Notes from visit to The Curry School of Education visit, Univ
of Virginia, 2 May 2002
8:30 Chris
O'Neal------Project Director, VITAL (Virginia Initiative for
- VITAL is Virginia's Gates Grant, in year 1 right now, just
started in June
http://www.virginialeaders.org
vital@virginia.edu
VITAL is the Gates grant for Virginia
- Zahrl Schoeny has done a LOT with admins for technology
- developed a course for admins
- Gates grant curriculum is framed around the course he developed
Virginia Tech also developed an IT program that has been mixed
with Zahrls
VA Gates don't do a lot of skills stuff
- most districts have lots of
AEL principal's connection CD
- all leadership materials for school principals
- developed somewhere else
- tech planning
Chris Used to be director of technology for Louisiana
Have partnership with state dept of education
Also VITA - Virginia Education Technology Alliance
- EdTech deptartments of all the COEs in Virginia
Gates grant just started in the fall (June)
- did miniworkshops in fall, really kicked into gear in spring
- do training at district level, have 7 trainers statewide
- really varies because of district size
- many districts have had every principal and superintendent
attend at once
- content is customized for the district, depending on needs
and situation
- has been very hard with 134 school districts statewide
- have done 20 districts so far
- depending on size, have to do full day face to face (kickoff
day), and 3 followup sessions
- have other web-based courses being developed, like school
finance course and technology leadership
Scheduling is the hardest thing, with districts having different
resources
Use ISTE standards for admins as background framework, 6 strands
- try to identify where districts needs are related to those
strands
- then can figure out what elements / pieces are missing for
that distrtict
- really have a closed amount of content, but can't do it all
for each participant
- do use TAGLET to look at district or campus level issues
Governor of VA has disbanded regional service centers in Virginia
except in very rural areas (2 in southwest VA)
- tool called data disaggregator, took all test scores and
broke it down in all kids of ways
-- allows teachers to query database of info from test scores
and answer their own questions
-- really allowed teaches to use the data
VA has accountablility structure, test at 5, 7 and high school
- these are pass/fail tests, other tests are spread out in
other grades
- little effort had been put into helping teachers and admins
use the test data
Virginia has standards for teachers and students that must
be demonstrated for re-certification
State's Superintendent's Assn housed at UVA
- Chris just to Ian Jukes yesterday
- they have agreed to let VITAL do tech training for
Chris sees an elite mindset of admins: principals and superintendents
- as Jukes says, superindents can't just delegate off the reform
of the curriculum
Gates grant follow-up to kickoff day is a series of devil's
advocate questions
- why are you going to implement PDAs in the high school?
- what needs in your high school have led you to adopt
- what is your vision for technology, what led up to this,
is this just a vision for technology, how does this fit in with your district
needs?
- many admins have not had these types of discussions
- video clips from Lucas foundation, good discussion starters
- either take TAGLIT or work with data from TAGLIT
- discuss ACOT stages, is tech still an add on
-- top 3 ACOT are more in add on rather than integration
Discrepancy analysis tool built into Engage is excellent
- Cheryl Lemke is outside evaluator for the grant, she pointed
this out
- is a document that forces people to focus on their priorities
within the school or district, what they want to happen in different areas,
rate themselves as to how well those things are happening
- allows admins to view priorities versus current situation,
often can help inform action plan
- many admins think that ratios, data required
Dynamic is very different when admins from same district are
together instead of mixed with others
- they can be very open and expressive
- many also say they want central office staff and others to
be involved in this discussion
- sometimes this works great, other times it is limiting
Just did Shenendoah country, have restructured their summer
institute to focus not as much on technology as an add on (separate department)
but as a tool to use within content area
Now want to use data disaggregator, TAGLIT, and Discrepency
analysis tool - synthesize these results
Good models: in Newport News, Newsome Park elementary featured
in latest George Lucas video
- have done a good job using technology within overall vision
for technology
- principal says we don't have technology discussions that
much any more, we focus more on the lessons and units (content) rather than
the technology
- focused on the engagement student to student and student
to teacher, look at how we can take different units and content and make them
as engaging as possible
- with 25 different kids, 25 different learning styles, how
can I make this unit as engaging as possible
- is a project based learning snapshot, kids dealing with real
world problems
- principal doesn't look as much now at 'is tech use happening,'
asks 'is this the highest level of engagement that is possible with this content'
Chris can't name a middle school or high school that is doing
this
Tammy is a docotoral student and a technology facilitator in
the area
Chris is here to work on his doctorate, thru ISTE connection
- thru contacts at state and in UVA was alerted about the Gates
grant position
- taught 4th and 7th in LA, along with C&I position in
central office (Lake Charles)
- is a faculty member at William and Mary as a result of Gates
grant involvement
- hasn't started doctoral studies yet
Need to talk with Mark Hofer (grad student)
- Glan Bull is great on figuring out what can UVA do for you
as a student
Jason Bayers
- is edtech support in the center
- worked for Radford Univ (20 mins from VA Tech) and setup
Proctor training, student proctors had to take at least 5 courses after at least
1 semester, was required to be rehired
- got a Walker Technology Certification, then they could teach
it
http://www.radford.edu/~walkertc/
Little known tool on WinNT Sysdif
- command line driven, creates snapshot before program install,
after install