Mark Reford, who heads the school, and Michael Zeigler, the school's technology director and a teacher, said a new course marries the worlds of art and technology for middle school students, promotes higher-order thinking and gives kids insight into the future of manufacturing.
3D printers are not new but If you 've never heard of them it is a fun technology to investigate.
I've been waiting for this to happen-- High performing teachers will be maximized by somehow giving them more students. Shaky premise especially when teacher burnout is considered or just plain sickness.
When I was the Teacher Leader of Assesments my biggest challenge was getting the teachers to use the textbook as a tool and not as the curriculum. This new flexibility will help lead teachers align textboks to standards and help teachers have consistent resources
We referenced this philosophy earlier and I thought that others might be interested to hear about a trend that may counter our program. It reminds me a bit of the "Having wonderful Ideas" course.
Published Online: October 17, 2011 Published in Print: October 19, 2011, as No Longer Optional Two years ago, Tennessee's Putnam County school system adopted an online-learning graduation requirement for its high school students. But district officials realized that not all students had high-speed Internet access at home, or even computers, so they came up with a variety of options to allow students to fulfill the requirement.