TEMPLE, Texas, December 7 — The Temple Independent School District, along with partners Education Elements and Google for Education Texas, will host The National Academy for Personalized Learning on Monday, Dec. 10. This one-day professional development event will take place at the new Temple ISD administration building and will focus on best practices for the implementation and sustainability of personalized learning. The district is expecting about 60 education professionals representing 17 different entities from across the state including school districts, charter schools and education service centers.

For the last several years, Temple ISD has been focused on how to best transform and enhance instruction, improve relationships, and help all learners take more ownership of their learning. Blended learning has certainly been at the forefront of this effort. After conducting a successful pilot program for blended learning at Temple High School in 2016, the district partnered with Education Elements to explore next steps.

Since technology is a staple of blended learning, it requires a widespread technology initiative to roll out en masse. Temple ISD, thanks to the passing of the 2013 Tax Ratification Election, began issuing Google Chromebooks on a one-to-one basis at the high school level and two-to-one basis at middle and elementary levels since 2015. Temple ISD utilizes the Google platform and their educational applications to support our students in effectively using this technology within our classrooms. Once the infrastructure was in place, the district was ready to move forward and is now in its first year of a district-wide implementation plan for blended learning.

“It’s one thing to experiment with an educational model in a small, contained environment like a pilot or a cohort. It’s another to launch district-wide scalability.” said Dr. Bobby Ott, superintendent of Temple ISD. “Ed Elements has been an instrumental partner in planning and support for the Temple ISD Blended Learning Initiative.”

Attendees of The National Academy for Personalized Learning can expect to learn strategies for effective collaboration, understand how innovation translates into change for students and teachers and have access to Ed Elements, Google for Education and Temple ISD staff for questions on the subject of blended learning.

About Temple ISD
Established in 1883, the Temple Independent School District is a Pre-k through 12 public school district serving over 8,700 students on 15 campuses in the Temple area. In partnership with families and the community, our vision is to instill the value of learning in each student and prepare them to be future leaders of society. Temple ISD offers its’ students a multitude of programs across the athletic, fine arts, CTE and academic spectrums — including a K-12 International Baccalaureate program.

About G Suite for Education

G Suite for Education and Chromebooks are the backbone of creating a personalized learning environment for schools. Google's Admin solution for schools allows for a safe, secure environment for students and teachers to share, work and learn together. The G Suite apps provide the power of anywhere, anytime learning that makes our Blended Learning initiative in Temple ISD possible.

About Education Elements

Ed Elements is an education consultancy that works with districts to build and support dynamic school systems that meet the needs of every learner, today and tomorrow. Ed Elements has provided Temple ISD the framework and guidance to empower administration and staff to reimagine learning in the public school setting.  The training provided in goal setting, project planning, and implementation of blended learning is enabling TISD to harness its own creativity and knowledge to develop a district plan that, as the vision says, "will transform the academic experience by creating an environment that fosters ownership, innovation, and reflection."

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