Alan November Comes to Moultonborough

On Monday, February 6, 2017, the Moultonborough School District welcomed Alan November and his team for a full day of improving teaching and learning through better use of technology. A world renowned educator and leader in using educational technology in schools and businesses, November was by Lainie Rowell and Tom Driscoll. Rowell is an independent professional developer and consultant who has worked closely with educators to improve teaching and student learning through innovative ways. Driscoll is the Director of Educational Technology for the Bristol Warren Regional School District in Rhode Island and he is interested in fundamentally transforming teaching by personalizing student learning through the use of innovative applications of emerging technologies.

The day began when November, Rowell and Driscoll met with students from the Academy and from the Central School. November strongly believes that students should actively participate in every professional development event that take place in schools. Ultimately, professional development aims to improve teachers to better help students owning their own learning. Students performed Google searches for him and demonstrated that they did not know how to efficiently use a search engine.

November then presented a keynote to the staff and community of Moultonborough School District where he elaborated on the skills necessary for each student to successfully locate, engage, consume, and create information online.

The remainder of the day was broken up in three sessions: One for grades K-4, led by Rowell; one for grades 5-8, led by Driscoll; and one for grades 9-12, led by November. These sessions featured in-depth looks at apps, web pages, and software that teachers can use right away to enhance the impact of their lessons on students and by switching ownership of the learning towards the students themselves.

At the conclusion of the day, we surveyed staff and students on the presentations. Feedback was overwhelming positive. Staff found many things that were valuable about the day. Some comments include "Real life applications for our age group from a speaker who has taught at the same age level" and "being introduced to new tech tools/sites I did not know about."

One staff member summed it up when she stated that the best part about the day was "finding out how much more I want to know! Being with the whole District and learning together with highly and inspirational qualified presenters."

Where do we go from here

Our next step is determining where we go next. We were planning on working with Kim Marshall on our next professional development day on March 17th, but after witnessing the teachers' inspiration to introduce more technological resources in their classroom, we now we plan on more time exploring the technologies that was presented.