Defining MAP Tests in Inform
These are described below. (In each example, ## represents the grade level.)
MAP-Math-## or MAP-Read-##
These scores are entered each spring. These are the students' actual overall reading and mathematics RIT scores from the testing that April/May.
MAP-MTMath-## or MAP-MTRead-##
These scores are entered each spring. They are Yes-No scores (1 or 0). They answer the question of whether or not the student met his or her target from the previous spring on this spring's testing.
MAP-PTMath-## or MAP-PTRead-##
These scores are entered in late summer and are considered fall scores. These are the Predicted Target (PT) RIT scores for the end of the current/new school year based on each student's performance the previous spring.
Learning First, Technology Second
This summer I attended a learning conference hosted by education and technology expert Alan November. The learning I experienced there led me to ask some very important questions of myself and of our District. I would like to share these questions with you, as well as some resources I discovered to help blend learning and technology to make our Learning21 Principles a reality for all students.
View the Learning21 Principles.
Who owns the learning? The one talking and doing the learning owns the learning.
How can students add value to the classroom and to the world? One example is they can take what they are learning and create products posted through wikis, blogs, and podcasts. Give your students opportunities to have a global voice!
How can students have authentic learning experiences with a real purpose, solving real problems, and create solutions for real audiences centered around learning standards? Start with a unit you are already doing and focus on the Power Standards that are embedded in that unit and/or can be integrated with other subject areas. Next, ask yourself and/or your students what problems exist today and what they can do to solve those problems. Once you have decided on a problem, identify the real audience for your solution. From there, plan specific, differentiated learning experiences to attain those goals.
How can students do more than digest information and output answers for the teacher? Have students develop and articulate a deep understanding of important concepts rather than isolated facts. Let them learn in public and receive feedback from others around the world.
How do I allow students to create real products using different technologies I may not be comfortable with? One way is to assign groups of students to discover, play with, learn, and teach new technologies. See Alan November’s Digital Learning Farm article for ideas. Students can go to AtomicLearning to learn how to use software we have in our district. (CCSD21 staff members--If you do not remember the username and password for AtomicLearning, please see your LMC Team.)
I want to use more technology with my students, where do I start? Always start with the Power Standards and the CCSD21 Curriculum Frameworks, look for technology to help solve a real problem for real audiences. Also, ask your students and iTech teachers, LMC Specialists, Learning Coaches, or Principals; they will have ideas! In addition, check Connect21 for sample authentic learning units as staff members are posting them. (And--Post the authentic learning units that you have created, too!)
How much time should I spend on learning the technology? Spend more time on critical thinking and problem solving skills. Don’t spend too much time learning one type of technology, which will change quickly, but do become “tech comfortable,” in general.
Are our students leaving learning legacies? If they are doing purposeful work to solve real problems for real audiences, they are. Authentic learning experiences lead to learning legacies that last well after students graduate. This kind of learning will stay with them for a long, long time. There are an unlimited number of real problems our students can be solving during the learning process.
How can I better motivate students? If students are working on real problems and sharing with real audiences, they know they are making a difference. This will motivate nearly every student. Also, saying to every student (and saying it as often as possible) “You matter, and the world values your contribution” will deeply motivate students to learn and produce to the best of their ability. They will amaze us (and meet standards along the way)!
Overall, how are my students experiencing learning? Take a look at your day from an outside perspective. Does what students are doing look like a working and/or learning environment in the “real world” in 2011? It should. If not, what baby steps can you take to make it look like how the world works today? Congratulate yourself and celebrate each success. This is important work!
Where can I find some examples of this kind of work being done by students? Two great examples: http://mathtrain.tv (view from outside of the district) and http://dgh.wikispaces.com/Mr.+Holman+%26+Mr.+Pennington (a class digital textbook).
Asking and answering these questions in teams can build on the great things already happening our classrooms and help take learning experiences to the next level…reaching the goals of the Learning21 Principles and standards while completely engaging students. View an Alan November talk on this subject on YouTube (again, outside CCSD21).
Audio & Video in CCSD21 Wikis & Blogs
Video and audio clips include any podcasts, sound files, video clips, and MP3s/MP4s.
Due to current bandwidth limitations, we also cannot stream audio and videos via links in our wikis and blogs.
To add a video or audio clip to a wiki or blog with a link, the first step is to send audio or video files to the iTech teacher in your buildings. The audio or video files you send will be placed on our media server, which is designed to hold and distribute these files.
After the file has been uploaded to the media server, the iTech teacher will be send you the link to the file (which is sitting on our media server) to place on your wiki or blog. Then students can interact with the audio and video files right through the wiki or blog, at home or at school.
You can also link audio and video files on the Internet on your wiki or blog. If you choose this option, please make sure it is noted on the wiki or blog that the files can only be played from outside of the school district.
When you, as a teacher, want to share a video or audio clip with your students, you should play it directly from your Staff MacBook, having put the actual clip on the Staff MacBook prior to class. Due to bandwidth limitations, you cannot simply click on audio and video links and stream those across the Internet. Information, for example, on downloading clips from YouTube can be found here.
Projectors > On!
Following successful completion of the first session, teachers will receive a projector remote and a VGA cable to connect the computer to the VGA port on the wall, and at that time, they can begin using the projector.
The projectors that have been installed are the PowerLite 450w (Below-Top) and the PowerLite 410w (Bottom-Below). The 410w was used in classrooms in which the height of the ceiling was too low to allow for the use of the 450w.
At the time of this writing, there are still a handful of classrooms in District 21 that require additional work, but 97% of classrooms are ready-to-go! (This is a particularly amazing statistic when one considers that this project should have been given about five months to complete. In fact, it has been almost entirely completed in less than 10 weeks!)
Some important points for teachers to remember as they begin to use these new tools to support student learning:
- Classroom Lighting--Most classrooms in District 21 have two light switches, with one serving as a dimmer. When using the projector, it is recommended to have one light switch on and one light switch off.
- Boards & Screens--As stated in a Modern Pen post earlier this summer, classrooms with dry erase boards are using those dry erase board as the screen. Classrooms with chalkboards have screens mounted in them.
