TUFSD Blogs

This week (2/19/2007) the school district is closed, and it has been the perfect opportunity to set up WordPress mu on our tufsdblogs server and experiment. In short, after many (very many) hours of creating blogs, experimenting with various plug-ins and themes, and causing some (unexpected) damage, it has become clear that if we deploy this wonderful tool, we’ll need to use a hosting company that is expert in it.

Our current (and very cost efficient) host will be one consideration, as will the company that hosts Will Richardson’s blog, Edublogs. We do want to have the controls that are available in the multiple user (mu) version of WordPress. Howeve, without the in-house support for the database components, we’ll need to outsource those responsibilities. We cannot risk discouraging our users by making them beta testers for a system we ultimately cannot troubleshoot and support. By providing a relatively rock solid foundation, we can begin the process of exploring the purposeful uses of Web 2.0 technologies in our district and our initial uses with teachers willing to explore the potential will not be burdened by technical support issues.

I’ve recently come across the Web 2.0 video by Michael Wesch on several blogs, including Chris Lehmann’s Practical Theory blog. It’s an interesting look at Web 2.0 and should serve as an appropriate springboard for our discussions related to Web 2.0, School 2.0 and some of the current (re)thinking in which we are currently engaged.

Watching the video, I thought about much of the Internet work I was fortunate to be involved with while teaching high school English in the mid-nineties. I worked with a small cadre of very talented students, most of whom went on to schools such as Carnegie Mellon and MIT. The rub, however, is that most of the students in the school were not a part of this fairly elite group of students who were totally engaged in various projects.

Of course, Web 2.0 changes everything. It changes things in so many ways, and the video really captures this quite well.
By eliminating the need for sophisticated web software, the ability to code in html, and a general knowledge of FTP, web publishing is now something of which every student can take advantage. It’s our responsibility as educators to determine where this supports our various curricula and look for ways to exploit its potential in a (positively) disruptive manner. We can certainly engage our students in ways that are not restricted to the traditional classroom. Please take a few minutes to watch the video and comment as appropriate.

The agenda for this afternoon’s technology committee meeting and the related documents are attached in MS Word format. We will meet from 3:30 - 5:30 in room 22South (same as last month).

• Agenda 2-6-2007
• Teacher NETS
• Student NETS

This weekend, John Calvert and I attended a conference led by Will Richardson, and the agenda and links can be found on Will’s wiki. The conference, “Web 2.0 for Classroom Teachers”, was held at the Science Leadership Academy in Philadelphia. The principal of the school, Chris Lehmann, was inspirational and represented to me the epitome of a visionary educational leader. On Friday afternoon, the teachers openly shared their experiences with us and gave us a tour of the school. We were fortunate to have such generous hosts. It’s incredible to see the power of a strong team of educators develop a school from the ground up.

The discussion on the first day ranged from an overview of various Web 2.0 tools to a more philosophical discussion of “what it all means.” We explored the idea that the larger discussion relates, in part, to helping students shape the quality of their time spent online, working with them to provide strategies for managing time and making good choices.

It’s evident that the Web 2.0 tools that exist today can transform classrooms, and the intuitive nature of using them, once the basics are mastered, allows teachers and students to creatively apply any variety of strategies to support their construction of knowledge.
I have posted my notes from the conference on Google.

The future is here, and it’s fantastic! Now more than ever we are able to transform our students’ experiences and truly make a difference. The journey will be an exciting one, and by providing our students with authentic and engaging learning opportunities (often self directed) the potential is limitless.

Today I am sharing the concept of Web 2.0 and School 2.0 with our leadership team. This is a great opportunity to expand the discussions we have been having in our smaller groups. Ultimately, the discussions should move to the teachers in each school, gathering feedback from teachers and administrators while building awareness of the tools that are available. We are working on developing the guiding questions for those meetings, developing a consistency in our questions.

Today our technology planning subcommittee met to define the processes we will use for creating our long term technology plan. We agreed that this plan would not be framed by the expectations and guidelines associated with the the e-rate requirements and required by the state (though that would still be created and would be an outgrowth of our strategic plan). Rather, we determined that we would create a long range strategic plan, one which addresses the best uses and applications of technology for our students and teachers.

