James Frye's Journey to becoming the Instructional Technology Facilitator:
Mr. James Frye earned my Master’s Degree in Curriculum and Instruction with a focus on Educational Technology while working as a teacher at Newton-Conover High School. During his time at Michigan State University, where he earned his masters degree through their hybrid distance program, Frye had the opportunity to work with some of education’s finest entrepreneurs and learning innovators -- perhaps one of the most well known being Punya Mishra, co-creator of the TPACK Technology Integration framework. James Frye was inspired by their work to learn deeply of the importance of technology in the classroom -- and in his own words "my eyes opened to the fact that, as contemporary educators, we still have a long way to go to make the most of the resources we have available to us."
Mr. Frye elegantly states "Technology integration does not mean using a tool for a tool’s sake. Twitter and Pinterest, while they do provide excellent access to resources for teachers, sometimes lend themselves well to Use It and Forget It syndrome. This happens when a teacher finds a new tool, and they find a way to design a lesson around that tool so that they can use it, rather than using that tool to improve or enhance their lesson. Pedagogy is and should always be king. The role of technologies are to simplify the instructional process, provide data to improve instruction, and to globally connect students with scholars, researchers, dignitaries, and, last but not least, reliable information. If a teacher uses digital tools to move through the instructional improvement cycle continuously, collecting data and pouring over that data using tools, then students will have the tools in their toolbelt necessary to be innovators and purveyors of our shared future. With sound instruction comes great responsibility!"
James Frye's goal is to facilitate this paradigm shift for the students of our schools on an international level, and is my primary inspiration for doing the work I do every day.
What’s a day at your job look like?
A typical day bears any variation of responsibilities, and each day is different from the rest. Primarily, responsibilities are to support our teachers and leaders by coaching them to hone their digital teaching and learning skill set, co-teaching in their content area and modeling best practices, and providing ongoing technological-pedagogical feedback to them. Mr. Frye spends a lot of time in each of our schools doing this. He also offers professional learning experiences related to digital teaching and learning at each site, and on a district-level (such as our Digital Days conference, as well as the Digital Teaching and Learning Institute, and Digital Leadership Academy he plans to offer beginning in the fall). On a district level, James Frye serves as support for the Tech Team and our Media Coordinators; he also handles our website, Edlio, and most social media, our Learning Management System, Canvas, AMTR reporting, Gaggle e-mail filtering, and IAM account management.
Outside of his ITF responsibilities, Mr. Frye assists in Accountability and have helped to coordinate Testing as needed. James Frye will also begin an additional role as the Public Information Officer on August 3rd. This will include being the primary liaison for all media and public relations, public events and programming.
What’s going on in N-CCS:
Tech Team:
Since we have one ITF who serves Newton-Conover district, we have a Tech Team formed of two teachers from each school who fill daily digital learning needs in their buildings. These teacher-leaders provide Instructional Technology professional learning at their schools and help to advance the use of Canvas, our website, and other digital learning initiatives at their schools. In exchange for their work, these teachers also have the opportunity to attend and present at North Carolina Technology in Education Society conference each year, free of charge.
Digital Teaching and Learning Academy:
In the fall, Mr. Frye will be piloting a Digital Teaching and Learning Academy for 20 educators in Newton-Conover City Schools. All interested educators will apply at the beginning of August across a two week span to be selected by a committee to be a part of the pilot group for the Academy. It will be targeted at our Levels 1-4 staff as indicated by the Instructional Technology Survey, and will last for a semester. It will primarily be facilitated online, but will have four synchronous meetings over the duration of the Institute in the Curriculum Room at the Central Office. Topics covered will include NC State Digital Learning Competencies and Arizona’s Technology Integration Matrix, TPACK and SAMR integration frameworks, innovative strategies for engaging students in global communities, developing a Professional Learning Network, and of course, spotlights on digital tools. The Academy will also feature speakers in our face-to-face meetings from across the globe.
Digital Leadership Academy:
The Digital Leadership Academy will be an ongoing of asynchronous, continual professional learning experiences spread throughout a year’s time. Each leader in Newton-Conover will be required to complete the Institute. The first semester of programming will align with a book study on The Principal 50. Topics covered will include school branding and digital identity, unification via social media, organization and productivity, changing your school culture, recognizing and supporting blended learning in the classroom, blended professional learning, etc.
Instructional Technology Google+ Group:
James Frye explained "this year, in order to maximize the impact that I can have in reaching our teachers in a more timely manner, I have created a Technology Integration Google+ Group, where all Tech Team members and myself will be available to answer questions that teachers and leaders in Newton-Conover post there. This way, there is an archive of questions and answers for others to benefit from, and there is more immediate access to support. I am very excited about this opportunity for our teachers!"
Canvas:
Our Learning Management System, Canvas, launched in January of last year, but our work with it is just beginning! Canvas is an LMS that helps teachers to guide learning in online or blended environments. We are using this for all of our district committees and meetings, from Executive Leadership to clubs in our schools. This is a great way to unify our teachers, leaders, and students on an academic and extracurricular front, and we are so excited to be working in this medium together!
Edlio:
After months of work, our district’s new website just went live at nccs.k12.nc.us. The goal of the site was to create a visually appealing interface that relied more heavily on those visuals and much less on text for organization and navigation. This web solution is easy for our Newton-Conover community to be involved in, and we are so excited to have it available for you! Coming soon: we will be working to embed our Canvas course home pages into our webpages.
Student Protection in the Digital Age:
In Newton-Conover, student protection is important to us. That is why we have created a module of blended professional learning surrounding the protection of children online. This is a gateway for productive discussions surrounding digital citizenship in our middle and secondary schools. We also have a tool and app approval process on a district level. This is in place to ensure that every teacher who is using digital tools in their classroom are in federal compliance and have parental permission to use the tool, if necessary.
My reflections: This is was one of, if not the most, inspiring interviews I have ever conducted. James Frye displayed an incredible about of passion in his work. This passion is not only shown in him but felt through his work and devotion to incorporating technology in education. I knew that N-CCS is very supportive in incorporating technology, but I never knew of all the different things that were going on. After conducting this interview I found out that there is an opening on the Tech-Team at Newton and I put my name down. If I can have half the impact as Mr. Frye, all will be well in the world! :) I am very thankful for this assignment and the growth that I will hopefully see through it!
No comments:
Post a Comment