|
|
 |
Model Technology Integration Grant Descriptions 2004-05
Fund Code 165
| Amherst Public Schools
Eileen Daneri
413-549-6300 |
Project Title: Look! Listen! Learn! The Use of Symbol Supports and Audio Enhancement to Improve Literacy Skills in Young Children
Curriculum Area: English Language Arts
Grade Level: PreK-1
Project Overview:
Teachers of preschool, kindergarten, and first grade classrooms at Crocker Farm Elementary School will incorporate symbol-supported software and audio enhancement listening systems into their daily teaching of language arts to improve student literacy skills of speaking, listening, reading, and writing. Teachers will receive professional development, online and face-to-face, in technologies that support emerging literacy development while simultaneously implementing the principles of Universal Design for Learning© specifically related to literacy development. Teachers will become proficient in their use of the software and hardware to support all students in the learning environment. Students will use the audio enhancement listening systems for speaking and listening, coupled with multimedia authoring software to improve their beginning and developing literacy and technology skills. Students will become proficient in the use of the audio enhancement systems for the presentation of their self-created media productions.
|
| Ashland Public Schools with Keefe Technical High School
Kay Tessier
508-231-1220 |
Project Title: Palms, Probes and Microbes - An Environmental Impact Study
Curriculum Area: Science
Grade Level: 9-12
Project Overview:
This project successfully integrates handheld computers and science probes into an existing curriculum unit. Technology provides essential tools that provide students with the opportunity to understand fundamental science concepts through investigation, experimentation, and problem solving, which are key strategies in the Massachusetts Science and Technology/Engineering Curriculum Framework. The project is structured to correspond with Strand 2: Life Science, grades 9-12, of the science aframework and focuses on the standards: chemistry of life; structure and function of cells; and ecology. To address the framework's guiding principles of helping students understand the connections across various domains of science and math, selected chemistry, physics, and mathematics standards will also be included. Teachers will be trained to use handheld computers, probes, and accompanying software to collect, organize, analyze, and share data. The use of portable, handheld technology will provide students and teachers with an opportunity to break down the barriers of classroom walls, placing students in the roles of scientists and mathematicians, using inquiry and discovery to construct firsthand knowledge and understanding of scientific concepts. This project addresses a critical district technology goal of preparing students for employment in the twenty-first century.
|
| Boston Public Schools
Michael Reilly
617-635-1615, x1001 |
Project Title: Living the Standards: Students Applying Technology Skills in Real Business Situations
Curriculum Area: Technology/Engineering, Business
Grade Level: 10-12
Project Overview:
TechBoston Consulting Group (TCG) has been in operation for over two years. Created by the TechBoston department, the goal of TCG is to provide students with real jobs that require them to apply technology skills that they have acquired in their information technology classes offered in Boston Public Schools. Students design web sites, troubleshoot computer problems and provide desktop support while applying almost all of the state's recommended technology standards in their tasks. In addition, they learn valuable client-interaction skills that they usually wouldn't acquire in the classroom, earning a stipend at the same time. Through their TCG experience, students gain more confidence in their abilities, build stronger resumes, and increase their focus on their future goals and education. The goal of this project is to document and disseminate the steps to success that TCG has experienced and to help other teachers and industry professionals to organize their own technology consulting projects for students.
|
| Boston Public Schools
Charlotte Harris
617-635-9685 |
Project Title: Meeting Our Diverse Needs: Literacy and Technology
Curriculum Area: English Language Arts
Grade Level: K-1
Project Overview:
The Waterford Early Reading Program was initiated for grade one students with the opening of the Early Boston Education Center in 1998. It is has been a successful technology-based curriculum for reading and language arts for the center and has also increased student proficiency in technology. Children develop their vocabulary, fluency, reading strategies, and comprehension skills with daily, individualized lessons on the computer. Children develop positive attitudes toward technology while learning how to access information through technology.
