Thursday, February 9, 2017

Barrington 220 Hosts One to World Showcase Event on 11-24-17

On Tuesday, January 24, 2017, Barrington 220 hosted a showcase event for regional education leaders featuring our One to World program. The event was well-received by participants and had far-reaching coverage on social media.

The purpose of our One to World Showcase was to provide an in-depth view of our district’s one-to-one learning initiative to educational leaders in our region, spotlight several of our classrooms using effective technology integration, and further expand our district’s network of professional learning contacts.

Apple provided online registration services and identified the Showcase as an official Apple Education Event. The event accepted over 90 online registrations from over 40 school districts, and more than 20 additional attendees visited who were not pre-registered.

Attendees visited from as far north as West Salem, Wisconsin (near La Crosse), to as far south as Arcola, Illinois (south of Champaign). Attendees included technology support staff, teachers, instructional coaches, principals, coordinators, directors, assistant superintendents, and other educational technology leaders at building and district levels. In addition, our local Apple support team was present.

The Showcase began at 9:00 AM in the Barrington High School Black Box Theatre with registered guests arriving up to 30 minutes in advance. A trio of Barrington High School jazz musicians performed for guests before each of the large-group presentations during the event. The trio included Barrington High School student musicians Chris Winkler on saxophone, Scott Randall on guitar, and Andrew King on bass.


The Showcase was organized into three main sections: an opening presentation, a set of classroom visits or a breakout session, and a closing presentation.

Opening Presentation

The opening presentation included an overview of the Barrington 220 One to World Program and described various aspects of the program using Apple’s Five Best Practices: visionary leadership, innovative learning and teaching, ongoing professional learning, compelling evidence of success, and flexible learning environment. This section was co-presented by Assistant Superintendent for Technology & Innovation Matt Fuller and Director of Instructional Technology Joe Robinson.

Attendees were invited to participate in a Twitter Challenge throughout the event. The challenge introduced the event’s hashtag as #220showcase and asked attendees to tweet in three categories during classroom visits and the breakout session:
  • Tweet an idea you will bring back to your school.
  • Tweet an image exemplifying one of the 
4 Cs (communication, collaboration, creativity, and critical thinking).
  • Tweet with 
a new PLN (Personal
 Learning 
Network) contact you meet today.
Classroom Visits & Breakout Session

The second part of the Showcase allowed attendees to select among building-based classroom visits or a breakout session featuring Barrington 220 Instructional Digital Age Learning (iDAL) Coaches.

The iDAL Coach session was moderated by Kelly Hanson, Director of Secondary Curriculum. Becky Wiegel, Director of Elementary Curriculum, organized the elementary school classroom visits. Attendees who selected classroom visits to elementary or middle schools were shuttled on buses to Countryside Elementary, Hough Elementary, or Barrington Middle School—Station Campus. High school classroom visits and the breakout session were held at Barrington High School.

Closing Presentation

After the classroom visits and breakout session, attendees gathered back in the Black Box Theatre where Matt Fuller and Joe Robinson highlighted and responded to many of the tweets from the previous two hours. For example, one attendee tweeted, “I love hearing what works, but I also want to hear what didn’t and why.” To respond to this tweet, we offered “3 Things that Didn’t Go Well (and How We Fixed Them).” In addition, we highlighted some of the many tweets featuring technology integration in our classrooms that demonstrated innovative learning and teaching and shared tweets showing some of our flexible learning environments in action across the district.

The closing presentation featured Dr. Brian Harris, who presented “Building Future-Ready Students.” Dr. Harris discussed the “why?” behind our One to World program by discussing “skills that matter,” including digital citizenship, critical thinking, collaboration, positive attitude, and creativity. Dr. Harris also discussed how Barrington 220 is preparing our students for the new workforce and the importance of learning to “live, work, and play in a virtual world.”

A Reach Far Beyond Barrington 220

Chart courtesy hashtracking.com depicting #220showcase hashtag
Reach and Timeline deliveries as of 1-25-17.
The One to World Showcase reached far beyond Barrington 220, as evidenced by our Twitter statistics for the event. Two Twitter analytics platforms (Keyhole keyhole.co and Hashtracking hashtracking.com) indicated that the #220showcase hashtag had generated 668 posts, with 225 original tweets, 19 @Message tweets, and 399 retweets (as of 1-25-17). Tweets using the hashtag #220showcase reached over 142,000 users, and over 2.5 million #220showcase posts were viewed on timelines of Twitter users.

The high volume of original tweets, views, and sharing was likely a result of our highly connected audience of educational technology leaders who use Twitter and are connected to other educational technology leaders.

Event Highlight Photos

Please visit the One to World Showcase photo album to see highlights of the event captured by Barrington 220 staff and collected from Twitter and other social media.


Special Thanks

Many Barrington 220 staff members contributed to the success of our Showcase event. Thank you to the following people:

iDAL Coaches
Laura Meehan
Katie Muhtaris
Kelly Pinta
Erika Inka
Ben Rodriguez
Mary Stec
Loretta Johnson
Joslyn Katz
Lisa Riley
Eliza Aliotta

Hough Teacher Classroom Visits
Jill Henning
Eleni Keller
Kristin Lanan
Anna Jagielski
Georgia Nelson
Patricia Haney

Countryside Teacher Classroom Visits
Nicole Gorges
Sara McMillan
Jen Parisi
Sean McGann

Barrington Middle School—Station Teacher Classroom Visits
Carrie Raia
Amy Suessen
Laura Baker
Kara Stengren
Heather Chvojka
Marge Miskovetz

Barrington High School Teacher Classroom Visits
Hagop Soulakian
Tom Bredemeier
Brian Mathien
Kurt Weisenberger
Sheila Soss
Ninja Nagel
Wendy Sanchez

Library/Technology Assistants
Christine Herbert
Brendan Glenn
Sue Kiss
Eden Mosoff
Megan Polzin
Shawndra Shelton
Liz DeWitt
Heidi Bickham
Emma Woods

Barrington High School Support
Amy Jessup-Tilford, Auditorium Director
Mary Flanagan, BHS Reception Attendant
Joann Fullman, Administrative Assistant to the Director of Instructional Technology

BHS Jazz Trio
Chris Winkler, Saxophone
Scott Randall, Guitar
Andrew King, Bass

District Support
Kelly Hansen, Director of Secondary Curriculum
Becky Wiegel, Director of Elementary Curriculum
Mark Polzin, Technology Support Supervisor
Russ Vander Mey, Systems Administrator
June Nilles, Director of Student Information
Scott Moore, Network Operations Specialist
Brigid Tileston, Fine, Visual, and Performing Arts Director
Melissa Martin, Fine, Visual, and Performing Arts Administrative Assistant

Co-Presenters
Dr. Brian Harris, Superintendent
Joe Robinson, Director of Instructional Technology
Margarita Geleske, Uncharted Learning

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