The focus of our newsletter this month is Future Ready. We hope you enjoy & don't forget to join us at our #ICEilchat on Thursday, Oct. 27 at 8 p.m.
October 2016 - In This Issue:
Ensuring Access and Opportunity; 
Supporting At Home Connectivity
Author: Thomas C. Murray

Thomas C. Murray serves as the Director of Innovation for
Future Ready Schools, a Project of the Alliance for Excellent Education located in Washington, DC. He has testified before the United States Congress and works alongside that body and the US Senate, the US Department of Education and state departments of education, corporations, and school districts throughout the country to implement high quality digital learning while helping to lead Future Ready Schools and Digital Learning Day. Murray was named the 2015 "Education Policy Person of the Year" by the Academy of Arts and Sciences, "20 to Watch" by NSBA. and co-authored " Leading Professional Learning; Tools to Connect and Empower Teachers" (Corwin, 2015). Connect with him at thomascmurray.com or @thomascmurray.


Learn. Do. Iterate. The theme of the 2017 ICE Conference speaks volumes to our work as professionals and to the growth we are looking for from the children that we serve. If we are to provide the authentic learning experiences that our students need to be successful in the coming years, we must ensure both access and opportunity - for all students .

According to a report released by the Pew Research Center, approximately 5 of the 29 million households with school-aged children lack access to high quality broadband internet while at home. The research indicates that almost one-third of households whose incomes fall below $50,000 and with children ages 6 to 17 do not have a high-speed internet connection. The data also makes it evident that low-income households - especially our black and Hispanic families - make up a disproportionate percentage of the 5 million families without access. Others without such access include families living in some rural areas, where obtaining high speed broadband is not even a possibility. Coined "The Homework Gap", this means that many of the children sitting in our classrooms lose connectivity the moment they step of of our campus. At a time where approximately 70% of our nation's teachers are requiring some sort of digital work outside the school walls, this places many of our students that are most in need at a severe disadvantage. How does your school handle this issue?
UPCOMING EVENTS
Oct. 26 
5:00 - 7:00 Carleton Washburne (Winnetka)

Oct. 27
3:45 - 5:00 GHO

Oct. 27
8:00 pm CST
#FutureReady w/ @thomascmurray
Oct. 27 8pm 

Nov. 01

Nov. 03

Nov. 03
Peoria Riverfront Musuem

#SLEdCamp
Nov. 19

EOY awards are designed to recognize the outstanding efforts of ICE members. Please nominate deserving colleagues for one of two Technology Educator of the Year awards.
There are two categories for the annual Educator of the Year awards:
CORPORATE PARTNERS

Just the Beginning!
Shannon Duling, Superintendent @sduling
Joanna Carroll, Instructional Tech Coach / Director @joannacarroll96
Princeville School Dist. #326 @PrincevilleCUSD

In just three short years, Princeville Community Unit School District #326, a small, rural K-12 District located in Central Illinois, moved from a very limited use of technology to a fully inclusive 1:1 technology model. The District began in August of 2013 by installing a complete wireless infrastructure, piloting 1:1 Chromebooks at the seventh and eighth grade levels, and developing a financial plan to provide 1:1 Chromebooks to all high school students by the following year. In 2014-2015, the District moved the junior high devices to kindergarten and first grades, purchased new devices for sixth through twelfth grades, and hired an instructional technology director to provide support for teachers to better utilize the new technology.

By the beginning of the 2015-16 school year, the District had supplied in all grade levels, kindergarten through twelfth grades, with a Chromebook. Kindergarten through fifth grades used a Chromebook at school while sixth through twelfth grade students had 24/7 access to their devices. We developed a great backbone for a 21st Century learning model, and our students and staff were excited by the new doors the technology opened for student learning.

However, by January 2016, it was clear that we weren't "all on the same page." We had numerous teachers using the new technology, but all in different ways. We also had a limited number of staff who still weren't confident enough to use the new devices. It was clear to many in the District that we needed a more unified vision for what 21st Century learning SHOULD look like at Princeville CUSD #326!

