Technology Initiative: 
Marshall University Writing Project

Overview

In the development of our project a year ago we set out to accomplish four goals in the first year.  These were:

1. Digital Literacy Institute:  First, we wanted to increase the number of MUWP teacher leaders who themselves are digitally literate as a means of ultimately increasing the number of teachers in our local school system who are digitally literate. 
2. Digital Stories Institute:  Next, we wanted to provide an in-service opportunity to provide our newly emerging teacher leaders with a leadership opportunity and to provide a professional development opportunity for teachers in our local school system. 
3. Teacher Inquiry:  A third goal we described in our initial plan was a research goal.  Specifically we wanted to know exactly what training and experiences pre-service teachers had with regard to using technology as part of their teaching practice.
4. Equipment/Supplies:  Finally, our fourth goal was to increase our equipment holdings in order to provide tools for TCs to utilize when facilitating in-service or continuity activities outside of their home school environment.  An additional purchase in this area included the acquisition of NVivo, qualitative research software, to enable us to begin analyzing more efficiently and thoroughly.

We have learned a great deal in this past year.  In some ways more than we anticipated and in other ways we realize there is so much more to learn.  We will first report on our accomplishments in the context of the goals listed above and then we'll provide a general discussion about our learnings as a result of those accomplishments.

Digital Literacy Institute

The original intent of the Digital Literacy Institute (DLI) was to "...offer a professional development opportunity to increase the number of MUWP teacher leaders who are digitally literate and to increase the number of digitally literate teachers in our local schools."  Our intent was to capitalize on the "...practice of modeling effective uses of technology in the classroom..." and focus on "...developing cognitive understandings through study, skills sets through application, learning events through collaboration, and reflective understanding through publication."   To achieve this goal we identified 3 TCs to participate and each of them, in turn, would identify teachers within their own schools (or discipline) to form their own local (school level) technology support teams. 

While we originally intended to have 3 TCs (elementary, middle-school, and high school) we added a fourth TC so that the university level also had representation.  Our participants were:

• Kelly Childers (Music Education - Elementary; multi-school placement)
• Diane Fetty (Language Arts - Middle School)
• Doug Triplett (English/Social Studies - High School)
• Christy Ford (English - Marshall University)

By seeking diversity in age levels, subject matter, and school placements we expected that each of the teachers would bring important experiences, viewpoints, and skills to the group.  Each of these four individuals, as previously discussed, identified 2-4 teachers in their school (or, in the case of Kelly, in her discipline) who would serve as a local technology support team at the school level.  When our core group assembled, I realized we had established, without naming it as such, a technology leadership team and that, as a result of this grant, we had an important mission already outlined for us. 

The MUWP Technology Leadership Team (TLT) met regularly throughout the Spring 2005 semester, mostly at a local restaurant where we spread out over several tables, ate non-stop breadsticks, and talked - about school, about writing, about technology, and about our lives.  It was here where most of our ideas were born and where we began to emerge as a leadership team.  Two important learnings took place.  First, we articulated our conception of what it means to be literate in a world where literacy is talked about in so many ways:  digital literacy, visual literacy, mathematical literacy (numeracy), computer literacy, and so forth.  In our conversations and writings we came to understand that literacy is not a different thing simply because it has a different adjective in front of it.  Instead, the adjectives simply indicate ways or channels through which an individual engages in practices that promote literacy.  Literacy, whether it be developed through numbers or images, remains the same thing.  It is the practice of asking questions, accessing information related to those questions, analyzing that information, and finally announcing what we've learned.  Next came our second, and critical, learning - the notion that individuals become digitally literate in the pursuit of other goals.  Once we understood these two things we began to wonder about how this knowledge would inform our work. 

Our new level of understanding suggested that if we were to offer a workshop that would enable teachers to successfully accomplish a project that they were motivated to complete they would, in fact, become more digitally literate in the process.  From earlier offerings of the MUWP's Electronic Writing Project we knew that teachers from various levels and disciplines had expressed a strong interest in and curiosity about the idea of Digital Stories.  It stood to reason that offering an experience during which teachers could, and would, create Digital Stories might advance our mission to further the development of digitally literate educators who find themselves in positions to assist their students in becoming proficient, effective, and socially conscious users of information.  While we suspected that teachers would be excited and eager to learn about making Digital Stories with a particular attention to the product of that experience, we also wanted to create an experience that focused on process - that is, how do people become literate (digitally, or otherwise).  Our study in this area led us to create the 4As Workshop:  Ask, Access, Analyze, and Announce.  Our micro-units for each of these aspects of the process became the focus of our technology work during the Summer Institute, providing us with the opportunity to revise each unit before offering these on a wider scale to the local school system.

