The Ustream archive of the presentation: 

 

 

David Jakes                                                             Jeffrey Hunt

Instructional Technology Coordinator                    Director, Instructional Technology
Community High School District 99                       Indian Prairie CUSD 204
Downers Grove, IL  60516                                   Aurora, IL 60504
djakes@csd99.org                                              jeff_hunt@ipsd.org

Overview:

Jakes:

In my part of the presentation, I will provide a framework for best practice instruction, and illustrate the application of that framework to two student student projects:  1) The Digital Diplomacy Project, which features the process of digital storytelling, and 2) the development of writing guides by senior English students, which employ the use of blog and wiki tools, hosted through our Blackboard Community System.

Best practice is a moving target-ask one hundred educators what constitutes best practice instruction and there will probably be 100 different answers.  I'm often asked to provide my framework for what I consider to be an effective methodology for applying various technologies to student learning.  It's based on four straight-forward ideas:

Does the use of the technology support a fundamental literacy that the school believes in? This can range from a holistic literacy like writing to content specific objectives for a particular course. For example, digital storytelling first and foremost seeks to improve the ability of students to write.

Does the use of technology add value to the lesson? Does the technology extend the lesson to a place that could not be achieved unless the technology was included? For example, using the process of digital storytelling also helps students learn visual literacy skills, project management skills, network skills, and how to use media in an ethical way. If the products are shared, then the student can potentially write for a world-wide audience, and that's a much different experience than writing just for a teacher.

Is the instruction framed within a sound pedagogical design?  For example, the time-tested methodology of preparing a narrative, developing a script, storyboarding, locating imagery and other media, and then building and sharing the story is a truly effective methodology or framework for effective digital storytelling.  What pedagogical process will I use to structure the lesson?

How is the learning and technology assessed?  How do I know what I did works?  How will I assess the outcomes, both from a student perspective (did they learn what they were supposed to learn?) and from a lesson design perspective (did the technology perform as anticipated, did the pedagogical process work as intended, and did I meet Criteria 1 and 2?).  How will I use assessment data to improve what I do?

 

Hunt: 

Video Production

Many students are leaving high school with high level video production skills. Our high schools teach video production and one product is a weekly newscast of the schools' events. 

mms://media.ipsd.org/ipsd_ondemand/WW/WW_4-25.wmv

On-line Courses

Dr. Stephen Daeschner is the school district's new superintendent.  He sees the value of the Internet for student learning.  His vision is that every student will take an on-line course before graduation.   Previously, the district has ventured into on-line courses.  Through the Large District Unit Association (LUDA), the district helped produce and teaches on-line Consumer Education through CAIT at Western Illinois University.

 

Principles:  In February 2008, we met with faculty to open communication and set direction based on Dr. Daeschner's vision to make it a reality.  The short discussion with faculty approached these issues:

1.  not to reduce staff

2.  to prepare students for future opportunities

3.  to meet students' needs and to address non-traditional learning opportunities

4.  to keep rigor and high standards of the curriculum

 

Adoption of Content:  The easiest way to get courses running is to adopt (purchase) them from ourside sources.  Several content providers offer courses.  To begin, the district will be using the Illinois Virtual High School courses and Jefferson County (KY) eschool.  These programs are largely "read and respond;" that is, the student reads content and then responds to a series of questions, problems or exercises.  The strength of the Jefferson County program is in its assessment.  Students are required to attend a proctored final exam and score at least a score of 70% on the exam to get credit for it.

 

The direction of the district's program needs to be toward a "compelling learning environment" where it is media-rich, dynamic, and compels the student to learn.  Some content exists to move toward that goal.

 

Adaption of Content:  Our teachers have developed incredible activties.  Adapting this content along with media rich materials that the district can purchase or develop inexpensively.  Furthermore, the addition of blogs and wikis in our Blackboard Learning System, like Dave describes above, will assist in group projects and presentations of learnings.  Furthermore, we are showing teachers how to use web 2.0 tools like ustream to deliver the face-to-face type explanations that we all need to clarify our understandings.  We are working with a small focus group to produce ustream recordings and then embed them in their courses.

 

The district recently joined the Monterey Institute for Technology in Education (MITE), which makes available content from the California Board of Regents through its hippocampus program.  The membership provides content in formats that can be directly imported in our Blackboard system.  Teachers can then add their own content and ustream videos as well as embed videos from other commerical services.  This will be approaching the compelling learning environments that I forsee.   MITE also operates the National Repository for Online Courses (NROC).

 

Other "promising practices" are offered by the North American Council for Online Learning (NACOL).  For course development Quality Matters will provide us professional development for faculty to adapt their content to on-line teaching.

 

Next fall the district will be offering Health and English IVAP on-line.  Registration is in progress for these two courses.  For the fall of 2009-2010, we hope to offer 25 courses on-line.

 

Virtual Campus:  The next step is to develop a Virtual Campus (V Campus) that offers courses to any high school in the district.  Two years ago courses began out our bricks and mortar Frontier Campus.  Students take high school and dual-credit courses in a non-traditional high school schedule.  The V Campus concept is an extension of Frontier in that it will offer courses on-line.  In the near future administrative structure will be formulated for registration, student support, faculty organization and parent communication.

 

Policy Issues:  Two major policies developed.  First, there was concern that No Child Left Behind (NCLB) requires might disqualify credit from courses not taught by Illinois "highly qualified" teachers.  After several discussions with our local Regional Office of Education that communicated with the Illinois State Board of Education, the highly qualified issue has been addressed. The second issue is a Board of Education policy about accepting correspondence course credit.  As of this writing (June 2008), the policy is being rewritten to accept credit from on-line and distance learning courses offered by accredited agencies and state supported initiatives.

 

As our program develops, track our progress on our home page.