|
| Brockton Public Schools
Anne Thompson
508-580-7568 |
Project Title: Focus on Families: Strengthening Literacy Through Technology and Family Collaboration
Curriculum Area: English Language Arts
Grade Level: 1-6
Project Overview:
The Whitman Elementary School's project, used in conjunction with the John Collins Writing Program and the Scott Foresman Reading Program, will address the Whitman School Improvement Plan goal for Writing Across the Curriculum. The project will enable primary grade children to pair with older students to collaborate and produce a book or multimedia presentation. Students will type, edit, and electronically create text. They will also practice keyboarding, composition, writing on demand, and informal writing, with the goal of maximizing their proficiency and enthusiasm for writing using a computer station. These activities will enhance student learning and help to improve their performance on literacy assessments. The parental involvement component will provide outreach to families and provide them with the support they need to become active participants in the education of their children. Parents will come to school for Family Literacy/Technology Nights, during which they will work collaboratively with their children to produce a book or multimedia presentation using the latest technology tools.
|
| Brockton Public Schools
Anne Thompson
508-580-7568 |
Project Title: Literacy by Design: Creating Universally Designed Reading Environments to Enhance Elementary Literacy Skills
Curriculum Area: English Language Arts
Grade Level: 1-3
Project Overview:
The Downey Elementary School's project, used in conjunction with the CAST Program and the John Collins Writing Program, will address the Downey School Improvement Plan goal for implementing best practices in education in efforts to improve student learning and achievement. The project will enable special education and general education students in the primary grades to collaborate on and produce a book or story. Students will type, edit, and electronically create text. They will also practice keyboarding, composition, writing on demand, and informal writing, with the goal of maximizing their proficiency and enthusiasm for writing using a computer station. These activities will enhance student learning and help to improve their performance on literacy (reading) assessments. The parental involvement component will provide outreach to families and provide them with the support they need to become active participants in the education of their children. Parents will come to school with their children for Family Literacy Nights, during which they will view student works and participate in Literacy by Design reading activities using the latest technology tools.
|
| Chelsea Public Schools
Ann Halteman
617-889-8467 |
Project Title: Mathematics Interactive Teaching Using Whiteboard Technology (MITuwt)
Curriculum Area: Mathematics
Grade Level: 6-8
Project Overview:
This project provides a concrete means for middle school teachers to address issues of reform in the teaching and learning of mathematics. The project will maximize professional development efforts in areas of mathematics and technology by using lesson study focused on the Massachusetts Mathematics Curriculum Framework, the Massachusetts Recommended PreK-12 Instructional Technology Standards, and National Science Founddation (NSF) mathematics portals. The project will use a whiteboard standards-based curriculum as a vehicle for implementing change in the classroom. Specific mathematics concepts identified through MCAS 2003 data analysis are the focus of this initiative.
|
| Fall River Public Schools
Donna Hallal Ferreira |
Project Title: Using Universal Design for Learning (UDL): AlphaSmart Carts and PDA's in the 4th grade classrooms
Curriculum Area: English Language Arts
Grade Level: 4
Project Overview:
This project will target six fourth grade classrooms at two public elementary schools, one private elementary school, and one alternative school in the Fall River area. Students will utilize AlphaSmart wireless devices to access the composition strand of the Massachusetts English Language Arts Curriculum Framework. Students will improve their technology literacy skills according to the state's Recommended PreK-12 Instructional Technology Standards. The project will also help students with text-based disabilities to better access the curriculum, as suggested by the leader in the field of UDL, CAST. Teachers will also improve their ability to measure student outcomes using data analysis through the use of handheld computers and Microsoft Office, including Excel.
|
| Hampshire Educational Collaborative with Pittsfield, Winchendon Public Schools, and Gill-Montague Regional School District
Karen Kenny
413-586-4900 x 146 |
Project Title: Adapted Access: The Key to Student Success
Curriculum Area: English Language Arts
Grade Level: K-5
Project Overview:
Hampshire Educational Collaborative will use funds from this model technology grant to provide a professional development course to educators from three high-needs districts: Pittsfield, Winchendon, and Gill-Montague. This course, called Adapted Access: The Key to Student Success, will focus on skills, strategies, and devices necessary to create a universally designed classroom that maximizes every student's ability to make progress in the reading and writing learning standards. Technology used in this proposal includes IntelliTalk, IntelliPics, IntelliKeys, and Internet resources with ready-made reading and writing activities, like Reading A to Z (www.readinga-z.com). Students targeted in this grant are those with cognitive, physical, or sensory disabilities who are being taught in inclusive or self-contained classrooms.
