Engaging All LearnersThe Electronic Syllabus Project

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Engaging All LearnersThe Electronic Syllabus
Project

• Presented by
• Courtney White, James White,
• Rita Hoster, Jim Mitchell
• Seaford Middle School
• Seaford, Delaware

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Seaford Middle School

• Located in Seaford, Delaware (25 miles north of
  Salisbury, MD)
• 800 students in grades 6-8
• 58 Free/Reduced Lunch
• 44 minority enrollment
• 17.5 Special Education
• 3 ELL

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Technology at Work

• The following technology is in use at SMS
• 3 computer labs
• 3 sets of wireless mobile laptops
• 2 class sets of handheld computers
• Multimedia teaching station in each classroom
  (computer, projector, cart, document camera)
• Wireless environment

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Engage Me or Enrage MeWhat Todays Learners
DemandMARC PRENSKYs 3 types of students

• The students who are truly self-motivated.
• The students who go through the motions.
• The students who tune us out. (These students
  are convinced that school is totally devoid of
  interest and totally irrelevant to their lives.)

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Engage Me or Enrage MeWhat Todays Learners
DemandMARC PRENSKY

• While our schools and education system today
  deal with the first two groups reasonably well,
  the third group is a real challenge. In fact, for
  educators today, it is the challenge. Engage me
  or enrage me, these students demand. And believe
  me, theyre enraged.

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Engaging All LearnersThe Electronic Syllabus
Project

• The Electronic Syllabus Project is an attempt to
  bring multimedia into the secondary classrooms in
  the Seaford School District.
• Teachers who volunteer for the project aim to
  digitize most of what they do in the classroom
  and teach from their website on a daily basis.

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The Electronic Syllabus Project

• The benefits of teaching from a web site are
• Students are engaged on a daily basis.
• Classroom projection systems are used to add the
  multimedia perspective.
• Materials posted on the web sites can be accessed
  from home by parents and students.
• Websites are dynamic, reflecting the teachers
  gain in technical knowledge and content.
• Pace of website development is determined by the
  teacher.

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The Electronic Syllabus Project

• The main challenges of teaching from a web site
  are
• Extra time for planning instructional materials
  and posting them to the web site
• Reliability of connection

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Funding for the Project

• Seaford Middle School received an Enhancing
  Education Through Technology Grant of
  approximately 125,000
• Cost of Professional Development
• Stipends
• Substitutes
• Cost of equipment (some of this equipment already
  existed in the classrooms)
• Multimedia projection system, cart, computer and
  document camera 3300
• Interwrite panel 700
• Laptop 1400

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Why Use FrontPage as the Web Authoring Software?

• Four options were considered
• Current Cold Fusion web authoring program
  developed for the middle school.
• MOODLE
• FrontPage
• Dream Weaver
• Why Did We Choose FrontPage?
• A group of teachers met and selected FrontPage
  mainly due to its ease of use and dependability.

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How Does FrontPage Work?

• Each teacher has a web folder that they maintain.
• Content developed at home using the laptop is
  placed in the folder at school and uploaded to
  the web site.
• Demonstration

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Getting Started

• In the spring of 2005 all secondary English,
  Science, Social Studies, Math, and Special
  Education teachers were invited to participate in
  the project.
• They were required to attend professional
  development to learn how to create and maintain a
  web page.
• 20 middle school teachers volunteered to
  participate

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Technology to Support the Project

• Teachers received web space to create and
  maintain their sites.
• Teachers received a laptop to use in school and
  at home to author content.
• Teachers also received an Interwrite School Pad
  (portable Smart Board device).

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Professional Development

• Teachers had to attend a two day training session
  during the summer (they had choice of several
  dates). During these sessions teachers learned
  to use FrontPage software.
• Up to eight additional days of professional
  development were available if teachers wanted to
  attend. During these days teachers began to work
  on creating PowerPoint presentations, word
  processing worksheets/documents, locating
  relevant web links and selecting United
  Streaming video content.
• Teachers received 20 per hour stipends.

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Professional Development

• During the school year teachers may request one
  day per month to work with the schools
  technology resource teacher to continue to author
  and create materials for their websites.
• Teachers may attend after school sessions one day
  per week. (20 per hour stipend)
• A web site was created to support the web
  authoring
• http//www.seaford.k12.de.us/es/dickersonm/Electro
  nic20Syllabus/fphelp.htm

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Lets Look at the Electronic Syllabus Sites

• http//www.seaford.k12.de.us/es/dickersonm/

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Interwrite School Pad

• When it came time to select an interactive device
  for the classrooms, the School Pad was selected
  due to its
• Portability
• Cost (700)
• Allows for the teacher to be mobile and not tied
  to the front of the room.
• Notes for classes
• Demonstration

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ELMO

• Elmo HV-110XG High Resolution Visual Presenter -
  PN  9336
• 1/3" CCD (1,024 x 768) pixels progressive-scan
  CCD
• Analog RGB output XGA resolution (1024 x 768)
  mini D-sub 15 pin
• Fixed Iris, Focus not necessary (Focus Free)
• Digital zoom 4x
• 20 frames per second real-time viewing
• Shooting area max 14.3" x 10.7" - min 7" x 5.3"
• Folds in to a 2.3" x 11.1" x 6.3" compact carry
  size
• discounts below 600!

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Microscope

• How is this being used?
• paramecium video
• elodea leaf

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Flash Drive

• USB flash drive is essentially used as a small,
  lightweight, removable data storage device of up
  to 64 GB (as of 2006).
• USB flash drives are also known as "pen drives",
  "chip sticks", "thumb drives", "flash drives",
  "USB keys", and a wide variety of other names.

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Where to from here

• Continue populating the websites with content.
• Place classroom documents on site.
• Increase the connection between classroom and
  home.
• Blog Classrooms
• Wikispace
• Recruitment of new teachers???
• Sound
• Future Funding

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Engaging All LearnersThe Electronic Syllabus
Project

• Questions?

Contact Information Courtney White E-mail
cwhite_at_seaford.k12.de.uswebsite
http//www.seaford.k12.de.us/es/cwhite/ Jim
WhiteE-mail jwwhite_at_seaford.k12.de.uswebsite
http//www.seaford.k12.de.us/es/jwhite/ Rita
HosterE-mail rhoster_at_seaford.k12.de.uswebsite
http//www.seaford.k12.de.us/es/rhoster/ Jim
MitchellE-mail jmitchel_at_seaford.k12.de.uswebsit
e http//www.seaford.k12.de.us/es/jmitchel/