Within one week, two tours were given to representatives from the Texas Education Agency (TEA), the Education Commissioner’s Office, and the Governor’s Office.  The guests toured several Brownwood ISD campuses with the aim of seeing technology in action.

The first tour was on November 2nd by Tammy Torres and Kathy Ferguson of TEA.  Both guests are liaisons for the Connections Grant, a $850,000 grant recently awarded BISD.  The grant specifically designates BISD as a demonstration site for technology integration and digital curriculum.  The grant liaisons wanted to see firsthand what other school districts and state lawmakers would see when visiting Brownwood.

The second visit was on November 8th by Julie Harker, Education Advisor to the Governor, and Ryan Franklin, Policy Advisor to the Commissioner of Education.

The tours began at Brownwood Middle School.  Guests were able to visit with Carolyn Brandenburg and her students in the Career Portals Lab.  Science teacher, Tim Thomas, shared science projects that students created using their laptops.  Students in English teacher Patti Kilpatrick’s class showed off some of their work, as well as explained how they use their laptops in class.  Janis Holland, 8th Grade Technology Applications teacher, described how she teaches students to use software programs to do homework and projects, like a Veteran’s Day project for History teacher, Brenda Valdez.

At the High School, the visitors saw a broad range of learning with technology. Gretchin Geye’s Physics students tested their hand-built catapults, while filming the results with a flip video camera.  Joanna Young, math teacher, demonstrated the electronic math book and online tutorials.  Annalyn Deen’s Health Sciences class practiced vocabulary and anatomy using a website called Quizlet.com.  Carrie Morrow’s English students outlined a Shakespeare play while viewing the passage on electronic textbooks loaded on their laptops. Sandra McCorkle, Science teacher, demonstrated how she posts homework assignments, quizzes, and homework assistance on her BISD website and Moodle. Connie Sliger’s Human Growth class reviewed vocabulary words using Twitter. Larry Mathis and his Media Literacy class showed how they made video clips for the flat screens in the Student Center and Jumbo-tron at Gordon Wood Stadium.

In addition to the Middle School and High School stops, Mrs. Harker and Mr. Franklin visited Northwest Elementary.  Here they saw third grade teacher, Cheryl Kerzee, and her class work on vocabulary using Pierson Success Net’s interactive website.  They also observed second graders learning the strategies of chess, taught by teachers Lynette Lewis and Mary Murray.

Leading the tours were Connections grant coordinator and high school librarian, Pam McGhee, Instructional Technologist, Elizabeth Gilmore, and Dr. Reece Blincoe, Superintendent.  Campus principals also joined the tours.

The response by the visitors was extremely positive.  Kathy Ferguson from TEA commented, “We enjoyed viewing your students’ science experiments and social studies presentations and hearing their explanations regarding the digital content they are using.”  She also noted that the students were very articulate and that teachers were excited about using technology.

Staff members from the governor and commissioner’s offices were amazed by the chess program in the elementary schools.  “Chess is all about strategy and higher-level thinking,” said Dr. Blincoe.  The guests said they would carry the message to Austin about the chess initiative, as well as all the technological advances they saw demonstrated at BISD.