Teacher Highlight

Every day we hear about new and innovative ways our customers are integrating response technology into their classrooms. These stories were so good we just couldn’t keep them to ourselves. Thats why we developed "Teacher Highlights".

Do you have any suggestions for our next Teacher Highlight or would you like to be featured for your innovative use of response technology? Contact us.

Belinda Hartzler
Secondary Technology Integration Specialist
Wayzata Public Schools, Wayzata, MN
 

"Always think toward the future." This motto appears to drive Belinda Hartzler, Secondary Technology Integration Specialist at Wayzata Public Schools in Minnesota. In her position, Belinda is constantly in search of the next great technology that will enhance the many different teaching curriculum offered at Wayzata. Belinda strives to provide both students and faculty members with the most beneficial educational environment today's technology can offer.

With a Bachelors in Education and Masters in Curriculum and Instruction, along with 20 years experience as a middle education teacher, Belinda has, to say the least, been around the block when it comes to education and the classroom. As Secondary Technology Integration Specialist, Belinda helps educate teachers on the effective uses of technology in the classroom. She serves four schools within the district with over 10,000 students - a task that keeps Belinda on her toes. Her days are spent providing professional development to faculty in-between classes as well as hands-on in class instructional assistance. "Sometimes I will sit in on a class when a teacher is using a new technology. This way I can help ensure that everything runs smoothly. There are even times where I've been asked to run the technology," explained Belinda. Due to the busy schedules of faculty members during school hours, Belinda hosts numerous professional development courses in the evenings.

Tasked with finding an alternative data mining software to replace their current system, Belinda and other co-workers came across Performance Matters, a data management solution. Because of the recent partnership between Performance Matters and Turning Technologies, Belinda also began to thoroughly explore Turning's student response technology offerings and its ability to integrate student results into the Performance Matters package. Wayzata's package is still being tweaked based on the specific needs of the faculty and schools, a feature that impressed Belinda. "It's completely customizable to fit our needs. I don't think any of our requests have come back to us as being impossible," exclaimed Belinda. While currently the Performance Matters data management system has not been fully released across the district, Belinda is excited to see it finally rolled out. "The Performance Matters system is very intuitive. It helps cut to the core of what you want to look at. The combination of Turning Technologies and Performance Matters is going to be a huge 'Wow factor' for our school system," said Belinda.

On the other hand, the Turning Technologies student response systems have been implemented and are receiving praise from faculty and students alike. Because of the diverse instructional methods across the district, Belinda has teachers using TurningPoint, TurningPoint AnyWhere, TestingPoint and QuestionPoint individually or in some combination. TurningPoint has been a perfect choice for faculty that like the ease and comfort of using PowerPoint, while those using the presentation software provided with their interactive whiteboards, enjoy the versatility of TurningPoint AnyWhere. Those staff members that are slightly more tech savvy have enjoyed the ability to create tests and align state standards using both TestingPoint and QuestionPoint. Once Performance Matters is up and running, Belinda describes the ability to electronically collect data and view results in a consolidated, easy to read manner as invaluable. "It's all happened incredibly fast, but it's very exciting," stated Belinda.

Students are equally excited about the new technology integrations. Student response has helped increase student engagement, a task Belinda describes as often times difficult for middle and high school students. "They really enjoy the team competitions the technology creates. They genuinely become excited for the learning process," described Belinda, "I can't wait to see where the technology will continue to take us in the future."