Moving at the Speed of Creativity by Wesley Fryer

One to One Computing: Creating Self Directed Learners (Ysleta ISD – El Paso, TX)

The story so far of Ysleta’s 1:1 TIP
implementation

One to One Computing: Creating Self Directed
Learners

Laura Giglio and Lorena
Olmos

Instructional Technology
Trainers

Ysleta
ISD

El Paso,
TX

11 Feb
2005

Technology Immersion
Pilot

– Hillcreast Middle School
Vikings

very cute TIP logo with
school crest, iBook, TIP acronym and viking
helmet

part of our job entails
working with teachers on professional development on applications and
equipment

– with one particular school, it
was chosen for TIP

– started working a year
ago

– wanted to show and highlight the
things

teachers aren’t yet
comfortable speaking in public about this, but they do have some other teachers
attending TCEA

district has 63
campuses (includes 7 HS, 13 MS, 36
elementary)

our job is primarily classroom
integration, also available for any district
employee

IT has about 15 people, includes
overseeing library services, professional library for teachers, maintaining
library database

– 7 trainers in all, no
one assigned to a particular campus

– can
go to any campus, each has stregnths, Lorena works most with STAR charts (now
teacher STAR charts)

we have to know
a little about a lot of things, and a lot about some
things

Lorena also does the adult learning
center

with TIP grant, wanted to do 1
to 1 but didn’t have the funds

– 1/29/04
TIP RFA released

– 1/20/04 sent notice of
intent to apply

– 2/12/04 notified all YISD
principals of TIP grant and asked for letter of
interest

– 2/16/04 evaluated interested
campuses based on size, staff interest, lack of previoius experience with 1 to
1

– 2/18/04 notified Hillcrest Middle
School as a choice for TIP Grant application (was secondary campus selected,
received 800K of $1.2 required)

only
had 4 or 5 schools that fit the descriptor of no one to one past
programs

– had previously worked with
NetSchools and their laptop, but it wasn’t a full system and OS, it had very
limited capabilities, no disk drives, few
applications

– ran MS Works on infrared
technology (because a problem with dust, ports often didn’t
work)

– those for the most part all stayed
at school, when they went home the kids could only word
process

– there were only 4-5 campuses that
haven’t done this

– for the campus we
worked with, they received their netschools laptops in April and netschools went
out of business in August

Frank
Burton, Hillcrest Middle School, so enthusiastic about this and saw the
potential

– not very tech literate
himself

campus size and cost were key
considerations for selection

– set up
hillcreast leadership team (principal, AP, curr specialist, tech
specialist)

– then took idea to the
faculty, got their buyiin

– allowed the
teachers to transfer to another campus if desired by the superintendent’s
direction

– supt didn’t want anyone forced
into doing this

– no teachers applied for
transfer

did a parent survey to guage
community perceptions

– good parent
feedback

decided that no matter what
they were doing 1 to 1: if they did not get TIP, they would do it at a smaller
scale

started staff development right
away with ALI (Apple Learning
Interchange)

– step by step ways to
recreate things in their
classroom

end of May: notified of
selection

Hillcrest Middle
School

– built in 1989 (previous building
burned down by arson)

– title I
campus

– stable
faculty

– supportive
community

– 629
students

– 38
teachers

– 3
administrators

1993 Frank Burton

– math score was 15% at that time, gangs
controlled the area

– teachers retook the
school

629 students as of last
week

– 94.5% econ
disadvantages

– 97.6%
hispanic

– 15.2% limited english proficient
(LEP)

– TAKS scores: math still an
issue

Hillcrest is actually the
single secondary campus that was selected for
TIP

– have been able to customize the
software packages used

– are conducting
their own research and seeing how the software has impacted the student
performance in terms of TAKS
result

Parent survey in
Apr04:

– 25% never finished high
school

– 28% have high school
diploma

– 35% have 2 year degree or some
college

– less than 50% had a comoputer at
home, only a fraction had Internet
home

Goals

increase student academic achivement by 3% in all
areas

– close the digital divide by
providing equith in access

– provide tech
immersion in all content areas

– Bring
teacher to at least minimum SBEC tech standards (many of the teachers are still
at early tech level)

– empower parents with
knowledge and tech resources (we have a parent component to the
grant)

