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BACK TO SCHOOL

As national ambassador, CCPS hosts #GoOpen Regional Summit

have done some experts who authored them,” Chesterfield educational materials that can be used
work on making County Public Schools Superintendent for teaching, learning, research and other
this transition and Dr. James Lane. “What we know is that purposes.
helped facilitate textbooks don’t teach; our teachers do. Chesterfield County Public
one or more of Now, our instructional leaders can change Schools was named a #GoOpen
the workshops the face of the classroom by accessing Ambassador in 2014. School districts
throughout the day. and creating online curriculums that are that are designated #GoOpen are
“In the past, free for everyone. It’s a great tool for our committing to transition to using
the teaching-and- anytime, anywhere learning efforts.” high-quality, openly licensed
learning process The U.S. Department of Education’s educational resources in their schools.
was dictated by #GoOpen campaign encourages states, The #GoOpen Ambassador districts
how much a school school districts and educators to use serve as mentors to school districts
division could spend OERs to transform teaching and learning. transitioning to openly licensed
on textbooks and the OERs are free and openly licensed learning materials.

More than 300 public educators from
up and down the East Coast descended
on the Fulghum Conference Center at
the Chesterfield Career and Technical
Center @ Hull for the #GoOpen Regional CALL
Summit conference last week. TODAY
The national conference focused
on Open Educational Resources (OER)
in a digital learning environment
and is part of the school division’s
commitment to the U.S. Department
of Education’s #GoOpen campaign.
Attendees focused on blended learning
in classrooms and free educational
resources to support authentic online
learning opportunities. They also
heard from keynote speaker, Google’s
Education Evangelist Jaime Casap.
At Google, Casap evangelizes
the power and potential of the web,
technology, and Google tools. During his
eight years at Google, Casap has been
part of the original team that launched
Google Apps for universities, launched
Google Apps into K through 12 schools,
and helped get Chromebooks off the
ground and into schools. Today Casap
is responsible for working across all
internal teams that impact education, and
he works with educational organizations
around the world, helping them find
ways to improve the quality of education
through the use of technology.
“Chesterfield County Public
Schools is proud to be the host of this
national conference,” School Board
Chair Dr. Javaid Siddiqi said. “Since our
school division was named a #GoOpen
Ambassador in 2014, we have embraced
our role as a leader in developing a ENJOY $100 OFF ACADEMIC
EVALUATION
regional approach to collecting open
educational resources to support
innovative teaching practices.”
The #GoOpen regional summit, 12748 Jeff Davis Hwy
Chester, VA 23831
organized and run by the school division’s
Technology Department, was for school Accredited by 804-796-9800
districts that have recently committed to
becoming a #GoOpen Launch district
or are curious about making a scalable
transition to openly licensed educational
resources. The summit also linked the
new and interested school districts with
#GoOpen Ambassador districts that
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