Opportunities and Challenges for Web 2.0 in Schools

Today at CES (Cooperative Educational Services) I joined Natalie Carrignan, Director of Instructional Technology, at a meeting for many technology coordinators. Before the official meeting we were part of a live 1-hour Technology and Learning Webinar, sponsored by Lightspeed Systems with several excellent presenters:

Alan November, an expert in educational technology, discussed the opportunities for creating communities of learners and enhancing education in the 21st century. He advocated going beyond the techno-centric and suggested creating 6 new learning jobs for students that parallel the changes in our culture: Daily Researcher, Curriculum Researcher, Global Communicator, Tutorial Designer, Curriculum Reviewer, and Daily Scribe.

Ellen Bialo and Jay Sivin Kachala from the research firm IESD (Interactive Educational Systems Design) discussed the results of a new survey of technology directors and what the implications of those findings are for school districts around the United States. (Survey is available.)

They found that the 3 reasons that districts utlize web 2.0 technologies are:

1. address students’ individual learning needs
2. engage students' interest
3. increase students' options

In the survey they broke Web 2.0 into 7 categories:

1. Student-generated online content
2. Teacher-generated online content
3. Online social networking used as part of instruction
4. Online learning games and simulations
5. Student use of virtual learning environments
6. Multimedia resources (podcast video cast)
7. Online communication with parents & students outside school hours

Terrrell Tucker, director of IT services in the Panama-Buena Vista Union School District in California, presented details of what the staff do to create a professional learning community. Collaboration is promoted through the use of Web 2.0 tools. Access to filtered material is provided to teachers who can override the block by selecting a time frame to use the material, and entering a username and password. An educational video library has been created by teachers for use in the learning community.

The webinar was a great preface to a meeting that focused on several issues, including the use of web 2.0 technologies in schools and the impact this is having on district acceptable use policies.

The original event was broadcast on:
Date: Tuesday, March 31, 2009
Time: 1:00 PM EDT
Duration: 60-minutes

http://www.media.qualitytech.com/client/new_bay/2009_0331/137512/launch.htm

You can view the event archive at the link provided above.

ITL Department Meeting on Assessment

Today we had three 45 minute ITL department meetings == all focusing on assessment.

High School: Robin Stiles, Julia Roberts and Rob Rogers are working on a 9th grade pre-assessment for next year. They are currently looking at TRAILS (Tools for Real Assessment of Information Literacy Skills) as a model for an online assessment that will be given as the first orientation class next year.

Middle School: John Horrigan, Deb Perry, Rita Hennessey, Kathy Fleming and Lauren Bullock reviewed the 5th grade assessment process to determine what information, if any, they could get about their 6th graders. They asked questions about the report card data, and suggested that the actual tools used to measure ITL success would be a valuable addition to the grades. Portfolios, which contained examples of students' best work, were suggested as another method to pass on information to middle school teachers.

Elementary School: Sarah Spencer, Kelley Auringer, Aimee Anctil, Tara Doyle, Michael Brownstein, Rae Anne Locke and Ken Hine reviewed the data from the first 5th grade report card on technology and research grades, with the intention that they would talk about the grades at an upcoming 5th grade level meeting at each school. We discussed what might be done to improve the process. We talked about the process used at SES to define each person's responsiblities in the grading process around specific lessons. We talked about the units of study which made up some of the process and products that were graded (primarily the study of ancient Egypt). We heard about the use of e-portfolios at KHS, where students identified their best piece of work from their research project, and defended their choice. Fixed scheduling was mentioned as one way to ensure that all students at each grade level received the same ITL information from the library media specialist. We also discussed the possibility of LMSs fixing a 5th grade technology class in their schedule at least one time each month to ensure that at least 10 times a year there would be a collaborative session with each 5th grade class. There will be one more analsyis of the report card grades this year, to see how grades compare between February and June.

Making Data more Visual, Relevant and Comprehensible

This week John Dodig, principal of SHS, shared an amazing video, Hans Rosling: Debunking Third-World Myths with the Best Stats You've Ever Seen. Many teachers are now exploring how they can use the software demonstrated in this video to make data more visual and understandable. Watch the video to discover new ways to visualize data:

The Think Tank: A Discovery Room for Young Learners

David Loertscher is working on a new vision for library media programs, which he calls the Learning Commons. He recently attended the ASCD conference and made many connections. One was Jean Knodt (author of the book Nine Thousand Straws with Teacher Ideas Press).