Digital Stories Institute

We offered our Digital Story Institute (DSI) as an open institute and designed it specifically for our local school technology teams (connected to each member of the technology leadership team and mentioned in the DLI section above) to participate.  While the DSI ran from July 11-16, 2005, it really began much earlier in the summer when the MUWP TLT began planning the event.  The planning team and facilitation team consisted of:  Karen McComas, Doug Triplett, Kelly Childers, and Diane Fetty.  It served the dual goal of assisting us in developing the technological know-how and experience in teachers and provided an opportunity to develop new leadership skills for individuals new to positions of leadership.

During our planning we found that we had to first answer many questions, such as, "What is our goal?  What is a digital story? What software should we use?  What do we hope happens?"   Then we searched the literature to see how others were structuring this kind of work, remembering that if teachers believed this to be a task that would enable them to achieve their goals as teachers in better or different ways they would participate and likely learn something to be taken back to their own classroom.  Finally we drafted an general agenda and sent out invitations.  While this was to be an open institute, we had a specific audience in mind and wanted to provide them with the right of first refusal.  Therefore, we extended the first round of invitations to the local school technology teams and then issued a second wave of invitations to individuals who had just completed the MUWP 2005 Summer Institute.  While we were waiting for the responses to our invitations, we shifted into the final stages of planning where we selected numerous reading assignments, worked in the computer lab developing our own digital stories (for examples and to ensure our own familiarity with the software and any quirks that might arise as a result of working in a lab environment), and prepared materials for the workshop.  When this week-long event convened on the morning of July 11, 2005, we had eight participants and four facilitators.  These individuals were:

Facilitators:  Karen McComas, Diane Fetty, Kelly Childers, Doug Triplett, and Johan Dejong (a student of Doug's who had expressed an interest in participating after seeing the flyer at Doug's school; we hired Johan because of his technical knowledge in terms of video and audio files and this proved to be one of the best decisions we made)

Participants:  Bart Demeter (who was subsequently added to the Technology Team to replace Christy Ford who had to forego her membership on the Technology Team at this time to attend to personal issues), Rick Sharpe, Bill Seese, Tighe Frantz, Eva Layne, Connie Goheen, Bethana Brewer, Jason Dillon 

www.flickr.com

While we plan to more closely analyze the information we obtained from participants as well as engage in follow-up activities (e.g., interviews, classroom observations) we have examined some preliminary responses from participants and can begin to see the ways in which they are mentally connecting the work they did in the DSI to the work of their classrooms (comments are copied from various writings at the Digital Stories Institute weblog).

Bethana wrote about how the process of creating Digital Stories might appeal to more learners: I thought the story board was a good, hands-on way to manipulate the "frames" of the story.  This allowed us to match pictures with words and move them as necessary.  Not only would this appeal to the visual learner, but it would also be beneficial to the kinesthetic learner.  This activity also made a very nice bridge between concrete operations and abstract. 

Eva also commented positively on the storyboard:  I thought the story board was a good, hands-on way to manipulate the "frames" of the story.  This allowed us to match pictures with words and move them as necessary.  Not only would this appeal to the visual learner, but it would also be beneficial to the kinesthetic learner.  This activity also made a very nice bridge between concrete operations and abstract. 

Bill commented on the technology aspect of the institute:  Wow! I cannot believe how easy this whole process was. I have learned to use two programs, Microsoft Movie Maker and Audacity, in a very short time period.

Jason wrote about assignments in the classroom:  The concept of digital stories seems to be much more interseting [sic] than a paper r[sic] essay.  Students would find this much more fun than the alternative.  I have been impressed with the speed that I have picked up how to do this.  Having other professionals review and assist in the editing process has been very beneficial.

Bethana wrote about using a weblog in her classes, an indirect outcome resulting from our use of weblog as a base for this institute:  I am very interested in incorporating the use of writing on blogs in my classroom. I am excited about the possibilities of having students record their thoughts and respond to each other in writing.  I think that I could add a lot of depth to my lessons this way.

Kelly (an itinerant music educator-elementary level) thought about the possibilities of using Digital Stories in her classroom and came up with these ideas also demonstrating an indirect outcome of the institute:  So that is the negative side, here goes the positive...I think that I could certainly use some aspects of this process. I could most certainly use the writing part as well as the storyboarding. I just need to think of some ways to incorporate the tech. part. I know that my students would really get into a project of this type. I just need to break down some of those barriers.

