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ERIC Number: EJ1014092
Record Type: Journal
Publication Date: 2013
Pages: 8
Abstractor: As Provided
ISBN: N/A
ISSN: ISSN-0013-1962
EISSN: N/A
Teacher Support Is Just a Click Away! Creating an Interactive Resource Site for Today's Teachers
Brulles, Dina; Brown, Karen L.
Educational Technology, v53 n4 p25-32 Jul-Aug 2013
This article describes one school district department's efforts to train and support teachers in providing effective curriculum, instruction, and assessment methods to their students. This large, K-12 district embraces the spectrum of low to high SES schools, a large number of gifted students from diverse populations, and a variety of gifted programs. Combined, these lead to the need to develop dynamic and readily accessible resources for teachers. Arizona is one of many states that provide no funding for gifted education, which severely limits opportunities for teacher training and curriculum development. However, gifted students need curriculum and instruction that reaches beyond what is typically available in schools; they need accelerated content and enrichment opportunities that embed critical and creative thinking. While these elements are crucial for gifted students, they are useful for "all" students' instruction. Through a Gifted Resource Site, these resources are made available to all teachers in the district using "pvLearners," the district's Google-based intranet site. The Gifted Education Department of the Paradise Valley Unified School District (PVUSD), located in Phoenix, Arizona, developed a creative, effective, and cost-efficient system for constructing and providing training and resources from within the district. The Gifted Resource Site discussed in this article was developed using Google Groups and tools, free resources accessible to schools throughout the world. The resource site expands weekly as teachers continue to access, utilize, request, and contribute suggestions for increasing and enhancing its resources. The intuitive ease of using Google tools accounts for much of the success in this endeavor. Teachers and administrators seeking to duplicate these efforts find comfort in knowing that this robust and interactive site was designed and developed by a teacher and a program administrator, neither of whom had specialized training in instructional technology. (Contains 8 figures.)
Educational Technology Publications. 700 Palisade Avenue, Englewood Cliffs, NJ 07632-0564. Tel: 800-952-2665; Web site: http://www.bookstoread.com/etp
Publication Type: Journal Articles; Reports - Descriptive
Education Level: Elementary Secondary Education
Audience: N/A
Language: English
Sponsor: N/A
Authoring Institution: N/A
Identifiers - Location: Arizona
Grant or Contract Numbers: N/A