Moving at the Speed of Creativity by Wesley Fryer

Instructional Technology: PASSport II Resources for Oklahoma

THESE ARE MY NOTES FROM A PRESENTATION BY CATHY BATTLES AT THE 2007 OKLAHOMA STATE DEPARTMENT OF EDUCATION’S ANNUAL SUMMER LEADERSHIP CONFERENCE ON JULY 11, 2007. THE TITLE OF THE SESSION (WHICH WAS CO-PRESENTED WITH ERIC HILEMAN) WAS “Instructional Technology: PASSport II and eRate.” MY COMMENTS AND REFLECTIONS ARE IN ALL CAPS, NOTES ARE IN REGULAR TEXT. I RECORDED THIS SESSION (WITH PERMISSION FROM CATHY) AND WILL SHARE IT SUBSEQUENTLY AS A PODCAST HERE. I DID NOT INCLUDE NOTES ON THE ERATE PORTIONS OF THIS PRESO.

Handouts for this session are available on the DOE website (large PDF – 32 MB)

The session began with a presentation of Darren Draper’s / T4 Project’s outstanding “Pay Attention” video

SDE Resources for accessing Oklahoma Priority Academic Skills (PASS)

State DOE is working on making district’s technology plans downloadable and available via web

THIS WOULD BE GREAT SO DISTRICTS CAN READILY LOOK AT OTHER EXAMPLES OF WHAT OTHER SCHOOL DISTRICTS ARE PLANNING AND DOING WITH RELATION TO TECHNOLOGY)

www.sde.state.ok.us
– click on PASS
– PASS skills available in PDF and HTML formats

also new version of Thinkfinity (which used to be MarcoPolo)

Can go to “popular links” and get to Passport2 link
– we are in the process of now of revising our entire website
– we do have good Oklahoma Centennial links and resources
– you do have to setup a login, with your email address and password

there is an online lesson planner with a template
– for others to access your lesson plans, they will have to use that secret word
– each secret word can only be used once system-wide

MY THOUGHT: WHY ARE ALL THE TEACHER-CREATED LESSON PLANS ONLY AVAILABLE TO OTHERS WHO HAVE THE TEACHER-SET “SECRET WORD?” IT WOULD BE BETTER FOR THESE LESSON MATERIALS TO BE MADE OPENLY ACCESSIBLE TO EVERYONE ONLINE AND EXPLICITLY SHARED WITH A CREATIVE COMMONS LICENSE.

We used to have a video you could watch, that explained how to do that, but it isn’t currently working
– you can download instructions and print those off for teacher inservice
– also there is a section that has some marcopolo (thinkfinity.org) resources

After you are “in” you can:
– link to the existing PASSport database
– create and edit your own lesson plans
– get links to ThinkFinity resources (marcopolo)
– post messages for your secret word users

I SHOULD DO A CONFERENCE SESSION ON OPEN, FREE DIGITAL LESSON PLANNER TOOLS LIKE CURRIKI, YAHOO TEACHERS, THINKFINITY, ETC.

You are required to chose your content area that you teach in when you log in, and select your grade level
– then it will show you the standards for what you’ve selected

WHAT ABOUT MULTIDISCIPLINARY TEACHERS OR MULTIDISCIPLINARY / MULTI-GRADE LESSONS?

example for phonics/decoding, and then we see a list of objectives
– then you see lessons which align to those objectives

showing example of a primary teacher teaching the word “at” with similar rhyming words
– then an example of one on one tutoring about the sound “at”
– “exposing kids to the standards with less distractions”

MY QUESTION: IS THERE A WAY FOR “SECRET WORD USERS” TO SEND MESSAGES TO THE TEACHER WITHIN THE SYSTEM OR INTERACT WITH EACH OTHER / THE LESSON CONTENT (A READ/WRITE COMPONENT)
– ANSWER: APPEARS TO BE NO CURRENTLY

Discussion of Verizon Foundation’s support of marcopolo “Thinkfinity: Literacy, Education and Technology”
– “endless possibilities for learning”
www.thinkfinity.org
– sites are very dynamic, change at least weekly
are 8 partner sites, all supported / developed / maintained by different entities (ArtsEdge, EconEdLink, EdSITEment, Illuminations, read-write-think, Science NetLinks, Epeditions, and now a new one: Smithsonian National Museum of American History)

Example: Science NetLinks
– grades 3-5: All Systems Go
– activities are very interactive
– everything is completely free and copyright unrestricted (YEAH)
– all activities and lessons have been evaluated, many have been alighted to our PASS standards
– it is so much better to go to Thinkfinity for resources rather than just going to the entire Internet
– are more than 55,000 educational resources here!

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2 responses to “Instructional Technology: PASSport II Resources for Oklahoma”

  1. Robert Lucas Avatar

    Hey Wesley, I’m spending a lot of time working with the Curriki folks this summer and mentioned to them your post. If you’d ever like to do a session like this, they’d be happy to provide whatever support would be useful. You could email me at my firstname.lastname@gmail.com and I’d pass it along to the relevant people.

  2. Wesley Fryer Avatar

    Super, thanks Robert! I’ll take you up on this offer later this fall!