We had a good technology committee meeting today.  Much of what was discussed was in agreement with what I had been contemplating, following one of the great sessions I attended at the Science Conference last week.  I attended a super session by a technology consultant (once classroom teacher/once technology coordinator) who presented on interactive websites and the activities she has constructed to accompany them.  I have worked hard the past few months to gather many, many websites for teachers to use in their rooms with their lessons.  But as I was listening to her I realized that just collecting websites is not that helpful.  Classroom teachers, in addition to lacking the time to find websites, also don’t have an enormous amount of time to explore a website and design an activity that will  meet objectives required by the SCOS.  The presenter’s format includes selecting ONE objective from the SCOS (for this workshop they were all science related), discovering a high quality, age-appropriate, interactive website, and designing an activity for the kids to work through.  Most of them were paper and pencil type activities!  Fill in the chart, draw a picture or series of pictures, label a diagram, cut and paste; but all using information the kids would glean from the site!  How much more meaningful and useful for the classroom teacher!  Don’t you think?  This is basically the need I heard coming from the committee today!  More useful ways to incorporate the SCOS using the technology tools we have now been introduced to.  I feel refreshed and like I have a renewed focus for how I can best help my teachers, after having been involved with both of these collaborations.  My final step in the preparation will be to set up a “real” web site from which to disseminate these, hopefully helpful, “care packages”!  What do you think?