Recap of Fall 2024 eCoach Champion Professional Learning Day

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OIT just wrapped our fall 2024 eCoach Champion day. This is one of our favorite annual events as it gives us a chance to meet with our technology liaisons at the schools and share with them the relevant changes in our applications or best practices for how to use them in the classroom that they can then share with their teachers to ensure our instruction aligns to the MD Digital Learning Standards for Students and Educators.

A Big Change

One of the biggest changes for this year was the merging of our eCoach and Brightspace Campus Champion programs. Combining these programs had been the goal from the outset, as we can’t think of using our technology applications in isolation from how to use our Learning Management System (LMS). As we started this school year, it seemed like it was time to join these tech experts into one unified team to support technology use at the schools.


A Magical Theme

The team at OIT puts a lot of effort into devising a theme for each eCoach day. The theme is sometimes timely based on exactly when the fall or spring eCoach day will occur, like Halloween for the fall or opening day for the baseball season for the spring. Other times we simply produce a theme out of midair, like magic! This year’s theme Digital Enchantments: The Magic of Interactive Learning allowed us to lean into wizards, wands, spells and cool conjurings. Session titles included The Spellbook of Connection: Building Classroom Community with Tech Tools and Conjuring Creativity: Tailoring Wixie for Diverse Learners with Magical Precision.


A Preview of What’s to Come

One of the sessions we were most excited to share was the LMS Information Session. The district is in the process of transitioning to Canvas as our LMS and has presented this to the Board for consideration. As leaders in their schools, we wanted our eCoach Champions to be among the first to see some of the new and exciting features they can expect to be sharing with their staff as we prepare for this transition.


Hardware Adjustments

Something we have been hearing from eCoach Champs since returning this school year is surrounding the adjustment to having devices back in the classroom and working with shared devices for students. As always, in planning our event, we respond to these realities by planning sessions designed to address the ever changing reality in the schools. One session offered this fall The Wizard's Quill: Mastering Digital Inking Tools was designed to remind teachers of what they could do with their existing hardware such as their SMART board and document camera.


Emphasis on the Student - All of the students!

One of our favorite recurring topics surrounds accessibility in our digital applications. Students don’t always know what they need to support their reading and writing efforts, so it is important for teachers to know and share these tools with all students so they can pick to have text read aloud when they need it, or choose a dictation tool when they are struggling to compose a piece. Sessions geared towards accessibility tools and student choice included The Magic of Nearpod's Self-Paced Mode and Mirror, Mirror on the Screen: Reflecting Accessibility in Instructional Applications.


Keeping Up with the Trends

A hot topic in education these days is AI. What tools can teachers use, how can we teach students responsible use, what’s out there, and what’s coming? These are shared questions for all educators as they navigate this exciting new realm. Dr. Daniel McKinney with Professional Learning and Organizational Advancement provided A.I. for Instruction: Platforms, Practices, and Guidance for Educators to help them explore platforms and the latest guidance from AACPS for the use of Artificial Intelligence.


Want to check out videos for other sessions? Check our Fall 2024 eCoach Champion Playlist on YouTube for a complete list of topics and recordings. 


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