Teachers learning how to tap into tech
- By Dibya Sarkar
- Feb 26, 2001
Colorado recently launched a $2.8 million, two-year initiative to train
educators in new ways to use technology.
Terri Rayburn, deputy fund director of the Fund for Colorado's Future,
a non-profit organization heading the initiative, said the state is constructing
an education data warehouse for educators. "So this whole initiative is
really to show them how to use the data, how to read the data, and how to
infuse them in the schools," she said.
Educators would be taught skills on how to query, retrieve and analyze
data, build reports, and communicate and present information, she said.
The program is voluntary, but Rayburn said she expects at least half,
or about 1,000 superintendents and principals from both public and private
schools, to participate. Two- to three-day training sessions in labs across
the state will begin this summer.
"They're trained just like in a classroom," she said.
The Fund for Colorado's Future is a philanthropic organization founded
by Gov. Bill Owens to help schools in different ways, Rayburn said. The
Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation contributed $1.6 million to the initiative
with another $1.2 million in matching funds contributed by the state and
other sources.