Community Education Concepts:  GAIT and NTL Work

The Opportunity:  After Bloomington passed its first technology referrendum, a group was formed to make spending recommendations to the superintendent's cabinet.  The group was comprised of a selection of teachers, administrators, technology staff, and a community ed representative.  This group evaluated technologies, how they might be integrated into instruction, and what could be systematized into a supported technology infrastructure.  The group evenualy was named the Group for the Application of Innovative Technology.  The focus of our work eventually became Next Technologies for Learning.

The Challenge:  As the community education GAIT representative, it was my role to educate the group about our work in CE and to advocate for our inclusion in GAIT and NTL funded projects.  Community ed had traditionally been on the fringes of our school district.  Our work to change this began when Tom Holton became our CE director in 2000.

On the GAIT committee, I worked hard to be an advocate for all of our CE programs.  My primary focus was early education and adult basic education.  At first, I had to regularly remind people to include these ends of the educational spectrum in their funding proposals.  As time went on, different members of the committee would approach me about how we could work together at the beginning of proposals to create better outcomes for our CE learners.

Outcomes:  CE has now become a staple in our district's instructional technology and infrastructure plans.  I've worked closely with our technology director to ensure our funding formulas create an equitable situation for our CE programs.  The bulk of our CE technology budget now comes from the same sources as our K-12 buildings receive theirs from.

Lasting results have come from this process.  We've successfuly implemented a 1:1 curriculum in our alternative high school and adult diploma programs.  Our early education programs are now on par with our K-2 initiatives, and have two technology integration specialists that work with our preschool and ECFE teams.  Our unique needs are much better understood by our district deparments.  This has been especially useful in terms of our Infinte Campus adoption.