Columbus North Solar Car Team Live from Australia

On October 27 1999, an anxious group of parents, students, teachers, and community members at Columbus North and East High School awaited the live satellite connection with Australia. Another anxious group of students and teachers waited to deliver their program back home from Adelaide Australia. The students in Australia were from the Columbus North High School Solar Car team. When the connection was made the Columbus North High School group laughed and applauded upon seeing loved ones half a world away.

The students presented their roles on the Solar Car team and fielded questions by telephone from eight different sites around Indiana. C-4 teachers Ron Novak and Malcolm Stalcup facilitated the program. The Columbus North team were the Solar Car High School National Champions.

There will be three following programs detailing their race in Australia: the physics of solar car racing, how to work with corporate sponsors, and mentorships. They will be targeting the schools that participate in the satellite programs. Details are available upon request. There will be an update in the next newsletter.

 DIAL Hosts VIESN Workshop

VIESN (Virtual Indiana Elementary School Network) is a group of elementary teachers who have received a CEC content provider grant. As they enter their second year, these schools participated in a workshop provided by the DIAL Consortium. The participants came from various VIESN schools including Indian Creek, Eastern Greene, Northwestern, Gosport, Eastern Hancock, Southern Wells, and Fishback Creek. Pam Todd, principal of Gosport Elementary School, was elected director of this group. The VIESN group was given the content provider grant to develop programs specifically for other elementary schools around the state. This is important because of the recent number of elementary schools that have joined the network.  

The purpose of the workshop was to help teachers with strategies for designing lessons to be accessed by other schools. The various sections of the workshop consisted of design strategies, project models, technical training, and strategic planning. During the design strategies and project models, teachers were shown several examples of how to increase interactivity during distance learning connections. During the technical training, the teachers were given demonstrations of Hello Next Caller and a Dynamic Quad. The workshop calumniated with a strategic planning session between partner schools. The VIESN schools have partnered with various other schools in order to do other point-to-point connections. For example, Eastern Greene is partnered with Eastern Hancock and Gosport is also partnered with Eagle Creek.  These schools have done several classroom-to-classroom connections. In the next newsletter we will detail some of the resulting projects from that workshop.

 Edgewood Early Childhood Center hosts Edgewood Middle School for Distance Learning Event

On November 8th 1999, Edgewood Early Childhood Center hosted half of the Edgewood Middle School students for a distance learning event titled Chemistry is a Blast. The program featured a demonstration by two Eli Lilly scientists to show how scientists make determinations about theories. This is an annual event provided by the Children's Museum of Indianapolis and after having seen the program; I would highly recommend it.

Even though there were over 100 students in attendance, many of the students were able to ask questions directly of the scientists.  Not all distance learning events would work in this format, but this particular demonstration and interactive sessions were very well conducted.  

The Edgewood Early Childhood Center has also had events for their pre-school students. They are able to have large numbers in their big demonstration room using the Smithville Telephone portable distance learning unit. They have hosted various events including connections with Gosport Elementary pre-school program, the Children's Museum of Indianapolis, and the Indianapolis Zoo for their Reindeer Program.

Owen Valley Completes Water Theme Project

Tim Soliday and Fred Waldon, elementary teachers from Spencer Elementary, have completed their Water Theme Project collaboration with Scottsburg Elementary in New Albany. On November 8th, 1999 they had their final connection with author Ben Mikaelsen, located in Montana, talking about his book Stranded. This book was the basis for their thematic unit on water. Ben did 8 connections last year for Owen Valley Middle School and is an outstanding author in residence. Other connections featured classroom connections between Scottsburg and Spencer using the Aquatic Research Institute in East Chicago and the Mote Research Laboratory in Florida. The students learned about freshwater animals from the Aquatic Research Institute and saltwater mammals from the Mote Research Laboratory.

Their documentation includes videotapes of all events, extensive student evaluation forms, a summative paper about the project, images burned on CD ROMS, and various newspaper articles. They also participated in the VIESN workshop by video connection. They discussed their project design as a model and also the successes and difficulties that they encountered along the way. In April, this project and the Ben Mikaelsen connections from last year will be featured at the National Reading Association conference in New York.

Harmony experiences cultural diversity through Distance Learning

The fifth and sixth grade class at Harmony School is conducting two projects simultaneously. One project is with a school in Hawaii and the other is with a school in East Chicago. Both features students exchanging work and collaborating offline as well as making distance learning connections.  