– wanted to improve communication,
through webpages, other
means

Increase student academic
achievement

– have been working to do
constructivist approach

– increased student
participation

– increase TAKS
scores

– SEDL booth in convention hall is
great, we have been working a lot with them on constructivist teaching
approaches

— good how you can still focus
on content and bring technology
in

hopefully we will be increasing
TAKS scores

looking good about
bridging digital divide

we have
purchased an iBook for every student, but every student does not have one right
now

– about 30 students do not have one,
some because parents have refused it (don’t want to take responsiblity or have
their child responsible for a computer)


most parents were thrilled with this
opportunity

– big fear was when kids
wouldn’t have a computer

– each classrooms
have an extra computer

are not
checking out computers to those 30 kids, instead they are checking out extra
computers to teachers

– students save their
files on central server, so kids can get to it from
anywhere

– liability issues for parents
big, that is why not checking out computers to those
kids

doing work to close digital
divide

– providing extended library
hours

– providing info on low cost
ISPs

– providing internet access at
community center (trying to get city to provide internet access, and school will
provide the access point)

did not /
are not requiring internet access at
home

Content area
immersion

– constructivist activites in
every subject

– wide array of technology
tools and resources

– subject specific
resources

— iKnow: social studies and
science

— My Access:
writing

— TMDS and Boxer Math:
math

— Connected Tech: all
subjects

TMDS is texas math
diagnostic system, grades 3-8

– free from
TEA

– helps pinpoint problem areas in
math

Purchsed connected university
for teachers

– tech skills and methods
pre-assessment

– wide variety of courses
available

– two year
subscription

we don’t have a separate
ESL area, they are integrated into the regular English / Language Arts
teachers

– goal is to get students out of
ESL, out of LEP status

on-site PD
provided by IT trainers

– we are taking
courses right along with the teachers


most of the teachers had never done any type of online learners (some are
worried if they can “fail” this)


encouraged the teachers to see this as being about professional growth, not
pass/fail

— we are taking these courses
WITH the teachers

KEY: support and
KNOWN support from the teachers, to feel comfortable, they are not on their
own

reason for connected university
component was so teachers could experience the online environment first, in
order to implement it in their
classroom

district has portal
originally setup for GT coursework online


then got portal setup for hillcrest teachers, message board, email, teachers can
interact on this message board

– give them
the chance to learn about posting messages on a message
board

– all this happened before the
laptops rolled out to them

do lots /
rigorous PD on site

– meet with teachers at
least once per week

– sometimes have them
for a half day or whole day, sometimes just a conference
period

– want to pull in teachers from
campus to bring their knowledge to their peers, they also present to each
other

Presenter for connected
university was really fun, excellent, helped students overcome
fears

Have sent teadchers to local,
state, and national conferences (tech related and content
related)

One of their trainers spends
almost all his time at Hillcrest, the teachers now think he actually works there
(Jamie)

– he has his own
key!

– huge factor: teachers know they can
call on him, he is
available

Hillcrest sent packets to
families

– parents and students had to go
through registration

– had a TIP booth
where parents and students could hear/learn about the
project

put out periodic fact sheet
on TIP

– keeps community and parents up to
date

– teachers were hearing lots of
rumors, was helpful to have this fact sheet to dispel them and get real news
out

Jamie demoed on parent night a
student playing an instrument and having it go into
Garageband

– had required sessions on
expectations for parents and students, went over insurance, AUP, care and
maintenance issues, etc.

had about 25
sessions over time with parents, at all days of the week and
times

Have had parent classes in
iBook basics and learning in the available
applications

– many parents could not pay
the insurance, so they asked for donations (many community members pitched
in)

– everyone who wanted a laptop but
couldn’t pay the insurance

About half
the training sessions for parents were offered in
spanish

– whenever a session was created,
it was created for both English and Spanish language
speakers

sent out survey to parents
on what classes they want to have

– results
being tabulated

– these are free sessions,
offering lots of times

district has
extra laptops that teachers had been using before, also have another lab of mac
computers

– so parent sessions can be
offered during school time

Parents
are pretty excited, they want to learn how to do things like
resumes

– had parent sessions, were VERY
surprised by parent who wanted to use
Garageband

– finding pockets of surprising
parent interest!

