On Saturday, October 5th, Catholic schoolteachers and principals from throughout Brooklyn and Queens gathered together at The Mary Louis Academy for the Fourth Annual Technology Expo. The Expo featured presentations of new and exciting technologies that are designed to help students succeed in class.

The focus of the Expo was to demonstrate different online learning programs that can give teachers more interactive educational tools for their students that will align with the Common Core Curriculum of Math, Science, History, and English Language Arts. Janet Peters, one of the Technology Committee members, also noted, “We want the teachers to integrate technology throughout the classroom rather than the technology coordinator or computer teacher being the prime lead in using the school’s technology. Our goal is to have it integrated throughout the curriculum.”

Sentiments were echoed by Julie Mansour, Tech Coordinator for St. Mel’s and presenter at the Expo, who hopes that “teachers can integrate technology more easily in their lesson plans, especially with the Common Core; there’s a big technology component in there, and they need to be able to have resources that they can use to integrate the technology into their everyday classroom.”

Teachers were able to choose from nineteen different workshops that focused on subjects ranging from math to reading to science to history including: Learning.com, a online learning platform for Science, Math, and Technology; and MangaHigh.com, an game based Math learning tool.

The Expo was a big success among teachers. “Very informative,” said Cindy Mulz from St. Nicholas of Tolentine, who found the Mathletics, an online Math review for Grades 3 and 4, entertaining as well as informative. Donna Marie Pellegrino from St. Mary Gate of Heaven commented, “We learned about new material, books that are coming out and websites that will be available starting January; so that was very exciting with all the different types of lesson plans that we have to incorporate in the Common Core.” Her favorite workshop was for the Sadlier online resource center.

One thing is certain; Catholic schools within the Diocese of Brooklyn are ready, able and excited to integrate more technology into the classroom for the benefit of the students.