STSD Curriculum & Technology Update

Regular updates and musings on curriculum and technology in the Salisbury Township School District in Allentown, PA.

Life in the Making

Our tenth grade students participated in a MAGPI videoconference with Gerda Weissman Klein, a Holocaust survivor.  In the program, Stand Up, Speak Out, Lend a Hand, her message is simple: do good by creating a service to humanity.  Given 2 months to complete a service initiative, students then gather globally for a collage presentation, an interactive videoconference event.  This year students selected an online service project for teens, calling it Life in the Making.  After creating teams, students formed 6 groups: Career Planning, Financial Planning, Social Networking, Test Preparation and Grades, Vocational Schools, and College.  Their goal was to define and explore each main topic by dividing it into sub-sections for individual and team research.  Working individually and in teams, students created a wealth of multimedia information that will help students in their career choices and pathways.

The next step in the process is to create digital research papers.  Having piloted this approach last year, I found that students actually enjoy an online research paper, and while the world has ”flattened," neither my students nor I could easily write a flat, aka hard copy paper again.  Finishing the project is the videoconference presentation, when students stand and deliver to an authentic global audience.

If you are a teacher reading this blog, you are probably wondering about assessment, and I do build that into components as I go, but since the students collaborate on the components, they also create the rubrics collaboratively as well.  So, at mid-term last year, my pilot class wrote their exam on their blogs.  Wanting to try something different this year, I created a mid-term exam that asked students to begin 2 days before the exam to create appropriate accounts, take the exam, and then have 2 additional days to edit it before final assessment.  Here’s their exam, created on their wikis.

Mid-Term Exam Information

Rationale

21st century learning expectations for students entering the work force include being a team player with information literacy skills that can be parlayed into presentation formats for global audiences. To that end, your mid-term ask you to continue to use the team-building skills you have been using in class and take them into the mid-term. For some sections of the mid-term, you may elect to work with 2--3 members of your team. For other sections, you are asked to work independently. The work that you create during the mid-term will eventually have a global audience of readers and listeners, and possibly even viewers. More to come about viewers in the .

Mid-Term Schedule / Timetable

Your exam is the second exam, from 9:35--10:55 on Wednesday, January 16. Your proctor is Miss Cotugno.
I recommend that you begin the preparation for your exam immediately. Why? Because all of these Web 2.0 tools take time to import/export. For some of them, you need to create a free account using your Gaggle email. Your work may be saved to the team’s home page, if appropriate, or to one of your individual pages. The research component must be located on one of your individual pages. You may (and should) begin to:

• Survey: create an account with Freeonlinesurveys and begin drafting 5 questions for your survey [TEAM 2-3]
• Video: locate a video [possibly at home if you do not use DiscoveryStreaming] and convert it using Zamzarthen link to it [INDIVIDUAL]
• Research: research additional information, including 3 links and 1 image, about one of your pages/subtopics [INDIVIDUAL]
• Slide Show: locate 10 images that you insert into a slide show using Animoto, SlideShare, or PhotoStory [PhotoStory should be on computers in Lab 3 but if not, it’s a fast download] [TEAM 2-3]

The work you begin during the exam period may be edited, revised, and/or completed at home, but all work for the mid-term must be completed by Thursday, 1-17, by 5 PM.

Mid-Term Exam

The links below will take you to Lesson Plans on my website.  Select Grade 10 and then January to access the Exam and Rubric.

English 10 Midterm Exam 2008

English 10 Midterm Exam 2008 RUBRIC

Extra Credit Podcast

Please see the Mid-Term Exam document for information about this extra credit option.

Mid-Term Survey

This link will take you to a survey I made for you as a sample for the mid-term using a free Web 2.0 survey builder. It is an evaluation of me and this mid-term. Please take the survey after you have taken the mid-term.

Did You Notice...

that in constructing your directions, I took your mid-term.

Students are continuing to create their podcasts, and in them you can still hear their excitement and enjoyment they shared taking this exam.  You can listen to their podcasts on their Life in the Making Gcast channel. 

Do you need a face lift?

A presentation face lift, that is…

Here is a terrific presentation on how PowerPoint presentations can be made more effective.

First Quarter Update

In this the first year of implementation for our district’s Technology & Learning Implementation Plan, we have taken some big steps toward achieving the goals as outlined in the plan. The purpose of this update is to share with you the district’s progress toward the goals of access, effective teaching and learning, professional development, information literacy and assessment/evaluation. What progress has been made?

• *District-wide wireless access
• *Six Smart Classrooms operating in elementary and middle schools
• *Classrooms for the Future Grant Implementation at the high school
• *LifeSmarts’ Beginnings at the high school
• *Videoconferencing
• *Information literacy discussion

This past summer, our five district buildings were outfitted with wireless network access. This was a significant step forward, laying the foundation for future progress toward our goal of access. By providing the entire district with wireless network access, flexibility of future plan implementation has been ensured. Limited network access is no longer an issue.