We began looking for a simple, user friendly process to help us develop a clear vision for utilizing technology at Princeville. After some quick research into what other Districts were using, we found futureready.org.  The Superintendent took the Future Ready Pledge and our "Tech Planning Team", made up of technology personnel, administrators, teachers, a Board member, parents, and students, began what we thought was going to be a quick development of a technology plan.

Future Ready
By Todd Burleson

Todd is the Library Media Specialist at Hubbard Woods School in Winnetka, IL.  He was recently awarded the  "School Library Journal Librarian of the Year". We would like to Congratulate Todd and thank him for sharing with us this month on his passion and his experience.

When President Obama convened the "ConnectED to the Future" conference at the White House in 2014, he challenged more than one hundred leading superintendents to provide 99% of students to next-generation connectivity within five years. That was the beginning of the Future Ready challenge.  Since then, thousands of superintendents have signed the pledge .

"As schools seek to become Future Ready, it is necessary to identify and cultivate leadership beyond district and building leaders. School librarians lead, teach and support the Future Ready goals of their school and district in a variety of ways through their professional practice, programs and spaces."






ICE Leader You Should Know: Jerry Swedberg

J erry Swedberg is the Director of Technology for Woodstock Community Unit School District 200 in Woodstock, Illinois. He began his educational career as a high school vocational teacher. He taught Architecture, Drafting, and Graphic Arts for the first 13 years as a classroom teacher. Jerry was the first First Technology Coordinator for Woodstock CUSD #200. He has coordinated and directed instructional technology efforts for his district for 20 years. In all, Jerry has 33 years of experience in the educational setting. All of them are as an employee of Woodstock CUSD #200.

Jerry first became a volunteer of Illinois Computing Educators as a member of the TECH20XX committee. During 14 years on this committee, Jerry served two terms as the event co-chair. In addition to TECH20XX, he has served as a member of the ICE Governing Board for 13 years and the ICE Executive Board for 7 years. Jerry served two terms as Executive Board Secretary. Currently, Jerry is Past President of ICE after serving as President-Elect in 2014-2015 and President in 2015-2016. Jerry was also a recipient of the ISTE Making It Happen Award. 
 
ICE Awards - Check them out!
By Amber Heffner, ICE Executive Director 
Included among the many benefits available to ICE members are several annual awards and grants that have been created to recognize those members who have made exemplary efforts to bring creative and innovative uses of instructional technology resources to their schools or who seek new professional growth opportunities. Descriptions of these programs are on our website at: www.iceberg.org/awards. In our newsletter this month is info on the  Educator of the Year Awards. Last month we shared about our ICE Mini-Grants. Today, we would like to share an article with you from one of our Mini-Grant Winners from 2015, Jen Gilbert. 
 
As a recipient of the ICE Mini-Grant last year I was able to facilitate several collaborative projects as well as provide tools for our Coding Kids program to use on a weekly basis. Our amazing art teacher collaborated with me to re-imagine Picasso's guitar as an interactive art exhibit with Makey Makey. We were able to complete this project with the entire third grade class (just under 60 students). Students worked in groups to design and paint their guitar (with watercolors). I was able to join the art class over several weeks to help students choose/record their sounds and add their copper tape "buttons" to each guitar. We used Soundplant ( http://soundplant.org/ ) to map all of the sounds. We spent quite a while wiring up the guitars and securing them to the sliding glass of our main lobby display case. Wiring on/around those sliding glass doors was the most challenging part of making the project come to life! Each of the three classes had their own laptop and Makey Makey in the display case. The Makey Makey's were remapped to allow up to 18 keys to be used per device. Read more about the #GuitarRemix project here .

This year we will continue to use the materials we received to facilitate even more projects. Our most recent interactive Makey Makey project is the Global Programming Challenge wall. Read more about that here .