[ TLC Technology Team Update ||
Power of Publishing ]
[ NovaNET || Weaving a Wisconsin Tapestry ]
[ ThinkQuest Workshop || Web Design and Development ]
Pairs of students and teachers attended a week end training session to learn the operation of an exciting new type of software called "Creator". This authoring program allows the user to create animations and simulations for a great variety of situations or purposes. Look for examples of student/teacher creations by March.
A team of technology leaders will
be meeting seven times throughout the 1998/99 school year. The TLC (Teaching
and Learning With Computers) Technology Team consists of a REACH technology
teacher and or building technology representative from each elementary school.
Two members of the Instructional Technologies Department will be available
to offer support, 
provide staff
development, develop resources that can be shared with the school staff,
and develop ways to communicate to a larger community how technology impacts
on student learning. Thank you to this talented team of technology leaders.
The dedication and commitment to quality education really does make a
difference.
The Instructional Technologies Department received a DPI-TLCF (Technology
Literacy Challenge Fund) Grant designed to integrate technology and process
writing. Six schools are involved in
this grant: Allis, Falk, Marquette, Mendota, Randal and Sandburg. The
participating teachers and principals attended a week long summer institute
in August and will also be a part of a distance learning initiative throughout
the 1998/99 school year. Each participating teacher/principal (up to five
per school) received a computer for the purpose of publishing with their
students. One colored printer, cartridges and other necessary materials were
also provided. Throughout the year, emphasis will be placed on the 6 Trait
Analytical Model for Teaching and Assessing Student Writing and the use of
technology to publish quality work. The student product will ultimately be
shared with a larger audience. This is an exciting opportunity for MMSD
students.
Eight Madison School District sites,
with alternative programs, are participating in the NovaNet Grant, which
is funded by WATF. NovaNET is a computer-based, interactive, self-paced,
online learning system that integrates the power of individualized instruction
with the flexibility of online delivery. NovaNET is directed toward diverse
instructional settings and has proven results of success.
A first training session for
MMSD involved staff took place on August 18th and 19th. They became familiar
with the NovaNET curriculum, student management of the programs and the
possibilities for communications. Another staff training took place on October
17.
![[Weaving a Wisconsin Tapestry]](tapestry-small.gif){kind=small}
As the Sesquicentennial year winds down, we are making plans to keep "Weaving a Wisconsin Tapestry" (WWT) an active legacy far beyond 1998.
Recently, we have been working with the Office of School Services(OSS) at the State Historical Society of Wisconsin, to devise a way to move WWT to the new website the OSS is currently creating. Encouraging student-driven historical research is part of the OSS mission, and the new website seems a logical home for WWT. We are anticipating an ever-expanding number of participant classrooms.
Three Memorial High School students recently became award winners in the
International ThinkQuest Contest. ThinkQuest Contest invites students to
create educational resources for the World Wide Web and gives out a total
of one million dollars in college scholarships to the winners. Students are
encouraged to form teams with students from other countries and to work online.
Those teams that are selected as finalists, are brought together for the
final judging. In many cases, team members are meeting each other for the
first time. This year, the finalists came to Los Angeles, California from
64 different countries.
In January, a 2nd annual ThinkQuest Workshop will be held for interested
people. ThinkQuest now has a contest, "ThinkQuest Junior" for younger students
and also a contest for Teachers. Flyers will be distributed to the school
reporting on the specifics of the workshop. Interested persons may contact
Barb Spitz, in Instructional Technologies, for more information.
The Web Design and Development Course has become very popular. Teachers are eager to learn how to design and develop meaningful Web sites that they can integrate into the curriculum.
The purpose of the course is to develop skills that will enable publishers to author, edit, debug, evaluate and publish home pages on the MMSD web server. Participants need to demonstrate accomplishment of the course objectives to be approved as publishers.
Some examples of Web sites that participants developed are:
This page is developed by Barb Spitz, bspitz@madison.k12.wi.us, and is maintained by Chris Burch.
Madison Metropolitan School
District
Instructional Technologies
Instructional Technologies: Coordinator, Joan Peebles
jpeebles@madison.k12.wi.us
545 West Dayton Street
Madison, Wisconsin 53703 USA
Last Modified: 1998-12-08