It was a beautiful spring day in San Antonio where education leaders and technology specialists converged at the University of Phoenix in north San Antonio to discuss the transition to digital curriculum and content. It was also a special celebration of the progress that has been made over the last year. In that regard, the Mayor of San Antonio, Ms. Ivy Taylor recognized April 28th as “Digital Equality Day” for all the educators of her city.
“I’m proud that the Learning Counsel was able to host this event and take part in recognizing the hard and passionate work of educators,” said LeiLani Cauthen, CEO of the Learning Counsel. “We are in a challenging time. I see educators working their guts out to keep up with technology to use it for all its worth when systems are not necessarily in place to support them. Executives like Mayor Turner are taking this seriously to back them up. But we are in the middle of this shift and that’s why we’re here – to share best practices and models for success and even stories of learning from failure.”
In attendance to receive the mayoral proclamation were representatives from Southside ISD, Schertz-Cibolo-Universal City ISD, San Antonio ISD, Northeast ISD, Harlandale ISD, Lytle ISD and Edgewood ISD.
Photo gallery of San Antonio Discussion.
In alignment with the theme of discussing transition plans and best-practices, Dr. Karla Burkholder, the Director of Instructional Technology for Schertz-Cibolo-Universal City ISD shared that the professional development piece is very near and dear to her heart. “In our District, one of the things that we’ve done to get people on-board, we have offered our teachers mini-conference-style PD where they get to choose. We wanted Students to have Voice and Choice – we’re giving our teachers Voice and Choice too. That has been a great way to get teachers excited about technology and want to learn more about how they can use it in the classroom, get more comfortable with it and be willing to take risks.”
The discussions of the day concluded with a panel, sponsored by Huawei Education Solutions, constructed to ask education leaders for their vision, questions about where they are now, where they are headed, what their end goals are and also get answers to hot-button topics districts must consider in the shift to technology and digital curriculum.