|
| Holliston Public Schools with Framingham Public Schools
Kathy Dooley
508-429-0654 x4 |
Project Title: Communicating Architecture Past and Present
Curriculum Area: Arts, Technology/Engineering
Grade Level: 9-12
Project Overview:
This project enables art and architecture students to share an authentic artistic experience with a professional artist who will be working as an artist-in-residence at the Framingham and Holliston high schools. Students from Framingham's technology engineering program will work with students from Holliston's art program to digitally capture the modern and historic architecture of both towns. Among the participating community buildings are the public library, town hall, historical society, and schools. The artist will visit the class once a week to plan the photo shoots, go to sites, and critique student work. Additionally, participants will use online tools to communicate with the artist and partner schools, critique their work, research, and participate in class discussion sessions facilitated by the high school teachers. The culmination of the project will include an exhibition in the schools' art galleries and the distribution of a series of handmade books containing photo essays, which will be delivered to various community locations throughout both towns. This authentic experience will benefit not only the students from the collaboration but also the community as whole through a photographic documentation of the new and historic architecture in Holliston and Framingham.
|
| Ipswich Public Schools
Christine Burke
978-356-3137 x197 |
Project Title: Improving Literacy Instruction Through the Use of Technology
Curriculum Area: English Language Arts
Grade Level: 5-8
Project Overview:
Students will read, analyze and evaluate novels with the use of CAST's e-Reader and Thinking Reader software program. Strategies involved in analyzing the novel with the Thinking Reader program include clarifying, feeling, predicting, questioning, summarizing and visualizing. These strategies are integrated into text of the book with a system of prompts, hints, models and feedback. Students will create and maintain a work log of their strategy responses. Students will integrate their reading of the novels with significant historical background made available by links in a teacher-designed table of contents page. This page will include links to Thinking Reader, appropriate teacher-selected web sites for research, class weblog, and project descriptions. Students will communicate their observations of the novel with their peers and teacher in a CAST-designed weblog. Students will work on projects that demonstrate their understanding of the novel, as well as their enriched understanding of the historical time period. They will demonstrate their ability to use technology for research, problem solving, and communication.
|
| Martha's Vineyard Regional School District
Chris Baer
508-693-1933 x190 |
Project Title: The Community Digital Documentary Project (ComDoc): Through the Eyes of Students
Curriculum Area: Multidisciplinary
Grade Level: 9-12
Project Overview:
ComDoc is an interdisciplinary program that will initially involve 140 students from the Martha's Vineyard Regional High School. Students will use digital documentation technology (digital video, digital photography, digital audio, and word processing) to create multimedia documentaries for print and broadcast on television. Student will digitally record, and then reflect upon in writing, their own lives, their community, family traditions, and oral histories. They will interview local personalities and tackle subjects such as family life, local environmental and civic issues, local teen culture, after-school jobs, recreation, and so on. Students will exchange their work over the Internet with groups of secondary students from other countries, including high schools in Latvia, India and Argentina, as a way to compare their lives to the lives of adolescents in other cultures. By June 2005 students will edit their work to produce a television documentary, "Through the Eyes of Students," which will air on local television (MVTV). Based on the Salt program of Portland, Maine, the ComDoc program will address the Massachusetts standards for English, visual arts, and instructional technology; address the school's mission statement goals for communication, self-reflection, and appreciation of diversity; and meet the school's 2004-2005 staff development goals for interdisciplinary multimedia initiatives and strong performance tasks. While ComDoc will be open to all students, the school will create a special extracurricular group targeting marginalized, at-risk, and low self-esteem students - particularly the "non-joiners" who typically do not participate in extracurricular activities - to become a core editorial and management board for the program. In addition, a 24-week workshop/lecture series, together with a ten-hour intensive curriculum workshop in July 2005, will be offered to all teachers and administrators in the district on a wide variety of topics related to digital documentation and their value to the classroom, which will include hands-on equipment training as well as lectures by community filmmakers, writers, photographers, and technicians.
