School or District Improvements

Over the last year, the leadership in Highland Park ISD has been sending teacher to training and inviting speakers to the campuses to educate teachers about 21^st century learning. Besides providing professional development opportunities for teachers, the district continues to purchase technology for schools even though many districts are cutting funding. The district has also hired a coordinator for the 21^st century learning program. The coordinator will work with teachers to incorporate global learning into the classroom. At the high school level, the district has formed a committee to investigate implementing the International Baccalaureate (IB) program. The district believes this program may serve a global learning approach more than the AP program. The district is also working with SMU to create a 21^st century learning teaching certification.

The district issues a parent survey each year which they will use to determine whether the plan is effective. The superintendent and principals also meet with panels of teachers and students at least once a year to get feedback on the plan. Participation and feedback from staff development on 21 century learning will also be considered. TAKS and AP scores will also indicate the effectiveness of the program.

More and more teachers are moving away from giving paper and pencil tests and essays. Many are now giving tests online and having students submit written work electronically. This move to online tests and quizzes is creating change as teachers are developing multiple versions of tests (which reduce cheating and allow for easy modifications). Teachers who have not made changes to paper tests in years are taking the opportunity to introduce new types of questions when they put their tests online. Few teachers in my school are using alternate forms of assessment like portfolios or project-based learning. Teachers are working to incorporate more formatve assessment as a result of training in the Working on the Work program. As long as TAKS and AP success drive school ratings and college admission, I don't see much changing in assessments at Highland Park.

Student Learning

Like all schools in Texas, Highland Park ISD is concerned with student success on TAKS. TAKS data is used in a number of ways in our school in order to support student success. Teachers have a program where they can access students' TAKS data from previous years. This allows teachers to identify students who have struggled in the past early in the school year. In math, science, and English, teachers also give a benchmark TAKS. The math department then breaks down the test by TEKS and requires students to attend tutorials on TEKS they have not mastered. While they do not have as an elaborate analysis and tutorial system in place as the math department, the science and English departments identify students who need extra tutorials through the benchmark testing. Our social studies department is not as concerned with the TAKS test because most students find it easy. We do use previous years' scores and classroom performance to identify students who may need extra tutorials. Another important use of the previous years' TAKS scores is to find students in our class who do not have 8^th grade scores. The 10^th grade test covers 8^th grade material. A student who does not have 8^th grade scores likely attended a private school or moved from out of state. These students would need tutorials on 8^th grade TEKS.

The district has also been watching performance and growth in its sub-populations. Our district is small and homogeneous; however, it grows more diverse each year. As we grow, the success of these sub-populations becomes more important.

The district does not have any formal analysis in place for AP scores. However, most AP teachers use their AP scores and the Instructional Planning Report that comes with the scores to make adjustments to their courses. I just received my scores and Planning Report and have already started thinking about changes to the curriculum. For instance, my students scored lowest on multiple choice questions about the Foundations Unit. I need to find a way to make this information more memorable to them and spend more time on this unit in exam review.

The state of Texas has been field testing several end of course exams. My class does not have one yet, but classes such as Chemistry, World Geography, and Geometry were asked to pilot the test this year. The teachers get the scores back in about 48 hours. However, they are not told what is on the exam. As these exams are developed I'm sure this will become another set of data teachers will be required to evaluate.

Parent and student feedback is also important to the leadership in our district. Parents and students are on the building leadership committees and are included on any committee involved in making changes in the district. The district issues a parent satisfaction survey each spring. The superintendent and building principals also meet with panels of students to get their feedback on issues involving the school.

Current Assessment Practices

My school doesn't have many school-wide assessment practices. I must admit that I don't really know that much about what does in other departments in my building beyond what I hear from my 16 year old students, so….take it for what it's worth.

Type of Standard Testing

There is a 10^th grade World History TAKS test but it is ridiculously easy. It doesn't really test what we teach in AP World History so we don't even really talk about it. Our school doesn't really focus on teaching to the TAKS. I do think they spend more time on TAKS preparation in math and English where the tests are little more challenging. Some teachers give a grade for TAKS, but I don't. The AP classes are definitely designed toward teaching the AP curriculum and preparing for AP tests. Currently, our school emphasizes taking AP classes and tests, not AP results. However, current media attention on the lack of student success on the AP tests may change this attitude.

Benchmark Practices

I don't give a benchmark in my class for the Social Studies TAKS. I think the teachers in 11^th grade give one Benchmark for the Social Studies TAKS. Our school does give math, English, and science benchmarks. I noticed the math teachers were using the benchmark results to identify students who needed to work on certain objectives and requiring them to come in for tutorials (a few kids blew off the benchmark and spent a great deal of their spring in math tutorials—kind of funny).

