Spotlight on Carlsbad

Keep up the great work...Carlsbad Unified School District is coming up on the one year anniversary of their Alludo PD game!

The high-achieving district serves 11,000 students across fourteen schools, a number of which have been designated Distinguished Schools at the federal and state level.  The district is always working towards building a solid technology foundation for its students, starting a 1:1 Chromebook rollout for sixth graders last year, and committing to expanding the program to every middle schooler by 2018-19. 

CUSD's commitment to professional development plays a big part in their mission to "provide every student an extraordinary education in an inspiring environment." 

"The primary goal for this platform is to enhance access to the content, strategies, and conversations that best serve teachers in their professional development," said ed tech coach Robert Allen. Allen and his team designed their district's games to "maximize professional development by providing flexibility and choice, which ultimately translates into immediately applicable content and skills in the classroom that meet the teacher where he/she is."

Games include G Suite, Project-Based Learning, Chromebooks, and more. The district is also using the platform for standalone, event-based, and blended learning PD.

To support the program, the district has stationed a tech coach at each school to act as a level designer and achievement reviewer, and to guide and collaborate with teachers. Administrators supported the game's implementation by restructuring staff meetings to offer teachers more time to use Alludo.

Keep up with the district on their Twitter account, @CarlsbadUnified and learn more about their tech department with @rallen_techCUSD.

“Alludo lets me model for teachers what I mean by individualizing students’ learning to increase engagement and meaningfulness.”

“What I like about these modules is you can watch a brief instructional video (approx 2 min.) on a subject of interest to you and walk away with a skill you can immediately put to work for yourself or in your classroom.”