Plan: Closing the Digital Divide

Closing the Digital Divide Plan

Annotation

Context and Conditions

“Closing the Digital Divide” was completed in Fall 2007 as one project in MIT 512: Computer Applications in Education. The project had a 2-week timeline and was completed under the direction of Dr. Sue Jen-Chen. The proposal outlines the technology access divide at district schools and interventions designed to narrow the gap between the “have’s” and “have-not’s.”

Scope

This proposal identifies issues in a school system such as technology integration, professional development, hardware/software procurement and community in Pender County Schools, where I served as the Instructional Technology Coordinator. In the proposal, problems are identified in each category based on a review of extant data and previous needs assessments. Goals and suggested interventions address each problem in a manner that suggests changes to help eliminate the “digital divide” between schools who receive federal funding and those who do not, as well as within communities whose socioeconomic backgrounds differ greatly. This proposal identifies an “action plan” with a general timeline for implementation of interventions and suggests evidence to be collected in order to demonstrate completion of each strategy.

Role

This proposal was completed as a group project with three other graduate students in an online environment. I served as the subject-matter expert and drafted the entire proposal; since the knowledge of public school systems in my group was limited, none of the other team members having ever been employed by a system.

Reflection

This proposal allowed me to use previous needs assessment data and my prior knowledge to construct a performance improvement solution to this problem. In constructing interventions, I was able to demonstrate my understanding of the system, align solutions to problems and suggest realistic interventions for a public school system.

Newsletter: Internet Safety Newsletter

Internet Safety Newsletter

Annotation

Context and Conditions

This project was one of the projects assigned in Fall 2007 for MIT 512: Computer Applications in Education and was supervised by Dr. Sue-Jen Chen. The purpose of this assignment was to design and develop a newsletter for parents informing them of topics and strategies to keep their children safe on the Internet. All writing is original and graphics were found on the Internet and using clipart in Microsoft Publisher.

Scope

This project was developed as an informational newsletter for parents regarding the Internet and their child. The writing was developed collaboratively and we used Microsoft Publisher for the layout and design. Topics were selected by each of the four group members and were submitted for addition into the newsletter. The newsletter was constructed using a customized layout that allowed a number of graphical and textual elements to be included. As the articles were submitted, they were placed into the publication based on their content as well as their ability to fit the designated spaces. Team members had been previously been given a word allotment for their articles and were asked to revise if they did not adhere to this constraint. The publication was converted to PDF and submitted for final approval. It has never been formally used or published.

Role

This was a collaborative project consisting of a four person team. For this project, I served as writer, editor and print designer. As a writer, I constructed my article, carefully adhering to design specifications. As the editor, I reviewed the submitted articles and suggested revisions to other team members. As the print designer, I developed the layout, inserted images and designed the overall look and feel of the publication. I converted and submitted it.

Reflection

After an earlier design that left me with revision ideas, I was happy to see that my skills in print design had improved. The process of editing was rather frustrating due to the number of grammatical errors I received from one of the writers and the lack of attention that was paid to the length of articles. The design of the newsletter was actually quite fun, making it all fit and still looking pleasing to the eye was definitely a challenge. Overall, I was pleased with the outcome.

Unit Plan: The Web-Enhanced Classroom

Link to Course and Design Documents (Located in the "Preface" section of the unit)

Annotation

Context and Conditions

“The Web-Enhanced Classroom” unit plan was completed in Fall 2007 as a self-instructional unit for teacher professional development under the supervision of Dr. Sue Jen-Chen as one requirement for MIT 512: Computer Applications in Education. The purpose of the unit was to assist teachers in enhancing their instruction through the use of web-tools and online learning communities

Scope

The goal of this inquiry-based module is for teachers to explore an online learning community in which they will collaborate and communicate, as well as researching and utilizing web-based applications. For this project, I developed both a website and utilized an online learning community that would be the eventual host of the content. The website allows the unit to be distributed on a variety of platforms and includes design information in the “unit information” and “unit structure” sections. The unit includes the use of reading material, discussion boards and learner activities. It also includes two job aids that assist learners in navigating the learning community and a basic tutorial on constructing their own. I used Captivate to develop these job aids. This unit was designed and developed for the teachers in Pender County Schools, where I served as the Instructional Technology Coordinator, as a professional development unit to be included in the “Future-Ready Students for the 21st Century” initiative – focusing on the use of “21st Century Tools” for delivery and assessment of content.

Role

For this project, I served as instructional designer, developer and subject-matter expert since it was an individual project. I designed the objectives and strategies and developed the course website, Captivate job aids and the Digication online learning community site.

Reflection

I feel that, through this project, I improved my development skills in the areas of web design and multimedia development. I also gained a much better understanding of “inquiry-based learning,” as it required a few revisions to develop a unit in this manner. For this unit, I was able to step out of my comfort zone and develop a unit where learners are free to explore a number of concepts with very little instructor interaction.

Website Evaluation Tools

Teacher Evaluation Tool

Student Evaluation Tool

Annotation

Context and Conditions

This project was completed in Fall 2007 under the guidance of Dr. Sue-Jen Chen in MIT 512: Computer Applications in Education. The purpose of the project was to develop tools for teachers and students to use in evaluating websites to be used for instruction and research.

Scope

For this project, we designed a series of web pages that guide users through the thought process for evaluating the site information, content, instructional value and accessibility of the site. We created two tools, one for teachers and the other for students. Although these tools only qualifies responses and guides users in thinking about a website, we did create a form that quantifies their answers by assigning points to each question and adding them at the end, displaying a recommendation. This form never worked reliably, so I will not include it as an artifact. This tool only guides the user in thinking about the use of a website, leaving the final decision up to the individual based on their own assessment of the responses. We did include criteria for a web site that is appropriate for instructional or research purposes to establish a standard

Role

I worked collaboratively on this project with three other graduate students. Together, we researched guidelines for website selection using a variety of resources including University of California at Berkeley’s Library Internet Workshops website, Cornell University Library website, Kathy Schrock’s Guide for Educators, and Usability.gov. We developed a list of guiding questions, condensed the questions to make the form more likely to be used and designed a web-based form for teachers to use in their evaluations.

Reflection

The development of this project enabled me to look deeper into the processes of website evaluation and provided a resource to use in my own research and instruction. If I were to revise the project, I would further develop the interface, making it more of a quantitative analysis of website evaluation, as we attempted to do in this project.