The Director\’s Corner

On Friday night, April 20, 2007 the Lower Hudson Regional Information Center (LHRIC) presented the Distinguished Technology Leader Award for a teacher. After reviewing many applications for this prestigious award, the LHRIC stated that they chose to honor Tom, “as a leader who has been extremely successful at finding ways to use technology to improve education for students, teachers, and district staff. The many initiatives he has implemented have always kept the needs of learners as the highest priority.” That phrase sums up the “Tom Mormile Experience” from which so many of our students have benefited. The latest work by students in Mr. Mormile’s class can be viewed at www.sleepyhollowhits.com. Congratulations to Mr. Mormile and the students he serves!

This past week there were two internet safety presentations for parents in our community. I was a speaker at one, and a guest at another. I will create a page on this blog that will provide resources for parents, as there were many requests for specific steps that parents can take. Things have changed quite a bit in the last ten years, but a good dose of common sense and learning about internet safety goes a long way toward minimizing many of the online risks that our children may encounter.

What hasn’t changed is that parents, teachers, social workers, camp directors, and anyone else who works with children must be aware of the risks and benefits related to adolescents using the internet. On my “Internet Safety Page” I will include a number of common sense guidelines for parents, but it’s important to realize that these guidelines provide, at best, a safety net for our children. Educating them on the importance of keeping private information private, proper ways in which to interact online, and the value of creating an appropriate online persona is essential. Equally important is that our children understand that there is no privacy online, and that what is posted to the internet may remain there indefinitely.

The common guideline of keeping any computer(s) with internet access in a public part of your home still applies, but it’s important to remember that things have changed, and the computer is not the only way in which our children access the internet. There are many other ways they access the internet daily, including using their cellphone, ipod, Nintendo Gameboy, X-Box 360, and more. In fact, if there’s any doubt as to how interactive these new devices are, I suggest reading Microsoft’s account of a blossoming love between online gamers , including this excerpt which Microsoft has posted to its website:

“She just wouldn’t stop shooting me—even when she was on my team.” Jim had Nicky laughing so hard that she says her cheeks hurt. Jim made his move and called her into a private room to tell her what a good time he had in the game. …“When I got on XboxLive, I certainly wasn’t looking to hook up, much less meet the love of my life,” she says.

Our children are frequently interacting in a global community, and will need to do so to succeed in the future. The ease and frequency with which this is taking place demands that we, as adults, are familiar with the associated risks and responsibilities and that we work with our children to ensure the experiences are safe and productive.

It’s more important than ever that the technologies we embrace for our schools are ones which will address a need, simplify a process, or allow us to do things we might otherwise be unable to do. Recently, John Calvert, our district’s K-3 Technology Integration Specialist, has used Web 2.0 technology to create a new breed of tools for our elementary school teachers to use. In doing so, he has achieved all three of the criteria I’ve mentioned above. (Not familiar with Web 2.0? Click here for a detailed explanation).

The first example is an interactive map created by Mr. Calvert for our second grade students and teachers. If you click here and run the Flash program he has created, you will quickly see the power of the application. My favorite part of the program is accessed by using the Panorama check box, then selecting one of the thumbnails for the map. Try it! What you will see is incredible, but it’s even more powerful when our teachers use this on a full size SMART Board,  bringing the entire geography unit to a new level, with students engaged in ways that were previously unimaginable. Breathtaking! Of course, the second grade team is fortunate to have on-site professional development available, and by explaining and modeling how the tool can be fully embedded with this core area of study, the results are synergistic for the students we serve.

The second purposeful infusion of Web 2.0 tools is the use of social bookmarking to create a channel for providing elementary school teachers with “real time” quality links to use with their math instruction. As collaborators on the new elementary math curriculum implementation, our specialists were able to develop a tool that addresses a need presented by teachers using the SMART Boards and the Growing With Math program. This social bookmarking tool allows teachers to have access to a searchable database of links that are included in the curriculum map and/or used successfully by other teachers in the district.

The power of this is greater than it appears on the surface; when a link is added to our Atlas curriculum map, it is instantly made available to every teacher. The task of making the links available in a number of forums is automated, teachers are within a click of the latest resources, and the consistency of the district’s math curriculum is enhance by blending the curriculum map with daily instructional practices.

There are other ways that Web 2.0 can add to our district’s mission.  The ability to share information in so many ways and to add information effortlessly holds great potential for us.   We will continue to explore those that help address a need, simplify a process, or allow us to do things we might otherwise be unable to do.