Wegner’s ed tech accomplishments get nod from Obama and peers

There she was in the White House, along with 120 other school superintendents, and there was President Obama, at the podium. And then there was this:

“And then you got Mary Wegner, superintendent of the Sitka, Alaska, School District. Where’s Mary?” Obama said. “She came a long way. There she is. Yeah, give her a hand for coming from Alaska.”

Speaking at the White House Summit on Technology and Education, the president recounted the sorry state of technology in Sitka when Wegner was hired as assistant superintendent in 2010: Only a few people could print documents. Logging on to the internet might take 20 minutes. Bandwidth was a joke.

Today, the whole district has Wi-Fi, students are Skyping in class with expertshad interactive whiteboards, close to half had student-response systems, and 90 percent of teachers were at least proficient in the ISTE Standards for Teachers.

Keeping an eye on student learning

The year before Wegner arrived, the Sitka district obtained a competitive technology grant that enabled the district to train the sixth grade teaching team, because sixth graders were having a hard time making the transition to middle school.

The grade’s math, science, English and social studies teachers, plus the technology teacher, underwent a year of professional development and received technology tools before anyone else in the district.

“What happened was the sixth graders were so excited about technology that pretty soon the talk at the school board and at kitchen tables around the city was about how excited the students were,” she