By the end of our two hour session, we agreed that to develop such a plan, we need to develop a common set of guided questions to be shared with the teachers in each school, thus beginning our discussions in a focused manner. Feedback from teachers and administrators in each building would then be used to uncover common threads district-wide and provide a focus, allowing us to develop a strategic, long term technology plan that ultimately provides teachers with the appropriate tools and resources to improve instruction and student achievement.

This Thursday (January 25, 2007), I will meet with the leadership team and introduce the Web 2.0/School 2.0 concept, and provide a brief overview of some of the new tools available to educators. I will ask for their support as we move forward, looking to gather input from each grade level to ensure the committee is well informed. By identifying areas ranging from causes of frustration and other roadblocks to best practices and powerfully successful technology implementations, the committee will develop a plan that channels appropriate technologies to strategic uses, providing solutions and stimulating improved student participation and achievement.

By J. Calvert

Teachers are not strangers to change, although in recent years our noble profession has tasted an unprecedented escalation of change. Our district is not alone; teachers everywhere say the same thing. The reality is, the rate of change is increasing for everyone. It is present in teaching as much as it is present in law enforcement, auto mechanics, or any other profession. It has been spurred forward by our increasingly connected world and the technologies that enable it. This is a bit overwhelming, especially when you consider that our current rate of change will be considered staid compared to what our students will experience.

Vygotsky wisely told us that a society is defined by the tools it uses. Indeed, new tools are responsible for the incredible shifts we are witnessing. Time magazine recognized this when it announced that the “Person of the Year” was us. The video sharing website YouTube, the social networking website MySpace, and the online encyclopedia Wikipedia, all have something in common: the masses create the content. Regular people share their knowledge with other regular people. It is a simple paradigm, but when it is applied on a global scale the traditional avenues of information dissmination, such as newspapers and television, are supplanted. The “old media” outlets are painfully aware of this shift, as was reported on January 1^st of this year by The News Hour.

The repercussions have been huge. When the now famous “Mukaka” incident was published on YouTube, it cost George Allen a Senate seat. Wikipedia was the first encyclopedia world wide, online or in print, to reflect that Pluto was no longer a planet. I watched Saddam Hussein hang on YouTube, the very night the execution took place. However, the footage I saw on my laptop was different than what was shown on TV. The YouTube clip was captured by an Iraqi on his cell phone and then posted to the online site. The YouTube footage included the sectarian chants and audible chaos of the moment which belied the somber justice that the mass media was initially presenting to the public.

As we prepare to write our five-year technology plan, we must consider these changes. Knowledge is everywhere in our net enabled world.  It will be important for our students to know how to find what they need and digest it efficiently. This ubiquity of information will also assist teachers, as quality news programs like Nova, Frontline, and the News Hour, publish their content to the internet. Even MIT is participating in this shift. MIT’s OpenCourseWare website offers 1,600 courses for free to the public. These materials can be harnessed to augment classroom instruction, and in many cases, put the emphasis on student directed learning. Powerful tools are already changing our society, the trick for our committee will be to uncover how they can also meaningfully change education.

As we continue to explore the benefits of Web 2.0 applications for our students, it is important that we provide the proper level of professional support to our teachers. This includes modeling best practices and providing a framework for purposeful use. There is the potentional for a flashpoint with regard to blogging, so it is important that we are proactive in this area. The following article is informative and will be useful to us as we prepare our new technology plan and corresponding acceptable use policy.

http://www.edtechmag.com/k12/issues/november-december-2006/blog-rules.html

John C. and I have discussed the powerful model that seems to be driving the Mabry Middle School in Marietta, Georgia. The extensive site they have built and the seemingly complete buy in by the staff and community is quite invigorating.

For example, I took some time to peruse their blogs, and it seems that each of the teachers uses the blog to post what was done that day in school, upcoming items of interest (i.e. tests), and resources related to classroom content. If parents are harnessing the power of RSS feeds to these blogs, this is a great model. I will continue to explore this school’s resources.

On Friday evening, December 1, 2006, the Public Schools of the Tarrytowns registered this domain to support its expanding demand for providing an authentic audience for the students served in the district.