Matt Henchen

Email: henchenm@harwood.org

Website: www.vermonteducator.com

Phone: (802) 324-4521

Presenter's Notes                                              

VPA Presentation

Killington VT, 2010

I will be showcasing three uses of technology that can help improve our schools:

• Web-Based Learning Management System (LMS) www.edu20.org

• Google forms and Google Templates for formative assessment

• Dynamic and Interactive School Websites built using a Content Management System (CMS)

 1) www.edu20.org

Why is this technology transformative?

1) The public deserves to know what students are learning in school and if their schools are teaching effectively.

2) In the past, the only way to keep track of student progress, which was manageable on a large scale, was through standardized tests.

3) We are now at a point in time where we can track way more than just test scores - we can track exactly what students have learned through student work by using a digital portfolio application.

Edu20 is an extremely reliable, easy to use and intuitive web-based Learning Management System similar to Moodle or Blackboard.  The basic version is free, includes no ads, and has a ton of  useful features including :

• Self-Paced Lessons with Gateway Assignments
• Multiple Assignment Types (quizzes, online, offline, surveys, discussions, group, debate, etc..)
• Integrated Gradebook with Scoring Rubrics
• Digital Resource Library
• Wikis, Blogs
• Chat Rooms
• Threaded Discussion Forums
• Calendar
• Curriculum & Proficiency tracking

The Premium Plans include some amazing features including:

• Upload your own banner and select from one of five built-in color schemes 

• Unlimited file storage

• Foreign domains so your school can use its own URL
• Communications monitoring
• Receive alerts if potentially offensive words appear in any communication
• Examine all messages, postings and chats for your school 
• Instantly see in the left bar when your friends/teachers are online
• Replace our logo with your school logo 

• Enhanced gradebook with curving, extra credits, individualized assignments, and more *

• Remove the EDU 2.0 marketing box/links from your site
• LDAP support
• Record voice directly from your browser to embed in your lessons *

• School and district rich analytics of data (Possible VCAT alternative)
• Display data numerically or graphically
• Generate district-wide reports
• Record video directly from your browser to embed in your lessons 
• 12-hour response time for support questions

Question) How did I discover this technology?

Answer) I taught over 20 different online courses for the Community Colleges of Vermont (CCV) using Blackboard software and was aware of the benefits of online threaded discussions (known as an asynchronous discussion).   In one of my U.S. history classes 4-5 students were going to be away and I didn't want them to miss out on our class discussions.  I began searching for an easy to use tool that could allow me to facilitate an online discussion.  Susan Hennessey pointed out edu20 to me, which was only a year old a the time.  I used it sporadically for a few months until a few members of the Green Mountain Valley School (GMVS) came to inquire more about this tool.  As a private ski school, GMVS has students that travel frequently and they were looking for a way of delivering curriculum online in a consistent and effective way.  Over the past year, I helped GMVS adopt edu20 school-wide and it has been a great success.

At this point edu20 had proven to be a very useful technology.  It had shown the ability to improve the effectiveness of communication, it increased the ease of differentiating and integrating rich digital media, and it helped teachers to become more efficient and reflective.  However, it hadn't quite become the technology that could truly transform education until a few months later.  This occurred with the development of the Curricula/Proficiencies feature. 

 This feature was added at the request of many educators, including myself.  The idea came about as a result of our discussions at Harwood about the possible use of digital portfolios as a graduation requirement.  Susan Hennessey and myself took a trip to Mount Hope High School to see how administrators there had turned their school around using a proficiency-based graduation portfolio system.  The Mount Hope model has since been replicated by many schools throughout Rhode Island and is quickly becoming one of the most successful models of 21st century assessment.

On our drive back from Mount Hope, Susan and I brainstormed the 'perfect' digital portfolio application.  We took the application that was developed for Mt. Hope, which costs tens of thousands of dollars to create, and thought of many ways to improve it.  We then spent the next few months thinking about ways to make this happen.  We eventually decided to try using Pbwikis and came up with a great prototype.  However, halfway through the Summer, Susan forwarded me an article from David Warlick entitled "The Next Killer App".  This article discussed Warlick's prediciton that the next great application in education would a robust ePortfolio application.  He listed many amazing features, some we had thought about, but many we hadn't.  As I read his article I began thinking that much of what he was describing had already been accomplished by edu20.  I posted a link to the article to the edu20 discussion forums and it turned out that the developer of edu20.org (Graham Glass) was very interested.  I wrote up a very detailed description

of our needs, and he began to develop the required features on edu20.  There is one last piece that still needs to be developed, but when it is finished it will be truly transformative. 

Question) So how does the proficiency/portfolio work?

Answer) Step 1 - A curriculum is developed that includes a series of proficiencies (skills & content standards) each with its own well-developed common assessment rubric.

Step 2 - A teacher creates an assignment and by a click of the button, attaches one or more of the curricular proficiencies to the assignment.  This moves the common assessment rubrics into the assignment. (for example an essay on the causes of the Civil War might include the Persuasive Essay and Civil War content proficiencies)

Step 3 - The teacher modifies the new rubric as he sees fit - adding, deleting or modifying criteria.

Step 4 - The student is given the opportunity to learn the skills and content necessary to finish the assigned task and the teacher assesses their work.

Step 5 - The student's progress is tracked down to the criteria level. Meaning that at any point in time, the student can see how they are doing in the school's curriculum.  How well do they write persuasive essays?  What are the strengths and weaknesses of the student's essays?  All of this is now instantly recorded.

This is revolutionary because for the first time in educational history we have a way of managing and tracking student progress that goes way beyond test scores, which was the only data we could manage in the past.  It is now possible to track exactly how our students are doing with data that is much richer than mere tests (although tests will continue to play a role).

Imagine what full implementation of edu20.org would look like at your school?

Video Overview of edu20.org I put together from a students perspective

For more information about edu20, including many great tutorials visit my website at http://www.vermonteducator.com/resources/harwood-edu20-course.html

2) Using Google Forms and Templates for Formative Assessment

Many of you may be aware of how easy it is to create a basic survey or form using Google forms, but not many people are aware that they can turn a Google form into a template, which can be used over and over again by many different people. For instance, a group of Harwood students and faculty members created an amazing end of the year survey

How to Create and Embed a Google Form

How to Develop a Google Template from a Google Form

3) Interactive/Dynamic Websites built Using Content Management Systems (CMS)

Edu20.org, Google Apps, and a highly interactive, dynamic and user-friendly website - that is the holy triumvirate of tools for the 21st century school!

School websites come in many forms, but the most common continues to be the relatively static website developed and managed by one person - a.k.a. the 'WEBMASTER"

Those days are over.  There are many CMS systems out there (CMS Made Simple, Joomla, Drupal etc) and many companies who specialize in developing dynamic websites for schools (schoolworld.com, schoolfusion.com, henchendesign.com (shameless plug :)

Regardless of the one you choose, you must choose one.  If your website cannot do the following than you need to re-evaluate your website:

•  Allow users to easily add photos, videos, announcements, upcoming events, news articles, and other content directly to the web, either automatically as in the case of a 'Trusted User' or with admin moderation.
• Automatically sends out a daily newsletter every morning to everybody that has signed-up from the front page of your site.
• Is written using the latest code and looks great on any screen size.
• Is viewable on the iPod, iPhone, and iPad (uses Java instead of flash).
• Host tons of photos in easy to use photo galleries.
• Looks great on any browser and any computer screen

Thanks for allowing me the opportunity to speak with you.