Funding, Grants & Awards

Indiana Students Honored for Digital Leadership Team

• By Joshua Bolkan
• 11/06/14

Students from Madison Consolidated High School were honored recently for their work on the school's Digital Leadership Team.

The students were awarded the Elsie Brumback Scholarship, which allowed them to attend the State Educational Technology Directors Association (SETDA) 2014 Leadership Summit, "Leading and Learning in the Digital Age," and deliver a presentation about their program to national education leaders.

"It is an honor both to represent our school system and to show everyone what we as students can do," said Conner Richmond, Madison Consolidated High School student, in a prepared statement. "This is a fantastic opportunity and we hope that various national education leaders can take away ideas to use for their own success stories."

Madison Consolidate High School launched a one-to-one iPad deployment in the 2013-2014 school year. To ease the deployment, students familiar with technology took a digital leadership class funded through an Indiana Imagining and Creating E-Learning Grant. Using the iPads for every step and meeting twice a week before school and often after, the aim of the class was to teach the students how to become good digital citizens and then send them out into the school to teach others.

For the class, the 13 students used the school's online learning management system, My Big Campus, to create their own digital content, which they then used to teach younger students. They also used My Big Campus to pilot "Bob Squad," a program designed to enforce good digital citizenship.

"Having the opportunity to be a part of the Digital Leadership class has been an amazing journey," said Jennifer Watson, Co-teacher of Madison's program, in a prepared statement. "This class is so powerful because the students are creating digital citizenship content and teaching the content to their peers and teachers."

"SETDA is pleased not only to learn about such innovative, student driven initiatives, but also to provide the opportunity for all of our members from across the country to learn from these students," said Douglas Levin, executive director of SETDA, in a news release.