Innovative educators know that 21st century teaching, learning, and leading can’t happen unless a strong technological infrastructure is in place.Unfortunately, today, for some schools the cost of a full-time technician is prohibitive.
The New York City Department of Education’s Division of Instructional and Information Technology (DIIT) has come up with a solution to help address this issue through an innovative and unique collaboration with the City University of New York (CUNY).DIIT and CUNY have collaborated to work together to provide schools with high-quality interns that are available to assist schools with their technology needs.This win/win situation provides schools with staff to support their 21st century infrastructure needs at a low cost and provides interns with valuable experience.
The interns provide much-needed support to schools in the following areas:
Setting up new computer equipment in classrooms and offices
Installing software
Ensuring that LCD projectors, smart boards, and other related audio/video equipment are functioning
Troubleshooting hardware and software problems in conjunction with DOE Help Center and borough technology staff
Configuring wireless devices to access the school network
Maintaining classroom servers
Maintaining technology equipment inventory
Monitoring equipment and working with Help Center to ensure timely repair
Providing assistance in use of technology equipment
Coordinating with student support teams if applicable
The program provides an intern for either 14 or 19 hours a week for a cost of $9600 or $12500 per year to a school.New York City schools can register at http://dev.cisdd.org/info_reg to attend an information session about the program on Wednesday, June 10 at 3 p.m. Those who would like to know more about the program can comment (with their email and affiliation) to this post.Comments will be shared with DIIT and CUNY representatives.
I just discovered that one of long-time mentors Kathy Schrock has listed my blog in her ed tech blog picks. What an honor to be noticed by Kathy and to be in the company of other innovative and inspirational educators.
An innovative colleague of mine recently shared a great site with me called Blerp which lets you annotate websites. As a long time Tablet user this is a feature that I found so powerful, but those without Tablets could not enjoy the same option. Now Blerp brings this feature to any laptop user through the use of a feature that allows you to place post its on websites.
The ability to annotate webpages — the equivalent of making notes on a written text — is absolutely critical for students to develop their reading skills. Using “post-it” notes on text to demonstrate the use of reading strategies is a key teaching and learning approach I use in the classroom. I am always searching for web tools that will allow students to do the same on Internet pages, which is why I created the The Best Applications For Annotating Websites.
There are some good tools on that list, but Blerp, I think, “trumps” all of them.
As I visit schools around NYC teachers and leaders are often eager to show me the great ways they are using technology to enhance instruction. Sometimes I see fantastic things such as during my visit to Kappa IV, CIS 339, PS 005X or IS 93. Other times, such as during a recent visit to a school, I see the technology being used as nothing more than a typewriter or a glorified chalkboard. In cases like this when I ask principals, “How are you assessing your teacher's use of 21st Century skills?” or I ask coaches, “How are you helping to ensure your teachers are incorporating 21st Century skills into the classroom,” they come up blank.
If teachers don't know what the expectations are, principals don't know what to access, and coaches don't know how to get them there, then there is no real way to measure success. Here are a few easy (and free!) assessment tools innovative educators can use to measure, identify, and discuss 21st Century education practices.
Assessing Teachers
Technology Integration Matrix
Website: http://fcit.usf.edu/matrix/index.html Description: The Technology Integration Matrix (TIM) illustrates how teachers can use technology to enhance learning for K-12 students. One of the things that makes this such a fantastic tool is that it has a video demonstration of what each level actually looks like. The TIM incorporates five interdependent characteristics of meaningful learning environments: active, constructive, goal directed (i.e., reflective), authentic, and collaborative. The TIM associates five levels of technology integration (i.e., entry, adoption, adaptation, infusion, and transformation) with each of the five characteristics of meaningful learning environments. Together, the five levels of technology integration and the five characteristics of meaningful learning environments create a matrix of 25 cells as illustrated on the website.
Classroom Visitation Rubric
Website: http://tinyurl.com/21stCenturyrubric
Description: The class rubric was created by New York City Department of Education principals, technology coaches, and teachers from one-to-one laptop schools.It was created to assess technology in the classroom in the following areas: Instruction, Technology Integration, Professional Development, Differentiating Instruction, Learner Centered, Classroom management, Use of software and online tools, Classroom Environment, Computer use, Presentation technology use (i.e. projector, interactive whiteboard.).It is recommended that a school/teacher only select one or two areas to focus on at a time.The rubric is and excel document that can be downloaded and instantly calculates each teacher’s score with room for comments and notes.The document can be modified and updated to each school’s needs.
Assessing Administrators and Tech Coordinators
School 2.0 Reflection Tool
Website:http://etoolkit.org/etoolkit/reflection/about Description: The Reflection Tool presents questions that are designed to help you reflect on your skills in technology integration and to identify areas for growth. These questions are based on the Technology Standards for School Administrators developed by the International Society for Technology in Education (ISTE) and the Skills Framework developed by the Consortium for School Networking (COSN.)Upon completion, the respondent receives a profile for self-reflection. S/he can then request links to resources that the responses indicate might be helpful and store them in the “your personal resources” section of the site.
Looking for some inspiration?Take a few minutes to check out http://www.inbflat.net and when you go back to your students, show it to them.I was absolutely blown away by In Bb2.0 courtesy of Chris Lehman’s recent Twitter/Facebook post.
In Bb 2.0 is a collaborative music and spoken word project conceived by Darren Solomon from Science for Girls. The project invites the world to participate in an amazing musical collaboration by singing or playing an instrument, in Bb major for 1 – 2 minutes and uploading it to YouTube and emailing the link to the producer.If all is done well, the video get’s added to the collection at http://www.inbflat.net where it joins the other videos that are posted.The videos can be played together, some or all, started at any time, in any order.
