Workshops introduce the Internet and Web authoring tool
by Georgia Tucker
Helping teachers use technology to meet their education goals is a top priority for the Regional Alliance. This spring we are offering two workshops for teachers. The first workshop introduces Alliance School teachers to the Internet and the World Wide Web. The second workshop helps Alliance Schools build their own Web sites using a customized tool developed at TERC.
Using the Web in Your Classroom
In collaboration with the Wright Center for Innovative Science Education at Tufts University, and NetTech, the Alliance is sponsoring Using the Web in your Classroom workshops. This six-hour course is designed to provide Web novices with enough knowledge to begin using the instructional capabilities of the Web. A significant portion of the day is devoted to developing classroom activities using the Web, and participants will leave the workshop with a start to their first curriculum Web project. Participants also receive an Internet tutorial disk called Winding Your Way Through the World Wide Web developed by Scott Battaion at the Wright Center. The tutorial identifies the valuable links between the World Wide Web and reform efforts like implementing standards, building critical thinking skills, and developing more meaningful assessments. It is available online from the Regional Alliance Hub - http://ra.terc.edu/. A limited number of disk versions of the tutorial are available from the Regional Alliance. Contact Molly Singsen at TERC for more information. Molly_Singsen@TERC.edu
School Space
The Regional Alliance offers its schools an easy way to create their own Web sites using School Space, which is a Web publishing tool and also a Web area on the Regional Alliance Hub. School Space allows Alliance Schools to create and edit their own school Web pages without having to learn HTML - the language Web browsers interpret to display pages.
School Space is a form-based system. Teachers and students fill out forms online and School Space uses that information to generate Web pages. With the tool each Alliance School can create a home page that contains contact information about their school and then create and link additional pages.
According to Alliance outreach coordinator Molly Singsen, "A Web presence is another way to put a face on each one of the schools that are involved in the Alliance partnership. It can help foster a com-munity of teachers, parents, administrators and students that are committed to improving education. Our hope is that schools will publish student work, original curriculum, projects, and reform action plans and that this will provide additional opportunities for collaboration among the Alliance Schools."
Melissa Wahl, the School Space developer, introduced the tool to Alliance teachers last May and at the 1996 Alliance Schools Summer Institute. After incorporating the teachersÕ feedback, School Space was ready for its working debut this past fall.
We have held three workshops in the last two months for Alliance School teachers; five more workshops are scheduled before the end of the school year.
Trying it out
Eight Alliance Schools have already begun experimenting with the tool and have Web sites up on the Hub. In addition to contact information, these schools have started to post news about their reform efforts.
At the Charles Emanuel School on St. Croix, Virgin Islands, the MST resource teacher Joan Keenan uses the site to report on the new technology lab created and supported with Alliance funds.
"SMILE is the acronym that our Alliance Team has chosen for our math, science, technology classroom (Science Math Integrated Learning Experience). The SMILE Lab is a colorful, attractive room, thanks to team members, parents and students who came out one Saturday morning to paint the classroom in bright colors with paint donated by a local business. Much of the school year has been spent in preparing and securing the room, gathering materials... meeting and planning with teachers... A dedicated phone line was hooked up to the classroom and a modem... has allowed us to connect to the Internet. ...Teachers and students have been enthusiastic participants. Two lunch time computer clubs for fifth- and sixth-graders have spontaneously sprung up, with the only complaint, 'Not enough computers!!' So, we are in the process of planning how to acquire more computers with the hope of dedicating another classroom to be a computer lab next school year."
The Stevens High School in New Hampshire uses its Web site to promote a districtwide computer users group called the Claremont Educators Users Group. Formed in 1995 to work with the Claremont school system in the area of technology, the group focuses on a range of topics including computer training and new software trends. A meeting schedule, as well as the groupÕs agenda for the month, is posted on the site. Another Alliance School in New Hampshire, The Lin-Wood Public School, has a Web site that describes the weekly MST activity carried out by participating sixth-graders and publishes student council and sports news.
Amesbury Middle School in Massachusetts reports in their site about new school construction, an updated school calendar, a School Reference Handbook, and information about parent involvement in MST reforms.
"The focus of the Math Science Technology reform... has been communication with the community. We have begun a series of coordinated family Math Science Technology nights and have trained the staff in state reform technologies."
Visit the Regional Alliance Hub - http://ra.terc.edu/ to learn more about School Space.