Director's Blog for Oct. 14, 2009

21st Century Leaders and Learners:

This week our video cast, www.ncvps.org , features a Channel 14 Interview on NCVPS and our GO LIVE! approach this school year to equip North Carolina School districts with the capacity to implement blended learning in their schools as they commit resources to technology, expand offerings, and/or realize or apply for potential federal stimulus dollars via Race to the Top and/or Innovation Grant Funding. GO LIVE! stands for Getting Organized to Lead Innovation and Virtual Education. In an effort to listen and learn from you, we have set up initial leading edge district meetings October 29, 2009 from 9-1 p.m. and October 30, 2009, from 10-2 p.m., in Alexander County, North Carolina. Alexander is one of the school districts along with several other districts that we will be inviting to the first of a series of sessions via a blended learning environment (face to face and via the web) to inform the Spring 2010 roll out of online teaching and learning options, world class professional development, world class student support, and focused 21st Century Strategic Planning for blended learning environments. These leading edge district meetings are not a pilot process. Rather, they are about learning, modeling, and developing an approach to connect strategy to solutions within your district.

As Greg Firn, Superintendent of Anson county says, " Our generation (speaking of those of us in the decade of the 50’s) are still trying to figure out how all of this technology stuff works. We don’t need to. Rather, we have to shift our thinking to the deeper learning of discernment or decision making. Our students need now more than ever the ability and application of decision-making. What is good, what is better, what is best and the obvious – what is not. It is not the applications of technology that should concern us. It is the thinking or decision making skills that one needs in the applications of technology that should be of highest priority."

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