BMS - FIRST ITL MEETING OF THE YEAR

The BMS ITL committee met for the first time this year from 3:00-4:00 this afternoon. Rita Hennessey, LMS, and Lauren Bullock, technology teacher, are the new co-chairs of the committee and Rita Hennessey led the meeting. Members of the committee able to attend included: Meg Tiley, assistant principal; Laurie Gray, math teacher; Anitha Bolar, math teacher; Jeremy Royster, social studies teacher; Kathy Fleming, technology teacher; Lauren Francese, science teacher, and new member, Susan Cyrulik, science teacher.

Rita provided an overview of this year's ITL Summer Camp. 1-2 participants from every school learned about, used and explored the relative advantages of using: Smart Recorder to create screencasts, Flip cameras, MovieMaker, Diigo, Skype, Bubbl.us, Scratch, Google Forms, evaluation tools for websites, and Google Earth to create virtual tours.

There was also a discussion that I led about the Nov. 3rd ITL professional development day for all staff grades 6-12. We looked at the existing list of possible topics, and discussed if there were any topics missing. No new topics were added. We also discussed the structure of the day (8-9:30 - Keynote by Bernajean Porter; 10-11:30 - Workshop 1; 12:15-1:30- Workshop 2; 1:45-3:00 - Workshops 3; OR one afternoon workshop from 12:15-3:00). The group looked at the other possibility of having ONE workshop from 10:00-3:00, and although there were some advantages, everyone thought it was more important that teachers be exposed to at least two different topics.

Rabbit Hill, a Festival of Children's Literature, was briefly discussed. (There will be future posts on this, I am certain!) This amazing literature program sponsored by the Westport Public Library will bring five authors to Bedford and Coleytown Middle Schools on Friday, Oct. 23rd. On Saturday Oct 24th, the authors present at Saugatuck Elementary School at a free morning event, with workshop sessions offered in the afternoon. The reason for putting Rabbit HIll on the agenda was to support the preparation of students as much as possible for the authors' visit to maximize the impact of their presentations. Kathy Fleming and Rita Hennessey discussed connections with the TV Studio and the LMC.

Two future faculty meetings may be used for ITL workshops this year after the ITL PD day on Nov. 3rd.

Attending the meeting and hearing about potential ITL work this year at Bedford was a great way to end the 2nd day of school (for students).