Integrate and Disseminate Cutting-edge Technologies to Engage Kids Learning in

Elementary and Middle Schools

- A Consortium of Technology Integration/Innovation in Upstate NY

Background (1)

• Rapid technological changes - gap between “digital natives” (Web 2.0 users)and “digital immigrants” (Web 2.1 generation) http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_A-ZVCjfWf8

• Web 2.0 – dynamic, interactive, open source– What is it?– Horizon Report (2009)

Background (2)• Web 2.0

– What is it? An intro in 5 minutes• Educational use

– Blog• 8th Graders are blogging on Presidential Campaign (Son

Michael's Social Studies Class Blog) (2 weeks – 83 comments)

– Wiki• The Anatomy wiki - a middle-school class

project started in summer 2008 and began popular (10, 000) visitors… or (StephanieClassWiki)

– YouTube• Science class – eg

. DNA evidence to trace human origins; video by National Geographic - animals, daily news, environment, kids, maps, music, photography, science and space, travels and cultures…

• Teachertube.com – Abraham Lincoln Reads The Gettysburg Address

– Free webs (Goggles sites/Wikispaces…)• Making instant family website – a Cortland family made one during Children’s Museu

m time

Overall Goal

– Through the Consortium (name?), empower teachers, overcome barriers, disseminate cutting-edge technologies (Web 2.0), make meaningful integration of the technologies into curriculum to engage students and enhance learning outcomes in elementary and middles schools in Upstate NY …

Objectives

• #1: Identify/develop good teaching practices integrating Web 2.0 technologies into curriculum.

• #2: Provide support (technical and instructional design), overcome barriers, empower teachers, and disseminate the practices/activities .

Kids learning

CollegeSchools

Others?

Develop

Classroom use

(modeling)

Refine and reuse

Disseminate

Identify

The Consortium • College

– Dean, PDS coordinator– Faculty (instructional design, technology expertise)– Pre-service teachers– Resources

• Schools– Teachers (active ones + peers)– Technology coordinators– Administrators (superintendents, principals, board…)– Families – Others

• Other existing resources (Technology Centers in schools, Teacher Centers, Career Exchange )

• Kids

The College

Rationale

• Why do we need such a system/mechanism– Computers oversold – underused– Why not using?• Technical skills• Application/Integration• Resources• Norms, conventions, values, and more

– But if meaningful integration – so powerful

Theoretical Framework (1)

• Information Ecology (Nardi, 1999)– Define: a system of people, practices, values, and

technologies in a particular local environment. – Metaphorical

Information Ecology

Epistemological & Ethical beliefs

Technical SupportTime

Budget

District laws

Current technology

Management issues

Activities (meaningful integration)

Teachers

Kids

Knowledge structure

interest

Peers

Teachers

peers

family

Theoretical Framework (1)

• Information ecology (continued)– Is a complex system of parts and relationships. – It exhibits diversity and experiences continual

evolution. – Different parts of an ecology coevolve, changing

together according to the relationships in the system.

– Several keystone species necessary to the survival of the ecology are present.

– Information ecologies have a sense of locality.

Theoretical Framework (2)

• Backward Design (Wiggins & McTighe, 2007)

Norms, Conventions, Values, and more…

Thirty spokes will convergeIn the hub of a wheel;But the use of the cartWill depend on the partOf the hub that is void.

With a wall all aroundA clay bowl is molded;But the use of the bowlWill depend on the partOf the bowl that is void.

Your ideas

• Feasible?• Who? • Where to start – 1sts step