Richland2 South Carolina Visit April 22 - 23rd 2013

Four members of the Passaic Technology Team, Maritza Villanueva, Jason Smith, John Menichella, and I, were provided with the tremendous opportunity to visit Richland 2 schools in South Carolina last month.  What an eye-opening, enriching, and exciting learning opportunity for our team.  We were provided the opportunity to see Richland 2 school's 1TWO1 in action.  Facilitated by Donna Teuber (Technology Integration Specialist) at Richland2 schools, we were able to see 1 elementary school, 2 middle schools and 3 high schools while we visited April 22nd and 23rd. We visited Conder Elementary School,
Dent Middle School, Longleaf Middle School, Richland Northeast High School, Ridge View High School, and Westwood High School.  To be able to visit all of these schools in two days and gain insight and materials from the technology team and Richland 2 has been extremely invaluable.

First we visited Conder Elementary school where we observed a 1st grade class opening a Google doc and preparing to collaborate on the document with their classmates.  Students opened browsers, titled their document, and opened a second browser with a URL provided by the teachers.  After students prepared their laptops, they sat on the carpet in the center of the room to participate in the teacher's activity.  It was new seeing students at such a young age learning to use Google docs to enter information as well as open browsers and access the internet.  We also observed a second grade class working in centers completing projects for earth day.  Students were broken into centers of 3 - 4 students per center.  Group 1 worked on posters, Group 2 wrote a poem in Google Docs, Group 3 completed an earth day writing assignment, Group 4 wrote something meaningful in their journals about Earth Day, and Group 5 used the App Puppet Pals on the iPads.

Next we went to Dent Middle School where students were using anatomyarcade.com to discover the muscles of the body.  The web-based program assessed student knowledge on muscles in the body. Students were given a muscle and they had to mouse click on the part of the body where the muscle resided.  The program gave students instant feedback whether or not they were clicking the right part of the body.  Students were very engaged and spoke very highly of the program because it provided instant feedback and showed them their percent correct right on the screen.



Next we went to the High Schools and saw their 1TWO1 at the high school level.  They showed us their 3 models of 1TWO1 (classroom set, check-out, and take home model)  They were utilizing all three models throughout the district. Above is an example of the checkout model carts.  Students who opt out of taking the Chromebooks home pick up their Chromebook from a central location in the morning and return the Chromebook to the same location in the afternoon before returning home.

Richland Northeast High School

Westwood High School Main Entrance

Outside Westwood High School

One of the key takeaways for me was making connections with Richland2's outstanding staff and teachers.  We began this year carving our own path as we go, but having made this connection with Richland2, we have gained valuable insight and can utilize some of their resources to ensure that our 1:1 is successful. We have so many eager teachers and students who are willing to collaborate with other schools across the country and to make this connection and meet people who are doing the same things that we are doing at Passaic Schools is truly a terrific experience.  Richland2 staff shared their successes as well as their challenges and explained that their policies and procedures are always changing to meet the changes in their population, yet they shared all of their work and complimented us on our work thus far as well.  They were thrilled to make connections and asked to visit us in the future.  I know that this is the beginning of a great relationship between Passaic Schools and Richland2 Schools.