Forum Will Help Outreach Center Help Schools

The Tandberg Technology Forum will help a technology outreach center at the University of Oklahoma help schools from the edge of the panhandle to the State’s far southeast corner.

The K20 Center for Educational and Community Renewal at OU has offered leadership training and technology assistance to Oklahoma principals and superintendents since 1995. The new technology forum, named after a company that donated a videoconference center and other equipment, opened Wednesday at Kelly House Cross Center.

Joan Smith, dean of OU’s College of Education, called the center “a wonderful opportunity, a wonderful gift” and said it was part of the university’s mission of outreach.

“In this age of the Internet and being connected, sometimes the most difficult connections to make are with educational facilities at the local and state levels,” she said.

The center’s ribbon-cutting grand opening preceded today’s eight annual Winter Institute, sponsored by K20, at the Oklahoma Memorial Union. Delegates to the institute wil learn even more about integrating technology with teaching and leadership skills.

Several other companies have donated a wide variety of electronic equipment to the outreach program after being contacted by K20. Technology director Scott Charlson said, “when al these tools are used in concert (at schools)…we’re seeing some exciting things happen.”

Charlson said the K20 programs reach schools from tiny Turpinin the panhandle, down to Swink, an equally tiny town southeast of Hugo.

Several educators with K20 fan out these schools to show teachers and administrators how to use the latest technology, from plugging in computers to delivering power point presentations.

“We kind it all,” said Linda Atkinson.

K20 has three phases of helping schools. Associate director Randy Averso said phase one so far has taught more than 1,100 superintendents and principals “about leadership, what practices work, an how to use technology to advance that.” Grants from the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation and Oklahoma Educational Technology Trust have supported this phase.

Mary John O’Hair, director of the K20 center, said the program is making a difference. She cited a National Staff Development Council study of Gates Foundation grants like phase one to the 50 states and said Oklahoma ranks third “for systemic, substantive changes impacting student learning.”

Twenty-one schools each year take part in phase two, an OETT-funded venture in its second year.

Each school receives a $79,000granys for professional development and for electronic equipment most needed in their respective classrooms.

In phase three, teachers come to OU for summer six-week learning sessions with science and math professors, then take what they learn and apply it to their classrooms. The National Science Foundation and Howard Hughes Medical Institute sponsor this phase.