Moreau Catholic began our journey toward technology inclusion across all disciplines many years ago. We were one of the first schools in the Diocese to implement a computer in every classroom, and the first to move to an online real-time access to teacher's grade books via PowerSchool. Two of the key components to our technology changes over the past two decades as been our combined emphasis on research based best practices and ongoing professional development.
Both research and professional development are strategic tools to support the improvement of student learning. An example of research that is utilized to guide our decisions is the annual Horizon Report.
As we began to move into the integration of the 1:1 laptop program and the ubiquitous use of technology across the school, we saw the need to provide teachers more support with their own learning. Our librarian team developed an independent learning journey for all faculty/staff through the
23 Things project. Seventy-one faculty and staff participated in a 9 week journey through 23 different web 2.0 tools.
Additional research comes from our partnership with ACOT2 (Apple Classrooms of Tomorrow-Today). One of our most recent partnerships with Apple Learning Interchange was with the Challenge Based Learning projects. Five teachers from different content areas had their students take on a real-world challenge and attempt to solve it. Students chose to focus on minimizing our paper footprint at MCHS. Due to their innovative work, in 2010 we reduced our MCHS paper consumption use by 70%.