In addition to these connections and observations, on the last morning of the DSI the participants engaged in a face to face conversation about the possibilities and potential of changes to their teaching practice as a result of their experience and learning at the DSI.  While most teachers throughout the week expressed reservations about using technology as a regular part of their teaching practice due to equipment and facility limitations at their school, we encouraged them to think beyond the obvious ideal situation to find space in their teaching practice (and teaching context) for something new.  While this conversation merely foreshadowed the follow-up work we intend to pursue, the summary below illustrates the insightful and useful learnings we stand to gain in the future. 

Discussion topics were:

Other than, or along with your experience with Movie Maker, what other stuff have you learned to do this week?  Have any mysterious computer procedures become more clear?

Do you have something to take back to the classroom?  How will you use what you have learned in your curriculum?

Issues and suggestions from the group:

1. There are other easier programs to use, but Microsoft Movie Maker is very compatible with other programs. 
2. Narrations should be, "laid down," first, before pics and music.
3. Common problem are few computers, too many students.  A suggestion was made for the instructor to create the movie upon the completion of the classroom unit.
4. Dolores suggested that Writing Project sponsors Computer Clubs and pays stipends to teachers to conduct these.  Polaroid has a camera give-away for this type of project.
5. Time and equipment are issues.
6. Kids are quick learners, already having had much computer experience, and more than likely need little show and tell, just access to the computer.
7. The only difference in Movie Maker and Power Point is the smooth presentation of MM.
8. As compared to standard classroom writing or projects, computer projects are completed more quickly and with greater enthusiasm.

We found that our previous experiences with technology and teaching situations (classroom experience, school workshops, Tech Matters, Summer Institutes, etc.) gave us a solid foundation upon which to build a successful institute.  In spite of the success, we learned a number of things and those are briefly enumerated below.

1. Having a tight schedule throughout the week encouraged us to jump in with little discussion or what a digital story is, how they are made, what purposes they might serve, and so forth.  In our next offering we plan to incorporate an orientation session prior to the beginning of the workshop in order to have sufficient time to deal with those aspects of the task that did not require a computer but instead required reading, thinking, and dialogue.  In particular, we felt as though we never really addressed the notion of digital literacy although the concept was imbedded in our work.
2. Working in an open institute with individuals who are not familiar with writing project practices and principles requires us to more deliberately introduce, emphasize, and support basic writing practices such as pre-writing, drafting, feedback, and revision.
3. We plan to begin developing a document that talks specifically about facilitating workshops with teachers.  What we know stays within us or only spreads to those within our physical reach and our collective pieces of knowledge are valuable and worthy to be documented.
4. Our final day included an interesting conversation (see above) that took place in a short amount of time.  In retrospect we would have liked to lengthen that conversation to talk more about the strategies (for writing, revising, giving feedback, learning technology) that surfaced during the week to make these more visible so that teachers could make these visible for their own students.

Teacher Inquiry

When the possibility of receiving this grant to develop and administer effective professional development programs to assist teachers in using technology to support teaching and learning in their classrooms first came on our we immediately asked the question:  How are teachers currently being prepared to use technology as an instructional support?  More specifically, we wanted to know:

1. Where and how are pre-service teachers at Marshall University understanding that technology must be used to support teaching and learning?
2. What models of using technology to support teaching and learning are pre-service teachers exposed to in their preparation at Marshall University?
3. To what degree are the supervising teachers of pre-service teachers selected based upon their own abilities to effectively use technology to support teaching and learning?

At the time of our application a year ago we had two individuals in mind to conduct this inquiry project.  When the time arrived to begin this inquiry project, however, both of the TCs who had previously indicated an interest in completing a project such as this found they were unable to commit the time necessary because of other responsibilities in their lives.  Recently, another individual has expressed an interest in completing this aspect of our Digital Literacy Initiative.  Susan Gilpin is a 1997 "graduate" of the Marshall University Writing Project and recently completed her Ph.D. in Communication Studies at Carnegie Mellon University.  She joined the faculty here at Marshall in January 2005 and is now beginning her first full year of teaching at the college level.  Susan is an excellent prospect to complete this project and we are currently negotiating with her and her department in order to ensure that she receives adequate recognition for tenure and promotion purposes should she complete this type of research. 

