eLearning & Content Advisory Council

Today I attended a meeting of Connecticut's eLearning & Content Advisory Council, of which I am a member. It was from 3-5 at Charter Oak State College in New Britain. Ed Klonoski, president of Charter Oak State College, chaired the group for the last time, since Vice Chair, Sue Palisano from the Connecticut Center for Advanced Technology, was selected as the new Chair for next year.

The eLearning & Content Advisory Council is one of four councils to report to the Connecticut Commission for Educational Technology.


The Commission is charged with:

• Establishing the Connecticut Education Network . (Check out the resources!)
  

• Establishing rigorous standards in technology competency for students, teachers, and administrators.

• Establishing the Connecticut Digital Library.

• Reporting annually on the progress of educational technology in Connecticut, and making recommendations to the Connecticut General Assembly on matters relating to educational technology. (View the 2009 Annual Report and Recommendations)

[Both the Connecticut Commission for Educational Technology and the Connecticut Education Network were listed this afternoon in the Governor's new budget cuts!]

There was a discussion on the free training sessions tomorrow at CREC for all interested middle school Science teachers or administrators on the implementation of the free United Streaming Science video project. The new resource that will soon be available to all middle grades (Grades 6-8) in Connecticut. Connecticut has acquired a statewide license to Discovery Education Science—an award winning standards-based multimedia resource that powers any middle-school science curricula with virtual labs, simulations, interactive videos, reading passages and more, coupled with a real-time assessment component that measures students’ progress.
This is a four-year license and is provided by the Connecticut Education Network (CEN) through the Commission for Educational Technology (CET) at no cost to school districts.

Organized around an inquiry framework and covering physical, earth and space, and life sciences, Discovery Education Science is designed to engage students, encourage exploration, stimulate critical thinking and deepen understanding of science.

Westport teachers will be provided with passwords to access this special science material inside Discovery Education Science (United Streaming). (Read the original letter about this project.) [Click here to get a preview of the service.]

We also talked about utilizing the Connecticut Distance Learning Consortium's state license with iTunes University, and looked at possible goals for next year -- including focusing on providing professional development opportunities in a variety of ways.

I hope that the committee is not disbanded and look forward to working on the eLearning & Content Advisory Committee next year.