Wrightson,+Jacquelyn-Midterm

Jacquelyn Wrightson EDC 922: Ebooks and Digital content Midterm Assignment

I created this Prezi to show to our school administration. I’ve included the presentation notes and points that I will be discussing while viewing the Prezi below. I’d appreciate any feedback!

Link to Prezi: @http://prezi.com/26qkllk4zq5a/present/?auth_key=1qjtr63&follow=jwrightson@sachem.edu

media type="custom" key="10074361"

Presentation Notes:

Our curriculum councils are currently working to align curriculum vertically and horizontally across the district taking into account: New Common Core Standards School and grade level preferences In-district and statewide assessments All while maintaining the effective management of limited resources

Unfortunately, arranging meeting times is difficult especially with the school year in full swing. Our high school teachers start and end before our elementary teachers, with middle school falling in the middle. The distance between the schools also creates a time crunch. How can we balance the needs of various grade levels with our limited resources to best benefit students? Limiting participation to only those who can find coverage greatly restricts our ability to effectively align our curriculum. So what’s next in our search for balance? Wikis! Due to the size of the district and the difficulty in arranging meeting times that address the needs of primary and secondary school participants, I believe a wiki would facilitate communication both within and between the discrete councils. Wikis are websites that allow multiple participants to easily organize, edit, revise and otherwise collaborate on projects. It’s all part of the create – collaborate – revise cycle. All revisions can be tracked and it allows participants to continue to collaborate between meetings. Participants can also view the work of others, so a middle school ELA department can view the middle school Social Studies curriculum, as well as the high school curriculum to collaborate to ensure horizontal and vertical alignment of the curriculum. This ensures that we will not lose sight of the “big picture” when aligning assessments, book selections and other aspects of the curriculum. What exactly is a wiki? This brief video from Common Craft provides a great explanation.

Wikispaces provides free, web based wiki software for educators. It is easy to use, minimizing our need for extensive faculty training. Our initial meetings of the year could incorporate training in Wikispaces, with supplemental materials hosted on the wiki to provide additional support after the meetings. Faculty who can attend can also serve as turnkey facilitators for those who need additional help, with the further support of our staff developers. At the moment, wikis are blocked in our school because they are considered “social networking,” so we would have to add our specific wiki to the list of allowed sites to enable teachers to participate during professional development periods. We can also limit those who can view or edit the wiki to members of the curriculum councils, department chairs, principals and other administrators.

With this technology I believe we can truly maximize all of our potential participants to create a horizontally and vertically aligned curriculum.

I have included a list of institutions, both K-12 and higher education, that are using wikis as a means to collaborate on curriculum:

Examples of Wikis in action:

University of Massachusetts Boston []

Brush Public Schools []

Western New York Deep Alignment Wikispace http://wnydca.wikispaces.com/

Articles on using wikis as collaborative spaces:

Farkas, Meredith. " Wiki White Paper ." TechEssence. 8 April 2006. Web. 8 July 2011. < [] >

This site summarizes what wikis are and how they are typically used in various environments. Also includes a list of wiki examples.

Goodnoe, Ezra. “Wikis Make Collaboration Easier.” //Information Week// 29 Aug 2005. Web. 7 July 2011. <[]>

Although this article focuses more on business than education, it demonstrates the ease of use of wikis in collaborative environments.

Nielsen, Lisa. “Eight Ways to Use School Wikis.” Tech & Learning. 21 July 2009. Web. 15 July 2011. <[]>

Lisa Nielsen lists practical uses of wikis taken from actual wikis in use in New York City schools.