Purpose
Implementation
Results
Comments from Alamance-Burlington School
System Officials
Movies in Production or Post
Production
The goal of the project is to work closely with teachers and
students to help create a process for producing and archiving
instructional videos to support the middle school curriculum.
Also I spent the month helping Hawfields Middle School shape
their vision of how technology could be used to enhance
instruction in the classroom.
Purpose
Students helping students is one of the greatest learning
tools that is underutilized in our schools today. Under the
present accountability model for our state, primarily scores
and end-of-grade tests measure students. I wanted to explore
all possible avenues to provide students with strategies and
skills to enhance their performance on the end of grade tests
required by the state. Even with the diversity in the
classroom, students often need supplemental review or
instruction to master or practice new skills or strategies.
Perhaps while doing homework at night, writing, a paper, or
preparing for a test, a student may wish to revisit
instruction or to access writing or test-taking tips.
Quicktime content can provide this benefit as needed, even
after school hours. Today's student lives in a
media-saturated world-it makes good sense to employ visual
media and computers in order to give them the instructional
support they may need. There were some additional tasks that
I took on at the request of the support staff at the school
system during my sabbatical. These tasks included helping the
Broadcast Studio Team produce a daily show, giving a
"Digital Media in Education" presentation at a
monthly staff meeting, and consulting district-wide staff on
conversion of all desktop machines from OS 9 to OS X.
Implementation
The "Casting a Wide Web" was the vision of Laura
Williams, Media Specialist at Hawfields Middle School. Bruce
Middleton, Executive Director of Media and Technology passed
on this proposal for me to review from a technical
standpoint. This was prior to me receiving the Project
Pericles Service Sabbatical. After I was awarded the service
sabbatical Bruce set up two initial meetings of key people to
discuss the project. John Heise, Senior Systems Analyst with
PTI provided key support information during these initial
correspondents and during the project. During these meetings
the main concern was completing the goals that were set forth
by Laura Williams. I secured commitments from Education and
Communication Majors with helping Hawfields Middle School
students in creating the content for viewing. The vision and
the purpose were in place. What I brought to the project was
the technical experience to complete the goals envisioned by
Laura. My service sabbatical corresponded with my down period
at work, which happened to be Winter Term. This timing turned
out to be costly in maintaining student help. All but one
student backed out at the last minute due to time constraints
during Winter Term. The backbone of the project is an Xserve
from Apple Computer. Mac OS X Server is the software that
makes the entire project possible. A key feature of the OS X
Server software is the QuickTime Streaming Server. What the
streaming server does is nothing short of amazing. To create
the media to be placed on the server we used iMovie. iMovie
is based on Apple Computer's QuickTime technology. Once
the media is created it has to be uploaded to the QuickTime
Streaming Server. From there it is accessible to anyone on
the network.
Results
My last day at Hawfields Middle School was January 31, 2003.
The project was shortened a bit by the school system having
to take off four days due to snow or ice. The results of the
project will not be seen instantly. The production and
presenting of digital content is an ongoing process that
hopefully will never end. The "Husky Help" web site
that I created is currently accessible only inside the
Alamance-Burlington School System's network. Beginning
next school system the service will be opened up to anyone
who has access to the Internet. By this time we should have
enough feedback from the end user (parents or students) to
confirm the results that we predict.
Having Kimberly Bolton helping me in creating the digital
content was a crucial piece of the project. Kimberly is a
Senior Education Major at Elon University now student
teaching in the Guilford County Public School System. With
her totally dedicated to creating projects I could focus on
finishing the technical end of the project. Kimberly's
first day at Hawfields consisted of an overall orientation to
the project. That initial orientation was followed by an
instruction period on learning how to use iMovie. She picked
it up very quickly! One particular project that she worked on
with students was entitled "The Pendulum Project".
These projects brought together different types of media
including Power Point slides, still photographs, digital
video, music, sound effects, and voice-overs. Kimberly's
finished product was recorded on a VHS tape and burned onto a
CD -ROM. In the future she can use it in the classroom for
instructional purposes as well as embed it into a web
page.
Her commitment and devotion to the students will surely
continue in the future. Whichever school she decides to teach
at in the future will be very lucky.
from
Alamance-Burlington School System Officials
Every school district seeks
to be on the cutting edge in the use of instructional
technology. As we provide new tools and expand access to
resources, however, we run the risk of leaving our teachers
and student behind as they are not always at the same state
of preparedness. It is only when we are moved forward at the
request of our schools, when they are indeed ready, that we
are assured of success. That is the case with our recent
project at Hawfields that was initiated by the school in
response to an employee "on loan" from Elon
University. During the month of January, David Morton spent
his sabbatical at Hawfields Middle School helping to shape
their vision of how technology could be used to enhance
instruction. David worked closely with the media specialist
and her students to help create a process for producing and
archiving instructional videos to support the middle school
curriculum. With David's assistance, students learned how
to use digital equipment to film critical "teaching
moments", edit the videos into captioned movies, and
archives the movies on the district video streaming server.