- Overhead Projectors--If you plan to continue to use your overhead projector, it is recommended that you display the image in the same location that your projector displays (dry erase board, screen). Do keep in mind that District 21 will no longer be spending money or time repairing or replacing broken/old overhead projectors. District 21 also does not plan to replace spent overhead projector bulbs.
- VCRs--Each school will have a few carts with TVs and VHS VCRs until those TVs and/or VCRs stop working. There are no plans to even begin considering whether or not District 21 will be able to digitize old VHS cassettes until Summer 2012. In the meantime, those carts can be used to access old VHS cassettes, new DVD versions of those titles can be purchased through building funds, and/or teams can begin to identify newer resources to support student learning.
Finally, and most importantly,
remember to use Connect21 to gather ideas
about authentic learning opportunities you can
create for students and to post information for
other teachers in District 21 about authentic
activities that you have created.
New Teachers Consider Authentic Learning
For the third consecutive year (2009-2010 & 2010-2011), District 21's new instructional staff members have recorded a podcast to both publicly commit to authentic and relevant learning experiences for students and to share their ideas with the community of learners that is made of 21st Century educators worldwide.
> 2011-2012 Staff & Authentic Instruction Podcast
Projectors-Not Really There Yet
Following required professional development that will take place at the beginning of this year, staff members will receive their remotes and VGA cables and be able to use their projectors. Until that time, staff members should not interact with our new projectors.
We are very excited that another Tech Plan project has come to fruition with the support of the Board of Education and the hard work of partner vendors and District 21 staff alike. We are also excited about the collaborative planning that is being done with principals, learning coaches, iTech teachers, and LMC specialists, who will be leading this professional development.
TVs & Bulletin Boards
As this post is being published, the first phase of the projector installation project is already coming to a close--all classroom television sets will have been removed by the end of this week! (See below!) These TVs are being stored in each school until they are removed for environmentally safe recycling later this summer. Additionally, each school has been given the option of keeping a few TVs for their school for use with the few remaining VCRs to help ease the transition for teachers away from analog media. These TV/VCR combinations will be on carts in the school, and once either the TV or VCR breaks, it will no longer be repaired or maintained.
Marking the Walls
As the TV removal work has been completed, each classroom is also being visited to determine which projector type will best function in the room (450w vs. 410w: See previous post for more information). During these walk-throughs three signs are being hung in each classroom: one to identify the location of the projector, one to identify the location of the outlet for the projector, and one to identify the location of the VGA box. (See image below--Red ovals represent each sign.)
The locations of the mountings have been determined by specific structural factors and as a result of walk-throughs initially conducted with building principals in May 2009 after the Board of Education initially directed District 21 staff to move forward with trying to implement this project within budgetary guidelines. (Twice before, RFPs were created for this project, and each time, the project came back too expensive to bring to the Board of Education for approval. With some changes, it came in far less expensive this time!) In some cases, teachers may need to re-orient the direction of what they consider to be the front of the classroom in order to use the projector. Additionally, in all cases in which the wall structure allows, the VGA box in which the teacher will connect her or his laptop is being placed near existing Ethernet ports and away from the classroom door.
Electrical Work & Your Bulletin Boards
We have already entered the second phase of this project as the electricians are now installing outlets for the projectors To do this work and to facilitate the forthcoming installation of the projectors themselves, sections of bulletin boards will need to be removed and bulletin board materials will need to be taken down. Had time allowed at the end of the school year, it would have been better for everyone if teachers had been able to do this prior to leaving for the summer. Unfortunately, there was simply not enough time to understand and communicate this detail. So, as building walk-throughs are being completed some materials are being removed from bulletin boards. These materials are being removed carefully by District 21 staff (not by contractors). These materials are being placed on the teacher's desk whenever possible and when that's not possible due to the "summer condition" of the room, these materials are being placed in a safe, yet conspicuous, location in the room so the teacher will find the materials at the end of the summer. Maps and old projector screens are also being removed. Rooms with dry erase boards will not utilize a projector screen at all. Rooms with chalkboards will receive high quality existing screens or new screens.
An example of the section of board that might be removed is pictured below by the rectangle. Also, note the arrows for the screens and maps that will be removed.
We know that this will be an inconvenience and surprise for teachers, and we apologize for that. We have done our best to minimize this disruption to our classrooms. At the same time, teachers have been desperately wanting classroom projectors, and this is one necessary step in the process of installing those projectors. As you consider this project, please understand its scope: projectors are being installed in 426 rooms!
Outlets on the Wall
Finally, in the past two days, outlets have begun being physically installed at Cooper M.S. (See the image below.)
This project will continue to progress from school-to-school, and the projectors will arrive shortly. When the projectors do arrive, they will be installed following the installation of the outlets. Projectors cannot be used until the fall, when staff members receive additional materials and initial training on the projectors, though all of this will be provided at the building-level during the opening days of school.
Thank you for your support, understanding, and patience as we quickly move to accomplish a major Technology Plan project (and an item high on the wish list of many, many instructional staff members)!
Classroom Projectors--In-Progress!
At its May 2011 meeting, the Board of Education approved the purchase and installation of classroom projectors for classrooms and conference rooms throughout School District 21. After trying on two previous occasions to do this Tech Plan project in an affordable way during the Summer and Fall of 2009, this year's Technology Plan Budget and Infrastructure Committee came up with a new set of assumptions and took advantage of changes in technology to significantly decrease the electrical and installation costs associated with this project.
What is going away to make this happen?
One of the major changes is that the first phase of this project will see the removal of all of the classroom television sets. This work will begin on June 9th! This also means that our very old Media Distribution Systems are also being retired at this time. Next year, teachers will have very limited opportunities to use video cassettes (only on VCRs on rolling TV carts). This is part of the transition to moving forward in to the digital age. Over time, we hope to be able to offer services to digitize old video, but that work is not likely to being until some time in 2012.
What are we getting?
The projectors that will be mounted in each classroom are pictured above, the Epson PowerLite 450w (left) and the Epson PowerLite 410w (right). The 450w is an ultra-short-throw projector that will mount slightly above the board in each classroom and stick out approximately 18 inches from the wall on an arm above the board (like that pictured below). The 410w is necessary to use in our many second floor (and some first floor) classrooms in which the ceiling is too low to use the 450w. The 410w will be on an arm that protrudes approximately three feet from the wall.
