Chip Kimball – Professional Learning Communities and Technology Tools that Support Them
Posted by psteffen on July 20, 2006
Lake Washington School District is using the work of Rick DuFour and using technology to help with Professional Learning Communities (PLC).
The District provided focus, clarity and commitment about PLC and put time in the Teacher’s contract for PLC.
The issues with PLC’s are:
- Time, time, time, time
- Culture, change and trust
- Purpose and Focus
- Building Good Teams
How can technology help?
- Time efficiences using real time learning communities fo blogging not in real time
- Connecting disparate communities
- Location
- Data
- Anonymity – response devices for gather input
Technology Lake Washington uses:
- SharePoint, Communication Server, Office
- Edmin.com, INFORM for DDDM
- Parent Portal (part of SharePoint)
- Marconi VIPR videoconferencing – they use hires video conferencing instead of having people drive to meetings
- Ed Props
- TRUMBA
They are currently working on a data warehouse, web-based grading, blogging, and instant messaging. Blogging and Wikis are part of next version of SharePoint. They have an automated system to create e-mail accounts for all students in grades 4-12 and the parents login and create an automated account to access student grades.