In conjunction with this upgrade to the network, we have been able to implement six “smart classrooms” throughout the elementary and middle levels. A “smart classroom” consists of five laptop computers, an interactive whiteboard and a multimedia projector. Three learning support classrooms (two 5th grade; one 6th grade) and three 6th grade classrooms have been outfitted with this technology. Simply providing access will not bring about necessary changes in the learning environment. With this in mind, the cohort of teachers has been meeting monthly to develop ideas surrounding change in their classrooms, share strategies and develop technology skills. These professional development opportunities will continue throughout the year. Participating teachers include Diane Kasaczun, Teri Bruns, Megan Pruner, David Beyer, Cathy Yurconic and Lynn Fuini-Hetten. Click here to view a video about the Smart Classrooms initiative.

In August, it was announced that the high school was the recipient of a state-funded Classrooms for the Future (CFF) grant in the amount of $166,000. The carefully crafted proposal, the result of some impressive collaboration between professional staff members, focused on developing connections between core content area subjects. The grant funding has provided the high school with 96 Macintosh student laptop computers, 19 Macintosh teacher laptop computers, 9 interactive whiteboards, 9 multimedia projectors, 5 digital video cameras, 3 digital cameras, and a new file server. Professional development is a significant piece of the grant’s implementation. Michele Honochick, high school library/media specialist, will be serving as the CFF Coach. Her primary responsibility will be to support the CFF teachers in their implementation of technology-rich, cross-curricular lessons in the content areas. In addition to receiving this professional support, participating teachers will complete 30 hours of professional development focused on changing the classroom learning environment for the 21st century learner. At this time, all equipment has been delivered and installation is expected to be completed prior to the December holiday break. Teachers and administrators are very excited about the possibilities brought by this increased access. Contingent upon state funding, additional resources will be available for the 2008-09 school year. Thank you to the following for their successful grant writing efforts! Cathie Meholic, RJ Stangherlin, Amy Reinert, Mary Agnew, Marge McGinty, Rick Marsico, Michele Honochick, Tom Smith, Chris Smith, Heather Morningstar, Louise Beauchemin and Randy Ziegenfuss.

The beginning of the school year brought a new integrated course to the high school – LifeSmarts. Bringing together content in Family & Consumer Science, Technology and Business, this course emphasizes real world applications supported by technology integration. Early activities enhanced the social aspects of learning with students participating in team building exercises supported by social uses of technology. Students have access to a mobile cart of 30 laptops, open-source software applications supporting activities such as concept mapping and podcasting, as well as student email access (through gaggle.net). The LifeSmarts teaching staff is comprised of Michele Cotugno, Frank Lane, and new Family & Consumer Science teacher, Holly Borthwick.

In October, several teachers participated in videoconferencing professional development from MAGPI through the University of Pennsylvania. The session, “Best Practices and Virtual Field Trips” provided our teachers with resources to find free and low-cost virtual field trips. Future professional development being offered by MAGPI includes, “Planning Interactive Videoconference Collaborations,” “Virtual Reality, Simulations and Gaming in Education,” as well as “Introduction to MAGPI.” Teachers who took advantage of this opportunity are planning on future uses of videoconference technology in Salisbury. Our students have or will be participating in these videoconferences: Virtual Knee Replacement Surgery; An Inconvenient Truth; Speak Out; Culture Clash; Titanic: Fortune and Fate; and Digital Film, Youth & Violence. Salisbury certainly has become a power user of videoconferencing technology!

Increased and improved access requires our students and staff to acquire new literacy skills. Librarians and administrators have begun discussions pertaining to information literacy, internet safety and computer ethics. You can visit the discussion board online. The work of this group will become increasingly more important as we continue to implement our plan.

As you can see from this summary, the district has made significant progress in several goal areas in a short period of time. Thank you to everyone, teacher and administrator, who has embraced the shift brought about by these developments. This is only the beginning. The plan outlines a vision, mission and beliefs that will not be achieved overnight. It is important for all of us to understand that this is a process that will take time. While we will continue to set high expectations for growth, we must also be mindful that shift is sometimes messy and unpredictable. Using the plan as a compass for the future, Salisbury is well on the way to transforming the teaching and learning environment for our students.

The complete Technology & Learning Implementation Plan can be accessed online.

DISCOVER - Information Literacy

As we were developing our Technology & Learning Implementation Plan last year, one of first areas of focus was access. We also felt that as access to technology and information increases in the district, we will need to pay particular attention to information literacy. As a result of this thinking, information literacy is one of the five goals emphasized in the plan.
Here is a video created by four graduate students at the University of Mary Washington in VA. It outlines a model for how we might teach information literacy, DISCOVER.

D - Define
I - Inquire
S - Search
C - Collect
O - Organize
V - Verify
E - Express
R - Reflect

How will you teach your students to navigate the enormous amount of information available to them through access to computers?

DISCOVER Information Literacy - video