Then, in each room, to the right or left of the board, there will be a spot near the wall for the laptop to be connected via a VGA cable. (Each classroom will be provided with one of these cables. Teachers will also need to use their Display Port adapter (dongle) with this cable.) The VGA cable will connect to a box that looks like the one below.
For showing video with audio from the laptop, we will also recommend that teachers connect speakers directly to their laptop computers. These will be purchased at the building-level and checked out from the LMC.
When are we getting it?
We hope to have as many installed by the start of the 2011-2012 school year, but teachers should not anticipate having them installed until as late as the middle of the school year.
What is the role of the projector in classroom instruction?
For students to learn, they need to be the ones doing the work. Moments of instruction in which the teacher is standing in front of the classroom talking to all of the students should be limited. Likewise, the projector should not be a focal point of a "classroom stage". At the same time, there are many sound instructional reasons why students and teachers will need to project something from a laptop for others to view. The projectors will make these moments far more effective. Such learning activities include the use of: video chat with experts and others far beyond our own classroom, interactive maps, video clips, and web-based information for launches and/or summaries.
What type of professional development will be offered?
Given the size of this expenditure district-wide, there will be important and required professional development offered to all teachers during the Fall of 2012. This will include learning about how to operate the projector technically as well as how to use it effectively to enhance student learning.
What do I need to do to help with the installation of these projectors?
We are installing over 400 projectors beginning in the coming weeks. To be successful with a project of this scope, everyone's assistance is needed. From teachers, it is critical that the areas below your current television sets are free from boxes and furniture when you leave for the summer. Likewise, a high degree of flexibility will be necessary as you find that resources you've used in the past, such as video cassettes, cannot be used easily next school year.
The installation of classroom projectors was a high priority project from the 2008-2011 Technology Plan that we were unable to implement during that plan. As a result of the creativity and persistence of Technology Plan committee members, this project has been rewritten in to the 2011-2014 Technology Plan, and we are pleased to announce that we are already moving forward with it. We look forward to keeping you up-to-date on the progress of this project throughout the summer and to working with you in the Fall to use these new classroom tools effectively to support student learning.
Media Literacy & Effective Web Searching
Most people could be using search engines differently to yield better search results. Those who are media literate know the top results in a search are not the most accurate or credible. How we enter key words and information in to search engines can drastically alter our search results.
To learn to more efficiently search the web and learn more about media literacy, see the following links:
A Beginner’s Guide to Going Online
How to Search the Web
Evaluating Web Sites: Criteria and Tools
Kathy Schrock’s Guide for Educators
As described on The Modern Pen in this post, like everything else with technology, search does continue to change and evolve.
Authentic Guided Reading
What is Guided Reading?
Guided Reading encourages student ownership of learning by acting as the guide-on the side, or facilitator, as students learn to master new levels of reading and understanding of content. Teachers work with small groups of students while other students work either in groups or independently on related skills and content. Although Guided Reading began with primary grade level students, the benefits of Guided Reading for middle school students are just as powerful.
The strategies and structures employed in a classroom utilizing Guided Reading can be taught across all subject areas, including mathematics, science, and social studies. In any case, when teachers provided "guided learning" opportunities when working with small groups of students, teachers can more easily assess, guide, and provoke deeper levels of learning in all students.
Making Guided Reading Authentic in the 21st Century
Student-driven, authentic learning opportunities intrinsically motivate students and lead to higher levels of achievement. These learning experiences involve allowing students to express and communicate their learning with others, understand and expand their personal strength and weaknesses, create real products for real purposes outside of the classroom, develop divergent thinking, apply higher level thinking skills, while connecting with others (from across the classroom to across the world). These same principles can be put in to practice in the stations and activities that are a central part of the Guided Reading classroom.
Collaborating to Improve Learning for All Students
Teachers across District 21 are encouraging one another to begin creating and sharing lessons with the above principles in mind. A district-wide wiki already exists where teachers will build quality, 21st Century Guided Reading learning experiences for students working in stations during Guided Reading time. Through professional collaboration online, in which teachers thoughtfully and respectfully improve one another's work, learning opportunities for all students in District 21 will improve. As Sir Ken Robinson states in his talk that was shown during the workshop, Changing Paradigms, collaboration truly is the stuff of growth!
Updated Grade Scales
Academic Grade Scale (grades 3-8)
A - Advanced
B - Proficient
C - Developing
D - Deficient
W - Academic Warning
Power Standards Scale (grades 3-8)
+ - Mastery
> - Progressing toward Mastery
Learner Quality Scale (grades 6-8)
4 - Performance is consistently at a high level & achieved independently
3 - Performance is often at a satisfactory level & achieved independently
2 - With help, performance is at a satisfactory level
1 - Performs with partial success while requiring help
New Power Standards--Online
Email & CCSD21 Students
“Can students use outside email at school, such Hotmail, Gmail, and Yahoo! mail?”
Prior to the approval of our current Technology & Internet Acceptable Use Policies, students were not allowed to use outside email in school. While that provision has been removed, its use should not be encouraged. Rather, in the future, School District 21 may provide email addresses for students to use with their peers and staff when working on schoolwork. In the meantime, it is not a violation of the policy for students to email documents to themselves, though their use of email at school and with school resources should be limited to that which supports their schoolwork.
“Can teachers send emails to students, such as work that the may have missed while absent?”
There is nothing in our Student or Staff Acceptable Use Policies that prohibits teachers from emailing students directly, but we would only encourage its use under the following conditions in order to protect students and staff members:
- School-Related: Emails sent to students by teachers should be clearly related to school.
- Parent Permission: Prior to emailing a student directly, teachers should obtain permission from parents.
- Include Parents: When emailing a student, copy the parent(s) using the CC line in the email.
- District Email--Always: As with anything school-related, always use your District 21 email address.
Power Standards Assessments without Grades
- Create the assignment as you normally would
- Assign the appropriate Power Standard(s) to the assignment
- Click in the regular academic grade of the assignment
-
In the menu bar at the top of the screen, go to
Tools > Fill Scores and fill all of the cells
(each student) for that assignment with an “EX” for
marking the assignment
Excused
(See below--Notice the Comment to further clarify
for colleagues and parents.)
- Then, expand the Power Standards by clicking the S in the Assignment Column Header, and enter the Power Standard performance for each student on any Power Standards that have been assessed.
