Thirteen pairs of students
hover over computers, diligently
working on their assignment.
The task is to create, design, and
record a content-specific podcast that
will convince teachers of the value of
podcasting in the classroom.
The students are members of the
Technology Wizards program at Carbon Lehigh Intermediate Unit. The
Intermediate Unit, located in eastern
Pennsylvania, is a regional educational
service agency supporting 14 school
districts and two career technical
schools in Lehigh and Carbon counties.
The Technology Wizards pro-
gram, developed by the unit’s
Department of Instructional
Innovation, is a radical departure from traditional
educational professional
development. Conceived by
Assistant Executive Director
Cathy Groller, the program
seeks to transform the delivery of professional development and change traditional
instructional practice by
cultivating a cadre of student
leaders equipped to provide
teachers with technology
training and support.
A desire to offer an arena
in which technology-savvy
students could shine, along
with the need for the Inter-
mediate Unit to provide onsite
sources of tech support to teachers,
fueled the creation of the program.
During initial discussions about
program design, members of the
Intermediate Unit’s Department of
Instructional Innovation built a foun-
dation of requirements supported by
research-based studies. The consensus
was that the program curriculum
needed to:
• Align to NETS for Students
• Align to 21st-century skills
• Model best practices in education
• Model differentiated instruction and
teaching to multiple intelligences
• Provide dynamic, high-quality,
student-created examples of technology integration in content areas
• Focus on emerging technologies
applicable across content areas
• Develop student technology integration coaches
Determining who would be eligible
to participate was a major decision for
the team. We decided to enlist sixth
and seventh grade students first. By
starting the program with students at
this level, we ensured its sustainability
and growth. In the program’s second
year, sixth, seventh, and eighth grade
students would be eligible to participate. The design provided for the
continued participation of the original
members while allowing for the influx
of a new group of technology wizards.
The plan for the program’s third year
expanded yet another grade level,
accepting participants from sixth
through ninth grade. The development of a Tech Wizards Junior program for elementary students is also
underway.
The First Year
The Technology Wizards program
kicked off in October 2007. We
asked principals in each building
to nominate one or two faculty members as teacher advisors to the tech
wizards and asked faculty members
to nominate students for the program.
To be eligible, students had to demonstrate a proclivity for technology and
agree to participate in, and at times
lead, professional development training sessions for teachers. Schools were
limited to a maximum of two teacher
advisers for the program and three
students per teacher adviser.
In our first year, 26 sixth and
seventh grade students participated
in the Technology Wizards program,
along with 11 teacher advisers, representing 8 of the Intermediate Unit’s 14
school districts. The students and advisers met once a month from November through May at the Intermediate
Unit to train on an emerging technology and to practice presentation skills.
The final activity of each session of the
program was the creation of an action
plan for the technology wizards to
transfer the training they received to
the teachers in their home schools.
I led the development of the program and was delighted to receive
nominations from 8 of the 14 eligible
school districts. I had anticipated a
response of 10–12 students along with
their teacher advisers. It was both
gratifying and a little intimidating to
have 26 students nominated to the
program in our first year. In fact, the
sheer size of the group and the technological diversity of the participants
was quite a challenge.
Six of the school districts participating in the program used PCs, whereas
the other two districts used Mac-based
systems. The Department of Instructional Innovation team and I had to
The Technology Wizards program has succeeded in reaching
an audience beyond the students or teachers involved. Each
group of participating students has instituted some form of
student-led professional development in their schools.