Use of Portfolios

I use a very informal portfolio in my class. Students keep their tests and essays in a folder. At the end of the semester and during review for the AP test I have the students look at their progress and how they have improved. I have them look at what they've learned about test taking and how their writing has improved. I think the English teachers have the students keep a notebook that acts as a writing portfolio. I am not aware of any teacher who has their students keep an electronic portfolio.

Use of Project- Based Learning

I see very little project-based learning in my building. We only do 2 projects in my class and one of them seems to always be a disaster. We change our first semester project each year and we still haven't found an effective project. The second semester project requires students to solve development problems in a newly independent country in the 20^th century. Students expressed that they enjoyed and learned a great deal from this project on course evaluations. I would like integrate more project-based learning into my course. I've seen some projects that require application of course content (mostly from the language teachers), but most of the projects seem to be projects to help students' grades and require very little application of content to create the project (mobile on an element, report on an artist, memorize a poem, etc).

Types of Technology Tools Used for Assessment

I give paper and pencil assessments for formal assessments, but I occasionally use my ActivExpressions for formative assessments. Many teachers in my building have ActiVotes or ActivExpressions that they use for formative assessments. Some teachers use them for formal assessment as well. Several teachers also use quia, web assign, and Moodle to give quizzes or have students turn in assignments. A few teachers even administer their tests through Moodle.

Technology Standards Currently Assessed

With the exception of our technology classes, technology standards are not assessed in my school. I do think there is a great deal of assumption that students possess technological skills that they may not. I have students who can make and edit a movie, know how to block their parents from pretty much everything they do on facebook, have jail broken their iphone, and can post a high score on any internet game. However, they don't know (or pretend not to know how) to save a file from Moodle to their own computer, set margins, perform an effective Google search, etc. I would like to incorporate 5 minute technology lessons twice a week next year so that I can make sure my students know the basic computer skills I expect them to know.

 

 

Go Animate

A teacher I follow on Twitter suggested GoAnimate for creating animations. I wanted to make an animation for my multimedia project so I decided to see how it worked. This site is awesome! I liked it so much more than using Alice. The whole thing is online so you don't have to download any software. There are options to send a link of your video, embed your video on a website, send to facebook or other social networking sites, or you can save your video to your computer (costs 99 cents).
GoAnimate has many of the options Alice does, but you access them by right clicking on the object you have placed in the scene. This is so much easier than writing a long script of actions. There are also more scene and object options. You can make your own characters or use Scooby Doo, Willie Nelson, political figures, etc. You can make new characters by earning points. You earn points by watching tutorials, sharing videos, and finding friends. Of course, you never have to use these features if you don't want to. You can also easily add music to your animation. The site already has royalty free music for you to use or you can upload your own music. There are also options to edit effects and change camera angles.
GoAnimate has not created a system for educators to use for logins like Animoto and edu.glogster. Currently, each user must create a user account using an e-mail address. Animations can be made private. There are several areas on the website to view other animations and comments and to invite people to view your animations. Because of this, I might not allow younger children to use this site. However, older children will probably be fine with parent permission. The video also embeds with ads for GoAnimate. 

GoAnimate.com: Comparisons 2 by MommaT

Like it? Create your own at GoAnimate.com. It's free and fun!

Poll Everywhere v. ActivExpressions

After our class where we used Poll Everywhere, I decided to do a comparison between Poll Everywhere and ActivExpressions. I'd seen people use Poll Everywhere in several presentations and the argument has been made in every single one, "why buy expensive clickers when you can use this free software?" It also seemed to have some positive attributes over my "clickers". After the first question of using Poll Everywhere, I told my students what we were doing. They helped me draw some conclusions.

Identifying Participants (Advantage: ActivExpressions)

The free version of Poll Everywhere does not allow identification of participants. For this reason, I only used yes/no or multiple choice for my experiment. ActivExpressions allows you to know who the participants are. I know who is sending the silly answers or texting in inappropriate answers. After you demonstrate you know who is messing around, the behavior stops. Working with teenagers and knowing what they text in when they know I know who is texting, I would be completely uncomfortable using anything but multiple choice or yes/no questions. You can purchase an upgraded package that costs $15/month if your school could not buy learner response systems so that you could identify your participants.

Ease of Use (Advantage: Poll Everywhere)

Having students use cell phones over the ActivExpressions does have some benefits. I didn't have to distribute the ActivExpressions or collect them. Students just got out their phones. Further, students are very familiar with their cell phones and how to use them. Once I explained to text to one number and then include another number in the body of the text, students easily answered the questions. There are always some issues with ActivExpressions. The most popular complaint is not predictive text.

