Expanding Our Horizons: How Technology Can Inspire and Challenge

Tina Cusker
St John’s International School
Waterloo, Belgium

Promethean ActivBoards and Wikis are just two of the many ways we, as educators, can expand our classrooms beyond four walls and the hard cover textbooks we have traditionally used. Attendance at the 2007 GaETC conference has inspired me to continue moving forward and to challenge my staff to expand their technology integration, even beyond their comfort level.

Nita Rooney from Forsyth County Schools presented an afternoon course, Answers Revealed: Make Kids Flip over InterACTIV Flipcharts, with extensive ideas for using flipcharts to teach basic skills, to use interactive images to gather research and assess skills, or even to link to online video, music, or web pages. The amount of readily accessible tools online is amazing, but one still has to have an understanding of how the flipcharts can be personalized to his/her own objectives, how they are designed to capture and maintain the attention of the students, as well as how the flipcharts can improve the learning process.

Vicki Davis from Westwood Schools is a dynamic teacher and an extreme user of Wikis. She presented the Wide World of Wikis: Assessment, Collaboration, and Peer Review, inspired attendees to create their own Wikis using Wikispaces, while also participating in simultaneous online chats, sharing ideas, and she also encouraged blogging as a means of collaboration. K-12 Educators can obtain an ad-free wiki space with the proper registration and join over 10,000 other education wikis. Teachers can use Wikis as a personal/professional resource or to support a particular unit/project such as Davis’ Flat Classroom project. A fun and popular project for elementary students follows the storybook, Flat Stanley by author, Jeff Brown. Imagine the implications if all the class’ “Flat characters’ could log into the classroom Wiki or Blog and cite their expeditions immediately, as well as through the response of a postcard. The creators could even reply and ask further questions about their character’s adventures. It could become a much more interactive and exciting experience for everyone.

After nearly five years of teaching in a computer lab and collaborating with classroom teachers to develop curriculum with thoughtful integration for expanding skills and analysis, I am able to reflect on how far we’ve come and yet, how much more is yet to pass. Creativity has been a necessary ingredient in order to properly train staff, find time for all students to use the computers, and to adequately share the lab space. Online courses offered by Promethean have recently helped a small group of teachers implement their whiteboards throughout the curriculum, but such training requires a significant commitment after school hours. From the previously mentioned courses and many other sessions attended at GaETC, we have implemented the following procedures and facilities to ensure proper staff training, technology integration, and staff collaboration:

1. Implementation of a second IT Lab for January 2008 has made a significant impact on IT in our school. We expect to see further growth and development as a result.
   
   
2. Weekly (one period) assemblies for the students, managed by the counselor and principal. On a rotation, some teachers attend collaboration meetings with support staff, specialists, and/or second language teachers while others attend IT training. This is not ideal as the time is short, but it’s better than the previous alternative. All teachers are able to share ideas and plans, since integration is encouraged throughout the child’s day. We maintain a project and inquiry based curriculum for which integration and collaboration is vital for deep analysis and application of knowledge. The IT training is specific to the needs of the group and is held in the computer lab. The training may range from lecture based (in support of online training videos and visual demonstrations) to hands-on.
   
   
3. Modification of the IT Coordinator’s job description. Whereas, the position has primarily been a (computer) teaching post with a bit of staff training, troubleshooting, website, etc. all thrown in, it will now be more of a directive and consulting post. In reflection of all we’ve learned and what great progress the students have made over the last past 2 ½ years, we are able to encourage the homeroom teachers to stand more on their own. The Coordinator will now help devise units with technology as a foremost tool, rather than as an add-on, and will continue to help teach technology skills; whereas the teachers will instruct in terms of the content and take a more active, primary role in the computer lab. More time can be spent between the IT coordinator and the teachers toward gaining independent and specific IT skills they can employ with their students. Facilitation skills will also be addressed as more teachers realize their students are an awesome resource to themselves and their peers.
   
   
4. ACTIVBoard training will be offered onsite, rather than through expensive online programs. We will inquire about offering academic credit for attendance, as an additional incentive to teachers. ACTIVBoards are now in place in five classrooms/labs throughout the elementary school and training and implementation is vital for further development and increased use. A special space on the server is dedicated to creating a “library” of flipcharts created by our own teachers, or even those downloaded from the web. If the resources are easily accessible, they are more likely to be used.
   
   
5. Release time is being offered to grade levels to work in small groups with the IT Coordinator on developing their classroom and grade level web pages. It is our intent to create a virtual learning environment even for our youngest students, preschoolers, and to train parents to use the web site to gain information and keep abreast of school happenings. Wikis can be linked to homeroom pages for further development of collaboration, sharing ideas, and communication. Secure classroom web pages can include homework tasks, project directions and rubrics, photos, classroom information, links to student work, suggestion blogs, and much more.
   
   
6. Student E-mail Accounts have been offered to elementary students through a provider, Gaggle, affording students online digital lockers, chat sessions, and electronic mail. Students can work in teams at school, and from home, to develop ideas, gather research, and collaborate on projects. E-Pals are used to communicate with other children worldwide in a safe manner, with close monitoring by the teachers.
   
   
7. WebQuests can function collectively using the ACTIVboards or students can work individually, at an independent pace. Differentiation has been an important goal for our teachers this year and IT helps bridge the gap without an extensive amount of extra work. Since differentiation is not yet a strength of many staff members, the implementation of new IT strategies (Wikis, flipcharts, webquests, virtual learning environment, links to websites, etc.) will help provide more individually appropriate tasks and objectives.

The biggest challenge with these modifications? Convincing the teachers they CAN do it, and that it doesn’t have to mean a lot of extra work. We have found that training the teachers to modify HOW they teach and WHAT they provide (in academic materials) for the students are the biggest steps forward. If the academic planning sessions can begin with, “How will technology help us achieve our instructional goals?” then the process is much more sleek and productive. It has also proven to be a humbling process. Teachers must be willing to admit that a child may teach them something new today, rather than the opposite. Using technology throughout the curriculum requires creativity, humility, and an open-mind. We ask our students to employ such profiles, so why shouldn’t the educators model the same? It’s inspiring, yet challenging. It can be fun and it’s in the best interests of our students, and so we advance.

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