JJ Ayers

Hello, I’m JJ.

I am currently the campus Technology Integrator at McKinney Boyd High School in McKinney, Texas. I have been in education for 18 years from being an Academic Advisor to Teacher to my current position.

I have a Bachelor's degree in Theater, a Master’s degree in Secondary Education, and a Doctorate in Curriculum and Instruction with a minor in Educational Technology. The subject of my dissertation was on how technology used in the classroom impacts student engagement. You can read my published dissertation here (http://bit.ly/AyersDissertation). I routinely offer Professional Development to my campus and at conferences. You can see a list of session notes on my website (http://bit.ly/ayersjj). I also am a certified Google Apps for Education Trainer (http://bit.ly/ayersGAFE) and a certified Schlechty Design Coach.

It is with this last certification that I have had the most benefit for directly impacting my teachers and therefore my students. I have managed to either lead or co-lead over 300 3-hour design sessions with individual PLCs on campus within our Design Center (http://broncoway.weebly.com). This has provided me an opportunity to train teachers to integrate technology from the very beginning of instructional design allowing them to achieve higher levels of critical thinking with their students more frequently. This has resulted in higher student engagement, higher STAAR testing results, and teacher excitement, especially since our district is a 1:1 initiative at the high school level with MacBook Airs.

I believe that the best student is an engagedstudent and the key to that higher engagement (and learning) lies in continualinstructional design.

If you would like to know more, you can see a sneak peak into my ideology and see who I am with a click on the button above.