A Partnership of Learning

     On February 14, 2011, faculty and students of the Guthrie Common School District (GCSD) Elementary School continued their journey of learning in the use of technology in the instructional setting in ways that are meaningful and relevant.  For the past two years GCSD learners (young and old) have engaged in a joint learning venture of collaborative learning to make the classroom instructional setting ever more relevant and ever more meaningful for both students and teachers.  In the process they have been leveraging the many technological tools available to them.  The GCSD Board of Trustees has been very progressive in their thinking and aggressive in their pursuit of World Class learning by providing substantial resources to support this 21^st Century learning model.

     On February 14, the elementary classes and their teachers displayed the results and impact of their learning over that two-year period.  The agenda for the day was designed by Technology Director Darren Wilson.  He charged teachers to participate with their students in presenting for the rest of the campus demonstrations of they are using new tools (both hardware and software) to enhance learning in their classrooms.  Each class was given approximately 20 minutes to present their learning.

     To be sure, there was a bit of anxiety associated with the process, both on the part of students and teachers.  However, the event came off beautifully.   The result was that all students and all teachers ended up learning with and from each other. Teachers Lynette Sweeney, Buffy Wilson, Shirley Hurt, Tammy Hatfield, Kelly McNeill, and Lynn Hill assisted their students in demonstrating use of the following kinds of technology: recording audio, digital cameras, Brain Pop, Edmodo, blogs, word processing, using the Internet, making presentations, Google Earth, etc.

     At the end of the day, Mr. Wilson said, “Referencing back to my show-and-tell story from 1976, Mrs. Bowen [his elementary teacher] would never have known what hit her today. With terms like: SoftSchool, Starfall, Shuttercal, Twitter Pals, Edmodo, Funbrain, Wordl and  Glogster, we sound a lot more techy than we give ourselves credit for.”

     It was a VERY good day of learning at GCSD!