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Description
A MIDDLE SCHOOL TEACHER IN WESTERN NEW YORK replaces the principal's daily morning message with a live student newscast. An educator in Modesto, CA, and one in Kyoto, Japan, connect their students via a virtual space and bring a new dimension to their foreign exchange program. A high school teacher creates an alter ego to bring his students in touch with environmental concerns on the Galapagos Islands. An Alabama principal opens a new frontier for her faculty with a program that teaches them how to use Web 2.0 tools in the classroom. Through a variety of efforts large and small, across schools, districts, and even oceans, educators are making teaching and learning come alive through the pioneering use of technology. Together, they are T.H.E Journal's class of 2007 Innovators.
Edith Pickens
Challenger Middle School (AL)
Blogging. Wikis. Digital storytelling. Podcasting. How many middle school teachers have even heard of these web-based tools, much less used them? At Huntsville, AUs, Challenger Middle School, Principal Edith Pickens call tell you how many, both before and since she introduced the 21st-Century Learning program to the school's faculty. Before the in-service training last January, only 11 percent of her teachers had ever written a biog. A week after the training, the number was up to 22 percent, and by May it was 54 percent. In the same period, use of wikis rose from 4 percent to 25 percent, and digital storytelling from 7 percent to 32 percent.
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Pickens and her trainers showed teachers how to use each of the tools for educational purposes. There was no obligation to do anything except watch, listen, and keep an open mind. The teachers+ Pickens says, soon were impressed with how easy everything was to use.
Challenger teachers began not only using the technologies, but also passing on their enthusiasm to their students. An eighth-grade English teacher had her students analyze movie trailers, then create trailers for the novels they were reading and put them online. "It created a deeper way for students to express what their novels were about," says Pickens. This year, the students will incorporate digital photographs into their trailers.
A sixth-grade teacher's students developed a wiki to share what they learned about biographies they were studying. A math teacher uses a blog to share "challenge" problems: Students go online and work out the problems among themselves and with students from other schools. A social studies teacher has an ongoing podcast. For Black History Month, he interviewed a retired teacher who grew up in Montgomery, AL, during the civil rights movement and had met Martin Luther King Jr. Other teachers have blogs concerning math, learning strategies, English, and digital photography. (For examples of the teachers' efforts, go to http://cmsprofessionallearning.wikispaces.com.)
"This has taken our school further than I could ever have imagined," says Pickens. "It's the most energizing, motivating thing I've done in the past 20 years." And, she adds, almost incidentally, "it's been a lot of fun."
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Carol Ann McGuire
Imperial Elementary School (CA)
Three years ago. Carol Ann McGuire's blind and vision-impaired students at Imperial Elementary School in Anaheim, CA, expressed a desire to create their own digital videos. Despite their vision impairments, the students wrote, shot, and edited several videos. All Apple (www.apple.com) Distinguished Educator, McGuire decided to attend ADE summer camp to learn more about producing digital videos. On closing day, another camp participant mentioned that the members of this international group of educators ought to do something jointly to bring their students together.
"That was all it took." says McGuire. "Rock Our World was born at that moment." She enlisted Belgian ADE Lucas Van de Pact, and the internationally acclaimed after-school program launched in fall 2004. Now, two afternoons each week from September to December and March to June, McGuire leaves Imperial Elementary and drives to El Rancho Charter School in Anaheim Hills to coordinate the program.
ROW (www.rockourworld.org) sponsors two themed projects annually, with each lasting approximately three months. McGuire posts a weekly activity--explained in a short video--designed to lead teams through the process of writing, editing, and shooting a digital video related to the designated theme (currently "Surf's Up!" which focuses on oceanography). Each project culminates in an international Family Night, when all 20 teams and their guests participate in a videoconference to share and discuss their completed videos, which they shoot using Apple's iLife suite.
"Apple provides a live feed for these events, which has become the highlight of every project," McGuire says. "Also, thanks to a Moodle (http://moodle.org) site set up by Discovery Education (www.discoveryeducation.com), teachers who are not part of the 20 teams can replicate current and past projects with their students."
Students who participate in ROW learn a great deal about 21 st-century global citizenship. "The Family Nights are a celebration of vanishing barriers," says McGuire. "Young people from every continent and of all grade levels who speak various languages and represent a variety of cultures come together to celebrate their commonalities. Ongoing global relationships are formed."
Paul Larson
Alicia Cortez Elementary School (CA)
Paul Larson, sixth-grade teacher and technology coordinator at Alicia Cortez Elementary School in Chino. CA, outside Los Angeles, had a problem: He couldn't keep a lab tech aide. Two staffers left for other jobs, and a third got pregnant and then stayed home to care for her baby. Out of options and in a bind. Larson turned... |
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