As an innovative educator, I instantly wondered what implications this has for teaching and learning and what kind of projects can our students collaborate on to make their own beautiful music?
I’m often asked for advice on how to get started with using 21st century tools to enhance teaching and learning. The mistake some people make is believing educators instantly need to become producers of websites, blogs, wikis, podcasts, social networks etc. Most educators need to become comfortable and familiar as participants in these environments before they can feel successful as creators in these areas. To follow are ideas that educators who want to get started with educating innovativelycan explore.
2. Innovation Integration Plan
The use of 21st century tools must be planned for and integrated into the day to day work of teachers and their students. Channel 13 has put together an Action Plan Template and gives advice for Writing an Innovation Plan that will help schools do just that. To help with planning across subjects in each curricular area consider using the Content Area Innovative Integration Plan Template which supports teachers in looking at what they are currently teaching, reviewing the standards, and then determining how what they can teach more innovatively.
3. Standards
You can’t plan without knowledge of the technology standards and ideas for infusing technology into the curriculum. Become familiar with ISTE's Educational Technology Standards which serve as guides for teachers, students and administrators to help them focus on the skills and expertise needed to teach, learn, and lead more effectively in an ever changing global community. Teachers can use the standards to facilitate student learning and creativity, create digital work and assessment, model good digital citizenry and pursue personal growth and leadership.
4. Curriculum
You need ideas about how to enhance the curriculum with technology. A great place to start is with the Information Communication Technology Literacy Maps. In collaboration with several content area organizations, the Partnership for 21st Century Skills developed a series of ICT Literacy Maps illustrating the intersection between Information and Communication Technology (ICT) Literacy and core academic subjects including English, mathematics, science and social studies (civics/government, geography, economics, history). The maps enable educators to gain concrete examples of how ICT Literacy can be integrated into core subjects, while making the teaching and learning of core subjects more relevant to the demands of the 21st century. The download the maps below to get started.
5. Professional Development
Of course, effective integration of technology into the curriculum also takes a well thought out professional development plan and if possible onsite support and coaching. Check with your local school district to determine what offerings they provide for teachers and work to schedule a plan across the year based on the goals of your technology plan. In New York City many schools use this Professional Development Resource for Innovative Educators which is a site that provides professional development materials in the areas of literacy, science, social studies, math, fitness, cyber safety, interactive whiteboard training and more. To see some of the elements for a successful curriculum and professional development rollout read The Power of 21st Century Teaching and Learning Brought to Life at Bronx Middle School CIS 339’s Open House.
6. Social Networking Join social networks. It is no longer acceptable for innovative educators not to be involved in social networks. It is crucial that educators begin learning how to function in these environments which have tremendous potential for enhancing teaching and learning. Despite what you’re kids or students may have told you,YOU'RE NOT TOO OLD FOR FACEBOOK. Must joins are http://www.facebook.com (for everyone), http://www.classroom20.com (for educators interested in using web 2.0 tools), http://iteachilearn.ning.com (for NYC educators in tech-rich classrooms), and http://www.futureofeducation.com (self explanatory). To get started readWhy Every Parent and Teacher Should Learn Facebook.
7. Blogs Find some great education blogs to read. You probably want to find blogs that are written by a teacher for a student audience (Techbrarian), blogs written by educators for other educators (Techomnivore), blogs written by students (Newly Ancient), blogs written by parents (NYC Public School Parents) and blogs written by principals (Practical Theory and Greg's Weblog). Subscribe to these blogs (Google Reader is a great tool for this). Once you get to know them, begin commenting on the blogs. Commenting on blogs is one of the most important things innovative educators can do. Vicki Davis, an excellent, well-respected, and widely read blogger explains how to comment effectively in her post How to comment like a king (or queen!).
8. Wikis
Wikis are an amazing and transformative tool for educators and Wikispaces » for teachers let’s you get started for FREE. You can see what educators are doing with wikis over here. You may also want to check out the Wiki Walk-Through from TeachersFirst. The Cool Cat Teacher blog post How I use wikis. What do you do? identifies these 5 uses of wikis in education.
1 - Lesson Summaries
2 - Collaboration of Notes
3 - Concept Introduction and Exploratory Projects
4 - Dissemination of Important Classroom Information beyond the Classroom
5 - Individual assessment projects
These are ten ideas to get innovative educators started with 21st century teaching and learning. Of course, there are an endless number of ideas and technologies to consider. Start with a few of these that make sense to you, and build upon these ideas to accomplish your goals.
A key component of ensuring schools are preparing students for success in the 21st Century is the creation of student support teams. These teams are important not only for helping bring schools into the 21st Century, but they are also important because they tap into school's best resource for 21st Century success--STUDENTS.
In my recent work at a Technology Innovation Manager I have had the good fortune to be able to plan, create and vision ideas for innovation in Manhattan schools with Marc Prensky. Prensky's upcoming book, Partnering with Our Digital Natives taps right into the idea of positioning students as partners in learning. As I do this work and think about ideas for successful 21st Century schools in Manhattan, the timing of the article Creating Tech Wizards from ISTE's Learning and Leading magazine is perfect.
It highlights a school district in Pennsylvania that is creating Tech Wizards at their schools who develop innovative student-centered practices for teaching. Make videos capturing how to do this more innovative teaching that can serve as tutorials, and go back to their schools and provide professional development for teachers at thier school with support from their teacher advisor on how to teach in innovative, kid-friendly ways. You can view complete details of the program as well as samples of student work and videos of presentations, visit the Tech Wizards wiki.
Educators often ask me how I would recommend evaluating blogs. Below are posts from two well-respected Edublogging colleagues of mine that address the question and a few other resources I have found.
