from Greta Gize Olbrich
IT …as in Information Technology.
Barron Park School is the only school in PAUSD, and one in just a handful in the Bay Area that teaches coding in the classroom in a program supported by code.org , a non-profit foundation dedicated to growing computer programming education.
Bill Gates and Mark Zuckerberg, among the supporters of this initiative, both believe that “every student in every school should have the opportunity to learn how to code.” Barron Park School has taken the initiative and is providing this opportunity to its students. See Barron Park on the list of schools who are participating in this program : http://www.code.org/learn/find-school
Barron Park’s Educational Technology Teacher Specialist, Smita Kolhatkar, holds a very unique staffing position at the school. She is a full-time teacher, but splits her instructional time at all grade levels and all classrooms. And what’s more, Barron is the only elementary school in PAUSD to host a full-time Educational Technology Specialist. Smita helps augment the ways in which technology is used to enhance teaching and learning. There is a lot of excitement on the campus with this additional resource to invest in supporting our teachers to use the digital tools that are constantly evolving. She’s introduced Tynker, LEGOMindstorm, SCRATCH, and SCRATCH 2.0 to the students during class time. There’s also a very popular SCRATCH/Tynker club at noontime.