Overview
The audience for this project is math teachers in DeSoto County Schools (currently focused on middle school). Their proficiency in using technologies varies; but from my observations, there is usually at least one math teacher in each school that has enough technological knowledge to train other math teachers to use it. Our district also has a math specialist that visits the schools that will be able to provide support in getting teachers acquainted with this project.
The objective of this project is to help build a collaborative network among math teachers in DeSoto County Schools (DCS), which is currently the largest district in the state of Mississippi with an enrollment of over 32,000 students. Right now, there is hardly any communication and collaboration between schools (at least on the teacher level). I believe that we can provide an even better education for our students if we put our heads together and share resources that fit our curriculum and the district’s pacing guide. My goal is to create a web site that helps accomplish this task by providing an interactive medium with dynamic content that will encourage teachers to regularly visit the site.
Home Page
I designed the web site prototype from scratch using Dreamweaver’s design view in conjunction with hand coding XHTML and CSS to construct the framework. I created the banner in Photoshop, matching the banner colors with the hexidecimal color codes used in the side bar and in the section headers (which I used cooltext.com to create) of the web site. The side bar on the left provides links to important web sites and the side bar on the right provides dynamic content based on RSS feeds. The first feed is coming from the last ten bookmarks added in the Diigo DCS math teachers group and the second one is coming from a nationwide math teacher’s group. I have already created some predefined tags to make it easier for people to tag pages with Diigo. Finally, I created a widget at widgetbox.com that feeds in a daily humorous quote from brainyquote.com. I added this widget in to balance out the right side bar with the length of the main portion of the page. This widget can easily be replaced later on if a better tool, such as a feed from a discussion board that displays the last three active topics, is created.
The main portion of the page consists of a brief introduction followed by a photo slideshow, which could later be replaced by a video introduction or some other visual medium. The main idea of it is to create a focal point on the page that catches the viewer's interest. I like the current slideshow tool, which I created by editing some AJAX code that I found at Google Code (http://code.google.com/), because the photos are coming in from an RSS feed linked to one of my Picasa (http://picasaweb.google.com) albums. This results in fresh content that is easily updated by multiple users (if I set group permissions on the album).
Another part of the main portion is a resources section which briefly describes and provides links to some of the external sites that I will talk about later in my project description. Finally, the last part is a blog updates section that I created with another widget that generates summaries of my blog posts and places them in a scrollable interface through an RSS feed. I plan to replace my blog feed with a feed from a blog that I will set up for the math specialist.
External Links
Now I will discuss a couple external sites I plan to use. The first one is a Diigo DCS math teachers group (http://groups.diigo.com/group/dcsmath) that, as I mentioned before, is responsible for some of the side bar content. I think this collaboration tool will appeal to users of all levels of technology proficiency. It is easy to learn the basics and with the unobtrusive browser toolbar, it can at the very least be sold to teachers as a bookmarking tool that can be accessed from any computer with Internet access. Once they become acquainted with that, they can then advance to using the group features of Diigo which introduces them to the collaboration I hope to achieve.
The second one is a DCS math teachers wiki (http://dcsmath.pbworks.com/), which will function as the core component for collaboration. I have already created a structure for the wiki, so now I just need to start adding resources. I hope to have a decent selection of resources set up prior to extending an invitation to teachers. Resources would include lesson plans, projects, web sites, worksheets, etc. that are organized by curriculum framework strand (e.g. numbers and operations) and then topic area (fractions). Teachers will be able to edit the wiki and thus share their own content so it definitely is capable of growth. As we approach our 2 GB file storage limit, I can migrate some of the larger files over to my own website or to a file storage web site (4shared.com looks like the best free option available). Editing a wiki, though I consider PBworks to be very easy to use, takes a higher technological skill level than social bookmarking. I see this as a potential impediment to the wiki growing; however, I do have a solution. Our county is planning on having a series of math leaders meetings this year that will host a representative from each school; I see that as a prime opportunity to hold a training session to familiarize these teachers with using this wiki. Those teachers can then assist teachers back at their schools in using the wiki.
Future Additions
Three more components that I would like to add on in the future are a discussion board, a tutorial resource page for students, and a best practices page. The first two are self-explanatory. The best practices page could have links to media providing information about effective instructional techniques. The math specialist could even record videos of teachers within the district implementing these techniques, upload them to YouTube or TeacherTube, and then embed them in the best practices page. Finally, once this site has proven to be successful, a similar one could be launched for language arts, which also has a district specialist.
Justification
Diigo vs. links via email: resource links sent by email frequently either get deleted for mailbox space or get lost in all the other messages since teachers often do not have time to explore new resources. Diigo links are stored in a searchable archive and users have the option to receive notifications of updates (immediately, daily, or weekly). Diigo bookmarking accomplishes the same task as link sharing via email but its informal nature encourages more participation from more teachers. Many teachers are reluctant to send mass emails because they worry that their ideas/resources are not significant enough to warrant informing all of the math teachers about it. Sharing indirectly through Diigo will seem less obtrusive than sharing directly through email. Furthermore, the commenting, highlighting, and snapshot features provided by Diigo provide an added set of tools for guiding others through the shared web content. Even without any of the social features, Diigo can still be used by teachers for better management of their bookmarks which results in increased efficiency.
Resource sharing through wikis vs. discussion boards and email: wikis can be viewed as superior to email and discussion boards based solely on their ability to better organize resources. They also can be used to share a wider variety of file types than discussion boards and our school district’s email system (which puts strict limits on attachments). When used in conjunction with a file hosting website or an FTP server, wikis have no limits on file size or type.
Resource sharing through wikis vs. by mail or in-person: there are some resources that can only be shared physically; but for resources that are already in or can be converted to electronic form, wikis provide some advantages. Sharing resources in electronic form is more cost-effective than by mail or face-to-face. More importantly, sharing resources in electronic form is nearly instantaneous and those resources are accessible anytime and anyplace when they are located online.
New web site vs. existing web page: currently the math specialist’s web page is built on a page template that is part of the larger district math site. As a result, it lacks customizability, is not updated very often, and does not include any user-generated content. The new web site will pair user-generated content with an automated update system (via RSS and widgets) to make a web site that encourages regular visits from math teachers.
The best part of this project is that it has a lot of room for growth if it catches on. Moreover, because the web site serves as a gateway to various web applications rather than generating the content itself, it can be easily redesigned without disrupting the core content. With adequate training provided to at least one representative from each school, I can see this project developing into an effective resource in my district.
Links
Web page: http://www.northwestms.org/dcs
Wiki: http://dcsmath.pbworks.com/
Diigo group: http://groups.diigo.com/group/dcsmath
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