1998-99 Year End Report
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About Using Technology to Improve Learning
Project Summary
The Sweetwater Union High School District, the largest secondary district in the State of California, serves 31,000 students in grades 7-12 and over 44,000 adult school students. Approximately 80% of the student body belongs to ethnic minority groups, and the largest single ethnic group (57%) is of Hispanic descent. The Advanced Curriculum through Technology (ACT Now!) project is a two-year old partnership between the Sweetwater Union High School District, other local educational agencies, institutions of higher education, public libraries, hardware manufacturers, software designers,telecommunication firms, and local community organizations. With the aid of a federal Technology Innovation Challenge Grant, ACT Now! has allowed Sweetwater to implement a model for professional development in technology. The President has said he wants every 8-year-old to be able to read and every 12-year-old to be able to log onto a computer. We are training every 50-year-old teacher to know how to use a computer, and specifically the World Wide Web, to improve teaching and learning in the classroom. The ACT Now! program works to put computers in classrooms, connect classrooms to the Internet, provide teacher training and develop educational units and lessons for the Web. This page can help guide those involved in making decisions about the directions technology training can take and the types of technology that can be used.
The WebQuest Model
The staff development training curriculum focuses on using the WebQuest model developed by Dr. Bernie Dodge, professor of educational technology at San Diego State University. The WebQuest model consists of a seven step process for developing standards-driven, Internet-based instructional units. The WebQuest model:
- involves teachers closely with the standards-based curriculum development process;
- adds relevance by emphasizing the development of projects that students present to real audiences;
- promotes diversity, tolerance and civic understanding by providing multiple viewpoints and primary sources of information;
- fosters close partnerships with businesses and the community through its school-to-career focus;
- includes extensive staff training on the development and implementation of the WebQuest model;
- allows educational leaders, administrators and teachers to track student achievement.
The WebQuest model helps schools and districts restructure themselves to improve the performance of students by giving students experiences that require them to routinely select and apply, appropriate technologies to solve authentic, complex tasks.
Sweetwater students will work in collaborative teams during their "WebQuests". For instance, a standards-driven, inquiry-oriented question is posed by their instructor. The first part of the quest has the students plan their search. Students are encouraged to exhaust traditional sources of information, (books, journals, and personal commuinication) before moving to the Internet for more information. The second stage is where students interact with learning resources the Internet. In stage two, they gather their electronic information and sort and sift through it. Stage three has the students synthesize all the data (print, electronic, and interview). Stage four has the students critically evaluate their data. The fifth and final stage has the students prepare an electronic report and web site demonstration based on their findings.
Utilizing on-line curriculum, students will be developing multimedia portfolios and reporting through multimedia products and presentations to students around the world. The "WebQuest" model, developed by Professor Bernie Dodge at San Diego State University, is implemented throughout the curriculum. Students using technology tools will develop a deeper understanding of the subjects they study, a greater confidence in their learning abilities, and demonstrate higher levels of achievement in the core basic skill areas.
Peer review is an active part of the process, and students are asked to evaluate other groups presentations, as well as the performance of members of their team. Recognition of achievement and feedback are key elements of the model.
The Project ACT Now! curriculum development consortium will be reviewing the results of ongoing on-line curriculum evaluations and will make adjustments to the constantly-evolving curriculum focus.
The Computer in Education
The computer is no longer just the tool of scientists and engineers. Technological literacy is now mandatory to qualify for most jobs that will earn a decent living. For Sweetwater, technological literacy means computer skills and the ability to use computers and other technology to improve learning, productivity and performance.For students to successfully use technology for learning, teachers must lead the way. We feel it is essential that we must first train our teachers to use it in the classroom and embed itinto core curriculum. Integrating technology into classroom learning requires district commitment in two key areas: providing computers in classrooms and training teachers in educational technology. ACT Now! is helping ensure that every teacher in the district (1,300) will have the opportunity to participate in at least 40 hours of professional development by the year 2001. ACT Now! is also supporting the district's ten-year Educational Technology Master Plan (ETMP) by placing more computers in classrooms. The incentive for the teachers who voluntarily attend the 40 hours of technology training is a new, high-end, Internet-ready, desktop computer (Mac or Windows) for their classroom.