ISTE in Action
HP's Innovations in Education grant program
By Diana Fingal
It was a whirlwind trip. A handful of ISTE representatives traveled to Texas, Australia, Singapore, India, and Mexico in August to provide professional development to the winning schools of the 2009 HP Innovations in Education grants. At each stop along the way, they met with teams of educators and local mentors to offer tailored professional development in line with local education needs. The focus was on systemic leadership involving technical support within the school and on inquiry- and project-based learning.
ISTE representatives, including Senior Director of Education Leadership Jayne James, CEO Don Knezek, Director of Professional Development Services Mark Andrews, and Project Manager Linda Keller, took along Flip video cameras. They've posted some inspiring interviews on the ISTE Connects blog at www.isteconnects.org.
Although the trip has ended for ISTE staff members, the learning is just beginning for the educators and students in the 33 schools in North America and 29 schools on other continents that won the yearlong grants.
ISTE staff members continue to work with program managers Hilary LaMonte and Yolanda Ramos, who are helping mentors assist the grantees on their projects. Using ISTE’s online learning management system, the mentors will offer guidance and feedback to each school.
The projects vary from school to school. In Monroe County, Florida, students are using their new technology and skills to create a biodiesel project. They will be doing hands-on activities and inquiry-based science experiments. Their goal is to get a school bus in the Florida Keys running on biodiesel.
In India, Rudy Wuthrich is a mentor who is working with four very different schools. "There is one school in Calcutta where they want to integrate technology as a research tool into the classroom," he says. "Another school in Tamil Nadu has never had any computers, and the goal is to expose teachers and students to this new environment. I hope the students will recognize that the HP PC is a tool to connect to the world."
At the Heritage School in Kolkata, India, educators will use the grant money in part to set up virtual lab stations to conduct experiments that cannot be performed in the school’s lab.
"Rather than studying anatomy by cutting up corpses of animals, students would be able to use virtual reality programs for effective learning," Principal Seema Sapru wrote in the grant proposal.
"The entire face of classroom teaching will undergo a change," she wrote. "The teacher will no longer serve as a disseminator of information via lectures and textbooks. Rather, the teacher will adopt the roles of facilitator, tutor, and learner. Similarly, the student will abandon the role of solitary memorizer of facts and principles for the roles of researcher, problem solver, and strategist."
Meanwhile, mentor Mike Silverton is working with four schools in Canada. "Although each is a little different, the overarching idea is involving students in inquiry-based activities, providing real-world focus to develop 21st-century skills and attitudes in math and science."
All the projects are exciting to Jim Vanides of HP. "It's all about reimagining the classroom, giving students new kinds of learning experiences that they couldn't have before without the technology, and without the best pedagogy that’s out there," he says. "And then the magic happens."
Copyright © 2009, ISTE (International Society for Technology in Education), 1.800.336.5191 (U.S. & Canada) or 1.541.302.3777 (Int'l), iste@iste.org, www.iste.org. All rights reserved.
Learning & Leading with Technology | November 2009
|
