STSD Curriculum & Technology Update

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

What is this shift? --- in 5 minutes

Here is an excellent video that captures the direction of education for the future. Chris Lehman, Principal of the Science Leadership Academy in Philadelphia, shares his thoughts on education in the 21st century. He talks real fast because the format of the presentation was to assemble 20 slides in 5 minutes. There are a lot of great thoughts in here. Leave yours in the comments…

Here are the actual slides in the presentation, some which you cannot see in the video:

The Future is Now…according to the Rutgers University English Department

There are lots of interesting points in this short presentation:

1. “...the nature of communication has totally changed.”
2. “English, as the site that excels in human expression, and in the study of human culture related to expression—we should be the place that’s at the very cutting edge of education for students in these areas.”
3. “We now live in a world where we don’t simply go to the web to draw information down, but that people are actively participating in and contributing to the knowledge and information that is on the web.”
4. Because we now live in this read/write world, it’s essential that the English Department provide our students with training in how to live in this world.”
5. Collaboratories - “...spaces where students can work on multimedia composition. Because to compose, and to compose successfully in the 21st century, you have to not only excel at verbal expression and written expression, but you also have to excel in the use and manipulation of images. That is what it means to compose.”
6. Writing in the 21st century - “It’s multiply authored. It’s multiply produced. That’s where English is going.”

What are your thoughts?

Teenagers and the Internet

With the title, “What’s the matter with kids today?: Nothing, actually. Aside from our panic that the Internet is melting their brains,” Salon.com writer Amy Goldwasser offers a brief article that prompts us to rethink our ideas about how and why students are different today.

Teenagers today read and write for fun; it’s part of their social lives. We need to start celebrating this unprecedented surge, incorporating it as an educational tool instead of meeting it with punishing pop quizzes and suspicion.

We need to start trusting our kids to communicate as they will online—even when that comes with the risk that they’ll spill the family secrets or campaign for a candidate who’s not ours.

This article made me think about how we still want our students to consume more than create. When we allow kids to create, we give them more control. This can be scary for us! But the nature of information, and therefore knowledge, has changed. As adults, are we working from a narrow definition of literacy that may not encompass the changes being experienced outside of school? What do you think? This is valuable for us to reflect on as we move full steam ahead on our literacy/technology initiative. Feel free to leave your comments below!

Videoconference Provides Students with Innovative Experience

Thanks to Kristen Kelly for contributing this article that originally appeared in The Falcon Courrier (Vol. 28, No. 2), Salisbury High School’s student newspaper.

Teachers are always looking for new and out of the ordinary ways to teach their students. Science teacher Cheryl Criscuolo has found a way for students to gain knowledge of hard-to-learn concepts during an enriching experience. Students in Criscuolo’s Anatomy and Physiology and AP Biology classes attended a virtual knee surgery videoconference on November 14. Criscuolo first heard of the knee replacement videoconference through Director of Data and Technology Randy Ziegenfuss. The webinar provided students with the opportunity to watch a live total knee replacement and interact with the surgeons and medical personnel by asking questions during the event.

While conducting the surgery, the staff went through a detailed, step by step explanation of what was happening, starting with explaining the anesthetic used to put the patient to sleep. The surgeon then opened up the patient’s leg and proceeded with the surgery which included shearing of the leg bones and placing of the metal prosthetics inside the knee joint. The surgery took place at COSI Science Center in Columbus, Ohio, and was sponsored by Cardinal Health Foundation and Mount Carmel Hospital.

Before attending the videoconference, students in Criscuolo’s classes went online and took on the role of a surgeon during a virtual knee replacement surgery. The online program allowed students to go through the motions of a knee replacement operation, foreshadowing what they would see in the webinar.

“The online virtual knee replacement program benefited me significantly because it allowed me to see what exactly happens during an actual knee replacement surgery,” said senior Angela Swavely.

Students agreed that watching the live webinar was beneficial to their learning. “It was a fascinating experience that vastly increased my knowledge of the inner workings of the human body,” said senior Brian Ludrof.

Criscuolo said the videoconference allowed her students, especially those in Anatomy and Physiology, to gain additional insight and preview future topics and concepts addressed in the class. She felt the webinar benefited her students. Criscuolo said, “It allowed them to experience something they would normally not have.”

In the future, Criscuolo plans on hosting another webinar; then, the students will watch a live autopsy. Because of the graphic nature of the autopsy, the webinar may only be viewed by her honors Anatomy and Physiology class.

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.