Page 34 - Technology Plan for School Years 2017 to 2021

and work is underway to help teachers identify individual student needs, and connect them
with even more of the specific resources and support that will be most appropriate for their
individual performance.

Connecting the Pieces
In the School District of Palm Beach County, the Blender Platform provides a web-based
instructional organizer that is designed to be a “course and user specific one-stop shop for
teachers.” Blender houses relevant and up-to-date instructional guides and references and
digital curriculum resources. The secure content is curated and provided by the District
Curriculum teams, and includes internally developed resources as well as those from a
range of publisher and subscription based providers, and from vetted “Open Educational
Resources” (OERs). Teachers also can find direct links to their own supporting students’
data to help monitor and respond to real-time needs.

Among other valuable materials and resources, Blender currently provides teachers:

 Direct anywhere and anytime access via the employee portal.
 A digital repository of strategies, lesson plans, activities, multi-media, and other
vetted resources.
 Extensive standard specific instructional support for all core courses that includes
suggested “Scope and Sequences” to help plan out the school year.
 A digital organizer that allows teachers to bookmark favorites and write notes on their
favorite lessons.
 Marzano support to help build and demonstrate effective teaching skills.
 Tools to prepare for lessons in advance and to use in whole group instruction, or as
emergency plans.
 Direct access to the digital resources provided by each current textbook adoption
cycle and the support necessary for teachers to access and use the accompanying
platforms.
 Direct access to District provided subscription-based services like Discovery
Education and BrainPOP placed at the point of need in the online unit and in lesson
plans.
 Direct access to user-specific key performance indicator reports in Performance
Matters to help guide planning.

The ongoing goal of Blender is to help teachers more efficiently facilitate blended and
student-driven learning, technology integration, inclusion and differentiation. In the coming
few years, Blender is scheduled to add student access, increase the number of courses
supported, and expand the types of resources and activities that are included. The
connection to Performance Matters data will also be strengthened and this will help

34 | P a g e