Equipment/Supplies

We have purchased the equipment/supplies we intended to with the following exceptions:

1. Originally we intended to purchase copies of Photoshop for participants.  After much consideration and deliberation we decided to have participants utilize the software that comes on their computers (e.g., Windows Moviemaker).  We believed that familiarizing our teachers with the software that comes standard on most windows based computers would increase the chance they might use what they learned in our Professional Development activities because they would find this software readily available in multiples locations (not just their own computer).   
2. We purchased memory sticks for participants during the DSI as we discovered that organization or files was critical to the successful use of Windows Moviemaker.  In our lab space we found that participants would lose files or misplace files frequently as they moved from computer to computer (and often on the same computer). 

Overview

Our future plans center around the goals we set out for last year.  That is, we want to take the work we began last year and make it deeper, richer, and more widespread. 

1. Digital Literacy Initiative:  For the upcoming year we realize that digital literacy is not an event.  To that end, what we have previously called the Digital Literacy Institute will be now be called the Digital Literacy Initiative.  This initiative refers to the collective works at the MUWP that strive to transform education to better prepare our young students to be responsible, productive, socially conscious citizens wherever their lives may lead them. 
2. Digital Stories Institute:  Due to the relative success of this event it will continue to be a vital part of our plan for the upcoming year with an additional offering and spawning some additional inquiry work.
3. Teacher Inquiry:  This aspect of our original plan, while not completed, remains an important and viable goal for our work.  In addition, we will be adding a teacher inquiry component.
4. Equipment/Supplies:  Finally, our fourth goal was to increase our equipment holdings in order to provide tools for TCs to utilize when facilitating in-service or continuity activities outside of their home school environment.  An additional purchase in this area included the acquisition of NVivo, qualitative research software, to enable us to begin analying more efficiently and thoroughly.  We will have a few additional equipment needs for the coming year.

In addition, this year we add the following:

1. Professional Development in the Schools:  As planned last year, we intend to use this fall semester to revise the curricular plans developed over the summer and presented to the Summer Institute. 
2. Technology Mentors:  From the previous Summer Institute we have additional teachers who expressed an interest in working with the technology programs of the MUWP.  They will be designated at Technology Mentors and identified as such in their schools.

We have learned a great deal in this past year.  In some ways more than we anticipated and in other ways we realize there is so much more to learn.  We will first report on our accomplishments in the context of the goals listed above and then we'll provide a general discussion about our learnings as a result of those accomplishments.

Digital Literacy Initiative

The recently developed Technology Team of the MUWP will continue meet regularly and plan the programs specifically targeting the transformation of teaching and learning as a result of the use of technology.  Participants on the 2005-2006 Technology Team of the MUWP are:

• Kelly Childers (Music Education - Elementary; multi-school placement)
• Diane Fetty (Language Arts - Middle School)
• Doug Triplett (English/Social Studies - High School)
• Bart Demeter (English - Marshall University)
• Johan Dejong (Student - Marshall University)
• Karen McComas (Technology Liaison - Marshall University)

The planned programs supported by this grant are described below. 

Digital Stories Institute

For coming year we will be offering two different forms of the Digital Stories Institute.  Our intent is to compare two different professional development delivery models and as a result, we will develop a comparative study to enable us to learn more about the ways in which workshop design influences event outcomes.  One DSI will be offered in the Spring of 2006 and will include meetings on a certain number of Saturdays.  The other DSI will again be offered in the Summer of 2006 on five consecutive days (with some modifications to include our recommendations from this past year). 

Teacher Inquiry

As previously described, this aspect of our original project has not been completed.  Given the likelihood that we now have individuals who are qualified and willing to complete this aspect of our work we will continue to make this a goal of our project. 

A second goal in the area of research/inquiry is to study the two different models of the Digital Story Institute to share with the network.

Equipment/Supplies

To ensure adequate access to computer equipment necessary for professional development presentations, two additional laptops will be purchased.  Additional supplies include:  CDs, books, postage, and so forth.

Professional Development

Beginning in September 2005, Diane Fetty, a member of the MUWP TLT, will be co-teaching a computer course for the Cabell County Schools.  While this course is not a part of the MUWP technology curriculum, Diane's work with the MUWP TLT and the Digital Stories Institute in particular played an important role in her being asked to co-teach the course. 

Currently, the MUWP TLT is developing multiple proposals for Professional Development offerings for the Spring and Summer of 2006.  These experiences will be offered to teachers in the Cabell County Schools and we have already received verbal approval (and support) for offering these workshops. 

Technology Mentors

The Technology Mentors program is specifically designed to develop leadership within the MUWP by capitalizing on the expressed interest of individuals from the Summer Institute.  By acknowledging their interest and expertise in technology in their own schools, these mentors will develop the skills necessary to ultimately take more responsibility in the leadership of the MUWP while at the same time creating communities of practice within their teaching context.