In mid-June, teachers from around the Bay Area attended the fourth annual Harker Teacher Institute held in Nichols Hall. Kicked off with a keynote address titled “Jumping the Education Shark,” by Kyle Brumbaugh, administrative vice principal at Woodside High School, the day-long institute included twelve workshops and two keynote addresses.

This year workshops focused on the instructional use of free – or almost free – software and Web resources. Presenters were primarily Harker teachers from kindergarten through upper school (US), although both keynote speakers and some additional presenters came from the local community.

Workshop titles included “Out of This World Tech Tools,” presented by US physics teacher Eric Nelson, in which teachers learned methods to explore space; “Alice Beyond Wonderland,” presented by Fred Triefenbach, US assistant director of instructional technology, which focused on the Alice programming environment; and “Multimedia Poetry Project,” presented by MS English teachers Patricia Lai Burrows and Mark Gelineau, in which teachers learned how students can analyze poetic imagery and themes and through images and music.

Librarians Kathy Clark, Sue Smith and Lauri Vaughan gave presentations on bibliographic citations and the strengths and failings of electronic information, respectively. In two separate workshops, MS science teacher Scott Kley-Contini and MS technology assistant director Angela Neff presented the aspects of the Moodle quiz module, which allows teachers to integrate digital content in their classroom.

Hosted by Harker’s instructional technology department, the annual institute has become increasingly popular each year.