They are currently sharing the process with teachers in the
school who are providing the content for variety of
instructional support videos. These videos will ultimately be
available to students both at school and at home to bring
about a better understanding of difficult curriculum
topics.
David's leadership has
proven critical in beginning a process that will serve to
enhance instruction for Hawfields Middle as well as students
at our other schools. Our hope is to build on this seed
project by providing the same instructional opportunities to
our other schools in order to build our resource archive. We
plan to reach all areas and levels of our curriculum.
Downloadable movies or movie streams that target specific
areas of need within the curriculum will enhance and extend
learning opportunities for all of our students.
Bruce Middlton
Executive Director of Media and Technology
Alamance-Burlington School System�
This project has great
potential, though it has yet to be fully or even
substantially realized. The interest and support exhibited by
our administration and staff has proven even greater than
hoped. Our principal got everyone on board with plans to
produce curriculum-related QuickTime mini-lessons and
student-support videos, and the staff has responded with
enthusiasm and creativity. I think I may have underestimated
the scope of the undertaking, however, as well as the amount
of time required to go from idea to finished product. I guess
one just has to expect that such an extensive enterprise will
develop incrementally.
David Morton's
contributions were vitally important. He was able to shepherd
me through the production, compression, and uploading
routines, making the process understandable to a lay person
who lacks the vast expertise he possesses. He
enthusiastically tackled any and all tasks during the month
of his sabbatical with us. His contributions included
designing the interface for our "Husky Help" web
page. His work was so appreciated our technology specialist
redesigned our entire web site to match!
I think weather and some
technical details hampered our progress. We missed a number
of school days due to snow or ice, which shortened the
planned duration of our cooperative venture. Additionally,
some of the technical requirements to create and stream the
QuickTime videos were not in place at the start of January,
through no fault or lack of communication on David's
part. We had hoped to experiment with software called Live
Channel, which allows for live web streaming and digital
broadcasting, but a vendor proved elusive. There were
addition glitches with the proxy server and our ability to
stream over the Internet without being hampered by it.
I also believe it would have
been fruitful if I had already recorded some video content
prior to David's arrival, so we would have had material
ready to upload and test drive. Instead, I waited until he
was stationed at Hawfields to get the ball really rolling
with our staff; and due to the complexities of our school
schedule and teacher availability, this meant we were unable
to generate much real content to get the "Husky
Help" page well established before David returned to his
regular duties at Elon.
Right now the demands of my
schedule, with classes and Battle of the Books and other
responsibilities, have forced me to put the streaming project
on a back burner. It's also been hard to get teachers to
give time to the production phase when they are swamped with
grades, meetings, and other duties. I think it's going to
be a step-by-step process, with more work accomplished after
testing, science fair, and other competing demands have been
discharged (probably over the summer).
I can't begin to express
my gratitude to Elon University and all the supporters who
made it possible for David to work with me in January.
It's easy to conceive of an idea, like the one behind the
"Husky Help" web-based support-on-demand for our
students, but bringing the idea to fruition requires a lot of
hard work and skill. David was instrumental in getting this
whole concept rolling, and his transmitted knowledge (and
offer of ongoing consultation) will guide its progress and
development. I'm very excited about the possibilities,
but I recognize now that it will evolve more slowly than I
expected. At least I know I can count on administrative
support and the knowledge that David is just a phone call or
email away!
Laura Williams, Media Specialist
Hawfields Middle School�
Movies in Production or
Post Production
Sixth Grade
Math - Fractions, decimals, percents (conversions),
geometry, area, circumference, volume, formulas
Literary Genres
Order of Operations
Predictions and Inferences
Propaganda techniques in writing (bias for and biased
against)
Inferences vs. Observation
In the book vs. in the head questions
Test-taking skills
Study Skills (note taking, outlining)
Goal Setting
Graphic Organizers
Teamwork
Middle School Transition from Elementary School
Day in the life of a middle school student (transitions,
responsibility, basic principles)
Loaded Words
X and Y Coordinates
Seventh Grade
Reading Strategies
Math - Proportions, Pythagorean theorem, Word Problems
Analogies
Thinking Maps
Social Studies - Research
Writing Process
How to do a Science Project
Eighth Grade
Grammar Man
Dynamic Earth
Linear Equations
Algebra
Three-D Figures
Book Talks
Basic Math
Documentation for Research
Story Problems
Evaluating Web-based resources
Historic Documents (Primary vs. Secondary Sources)
Literary Elements