With the Hawaiian class, the students are discussing various scientific topics such as geological history, weather, and culture of both areas. With the Carrie Gosch students from East Chicago, they are sharing literature and having discussions both on and offline. In between distance learning connections, they are sharing their work by email, mail, and on the web.  

In January there will be several connections between Harmony and Carrie Gosch with small literature groups discussing various books. This project is designed to maximize the cultural impact that students can experience when talking with another population. Carrie Gosch, which is primarily African American, is far different than Harmony's make-up. The students in Hawaii are primarily local Hawaiian and Asian population.

The next connection with Hawaii is scheduled for February 18th, 2000 and the director of Harmony school will be attending that event in Hawaii. In February there will be a connection between Harmony and Hawaii talking about the two cultures. The next connection with Carrie Gosch will be on January 24th, 2000. They will be discussing literature in a series of small group discussions.

These spotlight sessions from ICE 2000 Conference are available through the Vision Athena network. If you are interested in receiving these programs at your school you may do so FREE (no line charges or program fees). Register by sending an email or scheduling request to Amy or I. We ask that you have you have at least three people in attendance to be interactive. Please contact us soon so that we may reserve your spot for this unique opportunity. See the following page for program descriptions.

Virtual ICE Friday January 21st, 2000

Willard R. Daggett, Ed.D.
The State of American Education 1:30-2:15 p.m.
The gap that exists between the education young people need in our technological, information-based society and what they are learning in school is greater today than any time in our history. Using research from the recently completed 12th grade TIMSS study as well as the International Center's research, Dr. Daggett will explore how well American students measure up in math, science, and language arts in comparison to students in other nations. He will also describe how American schools are at a disadvantage in such comparisons due to our unique dual commitment to excellence and equity, which is also our strength as a nation.

Bernie Dodge
Designing the Right Tasks for a WebQuest 10:00-10:45 a.m.
The task you ask students to accomplish is the single most critical aspect of a WebQuest. Learn about the WebQuest Taxonomy and see how to design tasks that make the most of the format by engaging higher order thinking skills.

Scaffolding for Success 1:30-2:15 p.m.
We can ask students to stretch their capabilities in a WebQuest (and in any lesson) as long as we take the time to give them step ladders for each important skill. This session will cover templates, online dictionaries, visual organizers, sourdough starters and other techniques for helping every child reach high.

Glenn Kleiman
Lessons from the Leadership and the New Technologies project  11:00-11:45 a.m.
The Leadership and the New Technologies project involves educational leaders from throughout the U.S. in Institutes at Harvard, online workshops, and other activities focused on how education can best serve students in the information age and how technology can best serve education.  In this presentation, I will share some of the major lessons we have learned in the first three years of this project.

Online Professional Development: The Hope, the Hype, and the Reality 2:30-3:15 p.m.
What role can online learning play in professional development for teachers? How does it work? What are the characteristics of effective online professional development (OPD) activities?  What is involved in incorporating OPD into your district programs? In this session, we will visit some example OPD workshops and consider all of these questions.

Alan November
Creating a New Culture of Teaching and Learning  10:00-10:45 a.m.
If educators are expected to make the best of use of emerging technologies, then we need to create a new culture of teaching and learning, including collegiality, new relationships with family and community, leadership and decision-making, students who are much more self-directed and interdependent, and new models of curriculum and assessment and our concept of time.

Beyond Accessing the Internet: Critical Thinking & Information Literacy 1:30-2:15 p.m.
It's likely that you can use the Internet to support any point of view. This can be a very dangerous thing for students. It is essential that we teach students the skills of validating information that they find on the Internet. Students also need to learn to construct and deconstruct information sources.
 


Bernajean Porter
Wagons East: Moving the Whole System into New Territory 11:00-11:15 a.m.
"The good news: innovative practices are becoming visible. Even better news: parents and teachers want these practices to be the NORM not the exception. " Porter
Not everyone wants or loves to hit the rugged trail into unfamiliar territory. What convinces people to leave home? How can wagon masters find even more success? What preparation and support systems are needed to keep people headed west to build new communities of learning? How do you develop implementation strategies for both the "trailblazers" AND the "settlers" within the school and community? Because when the going gets tough, many people want to head back east. Development of successful staff development strategies and the use of data collection to chart the territory will be the primary focus.

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