Improving
communication

– TIP fact
sheet

– teacher and campus web pages:
http://hillcrest,yisd.net

teacher email
accounts

are implementing
district-wide a program to help teachers create their own
webpages

– teachers at Hillcrest see more
urgency with this

– keeping their webpages
current is a bigger deal

– Carolynn
Mortensen is one teacher who updates her website every
day

— are using Netscape Composer for a
lot of teachers

— settings are all there
so it is easy and fast for them to
publish

– have teacher email
accounts

– info table at local grocery
store


other…

Hillcrest
teachers

– 4 years with Windows OS
laptops

– 8 years with mac OS
labs

– majority at early tech
level

– were willing to try one to one but
nervous

reason they picked Mac, Dell
bid was good, but when you look at features on iBooks but not
dell

– were concerned about Dell CD
tray

– Applecare for 3 years was very nice
to have

– lots of issues we took a look
at

– Apple brought people in before the
grant, have lots of PD resources available, didn’t just sell them the devices,
they have been with them every step of the
way

– purchased 710 laptops, were there to
help image and reimage, distribute the laptops,
etc.

Other CO staff kid Laura because
she spent so much time with Windows, it was a real big deal for her to say we
should go with Apple it is a better
choice

list of PD that has been done
starting last May


ALI


netTrekker

– digital media
camp


YOLiE


email

– 2 day tech retreat (had teachers go
through the grant, created a shared
vision)

– Texas STAR chart for
TEachers

– GALE/Lit.
Finder


AUP

– iBook
troubleshooting

– teachers can use Apple
Remote Desktop to see what students are
doing


Constructivism

– TEKS
integration

– Connected
university

– connected
tech

– creating
webpages

– creating online
tests


TMDS

teachers are mainly using ARD
for classroom management issues

– can take
screenshot of

at first it was really
scary: how am I going to manage 25 students with everyone having a
laptop

– ARD really helped easy their
tension about this, so this was very
important

timeline for measurable
results?

– have already seen less
discipline problems, increased parental involvement, increased
attendance

– we expect academic achievemnt
to rise (but TAKS is only one component of measuring
success)

– university in our area is
serving as external evaluator

– we are not
part of the federal evaluation project that TIP
has

Jamie created signs for teachers
to hold up signs: HELP! sign!

do have
75 min conference periods, try not to take more than 60 min when we are meeting
with teachers

– try not do do that more
than once per week

– have done halftime
sessions

about 70% of teachers showed
up for voluntary summertime
training

will have another 2 day
retreat this summer

– was very powerful:
main focus was breaking the grant up, understanding what the expectations were,
WHAT DID IT MEAN>

– many times teachers
are not given the opportunity to understand
this

– in this way we built the vision,
what we need for these kids

– THIS WAS THE
KEY TO START THE IGNITION

– it really set
the stage for teacher buy-in

When we
do PD, it is like the way the teachers will behave with their own
teachers

– we set it up in a task format,
so they have a series of activities they are going to have to go through,
constructivisim, the same way we want to have them

Principal Frank Burton purchased
keys

– made every teacher have one, told
teachers you are the key, any door that is closed, this is the key to open
it

– focus of 2 day retreat was very
positive

– principal said we are not going
to be negative, we all have the key

– the
key really did build vision and
commmunity

What is constructivist
learning

– student is actively creating,
not just passively listening

– student
actively creates their own knowledge base


teacher is the facilitator

– students
construct knowledge through use of diverse tools and
resources

teachers generally give
students a rubric of basic information that is
required

– provide a framework but give
students freedom to select their methods


students work collaboratively for a good bit of the
assignment

We modeled constructivist
learning in teaching sessions with
teachers

– shows diversity: everyone learns
differently

– multiple tools /
resources

– students work
collaboratively

– students investigate,
reearch, conduct experiments

– students
present findings / solution

right now
we have a mixture of digital and textbook
curriculum

– students and teachers are
doing both

– some teachers have latched on
to particular applications

we tell
teachers it is unrealistic for every project in the classroom to be like this,
but we don’t want to lose the momentum


start small

– this is not just a minor
shift, this is a big change, but if you encourage them to start small it is less
intimidating

Multiple
tools


Appleworks


iLife

– MS
Office


Notetaker


Keynote


Inspiration

Multiple
resources


netTrekker


GALE/Lit.Finder

– Connected
Tech


Internet

– Marco
Polo

some kids have already realized
the tool that is used does not matter: it is the content that
matters

– often teachers are more focused
on the tool rather than the content

– we
continue to work on that

YOU MUST
VISIT THE NETTREKKER BOOTH!