Now, only the Power Standards will “count” for this assessment, which will not impact the academic grade at all.
New PowerTeacher 2.2 Gradebook Open!
While the Gradebook is almost entirely unchanged, teachers can now assign 1 or more Power Standard(s) to specific assignments and track Power Standard performance across the year.
- Teachers can still give “regular” grades on individual assignments as they’ve always done
- Additionally, teachers can collect data on Power Standard performance on specific assignments
- Regular collection of Power Standard data across the year allows for powerful data to inform instruction and powerful, accurate, stress-free reporting to parents at the end of the year
To support teachers with this enhancement, a revised PowerTeacher & PowerTeacher Gradebook course has been created in SchoolTown. Teachers can log in today to participate in that course.
- Updated Course--SchoolTown now includes an updated PowerTeacher Course with immediate, on-demand training that will support teachers in being successful with Power Standards in the updated version of Gradebook.
- In SchoolTown Course, Two Critical Units--Units 3 (Categories) and 4 (Assignments) are the staff learning priorities due to enhancements in the Gradebook. (***This will make parent reporting easy and team conversations powerful!***)
- Nearly all of the units in the PowerTeacher Course are the same as they've been for over two years. These will not need to be viewed by most staff members. New staff will want to participate with the foundational units, as needed.
Finally, if you have questions about how to login to PowerTeacher, your school principal (and MS Asst Principals) has that information!
How do I... ?
What does this mean for teachers and students? Simply that we need to continually adapt and learn how to use new technology as it changes.
Software manufacturers continue to update their software on a regular basis (i.e., every 1-4 years), and sometimes these updates result in very different ways in which to use the software. Both Microsoft and Apple, for example, regularly make such changes. When this happens, as end users, whether we like it or not, we need to also change.
For example, while in a furious rush to produce professional development video for staff members throughout School District 21, we came across our first real need to use iMovie 09. Like iMovie 08, it had completely abandoned the timeline editing of “production” movie editing suites. Yet, it was still likely the best and fastest tool for us to use to edit web video. So, after some frustration and attempts at trying the new software, what did we do???
We accessed the Help Menu (pictured below) built right in to the iMovie application (and all Mac OS X applications) in the white menu bar at the top of the screen.
By selecting the Help Menu, we were able to go directly to video tutorials on Apple’s website. (This work was being done outside the District...) As pictured below, you can see that there was a long list of videos on the website.
We needed to learn how to trim clips first, and we went straight to that video, watched, learned, and then, were able to do!
No single person, no matter how geeky or techy, knows all technology. Nevertheless, just like with The Modern Pen, individuals and organizations put the information out there on the web. Much of the time, finding one’s answer is simply a few clicks away!
New Staff Members Commit to Relevant Learning
New certified staff members to School District 21 believe that authentic and relevant learning is:
- Content is meaningful to students
- Students make connections between new concepts and those that they already know
- Learning that can be generalized across many different environments
- Focused on problem solving
- Learning in which students are not only consumers, but also producers of, knowledge
- Practical and applied
- Learning in which students and teachers are all learners
- Collaborative
- Learning that inspires questioning and creativity on the part of students
- Learning that connects the past, present, and future
- Learning that teaches and requires empathy
New Staff Orientation Podcast 2010-2011
New Staff Orientation Wordles 2010-2011
Relevant & Authentic Learning
- WHAT is relevant and authentic learning?
- SO WHAT? Why is it important for learning to be relevant and authentic?
- NOW WHAT? What are you going to do to ensure that learning in your classroom and/or with your students is relevant and authentic this year?
During the workshop, we will use multiple tools to help us capture and organize our thinking. Among these, groups will be using Wordle to summarize the thoughts of the group:
Finally, participants will create a podcast articulating what they will do to ensure that their students benefit from relevant and authentic learning throughout the school year! This podcast will be posted on The Modern Pen following the workshop.
Other Resources discussed for teachers to consider include:
Podcasting for Literacy
- Tools for 21st Century Learning-February 2009
- Podcasting Workshop-August 2007
- What’s a Podcast?-August 2007
As we continue to evolve in our use of podcasting, we have more tools available to teachers and students than ever before with which they can produce such podcasts. These include staff laptops and both the iMac and Mac Mini computer labs as well as directly on to devices such as iPods and iPod Touches.
The following article from the International Society for Technology in Education (ISTE) makes connections between the National Educational Technology Standards and podcasting in the classroom.
Links to actual podcasts recorded in District 21 include:
* Teacher Reflections on Podcasting (Staff)
- Administrators’ Ideas about Relevant Schools (Staff)
- New Staff Members Commit to Relevance (Staff)
- Cooper MS 8th Grade Alcohol Podcasts (Students)
- London MS 7th Grade Immigration Podcasts (Students)
- An Understanding of Marketing (Students) (Names are pseudonyms.)
- Binge Drinking and the Brain (Students)
For teachers wanting to learn more about podcasting, here is another useful podcast to listen to as a resource for learning more about what can be done during a podcast--including the use of sound effects!
- Chicago Public Radio/NPR Re-Sound
Directions for Podcasting with GarageBand
AtomicLearning.com GarageBand Tutorials
Using the MacBook as the Classroom Computer
One of the key components of the Staff MacBook deployment was that the Staff MacBook would also serve as the primary classroom computer. This decision was made initially and later affirmed by District 21 teachers through the Tech Plan process in 2008 and again in 2009. Based on this, the use of the Staff MacBook as the primary classroom computer was part of what was presented to the Board.
Of course, we do not want students (or other staff members) to be able to access an individual’s email nor files that are not being shared collaboratively via a team wiki or email. So, how do multiple users share the same computer without being able to access an individual’s private files?
Both Windows and Mac computers allow for the creation of multiple user accounts on a single computer. The MacBooks deployed to staff take advantage of this. As a staff member, you log-in and log-out of your account on the computer. Assuming you do not share that password with anyone, only you can access that email and those files.
When you want students to use your computer, to share their documents from the server, to create a new document, or to use the Internet, you first need to log-out of the computer. A student should never be on a staff laptop while the staff member is logged in!
