STAR Grant News.......

STAR Grant Awarded (July 30, 2007): TISD was one of 26 in the state $489,412 (over a 2 year period) for the STAR grant. The purpose of the STAR Grant is to provide schools with funding necessary to provide proven research-based professional development that will assist schools with effectively integrating advanced technologies, including emerging technologies, into the curricula and instruction to ensure student success in the 21st Century. Any TISD certified teacher (full or part time), any certified librarian (full or part time), TISD administrators, and St. Mary’s certified teachers and administrators can participate in this grant.

Master Teachers Trained (August 6-9, 2007): Campus liaisons completed four days of intensive training to become Master Teachers for the Intel Essentials Course. The Intel Corporation provides Master Teacher Training at no cost the school districts. TISD's liasions were trained by a Senior Master Trainer from Region 10. This training enables the campus liaisons to now train their campus staff.

More Master Teachers Trained (October 29, 2007): Four campus liaisons and four district technology staff members successfully completed the Intel Master Teachers Course at Region 12. With the completion of this course, all campus liasions are now certified Master Essentials Trainers. As an added bonus, Dawna Uselton, Wheatley campus liaision, won a smart board!

STAR Grant in the News (November 16, 2007): TISD teachers made the front page of the Temple Daily Telegram in an article about the recently awarded STAR grant. To find out more, go to http://www.temple-telegram.com/story/2007/11/16/45000.

Essentials Classes Ongoing (Fall, 2007) Temple ISD teachers take advantage of face-to-face training offered on their campuses. 14 workshops have been scheduled so far. To view the upcoming classes, log in at http://pd.tisd.org/login.html.

Wikis (October, 2007) You can view the Units of Practice at from Thornton's Essentials class at http://thorntonintel.wikispaces.com. In addition, students from Lea Ann Turner's 3rd grade class explore wikis and movie creation in the video clip, "What is a Wiki?".

Administrator Forum (April, 2008): Eighteen of TISD's administrators participated in the Intel Leadership Forum that was conducted by John Kalny, senior Intel trainer. 

Essentials Classes, Update (Summer 2008) Over 130 teachers have taken the Essentials Course since the grant started. See what some of the teachers have to say about how this course impacts their teaching:

“The biggest impact point is the unit plan. To often with a “set” curriculum it is difficult to get your mind around going through the motions and actually create a unit with a theme and then using the curriculum guide to “guide” student through the topic with a beginning and an end. It makes more sense.”

“I think these projects make it easy to facilitate a student centered classroom. If you make the project something they can relate to they will take more ownership and will be more vested into the learning.”

• Reflections on the Essentials Unit of Practice Forum

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