Innovative ways to integrate technology in your school

Learn about: Innovative ways to integrate technology in your school from Reveta Bowers,...
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Innovative ways to integrate technology in your school

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One of the game changers for our school has been the integration of technology. You know, we've had computers for a long time. But I would say in the last 3 years, the use of technology is in the core curriculum and in the classrooms and in the arts in schools now. And what we've seen is in pushing that technology into the classroom, it becomes a seamless part of the core curriculum. And it becomes a valuable tool in the lives of teachers and students on a daily basis. We brought in SmartBoards about 5 years ago into the classrooms. We experimented with them at first. And then we saw it was a transformative piece of technology we were fortunate enough to be able to put the SmartBoards in all of the elementary school classrooms. Now we're finding that we were using iPads and laptops in all of the classrooms. That integration of technology has been transformative not only in the lives of the children but in the lives and careers of the teachers as well. So this year we did something new. We interviewed all the children. We interviewed all the teachers. We talked to parents a little bit about technology. And then we created an innovation Center. Because one of the things we're finding is that the children are so facile on the technology that they're losing their hands on education experience. And we wanted the Innovation Center when we opened it this September to be that place that's at the cross-section of technology and hands-on learning. We wanted them to design the house on the computer and then take some tools and build the model of the house, so that they understood the physics. They understood the engineering. They understood the architectural principles of how something was constructed. And that practical application is something that I think schools are going to have to pay attention to in the future. Otherwise, the schools and the kids will be so immersed in the technology, they won't discover the pleasurable experience of creating something with their own hands.

Learn about: Innovative ways to integrate technology in your school from Reveta Bowers,...

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Reveta Bowers

Head of School

Now starting her forty-second year, Reveta Bowers is the Head of School at The Center for Early Education, an urban pre-school through 6th grade Los Angeles independent school with 538 students. Devoted to children and education, Ms. Bowers served and has served on a number of boards. She is currently on Board of Overseers of the UCLA Healthcare System, on the founding board of the African American Board Leadership Institute and the board of the FEDCO Charitable Foundation. She just completed serving as Chair Emeritus of the Board of Directors of the California Community Foundation. A past president and former secretary of The Educational Records Bureau Board, Reveta Bowers was also a member of the Advisory Board to the Klingenstein Center at Teacher’s College for ten years. She served as an outside director on the Board of Directors of the Walt Disney Company for ten years and is a former member of the Harvard-Westlake, Brentwood and Windward School boards. Reveta was on the Council for Spiritual and Ethical Education board, and the boards of the National Association of Principals of Schools for Girls and the Country Day Headmaster’s Association. She served as a trustee and treasurer of the NAIS Board, and as past president of the California Association of Independent Schools. For the past thirteen years she has also been on the faculty of the NAIS Institute for New Heads where she serves as the Lead Faculty member. One of her proudest career moments was receiving the NAIS Diversity Leadership Award in 2009. She has had a long and rewarding career in independent schools and finds her work with organizations supporting education, students, parents, community and Board work to be continually inspiring.

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