Improving Student Academic Achievement With Technology 21 st Century Skills for Bloomfield CREC February 12, 2009 Dr. Gail Deutsch

Steps to Creating 21 st Century AEs

Bloomfield’s technology leaders had created Technology Skills Benchmarks for Grades K-8. Administrators mandated that each teacher teach at least 1 benchmark project each year. There was 100% compliance.

Creativity and Innovation Communication and Collaboration Research and Information Fluency Critical Thinking, Problem Solving, and Decision Making Digital Citizenship Technology Operations and Concepts The International Society for Technology Education (ISTE’s) Educational Technology Standards for Students advised that we, “Prepare teachers to infuse 21 st century technology skills in their teaching and the students’ learning.”

UNESCO ICT Competency Standards for Teachers increase the technological uptake of the workforce by incorporating technology skills in the curriculum — or the technology literacy approach; increase the ability of the workforce to use knowledge to add value to economic output by applying it to solve complex, real-world problems — or the knowledge deepening approach. increase the ability of the workforce to innovate and produce new knowledge and of citizens to benefit from this new knowledge — or the knowledge creation approach.

Those first steps… 1.Explain ISTE’s and Unesco’s directives to all teachers by . 2.Explain grant opportunity by . 3.Invite interested teachers to participate in grant design. 4.Ask volunteers to design a project that would meet the 21 st century criteria. 5.(At this point, you have your core of dedicated technology users who are hooked on wanting the technology to do what they dream of. THEY ARE NOW STAKEHOLDERS).

Next Steps They may not have felt they had the ability to contribute, but (according to the grant application) they were important contributors. In fact, they were very valuable support throughout the project. Invite Special Ed, Library Media and Coaches A short, after-school meeting got the teachers to think like a grant-writing team and to flesh out the 21 st century concepts and the AE requirements. Meet to share AE format Via , each participating teacher sent his/her AE drafts to me. I made some suggestions, but mostly, the AE were done by the teachers who had a vested interest in including 21 st century technology in their teaching. Collect and revise drafts

Brief Summaries of our AEs Assured Experiences That Ensure Differentiated Instruction Based on Curriculum Guidelines 1.Time Management -Data (research, collection and analysis), relating to Bloomfield’s 4 th grade mathematics curriculum topics of time, estimation and measurement, and ISTE’s student and UNESCO teacher technology standards. Students will create individual schedules of their time, using their knowledge of time increments, elapsed time, spreadsheets and graphing. 2.Oral storytelling and drama through podcasts, relating to Bloomfield’s 7 th grade language arts curriculum topics of reading and responding; & exploring and responding to literature; and applying English language conventions, and ISTE’s student and UNESCO teacher technology standards. Students will create, evaluate and publish original podcast stories. 3.Scientific inquiry projects involving exploration of the solar system for Bloomfield’s spiraling 5 th and 8 th grade science curriculum topics using the internet, probes, mechanical and digital planetariums, and ISTE’s student and UNESCO teacher technology standards.

Summer Major Results We met in the summer to work on grant First we created The MATRIX (Modern Academic Technology – Real World Xperiences), which is guiding our technology plan. Then we all played with the new technology. Working as an interdisciplinary, intergrade team improved everyone’s take on 21 st century skills. Lastly, we fleshed out the AEs

So Far… 1.We piloted the AEs with the students. 2.Each AE was evaluated and refined. 3.The participating teachers shared experiences with others in their schools. 4.During PD days, 21 st Century Skills were presented. 5.We have plans to visit and be visited by Mansfield, to share. 6.We have plans to provide extensive PD next summer.

Finally 21 st Century Technology Skills are now driving instruction in Bloomfield.

Hardware and software Trained teachers Open access to information Opportunity to explore Students who are prepared for the 21 st century