LA Distance Learning Conference

I've just returned from the first conference sponsored by a new organization, the Louisiana Distance Learning Association (linked from posting title). This conference helped to verify that we did make the right decision in waiting for the technology to catch up with the ideas, and I'm now convinced that it's time to invest in video conferencing equipment.

Districts generally first turn to video-conferencing to connect a teacher to a class for distance learning. It is also used for district-level meetings, which would be helpful in our parish because of the distances we must travel. However, the application I'm most interested in using is one that connects classrooms in St. Mary Parish to professionals around the world for Virtual Field Trips.

Connecting with the Center for Interactive Learning and Collaboration, for example, provides teachers with access to hundreds of free or low-cost field trip opportunities. In these activities, arrangements are made to connect at a certain time/date. Once the teacher log-ins for the class, a professional in London or Paris or Chicago or even at the Tunica Museum in Marksville takes over as instructor. CILC screens all of these activities, rating them to assist in our selection. Professionals are trained to deliver only a certain amount of "teacher talk," deferring quickly to hands-on activities for students plus Q&A as needed. In some cases, the teacher receives a packet of support materials in advance of the field trip.

If you are interested, join (it's free!) to begin receiving newsletters and to fully access the extensive library of field trips. For my part, I'll begin investigating the purchase of video-conferencing equipment using ARRA stimulus funds from EETT (Title 2, Section D), which we should be receiving shortly. This project seems to meet all of the ARRA requirements!

Let me know what you think?

Interactive White Boards

An interesting article in this month's Learning & Leading from ISTE (linked for you from this post's title) outlined a recent study about the value on interactive white boards--like those from Smart and Promethean--in classrooms. The study revealed that even when teachers experienced problems using the boards, they LIKED them. Imagine that!

More importantly, the study found that students were more engaged when the boards were being used--rarely were "backrow nappers" observed.

Finally--and this is a key finding--the study revealed that the more often teachers used the interactive white board (IWB), the more likely they were to turn over control of learning to students. Less teacher talk and more student inquiry are the touchstones for constructivist pedagogy. It's where we want to be in our classrooms.

When I see leading educational researchers like Robert Marzano embracing Promethean's ActivBoard, I pay attention. Recently, in a keynote address at a computer-using educators conference, Marzano warned that while there were no "no silver bullets" for instruction, there are "silver bbs." He pointed out that a teacher must select the combination of bbs that is best for his or her classroom, and he made specific mention of what he feels are two true breakthroughs in education: interactive white boards and voting technology.

His findings are impressive:

1. In classrooms using Promethean interactive white boards and voting technology, there was an immediate 17-percentile gain in scores.
2. If a teacher uses the board for 20-30 months, an average of 20 percentile gain was evidenced.
3. Students with an experienced teacher who uses the board 75% of the time, who has had training, and who has had 2 years of experience with the board showed a 29 percentile gain in scores.

However, Marzano warns that the district can't just give a board to a teacher. The professional development needed to successfully use the board must be included in the formula. He also noted that weaker teachers must receive training in how to use the board as well as in effective teaching practices. In other words, an interactive white board will not automatically make a weak teacher strong!

The focus, he concluded, must remain on content, not on the bells-and-whistles of technology. However, it is the Promethean voting technology that he praises most as the educational breakthrough because a teacher can keep track of which students are understanding the content.

Marzano's comments are true about all educational technology. Technology, in itself, will not improve learning. Any benefits from technology is completely dependent upon how well it is used.

Bottom line: We need to be looking for funding sources for Promethean ActivBoards and ActivVotes.

NSBA's Calcasieu Parish Site Visit

I feel fortunate to have had the opportunity to attend a site visit to Calcasieu Parish this week. Wow. According to Dr. Cheryl Abshire, Chief Technology Officer, Calcasieu does not have bond funding or a big technology budget! She clearly stated how it happened: the district decided that technology integration would be the focus of all stakeholders, and grant funding for the past few years has been targeted at making this happen.

Here are a few of the most interesting elements I saw:

• Calcasieu has twice as much of everything we have: schools, students, and computers. However, because of their understanding and INSISTENCE that professional development must accompany any technology placed in classrooms, they have 12 full-time professionals in their Instructional Technology division. St. Mary Parish has one. Guess who?
  
• In every classroom we visited, students were divided into groups and rotating through stations to complete hands-on projects. My favorite: a group of first-graders using headset/microphone combos to read "The Ant and the Grasshopper" into Audacity. When they finished, each saved his or her own file to a Blackboard content area for replay later. At the end of the year, the teacher burned CDs of each student's work: a portfolio of the year. (Audacity is a free application.)
  
• A tool we could use: a device that connected six sets of headsets so that a group of students could listen to a video without disturbing the other groups.
  
• In many rooms, students were preparing projects with MovieMaker (free) or creating content for sharing on classroom ActivBoards (Promethean interactive white boards; software is free). Students were also using the boards as one of the group stations.

Interesting, too, was the fact that Calcasieu's technical support division functions with fewer personnel than I expected. I spoke with the leader of their technology team, who explained that he chose a different direction when he asked for additional funds and was denied. Using Footprints software, he established a Helpdesk which takes advantage of VPN to diagnose and repair as many problems as possible without having technicians leave their offices. Equipment with bigger problems is shipped to the office for repairs. Standardization of equipment purchases is key. Their technique saves travel costs and time for technicians, as well as improving the quality of their work experience.

In our visit, we saw evidence that all Calcasieu stakeholders--not just teachers and students--were addressing and utilizing the "killer apps" of the 21st century: collaboration, communication, creativity, and critical thinking. Well done!