Question Templates (Advantage: Poll Everywhere)

Poll everywhere has question templates you can use in Microsoft Word. AciveInspire has a template to type questions into, but there aren't any pretty backgrounds. You can download some question templates from Promethean Planet but they aren't very easy to use.

Feedback for Teacher (Advantage: ActivExpressions)

I like to use learner response systems to get feedback on the progress of individual students. Usually, I look at the list of participant answers and ask follow up questions to individual students based on their answers. Poll Everywhere didn't allow me to do this. I got the group response, but had no idea what individual students answered. If I paid for the upgrade, I could see what each participant was answering. Poll Everywhere does have some nice reports and slides they generate in Excel and Power Point. I can export data from ActivExpressions to Excel. We also found it would be really easy for students to not give their "real" answer if teachers don't know the full capabilities of the Poll Everywhere software. The default setting on a poll shows the results as they are sent in. Students who don't know the answer could easily see what others are answering and send in the same answer. Thus, teachers don't get feedback on what students actually know or think about a topic. Students enjoyed watching the answers show up on the graph, but admitted they would look at the results if they weren't sure of an answer. This is easily fixed by hiding the poll results but it did take a bit of experimentation to find the option.

Student Preference (Advantage: Mixed Results)

Many of my students enjoyed being allowed to use their cell phones in class. They also found using the cell phone much easier to use. Other students didn't really like using their own cell phones. They worried about using their own texts (even though most have unlimited) and were concerned they would get spam after texting the site. I even had a few kids who pretended not to have their cell phones because they didn't want to use them for school purposes. Another issue I would have to address if I used the cell phones more would be students being off task with their cell phones between polls. I noticed several students texting or playing games when we were trying to discuss a question.

Conclusion: Poll Everywhere has better templates, is quick to use, and many students enjoy using their own cell phones. However, if you stick with the free version it has several limitations. I will probably continue to use poll everywhere when I have limited time or when I don't need to have a lot of feedback.

Twitter

I'm usually pretty open to new technology, but I never really saw the purpose of Twitter. It seemed a lot like Facebook and I didn't really care to hear about people's personal lives in 140 characters or less. I started to understand more about Twitter at the GeoTech conference when I went to a session on personal learning networks. The instructor explained and showed examples of people who tweet links to useful websited, blogs, and ideas. I grew a little more interested in Twitter. Then, at our next class meeting, Dr. Smolka asked us to create a Twitter account.

I set up my Twitter account and found a few people, tech products, and fan sites to follow. I must admit I've been learning a lot from Twitter. Wesley Fryer (educational blogger and education professor in Oklahoma) always has great ideas and advice on using technology in the classroom. Other teachers I follow have also led me to the sites Toondoo, GoAnimate, and Museumbox. I found a Microsoft plugin for Moodle that allows you to upload files straight from Office to Moodle from a teacher on Twitter. The Promethean Planet tweets led me to a Mongol resource pack I would have never found on my own (or known to look for).

While I haven't started sending out my own tweets, I have benefitted from using Twitter and will continue to use Twitter for my own personal learning.

District Data Storage

I spoke with Shelly Venable our campus instructional technologist about our data storage procedures last week. After reading the information on the NTTI site about file management, I developed a few questions for her to answer.

Q1: What is the I drive on the network?

A: The I drive is specific to each department. Departments use these drives to share documents for their subject. Each teacher and student also has an H drive for saving their work, each teacher has a K drive to store flipcharts, and there is the P drive where public information can be shared and accessed by any user on the server.

Q2: How is this information backed up? What is done with the data on the network drives at the end of the school year?

A: The data is backed up every night. However, we encourage people to save their work in at least 3 places. We wipe out the H drive at the end of each school year. Students and teachers are encouraged to copy their work to a DVD or thumb drive.

Q3: How does the district protect our network?

A: Each user must access the network with a log in and password. Passwords must be changed every 90 days. Each H drive is mapped to a specific user and other people on the network can't access their information (without proper authorization). The K drive is configured so that others can view the information on the drive but can't change or destroy the information. Our Gradebook program logs the user off after 10 minutes of inactivity.

Q4: How is student information such as grades and attendance stored?

A: We use a program called SASI to back up student grades and records.

Q5: Can you access our network from home?

A: Yes, you go to the high school web page and click on Network Storage. Then you log in and your drives are available.

Our district provides a number of places to store information and seems to do a good job backing up our data (I've recently benefitted J). We are not required to use case sensitive passwords or use numbers in our passwords. Thus, most people have pretty weak passwords.