|
| Mohawk Trail Regional School District
Theresa Dearborn
413-625-9811 |
Project Title: Wisdom through Qwizdom®
Curriculum Area: Multidisciplinary
Grade Level: 7-12
Project Overview:
The Mohawk Trail Regional School District seeks to build a community of learners within its high school by incorporating the use of an interactive student response system (Qwizdom®). One or more grade 7-12 teachers from each of the following disciplines will participate in the project: Computer technology, English, mathematics, physical education, science, social studies, and world languages. Each teacher will focus on standards of the Curriculum Frameworks within his or her content area. In addition, students will expand their skills relating to Standard 3 of the instructional technology standards: Demonstrate ability to use technology for research, problem solving, and communication. It is anticipated that students will be more engaged as they develop and work through their own question material, utilizing media and content information from several different sources.
|
| New Bedford Public Schools
John Gomes
508-997-4511 x3455 |
Project Title: Improving Math Performance through Online Learning
Curriculum Area: Mathematics
Grade Level: 5-10
Project Overview:
The New Bedford Public Schools will expand its program of online mathematics instruction (which encompasses students in grades 6-9) to include all teachers and students in grades 5 and 10. Building on the success of the existing program, the district will provide curriculum-based and technology-enriched mathematics learning experiences for New Bedford students. The project will provide each student and teacher with a continuum of online mathematics learning resources, including a curriculum-aligned library of online content, interactive assessment items, online portfolios of student work, and web-based authoring tools. New Bedford teachers will participate in workshop-style professional development, receive peer technology integration supports, and engage in multiple forms of online learning. This program will enable teachers to provide effective differentiated mathematics instruction across the curriculum and is expected to dramatically enhance technology skills for both teachers and students. In addition, the district's technology partner (MassLearns.com) has generously agreed to donate a full year of continued services for grades 6-9, enabling this project to impact a total of more than 7,000 students.
|
| New Salem-Wendell Regional School District with Shutesbury
Carol Holzberg
413-259-1303 |
Project Title: On the "Write" Path to Literacy: Field Guides by Kids for Kids
Curriculum Area: English Language Arts
Grade Level: 4
Project Overview:
This standards-driven English Language Arts project will engages 4th graders at Swift River School (New Salem/Wendell) and Shutesbury Elementary (Shutesbury) in authentic technology-rich instruction to help them become better writers. Students will research, write, and produce beautifully crafted illustrated field guides to local geology and ecology. Students' work will involve substantial reading, research, writing, constructive group critique, revising, and sharing. Technology tools such as word processors, AlphaSmart keyboards, digital cameras, scanners, Internet resources, text-to-speech screen readers, word predictors, graphic organizers, and laser printers will enhance curriculum instruction by providing tools to support and strengthen writing achievement. The technology will also make it easier for teachers to customize instruction to meet diverse student needs.
|
| North Adams Public Schools
Noreen Donnelly
413-662-3240 x2117 |
Project Title: A+PLUS (Alternative Assessment + Planning for Learners Using Software)
Curriculum Area: Multidisciplinary
Grade Level: PreK-12
Project Overview:
A+Plus is a PreK-12 teacher training project focusing on using alternative assessment and practice software with typical learners and learners with cognitive and language delays. Experienced leaders in the existing A+Plus program will train other district teachers of all subject areas, special education teachers, special subject teachers, therapists, paraprofessionals, and administrators. Training will target the entire district and community and will focus on the use of alternative assessment methods producing primary and secondary data. The results can then be used for MCAS portfolio compilation, instructional planning, and software selection. Moreover, the project will support a common developmental philosophy and vocabulary that professionals and parents can use when describing the level of a student. All participants will compile a final project consisting of a student assessment portfolio.
|
| Pioneer Valley Regional School District with Orange and Greenfield Public Schools
Beth Dichter
413-498-5842 |
Project Title: May the Force Be With You
Curriculum Area: Mathematics, English Language Arts, Science and Technology/Engineering
Grade Level: 5-6
Project Overview:
This project provides opportunities for students to become engineers, accountants, historians, designers and builders. Students (and teachers) go from hands-on bridge-building to designing and building a bridge to using computers and software to expand their knowledge. The nine-week project allows students to gain a better understanding of how scientists think, the importance of math in everyday life, the breadth of technology and its uses in the real world, and the importance of clear communication, be it verbal, written, or visual. Throughout the unit students are actively engaged in an authentic learning process. Students technology skills are introduced or reinforced from previous years through the integration of web research, use of graphic organizers (Inspiration), multimedia creation (PowerPoint), digital imaging and scanning (Photoshop Elements), and working with large numbers and a budget (Excel). These opportunities address the objective of building on and increasing student technology literacy skills. The unit is designed to meet the needs of all learners, providing differentiated instruction and multiple assessment tools. John Seelen has taught this unit for over 15 years, with a technology component being introduced and refined over the last three years.
