CULLOWHEE (April 15, 2015)—Gaston County Schools have quickly put into practice work they began at the North Carolina Center for the Advancement of Teaching, a recognized national leader in professional development for teachers.
NCCAT presenter Glenn Gurley had known Roxie Miller, Gaston County Schools’ assistant chief technology officer, for several years. Then Glenn met Lisa Montgomery, Gaston County instructional facilitator, at Edcamp in Charlotte. The three of them began working on the idea for training for teachers. A group from Gaston County came to NCCAT for a Research and Development Team program and also participated in the "Bring Your Own Technology" program March 10–13.
Many teachers are faced with a charge to integrate technology into the curriculum while the reality is that the technology supplied by their schools is not the same sort of technology that their students are using on a daily basis. One answer to this dilemma that the BYOT (sometimes also called BYOD—Bring-Your-Own-Device) program tried to supply is using the technology that the students want to bring with them to school as a way to engage them more fully with the materials and the processes in the classroom.
"We were given tons of practical agnostic platform tools and ideas," Montgomery said.
The information from the NCCAT programs was shared with all 55 schools, and 18 are actively involved in various stages of the BYOD process. South Point High School was able to get on board right after the Gaston County educators went to NCCAT. A middle school, Stanley Middle School, is also already participating under the instruction of Jason Mammano an instructional technology facilitator. A reading session for classes at Belmont Elementary School, where students read "Goodnight iPad" and "If You Give a Mouse an iPhone" is underway.
If you would like to find out more about “Research and Development Team Programs” and how your school can do what Gaston County schools did, please click here.