Option 1--Use Generic Student Account
Each staff laptop contains a generic Student account. The username for this account is Student. The password for this account is student. Students can log-in to this account. From there, they can use the Internet. They can access their home directories on the server, and use files already saved or save new files. From this account, if the student needs to access the server, the student should use the Go > Connect to Server option from the menu bar.
Then, you will need to enter the address of your school’s file server. Just replace “field” with the name of your school. Then, hit enter.
Now, the student will enter his/her username and password and can access existing files or save new files.
This option is ideal when a number of different students will be accessing the staff laptop in a relatively short amount of time.
Option 2--Students Log-In with AD Username
The other option is that students can simply log-in with their own username and password, just like they do in the Labs/LMC. This will require the computer to be connected to the network, which will be no problem once the wireless network is up and running in May 2010. When the student logs-in like this on the staff laptop computer, the student’s home directory will pull down from the server. This will take just a few minutes for most students. Then, the student will work on the computer, and the work will sync back to the server every 10 minutes. It is important that the student logs out at the end of the work time.
This option is ideal when a single student will be working extensively on the staff laptop.
There are pluses and minuses to each of these options. Choose whichever seems to make the most sense at the time for you, and don’t be afraid to choose different options in different situations.
Administrators' Ideas about Relevant Schools
Listen to District 21 administrators discuss making school relevant!
New Staff Members Commit to Relevance
New certified staff members also spent time considering the impact of the dramatic changes that the world has witnessed over the past two decades in the areas of technology and economics; changes which have effectively decreased the size of our world and increased the interdependence of all people on one another.
As a conclusion to these conversations and lessons, the new staff members made commitments in this podcast about how they will make school relevant for the students in their classroom during this school year.
Listen now!
Web Link--Tools for 21st Century Learning
To see how these are being used in our District, check out:
Blogs
Wikis
Podcasts
For more information on 21st Century Skills, visit the Partnership for 21st Century Skills.
First Online Course Debuts
This course is completely voluntary. Some important tips:
1. The online course is available all of the time.
2. Lessons and Tasks can be read and watched over and over again by teachers.
3. For this class, Lessons and Tasks can be completed in any order. Task 1 within a Lesson is not a prerequisite for Task 2. This allows teachers to cherry pick in order to meet his/her needs.
For our online courseware, we have evaluated a variety of products. We have set-up our very own Moodle server, but for now, we are moving forward with a local education technology start-up called SchoolTown.net. We have been working closely with SchoolTown’s leadership team since last spring, and they have made significant changes to their product as a result of our conversations and suggestions—right up through today. We look forward to continuing to shape this product through our experiences. (More information about SchoolTown, written by us, follows below.)
Again, we encourage you to take advantage of this course! Thank you for your great work in ensuring that our instruction is most effective to meet the needs of our students!!!
---
SchoolTown.net is a new web-based service for schools and other groups to use. They are a local company, and despite its "start-up" status, they are developing significant connections within the educational community nation-wide.
Since they are a local company, we've been lucky enough to be working with SchoolTown.net since the spring of 2008. During that time, they have been very open to the feedback that we have provided, and they have continually made significant modifications to the structure of their products as well as to its features. We look forward to continuing to grow together in this area.
Originally conceived as a tool focused on student needs, we have also articulated how modifications to SchoolTown.net can serve us very well as a tool for online professional development. It is here that we begin our work with SchoolTown.net. From there, in the future, we look forward to also tackling the challenges of implementing SchoolTown.net as a tool that is used with students and parents.
The Presidential Election
- CNN.com Electoral College Calculator
- The New York Times Electoral Map--Key States
*Special thanks to retired District 21 staff member Hugh Brady for pointing us in the direction of these websites.
A Day with Dr. Heidi Hayes Jacobs
9.25 AM--The School Calendar
Already this morning, Dr. Hayes Jacobs has made the connection between how a doctor does and should do his or her job and how a teacher does or should do his or her job. She has repeatedly commented on how the current traditional school calendar has nothing to do with learning. She did correctly point out that the current school calendar is rooted in the industrial revolution of the late 19th Century in the U.S. She did not go on to state that it is not an agrarian calendar. (If it were based on an agricultural society, the kids would be off in September and October to help with the harvest and in school during the summer when there's not much to do except hope you have the right mix of rain and sun for your crops!)
While Heidi did not talk about this, here it is... Why is there no school in the summer as a result of the Industrial Revolution? It was too hot for the machines in the factories to operate during the summer, so factories were closed. Employees (parents) were home, and the children of working class parents could be home with them. Heidi's suggestion--There should be a "summer semester", not summer school. According to her, students in Canada have 195 days of school. Students in Western Europe typically have 205 days of school. Students in Japan have 220 days of school. Students in the U.S. typically have about 175 days of school. Who is going to learn more?
Our curriculum is really written for a 300-day school year. We have to pick what is really important. We need to use Power Standards.
9.35 AM--The Role of Technology
"When I picked up the NY Times this morning, it was already out-of-date. If I want up-to-date information, I go to the Internet--on my computer or on my phone. Teachers say, 'I don't really use technology.' What if I went to a doctor and he said, 'Yea. I've heard of the X-ray.'" (Everyone laughed nervously at this point!)
"Kids go out in to the 21st Century, and then, they go to school." Our schools are not designed for our kids' futures, looking out five or ten years. "If we want kids engaged, let's at least be in the 21st Century. We're almost 10% of the way through it."
9.35 AM--The Definition of Curriculum Mapping
Curriculum Maps have three basic elements:
- Content
- Skills
- Assessment
Curriculum mapping is:
- Calendar-based
- Focused on the operational curriculum
- Housed and revised electronically to provide direction (like an online map)
Curriculum maps are framed by essential questions that are based on key concepts, enduring understandings, and big ideas--like District 21's concept-based curriculum. Why? People retain more when they have these deep understandings.
9.50 AM--The Role of Technology in Curriculum
Mapping
The move from Professional Learning Communities to a
Global Learning Community--Curriculum mapping
software and online collaborative tools allow people
to work together and share expertise and units across
time and space.
9.55 AM--Why map?
To solve specific problems in a school or district
to:
- Gain information
- Avoid repetition
- Identify gaps
- Locate potential areas for integration
- Match with learner standards
- Examine for timeliness
- Edit for coherence
10.05 AM--How do we map curriculum?
The information below will be published in the
new book that Dr. Hayes Jacobs is working on...
