Harness Technology to Meet Your
Students’ Diverse Learning Needs
AS I SEE “IT”
By Lenny Schad
Lenny Schad is chief
information officer
for Katy Independent
School District (KISD)
in Texas. He is a 2010
Consortium for School
Networking Volunteer
Hall of Fame inductee.
Prior to joining KISD,
Schad spent 17 years
in the oil and gas
sector.
I’ve been highlighting some exciting results as Katy Independent School District’s technol- ogy department moves from a technical focus
to one that concentrates on how technology can
meet the instructional needs of today’s digital
learner. Besides focusing on our internal support
model, identifying appropriate Web 2.0 tools,
and making interactive equipment available in
our classrooms, we also looked at our students’
varied learning needs.
Our instructional technology division helps
support what we call “power student expectations.”
These are objectives that students did not achieve
a high pass rate on when assessed. As we work to
improve these percentages, it is important that
teachers look at different models of instruction,
including those that are enhanced by technology.
To address this, our integration specialists
and curriculum specialists look at various approaches that will enable students to have deeper
understanding or gain meaning from topics that
are hard to understand. They hold Adobe Connect training sessions with the teachers to help
build capacity. They coordinate their efforts using the 5 E lesson-planning model to help teachers build deeper, richer, rigorous lessons that use
Web 2.0 tools or an interactive lesson that truly
involves students in learning.
The 5 E model is:
1. Engage the learner
2. Explore the concept
3. Explain the concept
4. Elaborate on the concept
5. Evaluate students’ understanding
Technology is a perfect tool for enhanc-
ing comprehension of difficult concepts. For
example, a teacher might ask students to col-
laborate and then create a video on demand or
a podcast based on their understanding of the
material. The integration and curriculum spe-
cialists would then take that product and exam-
ine it to determine where teachers could make
changes that would add depth to the learning.
Using content from a Discovery Education video
that addresses the topic is another way to add
meaning to students’ learning. Communicating
collaboratively via digital posters, Voice Threads,
wikis, blogs, and connecting through video con-
ferencing to exchange ideas between students
are all ways that our teachers, with guidance
from our integration and curriculum specialists,
have looked at addressing the challenges within
our curriculum.
