Thank you to Stan Smith, Instructional Technology Coordinator in the Warrensburg (Mo.) R-VI School District, for his creation of the “Allison’s Day” video. This powerful video shows how one school has successfully integrated technology into classroom learning as they work to prepare students for life in the 21st century. Stacey Franks from CSD’s Virtural Learning Center worked on this project with Stan Smith and trained the teachers in this video.

Saving Money and Expanding Educational Opportunities for Children?

CSD is exploring this possibility through the St. Louis Regional Exchange Collaborative

By Dr. John Urkevich, Executive Director
CSD was recently part of a meeting led by David Sandel, Executive Director of the St. Louis Regional Exchange Collaborative (REP), which serves as a regional exchange point – a local Internet access method that streamlines and improves the efficiency of the way data is exchanged between service providers, businesses, and residents of the St. Louis region. As shared on their Web site, “the REP principally functions as a regional broadband hub to assure quicker, more secure, and less expensive processing of Internet communications and services, much the way that river port authorities, railroad stations, airline hubs and interstate highways ease the flow of traffic while simultaneously lowering costs and improving services.” There are 22 member organizations in the St. Louis REP Collaborative. CSD is working with the organization to explore a possible plan to include K-12 school districts as members.

As we continue to work closely with the REP, some potential benefits to schools in our area include: cost reduction and improved efficiency for IT services such as video surveillance, disaster recovery, server consolidation, storage consolidation and voice over IP (VoIP) services, and increased learning opportunities through partnerships with local institutions. Examples of such partnerships include students having access via videoconferencing to live surgeries in local hospitals, or establishing business incubators in schools by working with local firms.

You may question: Isn’t this type of videoconferencing already available? Yes, it is. However, our interest in the REP includes the need for expanded bandwidth and wireless capabilities within all schools. While individual school districts are expanding their bandwidth, potential membership in the REP could leverage these individual efforts to gain substantial savings on school districts’ future technology investments. In addition, access to St. Louis-area institutions for shared learning opportunities could enhance the type of learning that already exists in our schools.

The need to invest in infrastructure is critical. As we prepare students for the global workplace, technology integration in the classroom is essential. The REP is attempting to enhance our infrastructure which allows for greater technology integration into education at a lower cost to schools.

We have just begun to explore this initiative in detail. As we get deeper into its development, we will involve school district personnel in our planning. Until then, I encourage everyone to learn more about this collaborative by visiting the REP Web site at: http://www.stlrepcollaborative.org.