Short-term upgrades--"Revision and replacement" of
dated curriculum and assessment types with more vital
contemporary forms. Every teacher should upgrade at
least one thing each year. For example, we replace a
paper with the development of a documentary or a
podcast. Begin using e-mail or Skype to collect
information. These replacements should be
technology-based for our current and future students!
Long-term upgrades--"Versioning" is the creation of
new versions of the programs and structures within
our schools as institutions. This is like coming out
with an entirely new operating system for a computer.
We should do this every few years.
10.40 AM--Electronic Portfolios
In Rhode Island, students are
responsible for completing an electronic portfolio
to prove their knowledge and skills in the
standards areas prior to graduating from high
school. This was implemented six years ago, so
students graduating from high school now will have
work from middle school and high school in their
electronic portfolios. Today, kids begin
collecting this work in the primary grades. There
are between 15 and 18 school districts currently
participating in the Rhode Island Electronic
Portfolio System based on the quick glance that I
just completed with a Google search. With a web-based
electronic portfolio, it is very easy to "see" and
"hear" student growth within a particular standard
over time. We saw a demonstration of a particular
student from a Rhode Island elementary school. You
do not need to be a reading specialist to see her
growth from year-to-year. You do need to be a
reading specialist and use other assessment tools,
too, in order to determine if she is "where we
want her to be" with her reading and if she has
shown "as much growth as she should have shown".
10.50 AM--Curriculum Mapping
Curriculum maps should allow us to "zoom in" and see
actual lessons and "zoom out" and see the big
picture of what we're teaching more generally
with fewer specifics. This should work just like an
online map, such as Mapquest, which allows you to
very quickly and easily see more-or-less detailed.
What are the questions that we have at our table
about curriculum mapping? (Rosemarie and I are
sitting with five other people...)
- Do we need to purchase some version of software to
do curriculum mapping? (Two individuals at our table
use Atlas Curriculum Mapping
Software.)
- What type of school culture do you have? Does it
promote these type of deep conversations that focus
on curriculum and learning?
- We need to think about the difference between what
teachers teach and what students need to learn and
have learned?
11.00 AM--Questions from the Crowd
- What is the role of homework? "Students
need to be doing the work, and families need to learn
how to provide the right environment for this (time
and space and student responsibility). In sports and
music, you do drill and practice when it is necessary
and where it is diagnosed. You only do drill and
practice when someone does know how to do this
differently. If you do have the skill and do drill
and practice, it's called busy work. Prior
to drill and practice, there should always be a
diagnosis of our need for drill and practice. When a
teacher marks up student work, who is getting better
at the work? When we do the work for the student, we
are not teaching."
"How do schools combat an anti-intellectual element
that exists in American society? Parents say that
they do not want their children to be too smart, to
be nerds. This is different than how culture
surrounds students and schools in other countries."
"We should set-up student/parent homework centers
rather than use study hall. Parents and students come
together and get support in helping students with
their homework at school, after school."
How do we target the needs of individual students?
- The students' ages
- The students' stages of development
- The students' learning characteristics
- The students' communities
- The students' aspirations
- The students' needs (background knowledge, skills,
social/emotional)
- Our District is embarking on a PLC initiative,
and we're going to devote lots of time to analyzing
data. How do we also have time for curriculum
work? "I believe that they are not at all
exclusive, but mutually dependent. You need to be
doing both of these together. Your data may show you
that your map needs to be re-drawn. The map always
need to be revised. Analyzing student assessment data
should be a major time saver when done in conjunction
with instruction. Likewise, if we just look at
curriculum mapping without ever paying attention to
student data how do we know if the map is taking us
where it should be. The Latin root of the word
curriculum is curricula, which means course.
What is the course that each child will travel to
learn the articulated skills and content
(knowledge/concepts)?"
- How do you get started with introducing
curriculum mapping with your staff? "Mapping
occurs at the building-level because that's where you
improve performance. It cannot occur at the
District-level. The District may coordinate
communication and provide resources and support, but
it is a building-based problem. So, what should
happen within a building? First, we need leadership
teams in each building. Structure conditions that
will make a difference in planning for and initiating
the curriculum mapping process. These conditions will
need to be based on the specific needs of the
students and teachers in a particular school. This
will vary from school-to-school. Then, the school
needs to create meaningful opportunities for
participants to be involved. Finally, long-term
professional development plans must be put in place
to support the process of curriculum mapping and the
technology needs of the teachers with mapping and
instructionally moving forward."
***
Gail Forshall just posted a really interesting
comment. One of the powerful facets of online
curriculum mapping would be how people in
building-wide roles can integrate instruction in a
meaningful and effective way. Additionally, in that
setting, core academic teachers and other educators
can shift the focus of meeting from what we are doing
to how we are doing it and how we are differentiating
instruction for individual students. This is where
the real action is in creating new opportunities for
kids to learn more.
***
11.35 AM--What is a concept? Why are they so
important for curriculum mapping?
Given that we have a concept-based curriculum in
place in District 21. This part ought to be good for
District 21...
Currently, Heidi is describing how we would teach
SYSTEMS across traditional subject-based
academic disciplines. For the concepts, we write
guiding questions, which she calls essential
questions. Regardless of terminology, at the end of
the unit, students will develop their essential
understandings in response to their ongoing study of
these questions throughout the unit. In planning the
unit, we identify the content and skills that will be
taught. Some choices do need to be made at this
point. Of course, we should identify our assessments
prior to beginning the unit.
***All assessments should have a noun. The students
should be asked to create a product or do a
performance. Good assessment is:
- A demonstration of knowledge/skill
- Observable
- Evidence of student knowledge/skills
- Clearly defined for students with rubrics,
checklists, and/or right and wrong answers
A short side rant from Heidi just ended. Bottom line:
"Kids need to be talking to learn--vocabulary and
content. Our classrooms are too quiet!" (She's right
about this! - JK)
12.50 PM--Back from lunch & learning
again
We're back underway. About 50% of the
people in the room work in schools and school
districts that are using electronic mapping software.
Dr. Heidi Hayes Jacobs is going to log in to one
teacher's map from one of these actual schools, and
we're going to improve her map this afternoon while
we work on our own maps. Now, we're reading pages
from Coaching Protocols for Developing Quality
Curriculum Maps. We are reading more about:
- Content-Content
begins with a concept, such as systems, patterns, or
interdependence. "If we do not use a concept to
initiate our content entries, then what we have are
random facts..."