At
retreat, we didn’t tell teachers what they had to present
WITH

– some used PPT, some used
inspiration, used Notetaker

Allow
students to choose the best method of delivering the
learning

– assign the
topic

– find the
content

– select the delivery
tool

The finished
product

– remember to have 2 rubrics: one
for content, one for use of technology


don’t get caught up in a flashy presentation and forget the
content!

– “just because a steak sizzles
doesn’t mean it tastes good!” -favorite quote of
Jamie

challenge teachers to think
about what level of bloom’s taxonomy is this? Sometimes it may be at the
knowedge level!

did have lots of
problems

– for various reasons, did lose
the entire 7th grade english
dept

Although grant started July 1st,
no money received till Sept!

– ordering
process, everything was slowed
down!

Principal, Frank Burton, was
promoted to high school principal in
December

– he has a great track record of
turning around schools,

– campus-based
technical support person has yet to be hired (this puts technical burden on the
2 instructional folks)

New principal
is Paul Covey, we are very lucky to have someone now who has a good and
extensive technology background

what
has been done

– every class has a
projector

– developed common tech
vision

– established wireless
connectivity

– basic tech
training

– modern tech to all faculty and
students

– in-house tech support center
(Jamie is key to this)

– pre-assessment of
teacher technology skills (using Connected
University)

Dr Menconez from UTEP is
our evaluator

– he attends some of our
sessions, is kept in the loop

Future
vision / ideas

– student SWAT team, for
students to be able to assist as needed


greater role for teacher leaders

– student
showcase later this year in May

– campus
tours by other members of the district (so human resources people can see the
types of teachers we need to recruit, wants finance to come in and see what
resources are needed: the district behind the scenes people need to see what is
happening here so it can be replicated again
later)

We have
learned…

– when you are nice to teachers
and support them, they are much more receptive than taking a top-down
approach

– with kind words and support,
teachers can achieve more than they ever
imagined

– students are not afraid to
try

– students can find a work around for
just about anything (weven when chatting is turned
off)

story of 59 year old teacher,
was not going to use technology, eventually used keynote with her class after
having success with it during PD, at the end her students
applauded

kids figured out in iPhoto
you can put captions on pictures and share photos, that is how the kids were
chatting

when the wireless access
points in the cafeteria students stop eating lunch (they went to another
location in the campus)

– students will
show up early and leave late when the tools are made available to
them

At 5 pm after school one day, a
teacher was showing another teacher ARD, saw a student working on THEIR
assignedment

in science class, they
are using proscopes

– using laptops,
analyzing dollar bill

have not lost a
computer yet

– have stoptags on them all,
got a call from stoptags

– girl had left it
near the building, waled off and an administrator got
it

not using filters at home, talked
to parents about this, asked for them to help and
monitor

– under AUP, even if use is at home
the laptop can be taken away

– whenever
laptop is taken away

– when laptop is taken
to tech center, they scan through the


could cause laptop to be reimaged

– parents
were talked to about threatening behaviors, can result in police
action

we haven’t had any major
problems, some damaged screens through
accidents

– many
people

– we are ON THE BORDER with Mexico,
our students are freely going back and
forth

– in some instances in the past,
there are some students who lived in Mexico and came across for
school

kids want these so badly, they
are stepping up to the plate, taking responsiblity, they are being so wonderful
about taking care of these

the
orchestra room became the helpdesk, at the start the kids were coming by and
asking if you need help

– kids are staying
after school for training sessions on iLife, other
topics

plans for 8th graders going to
high school

– high interest in extending
this to high school, kids want this
extended…

– Yselta wanted to do this on a
lease and talked to the state, because this grant is with Federal dollars
leasing is not an option, but in the future may pursue
leasing

– going to some TEA sessions, the
state is interested in extending this out to every secondary campus in the
state

– this is a vary costly, 650 kids,
cost us $1.2 million

idea to maybe
setup tech academy in summer for the
kids

some teachers report that in
looking at student products, it is hard to see the difference between special
needs and regular ed/GT students

– this is
making a huge impact on the kids

Kids
have reported they “feel powerful” with these laptops

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