South Central
Indiana DIAL Consortium
201 N. rose Avenue Room 2126 Bloomington, IN 47405
Phone: 812-856-8233 / Fax: 812-856-8232
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South Central
Indiana DIAL Consortium |
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October 2000. Issue 4,
by Dave Bartlett
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Content Impact Article Teacher Grant Updates |
Special points of interest: |
| Impact Article: |
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A question and answer session concluded each connection. Questions asked by the Van Wert group provided evidence that the session had accomplished its goals. It was also evident that the group greatly appreciated the classroom experience Denise and Cindy brought to the workshop. |
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Columbus North High School is one of the most active schools on the Vision Athena Network. They utilize a variety of applications such as regular business classes between schools and project work. Last year's project featured Columbus North's Solar Car Team and this year features a Robotics class between Columbus North students and Indiana University. The science department is actively involved with the Aquatic Research Institute on projects. Columbus is also involved in the Baldridge initiative around the state. They will be both a receive and transmission site on Baldridge training this year. In addition, many teachers take graduate level classes after school from Indiana University. Look for updates in the DIAL Consortium newsletter on the status of these projects. Gosport Elementary School Gosport Elementary school has facilitated many collaborative connections with several of the VIESN schools. Pam Todd, principal of Gosport Elementary, is the leader of the VIESN project. As the VIESN project enters its third year, Gosport Elementary continues to serve as a planning center for the group. Harmony School Harmony School featured two exemplary collaborative projects last year. A Tale of Two States was conducted with Harmony and an elementary class in Hawaii. Sharing Perspectives was a collaboration between Harmony School elementary and Carrie Gosch elementary in East Chicago, Indiana. Both of these projects demonstrated cultural collaborations that were enhanced through the use of distance learning. Other applications featured connections in support of Harmony's Outreach work with schools around the country including Vermont and Hawaii. This year will support Harmony's work with the National School Reform Faculty formerly housed at Annenberg Institute. Flat Rock-Hawcreek School Corporation (Hauser High School) Flat Rock-Hawcreek is a consolidated school district located in Hope, Indiana. They are one of the newest members of the DIAL Consortium and look to participate in the C-4 vocational program with the Columbus East and Columbus North High Schools. Flat Rock-Hawcreek schools plan to use a variety of applications with all of their schools since they are all located closely together. Installation date projected to be early October of 2000. Hauser High School also participated in the Planning and Implementation workshop conducted by the DIAL Consortium on June 15, 2000. The results of that planning should show in their usage as they adopt and implement their plans for distance planning. McCormick's Creek Elementary McCormick's Creek Elementary school is one of the new schools on the network this year. Their initial project will feature two teachers, Tim Soliday and Fred Walden, who worked on the Stranded... but Soaring project last year. This years project, Testing the Waters, involves studying pollution within their region and accessing resources from Ohio, California, Florida and Oregon. This is a technology-focus school and looks to be one of the new excellent members of the DIAL Consortium. Owen Valley Middle School Owen Valley Middle School has been a very active school. Some of their projects last year featured hosting the elementary project Stranded... but Soaring Beyond. Teachers take graduate level classes after school and feature connections in almost all departments at the middle school. Media Specialist, Myrna Fields, has participated in many workshops in support of DIAL Consortium's workshop on curriculum development and project management. She also has served as grant writing consultant at the school and has participated in many innovative projects. Her involvement with Ben Mikaelsen and other authors has created a lot of interest. Other schools interested in innovative language art programs should seek out Owen Valley Middle School. South Elementary School South Elementary School, located in Martinsville Indiana, is another of the new members of the DIAL Consortium. They look to be active participants of the network and have already shown interest in activities such as the JASON project, author connections, and a wide variety of applications. Lou Feagans, principal of South Elementary, postponed his retirement in order to participate with distance learning this year. That example speaks for itself. University Elementary School Last year, University Elementary School was a new member of the DIAL Consortium. They revisited distance learning after the initial pilot project in Bloomington in 1995. They participated in a wide variety of sessions including University of Southern Indiana, the Children's Museum of Indianapolis, the Aquatic Research Institute, the Indianapolis Zoo, and others. They also hosted the Keiko Kasza author connection last year which was one of the largest programs in the state. Keiko, one of the parents at University Elementary, volunteered to present in honor of the school. |
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The Story of the Stone is a project involving fourth grade
students in Beth Piekarsky's class at University Elementary. The project
is designed to explore the effect of limestone on Indiana history. The
students will be documenting field trips and distance learning connections
with people within the local region and developing a program to be delivered
to other fourth grade classrooms around the state. Mission to Mars Robotics class The Mission to Mars Robotics class will be a collaboration between Indiana University computer science students and high school seniors at Columbus North High School. At Columbus North it will be part of a mathematics programming class offered every year. The I.U. students will be enrolled in A290 Introduction to LEGO Robotics. Graduate student Matt Jadud of the Computer Science Department teaches the I.U. class. The mission of the students will be to construct robots that will assemble a simulated Mars colony using LEGO robotics kits. This will be in conjunction with advice from Aeronautics Engineers; people at NASA who are familiar with robotics construction. Through use of video conferencing and the web the students will collaborate on the designs of these robots and program them so that they can operate remotely. Some of the robots will be given robotics commands from a remote site. For instance, they robots at I.U. could be controlled at Columbus North and vise versa. We hope to see this project documented in the I.U. basketball half time show this year. Updates are available upon request. This project grew out of the Stranded... but Soaring
Beyond project from last year. This once again is a collaboration
between teachers Tim Soliday and Fred Walden with the aid of Myrna Fields.
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To schedule a distance learning event fill out the scheduling
request form on page 188 of the Vision Athena Catalog or on
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Denise and Cindy directed the Van Wert group through the steps to complete
an Affinity Grouping, a commonly used continuous improvement tool. Using
a PowerPoint presentation, the Columbus North teachers presented how they
have been able to more fully engage students in their own learning through
the use of continuous improvement tools. The Ohio group also heard first
hand what students really think about the new approach to teaching and
learning that the Baldridge model brings to the classroom.
This
project focuses primarily on water quality and environmental issues. Distance
learning connections include the Ocean Institute in California, Mote Marine
Research Laboratory in Sarasota Florida, The Wilds Environmental Education
in Ohio, the Aquatic Research Institute from their site in East Chicago
at the water treatment plant, and with an author in Oregon who helped
on the Exxon Valdez clean up years ago.