1. Connecting Teachers, University, and State Department of Education:
The Design and Implementation of a Statewide Open Source Learning/Decision Support Environment

2. The Power of Online Learning: Realizing the Vision
12th Annual Sloan-C International Conference on Asynchronous Learning Networks
The Power of Online Learning: Realizing the Vision
November 9, 2006, Orlando, FL

3. Connecting Teachers, University, and State Department of Education:
The Design and Implementation of a Statewide Open Source Learning/Decision Support Environment
Sam DiGangi, Ph.D.
Assistant Vice President,
University Technology Office,
Associate Professor, College of Education,
President,
Applied Learning Technologies Institute, alt^I
Arizona State University   
Angel Jannasch-Pennell, Ph.D.
Vice President,
Applied Learning Technologies Institute, alt^I
Arizona State University   
Sandra Sutton Andrews, PhD
Researcher,
Applied Learning Technologies Institute, alt^I
Arizona State University

5. IDEAL
IDEAL (Integrated Data Enhancing Arizona's Learning) connects Arizona's 58,000 teachers in an online environment that provides opportunities for interaction, training, help with No Child Left Behind issues, and more.
The ultimate goal of IDEAL is to increase the academic achievement of all Arizona students.
Provide a single location for learners, teachers and parents to access learning resources
Deliver formative assessments to prepare for AIMS
Provide feedback on student’s mastery relative to state standards
Make parental involvement easier and more robust

6. IDEAL Current IDEAL features include:
Professional development resources
The Arizona School Improvement Plan
Item Bank for Formative Assessments
Pre-made Formative Assessments
Resources for teaching, including videos

7. IDEAL Planned IDEAL Features:
Access provided to all K-20 Arizona students
Built in accessibility options
Sophisticated assessment applications
Parent access
Lifelong learning

8. IDEAL
Next Steps: In late 2006-Spring 2007 the first groups of students will be brought into the environment.
Students will have access to:
Online formative assessments created by teacher
Feedback on student’s mastery relative to state standards
A classroom site where homework can be turned in
Collaboration environment

9. IDEAL Student Access Details
Phase one: full access to students in two Arizona districts
Phase two: one million K-12 students
Phase one in Fall, 2006

10. IDEAL Rationale for IDEAL: Technology and NCLB
Opportunities inherent to technology
Linking teachers and schools to resources

11. IDEAL
Advantages of creating our own learning environment rather than outsourcing:
Insider’s look at system details and issues
Ability to leverage a variety of resources
Ability to implement good pedagogy and research
The whole is greater than the sum of its parts

12. IDEAL Advantages of Open Source: Self sustaining (no licensing fees)
Can modify to suit our needs
Large international support community
Developers can add applications or can switch to another open source application at any time

13. IDEAL Nearly 100% of components are Open Source. Among them are:
Drupal
Sakai

14. IDEAL
About Drupal:
Drupal is a highly extensible and modular content management management system.
It provides powerful tools for managing articles, news, blogs, podcasts, images, groups and much more.
More importantly, it provides a powerful framework for managing content, creating community-driven sub-sites and implementing and building custom modules.

15. IDEAL From Sakaiproject.org:
Sakai is an online Collaboration and Learning Environment. Many users of Sakai deploy it to support teaching and learning, ad hoc group collaboration, support for portfolios and research collaboration. Sakai is a free and open source product that is built and maintained by the Sakai community.

18. IDEAL IDEAL specifics:
Formative Assessment Item Bank (adds to Sakai functionality)
Arizona School Improvement Plan
ASSET (professional development & resources for teaching)
Sakai online classrooms

19. IDEAL
What is formative assessment? Assessment for learning that provides:
Insights on students’ strengths and conceptual errors in relationship to specific course concepts
Guidance to improve student understanding
A means of monitoring progress in learning

20. IDEAL What is formative assessment? (continued)
Assessment for learning that provides:
Diagnostic information concerning students’ understanding of concepts
Feedback to the instructor about the effectiveness of instructional activities

21. IDEAL
Within the IDEAL environment, the teacher can work with formative assessments on many levels:
Select from pre-made formative assessments, or create and administer a formative assessment quiz from the item bank, aligned to Arizona standards
Add own items (stored in teacher’s classroom area rather than in the item bank)
Identify areas of concern
Choose videos and other resources for remediation, also aligned to standards
Sophisticated multi-level evaluations of individual items being planned to give teacher precise information on student needs

23. IDEAL Pre-made Quiz

24. IDEAL The Arizona School Improvement Plan (ASIP):
Guides mandated schools through the process of creating an improvement plan
Is available as well to any Arizona school principal

25. IDEAL
The Arizona School Improvement Plan application features dynamically generated displays of relevant school data, e.g.:
Percentage of highly qualified teachers at the school, over several years
Student demographic information
Performance on high stakes tests with school-wide areas of concern easily identifiable

26. IDEAL
The Arizona School Improvement Plan provides highly sophisticated, user friendly features such as:
Ability of principal to provide read-only access to improvement team members
Needs assessment application

27. IDEAL
ASSET provides teachers and schools with a variety of resources, e.g.:
Online professional development courses including those mandated for all teachers
Video and other teaching resources, aligned to Arizona standards
Trilingual math resources in English, Spanish and the Navajo language
Trade book selection application by grade level

28. ASSET Page Sample – Professional Development

29. ASSET Page Sample – Curricular Resources

30. IDEAL
Conception, evolution and current realization, and future of IDEAL:
Stakeholders and funding
Technical specifications
Open ended contract: specific elements (e.g. student access) with room for expansion (e.g. support applications)
Open source basis implies ease of continuation

31. IDEAL Stakeholders: Arizona Department of Education
Arizona State University Applied Learning Technologies Institute (alt^I)
US Department of Education
Arizona Districts
Arizona Principals
Arizona Teachers
Students
Parents

32. IDEAL Stakeholder issues met by: Contract
Frequent meetings on many levels
Tech committee
Data team (ADE, ASSET, alt^I)
Evolution of levels of collaboration, e.g.
Addition of ADE to QA
Revision of IDEAL to offer direct content input to ADE

33. IDEAL Lessons learned: role of helpdesk: Helpdesk data provided to ADE
Helpdesk feedback from teachers and principals provided to developers as well as to ADE
Without a Helpdesk, teachers would be less likely to use IDEAL
Technical support
ADE information provided
Content questions answered

34. IDEAL More lessons learned: Cost: benefits of open source
Universal accessibility, usability easiest if incorporated from the beginning
QA process
Ethics and security
Problem of older data in districts, etc.
Legal issues: older laws did not foresee Statewide learning environments