As we approach the mid-21^st Century, the term 21^st Century Classroom begins to take on a very different meaning. In today’s Educator Session on Hybrid Learning, the gang from Pennsylvania’s Parkland School District brings their version front and center. You’ll hear from Tracy Smith, Assistant to the Superintendent of Operations, JR Renna, Coordinator of Educational Technology, Sam Edwards, Technology Integration Specialist, and Lauren Will, Technology Integration Specialist.

According to Tracy Smith, “We wanted to do something to find out where other districts are and their beliefs in the role of technology in the classroom. We started back in 2015 trying to define our ‘why’ before we did our 1:1 roll-out and that was super helpful. We're going to share our story, but we also are interested in finding out a little bit about the people on the call.

When you talk about what we call Parkland Ready 2021, it's more than just our 1:1  technology initiative. It's really about transforming the classroom environment and changing the pedagogy of our teachers, which is hard. We worked with the 1:1 Institute and they actually said that changing pedagogy is akin to changing religion; it's deep. And so when you want to make this shift to what we want on the right, which is a highly invested, personalized learning classroom, that is hard work, and it doesn't happen overnight. And, after six years of doing this, I think all of us could say that we're not a hundred percent there either, but we've definitely made inroads in getting to our vision of what we would like to see education become.

If we're going to use technology, we want to be purposeful. We want it to have an impact. And at the end of the day, it's all about building relationships and trust because nothing happens, especially change, without having those relationships.”

You’ll enjoy this fast moving, impactful presentation. Parkland has made great strides, and they are eager to share those strides with you.