|
| Pioneer Valley Regional School District with Greenfield Public Schools
Mary Leyden
413-648-9356 |
Project Title: Fantastic Flicks!
Curriculum Area: English Language Arts, History and Social Science
Grade Level: 2-5
Project Overview:
Four Corners Elementary School of Greenfield will adopt Bernardston Elementary School's model for integrating media analysis and production into the elementary curriculum in the areas of English language arts and history and social science. The adoption at several grade levels, (2, 3, and 5), will result in a progression of student technology skill development that will prepare elementary graduates for more advanced media work during their middle and high school years. Students will develop skills at all stages of media production: from script writing, set design, and camera and scanner operation, to using editing software, converting file formats, and publishing their classroom project to DVD. This model for technology integration, developed at Bernardston over the past five years, provides classroom teachers with a framework that makes student media production a rich and motivating, yet manageable, teaching tool. Three projects that incorporate the use of familiar examples of modern media will be completed at each school. Second grade classrooms will showcase their newly acquired reading skills through the authoring of their own version of the PBS program "Reading Rainbow." At third grade, classroom teachers will collaborate with the school's music and art departments, making it possible for their students to create their very own illustrated "Hey Pilgrim" music video, through which they share their understanding of the Pilgrim's voyage to the New World. Fifth grade students will apply advanced media analysis and editing skills in their production of a Ken Burns's style, Revolutionary War documentary in which students' research allows them to perform the role of historians.
|
| Plymouth Public Schools
Ellen Driscoll
508-830-4486 |
Project Title: Project WEAVES (Writing with Educational Applications in Virtual Education Space)
Curriculum Area: Multidisciplinary
Grade Level: 7-12
Project Overview:
Project WEAVES enhances the Plymouth Public Schools Virtual High School program that educates at-risk, alternative education, regular education, bilingual, ESL, and advanced readiness learners by expanding the offerings to middle school students using the Department of Elementary and Secondary Education's Virtual Education Space (VES). Plymouth Public Schools will provide professional development activities for teachers to develop and enhance technology literacy, quality standards-based curricula, and effective online teaching strategies. High school teachers who have successfully taught courses online through Virtual High School will serve as mentors for other middle and high school teachers. Writing across the curriculum is the theme for Project WEAVES multidiscipline program. The goal of the project is to provide professional development activities and support to enhance curriculum for improving student learning through the development and delivery of online courses that emphasize English Language Arts outcomes.
|
| Quincy Public Schools
Alyse Olivieri
617-984-8727 |
Project Title: Math for All
Curriculum Area: Mathematics
Grade Level: 6
Project Overview:
Math for All is an ongoing math program for sixth grade students. The goal of the program is to use a problem-solving approach to teach math to all students. Math for All focuses on the Measurement Strand of the Massachusetts Curriculum Frameworks and touches upon all seven measurement learning standards. Students are taught using the Connected Mathematics curriculum, exemplars, and Tom Snyder Production's PrimeTime Math software series.
|
| Savoy Public Schools
Jane O'Riordan
413-743-1992 |
Project Title: Follow the Yellow Brick Road
Curriculum Area: Mathematics, Technology/Engineering
Grade Level: 2-5
Project Overview:
The LEGO robotics project that Savoy is adopting from Williamsburg will involve second through fifth grade students in the design and engineering process through the use of LEGO and LEGO Dacta's programmable brick technology. In this inquiry-based project, students will build LEGO-based devices to solve specific design challenges. Computer programs will be written to automate processes, and designs will be tested and modified as the need arises. Student teams will build cars and individual elements of a simulated amusement park, which will then be combined and shared in a demonstration open to the school community. It is anticipated that the project will be highly engaging and that it will offer opportunities for success for all learners. In addition, the project will provide a context for the kinds of real-world, project-oriented, problem-centered activities that are crucial elements of effective science education.
