During our March Jr. High team meetings, our teachers participated in a Breakout EDU experience.  Their objective was to gain access to a secured lock box.  The teachers worked together to figure out a series of clues instructional technology related that led to different lock-combinations. We had the opportunity during a few teams to do a "Google Hangout" to encourage a little competition between buildings.  During this interactive and engaging experience, our teachers had exposure to Numbers, BreakOut Edu, Google Share Folders, EdPuzzle, Tech Tips Coaches Blog, Google Hangout and Google "My Maps".
If you want to learn more about how you can bring a Breakout EDU experience to your students check out their website. There is also a great Facebook group named "BreakOut Edu" with tons of ideas from other teachers who are creating BreakOut lessons from kindergarten and up.

Don't worry K-5 buildings, we are bringing Breakout EDU to you soon!

On Friday, March 11th, we had the opportunity for two Apple Representatives to visited High Point, Century, Center & Liberty schools to see the progress of our 1:1 initiative implementation.  Teachers and students showed off many of the wonderful happenings in our classrooms. The lessons really were great examples of 21st Century educational experiences for our students and were at various points on the SAMR model. The lessons gave students opportunities to learn with digital content in many forms. Students were creating and publishing to show the mastery their learning at all levels through various applications such as Padlet, Numbers, Explain Everything, Blogger, Popplet, Coding and more. Thank you to all the teachers who welcomed us into your rooms and we look forward to having Apple visit us again to check out more our classrooms.

This year we were fortunated enough to train 40 teachers through the Apple Vanguard Program. They attended 24 hours worth of courses facilitated by Apple Educators and us, who are Apple Foundations Trainers. These 40 teachers had opportunities to build their foundational understanding of the iPad, MacBook, iWork and iLife applications. Teachers worked together in grade level groups to curate lessons to bring back to their students and team members. These teachers are great resource in all buildings to reach out to for ideas.