Knodt established a THINK TANK room in a school separate from the library and the computer lab. She is constantly working on understanding inquiry and developing innovative and industrious thinking. "The Think Tank: A Discovery Room for Young Learners" is on Harvard's Active Learning Practices for Schools website (ALPS). David Loertscher is imagining and working with others to redefine the library media program as a Think Tank -- but not just for the younger learners -- for all learners.

If 21st Century Skills include flexibility, creativity, independent thinking, unlearning/relearning, adaptability and the ability to fail, we will need to promote and support learning activities for students in which these skills can be experienced and practiced.

Have a PICNIK with your IMAGES

Today, while working with a teacher on Blackboard, we needed to resize an image quickly. We saved the image from Blackboard, then went to the free online image editing site, Picnik (http://www.picnik.com).

We uploaded the image, clicked on the resize button, and changed the width size from 640 to 230 (which automatically changed the height to keep the proportions of the image since we left the check mark in front of "keep proportions.") We then clicked on the SAVE & SHARE tab, changed the name and saved the new image to the computer we were working on. We deleted the old image in the Banner section of Blackboard, and uploaded the new resized image. The whole resizing, uploading and downloading took about 2 minutes.

PICNIK is a great site to fix red-eye, rotate, crop, sharpen, change color and add special effects. You can become a member of Picnik for free, and save images on the site for future use if desired.

GFS: My Life as a Writer

GFS 4th grade teachers, Mrs. Dimock, Ms. Krzyzek, Mrs. Theiss, and Mrs. Walsh, with technology teacher, Sally Wanamaker worked with each student to create a PhotoStory entitled, "My Life as a Writer." Recently, Sherry Black, technology teacher, posted all of the student projects to Blackboard. The following information was sent home to parents to explain the project:

In January and February the students planned the content of their digital story using a storyboard with their classroom teacher, and brought their plans to computer class. In computer class, the students created their illustrations for each slide using several different methods. They used drawing tools in PowerPoint/Max Show and saved the illustrations as jpegs so they could be used in their digital story. They also searched for their favorite author’s picture using Teachingbooks.net, and added clipart where appropriate.

Students then created slides using Microsoft’s Photo Story 3 software, inserted all of the illustrations they created, and typed in their captions, paying attention to slide layout and appropriate font style, size and color. The next step was to record their voices reading the script that they had created in their storyboard plan with their classroom teachers. When they were sure that their recording was clear and understandable, they added music that complemented their recording but didn’t compete with it. Lastly, they added custom transitions and animation to enhance their show.

The students had the opportunity to complete a rubric to assess their performance. Their performance on this project was also assessed by their computer teacher.
We wanted to give you a chance to see these projects, so we have posted them on their secure Blackboard site so that they may share their project with you, as well as share the attached rubric with you.

This is one sample of a student's final digital story, "Bryan's Life as a Writer." (The student's image and full name have been removed from this version of the final product.)

Current Issue of Educational Leadership Focuses on Literacy 2.0

Janna Bell, assistant principal at CES, recently shared two articles from the current issue of Educational Leadership with staff. The theme of this month's issue is Literacy 2.0. Janna shared the article, Orchestrating the Media Collage by Jason Ohler, with two committees at her school: the literacy committee and the ITL committee.

Both groups met separately on different days and all participants came to each meeting having read the article, ready to discuss. Both groups had lively discussions with much interaction and found the article interesting and applicable to their group's mission.

The article is atypically NOT filled with much educational/technology jargon. It provides 8 guidelines for teachers to ensure the promotion of the most important skills associated with digital literacy. The article focuses on the increased importance of reading and writing in education, explains the difference between report and story and elaborates on why they work well together, adds art as the 4th essential "R", and explains the importance of becoming knowledgeable about a wide range of digital tools.

This article is a MUST READ for anyone interested in redefinining literacy. A link to the online article is available here.