- Essential Questions-Essential questions are engaging
for the students, include the concept, aligned with
standards, and tied to the assessment(s).
- Precise Skills-Desired or targeted proficiencies
that are defined with the use of an action
verb.
- Targeted Assessments-Targeted assessments always take
the "form of a tangible product or a temporal
performance. As assessment is something we can
observe, so our entries must take the form of a
noun."
Now, we are back to Dr. Hayes Jacobs at the front of
the room. She is showing us the curriculum maps of a
school in Westchester, New York that she has accessed
via Internet Explorer. She has made the blanket
statement that these pieces of software all have
quality behind them. Clearly, she is not selling a
particular piece of software. She believes in the
idea that underlies the use of such software. These
pieces of software include State Standards from
around the country, so a teacher can pull a standard
directly in to the curriculum map.
Instructional Aside from Dr. Hayes Jacobs
"We need to teach math as a language. Look at this
curriculum map. Do you see these action verbs?
Translate, translate, translate. The kids have to
define their math vocabulary if they are going to
understand the math."
1.22 PM--Master Class
We are now going to participate in a Master Class. We
are going to look at Emily's class. (Emily is a
teacher who is here today from some Chicago-area
school who uses curriculum mapping software.) What is
going to happen in the Master Class? Heidi is going
to interact with Emily on improving her Curriculum
Map. Our job, as audience members to the Master
Class, is to take notes on Heidi and Emily's
interactions--as they apply to us and our situations!
Then, we are going to be able to transition back to
our own map and revise it based on our notes of what
we've learned from them.
My notes for me based on their interactions--
Emily wants to focus on her assessments. I think that
most of our teachers would pick out assessment as the
area that they would also pick first from among the
choices of content, guiding questions, skills, and
assessments.
They are focusing on the level of specificity that
she has used in writing completing her curriculum
map. This reminds me of when we look at an assignment
as teachers and someone (usually not the person who
wrote it) says, "What does this mean?" Often times,
as teachers, we don't know what we are looking for in
kids' work. If that's the case, how do the students
know what we are looking for? As Heidi just said,
"Teaching cannot just be in the heads of teachers."
For teachers to implement really profound classroom
instruction, they need to be able to articulate
exactly what they are doing and why with different
students. Once again, Heidi just said, "I don't know
what you mean. I don't understand what you are
thinking and doing from seeing this." This is an
underlying premise of the National Board for Professional
Teaching Standards process, too. Teachers have
to write detailed entries because if they cannot
articulate what they have done and why, then, so
the thinking goes, they are not going to be able
to communicate it to students either.
Heidi felt that the soft-spot in this Curriculum Map
actually proved to be her content. Heidi believes
that the development of guiding questions, what she
calls essential questions, will significantly help
this. How many classrooms in District 21 are
effectively using guiding questions today? What's
more--we even have the advantage of having concepts
built right in to our curriculum.
1.45 PM--Mapping Software
***Want to know more about what software is
available? Curriculum Designers: Mapping
Software
2.00 PM--How do we begin working with
mapping?
Consider a range of different types of professional
development venues, including different strategies
for different people. Keep in mind that curriculum
mapping is easy for teachers to be resistant to...
Mapping requires teachers to share their actual units
and assessments. You need to consider individuals'
readiness for curriculum mapping and with technology
in how you create your professional development.
These various groups may include:
- Hands-on labs
- Small workshops
- Work sessions
- Online courses
- Focus on data; Use of "Mapping Mentors"
2.25 PM--How do you make decisions about
curriculum and teaching?
Who decides what gets taught? When do they make these
decisions? How? Heidi recommends that these decisions
are made by a single, site-based council. Agendas
focus on short-term upgrades and long-term upgrades.
To help with long-term upgrades, you may very well
implement task forces that oversee the long-term
upgrade. Once it is created and implemented, that
task force disbands.
2.35 PM--Two Types of Curriculum
Mapping
Diary Mapping--Like a doctor's chart or an athlete's
training log, you record exactly what you have done.
This will give you a record that you can use when you
analyze student assessment data to determine which
strategies did and which did not.
Projected Mapping--This is like a coach's training
plan in that you articulate out what you intend to do
in your units and lessons.
2.40 PM--Mapping Benchmark
Assessments
Benchmarks can be designed on multiple levels: State
tests, District assessments, and classroom
assessments. Schools identify the skills that need to
be developed and assessed. The most powerful
benchmark assessments are developed locally by
teachers. Benchmarks should occur when it makes sense
within the scope of instruction. Benchmark data
should be used to guide further differentiated
instruction. As a result, benchmarks are necessarily
different for different students.
Conclusion
The day just finished with a very funny YouTube video that
Alan November shows, too. It is about the movement
of technology from the scroll to the book. It is
in Norwegian, but there are English sub-titles.
(Remember, you can only watch this from outside
District 21.)
Vocabulary Resources for English Language Learners
http://www.scoe.org/aiming_high/docs/AH_kinsella1.pdf
http://www.scoe.org/aiming_high/docs/AH_kinsella2.pdf
While explicit and consistent high-level academic content vocabulary instruction is important for all students in School District 21, such instruction is particularly important for students who are learning English.
Literature--Virtually On Tour
Have you ever heard
of Google Earth? If not, Google Earth
is a free piece of software for Windows, Mac, and
Linux operating systems. This software can be
downloaded at school by our Field Engineers
(Call the Help Desk at 847.934.8100--press
2!) on all compatible
computers that meet minimum system requirements.
(Please consult with your iTech teacher before
calling the Help Desk and asking for an installation
of Google Earth.) Google Earth is an atlas come
alive--and one that can be modified further by
students and others who mark it up with additional
information and links.
With Google Lit
Tours, students have
created tours based on where the characters in the
novels that they have read have lived and
traveled. In some of these projects additional
information has been added by the students that
they have created as links while in other projects
the links simply take one to off-site content,
such as Wikipedia entries. These sites
can also prove very engaging to explore as a
pre-reading activity in small groups, too.
