Mission Statement
eNetColorado’s mission is to provide educators and districts statewide access to high quality content and resources that support the improvement of student achievement.
eNetColorado: Your Partner in Finding High-Quality Educational Resources and Professional Development
eNetColorado is a consortium of school districts, BOCES, and educational partners who work together to find free or low-cost high-quality educational resources linked to Colorado standards and provide professional development that supports 21st Century teaching and learning. eNetColorado is the only statewide group that works collaboratively to build shared resources for all Colorado educators. eNetColorado supports this mission through DREAM, Colorado on iTunes U, and an Online Learning site.
eNetColorado’s Digital Resource Exchange and Marketplace (DREAM) provides an online space where teachers can search, create, and share resources tied to Colorado standards. DREAM provides a “marketplace” to find free and low-cost educational collections such as Khan Academy, PhET simulations from the University of Colorado, America Museum of Natural History, NASA, Smithsonian Education, and Colorado Lessons on Local Government from the Colorado Municipal League. These resources also can be rated by teachers and assigned to individual students or an entire class. To sign up for a FREE DREAM account, go to www.enetcolorado.org/dream.
Colorado on iTunes U allows school districts and educational partners to provide free digital resources such as videos, podcasts, and PDF files. At Colorado on iTunes U, teacher-created videos for flipped classrooms, unique resources from educational partners such as History Colorado and the Denver Art Museum, and professional development videos from school districts can be found. In the last six months, over 32,000 downloads of Colorado iTunes U content was completed and over 15,000 live streaming of content.
Online professional development is also provided by eNetColorado through the Online Learning Site (http://moodle.enetcolorado.org). Online courses from Intel Teach and Verizon Thinkfinity such as “Assessment in the 21st Century Classroom” and “Using Cell Phones as Learning Tools” are offered during five different sessions during the year. Two new courses for fall include Blended Learning in the Classroom and Inquiry in the Science Classroom. School districts can also use this site to provide their own online or blended learning courses.
To learn more about eNetColorado’s educational resources and professional development, please email Dan Morris at danmorris@enetcolorado.org.
History
eNetColorado is a project of the Centennial Board of Cooperative Services (CBOCES) in partnership with the Colorado BOCES Association. The Fort Morgan School District was the lead LEA/district for the eNetColorado project.
eNetColorado was initiated as a Colorado Department of Education (CDE) grant through the Title ll-D program that provided initial funding to build “21st Century tech rich classrooms” with an emphasis on developing professional development and delivery strategies that can support teachers and districts statewide as they implement the new state standards. eNetColorado also supports other statewide initiatives like Race t0 the Top and Teacher Effectiveness.
eNetColorado has built a partnership of 75 participating school districts, 14 BOCES, and over 20 educational and community based organizations. This partnership works together to identify and provide high quality free and inexpensive resources to districts and teachers by leveraging locally developed content and shared access strategies. This type of partnership providing shared services and resources is particularly essential in the financial challenging times that all school districts face today.
The eNetColorado project received a initial $200,000 award in mid-December 2009, and $499,000 in July 2010. eNetColorado currently sustains its work through various awards, grants, and fees so it can support districts and educators statewide with a special emphasis on small and rural districts.