|
| West Springfield Public Schools
Jennifer Turmel
413-263-3448 |
Project Title: Terrier Times Online
Curriculum Area: English Language Arts /Journalism
Grade Level: 9-12
Project Overview:
The Internet has become a key community resource, providing an outlet for communication between home and school. During this project the Terrier Times, West Springfield High School's student-generated newspaper, will morph into two separate but integrated entities that will give students training and practice in a variety of writing styles and presentation methods. The traditional print version will continue to be published monthly, while the web version of the Terrier Times will be updated weekly with timely content. The Terrier Times web site will also provide various resources and information for students, parents, and community members pertaining to student academics and upcoming events. The web-based Terrier Times will become an informative and worthwhile resource for all audiences, as well as a chance for budding journalists to develop important writing and presentation skills to succeed in a multimedia workplace.
|
| Westfield Public Schools
Laurene Belisle
413-572-6467 |
Project Title: Using WebQuests To Improve Higher-Order Thinking Skills
Curriculum Area: Multidisciplinary
Grade Level: 6-8
Project Overview:
The primary source used for the development of this grant was the needs assessment required by the NCLB consolidated grant process. This assessment, conducted in 2002-2003, showed a need to improve student response to problems that required analytic thinking. This project is designed to meet this need. This project is in the form of a six-month, 45-hour graduate course that will increase teachers' technology knowledge and skills around developing WebQuests. It will also support new classroom activities that incorporate WebQuests promoting the higher order thinking skills of analysis, synthesis and evaluation in a variety of subject areas. As the project progresses, teachers will become more proficient in using Bloom's Taxonomy to create assessment questions that will improve students' academic abilities and teach them how to be independent thinkers. In addition, this grant will provide teachers with the technology skills needed to address student technology skills in browser navigation, identification of the basic elements of a web site, authentication of a web site, the development of a multimedia presentation, and correct formatting of citations for text and images gathered from electronic sources.
|
| Worcester Public Schools
Kathleen Dion
|
Project Title: "Kick up the Writing"- Strengthening Writing through Technology and Collaboration
Curriculum Area: English Language Arts
Grade Level: 4-6
Project Overview:
This project is an expansion of a writing program that was implemented at Mill Swan School in the 2001-2002 school year, which focused on brainstorming, editing, revising and publishing. In the 2003-04 school year the school refined the program to include goal setting and a formal presentation of the finished product. The success of this project is evidenced in the school's MCAS scores, which were above both the state and district average in the long composition and open response questions. The district will expand this project to include the Goddard School of Science and Technology in the staff development program and project-based writing activities. This is a natural expansion, since principals of both schools have successfully collaborated on other initiatives and both schools have an affiliation with Clark University.
|
| Worcester Public Schools
Robin Hynes
508-799-3476 |
Project Title: The Electronic Portfolio: A Richer Picture of Student Performance
Curriculum Area: Multidisciplinary
Grade Level: 9-12
Project Overview:
This grant focuses on career and academic portfolios used for the specific purposes of career awareness, as well as planning and providing evidence of knowledge and skills to employers or colleges. The rationale of electronic portfolio assessment is to provide schools with a valid and reliable means of assessing the instruction provided to students who are at risk. This is accomplished through the submission of electronic student portfolios for graduation or promotion to the next grade. This assessment process is designed to (1) Allow students to demonstrate strengths, knowledge, skills, and independence; (2) Merge the processes of instruction and assessment; (3) Encourage the student to engage in learning that is meaningful and appropriate; (4) Provide students the opportunities to increase their literacy and numeracy skills, which will coincide with the state and district benchmarks to bolster student achievement within school and the MCAS assessment; (5) Provide multiple opportunities for measuring significant progress. The applications and skills taught in this program build upon students' basic computer skills and expand their technical expertise in desktop publishing, multimedia production and web page design. The following technologies are utilized in this project: networked classroom computers, networked computers in the computer lab, and networked software such as Microsoft Word, Excel, PowerPoint, Publisher and Adobe Photoshop.
|
last updated: November 9, 2004
|
|