The Listserv--A Tool for Communicating
The listserv is an e-mail tool that can be used for communication to a large group of recipients. Listservs are designed as e-mail sharing tools. They essentially do the same thing that one could do manually, by hand-entering lots of e-mail addresses, but putting everyone on to the listserv makes this process much easier for the user.
In their most pure form, anyone who is on the listserv CAN post to the listserv, and everyone who is on the listserv receives e-mails posted to the listserv. Often times, listservs are configured to automatically "reply to all", and while this can lead to an embarrassing accidental response to everyone, the idea is that it makes it very, very easy to share communication with everyone on the list.
Listservs can also be structured to function more like "subscription services," allowing the listserv's owner to send e-mails out to an entire group. Again, this could be done with the owner hand-entering each e-mail address. Now, though, the e-mail recipients can sign themselves up--simply by e-mailing the listserv!
Who would have a listserv in a school district? Well, over the last few years, lots of listservs have been developed in District 21 (see picture below). There are staff listservs, parent listservs, and even one student listserv!
In the case of the staff
listservs, these typically function as "electronic
meeting places" in which anyone on the list can post
to the list. For example, on the e-mail below from
Erin Schlenger to the Whitman listserv, she provides
other staff members at Whitman with some web-based
instructional resources that they may find useful.
Rather than getting a paper memo in their mailboxes,
paper and ink were saved, and more importantly, the
end user (recipient of the e-mail) can just click on
the links and go directly to the websites listed.
Our parent listservs have
been constructed as subscription services, providing
school staff members another way to communicate with
parents. We have listservs in action as E-mail
Subscription Services for Parents from a Kindergarten
classroom to middle school teams to entire schools.
Teams can use these to remind and update parents on
general information, such as the e-mail below from
Team Unity. At Riley, Cooper, and London, teams (and
a Kindergarten teacher) are using these tools on a
regular basis.
Likewise, Riley's
Learning Coach has established an electronic Parent
Subscription Service for GaTE parents at Riley.
Again, the use of a link in the communication allows
parents to go directly to the website of the National
Association for Gifted Children with just a click.
At the school level,
electronic subscription services for parents are
great for sending out reminders about upcoming school
events as well as for getting the word out quickly
about last minute changes, such as a meeting or event
cancellation due to weather. In those cases, while
not everyone will receive the e-mail, those that do
may communicate its contents to others via
word-of-mouth, thereby helping to spread the word.
Things to consider...
First, there are significant ethical issues in that
not all of our families have Internet access
available to them at home. In fact, many do not have
such access. Thus, other than those last minute
cancellations, anything that goes home in electronic
format should also go out in print to ensure that all
parents have access to critical information.
Second, it is important to understand that only one
person can "own" the listserv, and depending on the
type of listserv created, that individual may be the
only one who can post to the listserv. If teammates
provide useful information to share electronically,
this is not a significant burden for that person, but
if this person has to type every message from
scratch, this may prove unwieldy.
Third, once you start to communicate to parents using
such a tool, you should do so with some regularity.
It does not need to be weekly or on a perfect
schedule, but a pattern should present itself to
end-users in order to help them know what to expect
and when.
Fourth, if you begin a parent listserv, you will need
to plan a "launch" and market it to parents.
Encourage them to e-mail one another to sign up. It
is as simple as them sending an e-mail to:
whateverthelistservisnamed-on@ccsd21.org.
You will not need to hand-enter all of their e-mail
addresses. You will need to encourage them to
sign-up, though.
Fifth, if you initiate or are part of a staff
listserv, there should be clear rules communicated to
everyone on the listserv about how it is to be used,
and these rules do need to comply with our Acceptable
Use Policy.
Finally, it is cheap and easy! Using our existing
e-mail system, it only takes a few minutes to set-up
and use a listserv. If you have a need that a
listserv may help resolve, contact Jason
Klein.
1 Link = Lots of Great Education Links
The RSS Feed--Bring the Web to You
The Modern Pen, like many popular websites as well as many blogs and podcasts, is enabled with an RSS feed, which actually turns this interaction with the web on its head. Through an RSS feed, the web comes to the reader, just like an e-mail or a phone call! Websites that have an RSS feed enabled will have one of the symbols below in the URL, or website address bar, at the top of your web browser window.
___ 
___ 
So, what is an RSS feed? RSS stands for Really Simple Syndication. A great description of it was produced through this short video by Common Craft. Check out the video definition of an RSS feed now.
Most up-to-date web browsers can also capture RSS feeds. For example, FIrefox comes with the BBC's Breaking News RSS feed built right in to the browser. Of course, it can be taken out, but it's a great way to keep up on what is taking place around the world. It is as simple as clicking on the "Latest Headlines" link in the Bookmarks Bar, scanning the headlines, and then, clicking on one if you would like to go read the entire story. The headlines simply come down like a traditional computer pull-down menu.
So, if you would like The Modern Pen's RSS Feed to be placed right in to your Bookmarks Bar, just click the RSS feed icon in the website address (URL) bar at the top of your browser window. It will ask you what you would like the title of the link to be and where you want it. (The title is set to default to "The Modern Pen RSS Feed," and its default placement is the Bookmarks Bar. (See below for an image of what this will look like when you click on it.) This will make it very easy to remember to check out The Modern Pen a few times a week and to do so!
Fair Use & Copyright
1. the purpose and character of the use, including whether such use is of commercial nature or is for nonprofit educational purposes;
2. the nature of the copyrighted work;
3. amount and substantiality of the portion used in relation to the copyrighted work as a whole; and
4. the effect of the use upon the potential market for or value of the copyrighted work.
Often times, people are given rules of thumb, such as “x number of lines can be used from an author’s work” or that one can “use x number of seconds from a song.” The fact is that Copyright law and Fair Use are not that simple and concrete. As a result, educated decisions must be made about what is and is not appropriate.
For more information on Fair Use and Copyright, visit the Fair Use website from OurMedia, as well as the links on that page.
AtomicLearning.com
AtomicLearning.com
is a great resource for students and staff members in
District 21. It is a subscription service that is
available at low cost to the District, and 24
hours-a-day and 7-days-per-week, their topical videos
on demand showing how to do a wide variety of tips
and tricks! The videos actually show the computer
screen, and as one watches, the mouse moves around
while the narrator describes exactly what is
happening and why!
