| Cowan Sunset High School |  |
| Cowan Sunset High School in Las Vegas caters to about 500 students who would have otherwise dropped out of school . The school provides a day nursery for moms and dads, and the school day runs from 2-9pm in order to allow students to work in the mornings or evenings. Students report that the teachers are understanding at Cowan, and they enjoy the different environment that the school provides. |  |
| Developing Minds | |
| The UrbanPlan curriculum is a three week project-based learning exercise that has been implemented in schools across the nation. Teams of high school juniors and seniors compete to win the redevelopment contract for a decaying neighborhood in the fictitious city of Yorktown. The curriculum combines government and economics classes and applies them to real-world situations. | |
| Learning By Design | |
| The Build San Francisco Institute is a small school which was created through a partnership between the Architecture Foundation of San Francisco and the San Francisco Unified School District. This school targets students who haven't performed well in traditional schools. They come to the Institute three days per week and work on projects there that satisfiy core curricular objectives in math and the arts. They complete design challenges and apply math and art to real-world problems. Seniors also intern with design firms twice a week. The Institute's policy is to not accept second-rate work, because this is unacceptable in the real world. Students report that they have a more positive attitude after working at the Institute, and that they enjoy the collaborative atmosphere. | |
| Home: Part One (PDF) | |
| Online courses can enable schools to expand student learning opportunities. Schools can offer subjects on which no local expertise is available, that only a few students are interested in, or that are unavailable because of traditional scheduling. This is particularly true for languages, advanced course topics, and college preparatory courses, but online courses can also be invaluable in helping students who are struggling or who have dropped out and wish to recover the credits necessary to graduate. | |
| High School: Part Three (PDF) | |
| By using such tools as e-mail and Web 2.0 information-sharing tools enhanced with video, students can connect with native-language-speaking teachers, mentors, and peers from around the world to share cultural information as well as conversational practice. These interactions offer opportunities for language learning, for increasing global awareness, and for modeling international collaboration. | |
| High School Classroom: Part Four (PDF) | |
| Technology can allow schools to connect with outside experts in real time. Whether it is a local businessperson or a university expert, technologies such as videoconferencing can link professionals and schools over long distances. By linking experts where they work with students in schools, opportunities for collaboration are expanded as no one has to travel and the expert can resume to work as soon as the session is over. By reducing the amount of time it takes to participate, more frequent collaborations may be possible. | |
| High School: Part One (PDF) | |
| Mobile technologies and new information distribution models make it possible to provide on-demand multimedia learning opportunities. Innovations such as podcasts enable the creation of audio or video lessons that can be stored on the web and delivered to computers, iPods, and other handheld devices. Podcasts can be as short or as long as necessary to convey the topic at hand, and because they can be played on mobile devices means that they can be used for "just-in-time" learning, in addition to supporting formal instruction. | |
| High School: Part Two (PDF) | |
| The use of technology can be particularly effective in of special education. Adaptive and assistive technologies give students with physical or learning challenges to access to learning opportunities. In addition, administrative systems allow teachers to automate the creation, monitoring, and updating of individualized education plans (IEPs), streamlining the administrative processes and allowing teachers to spend more time developing learning experiences and working with students | |
| High School Library: Part Three (PDF) | |
| Increasingly, the Internet can be a critical research tool. In addition to accessing publicly available websites, libraries often pay for subscriptions to private databases of copyrighted material such as newspapers, magazines, and journals that are not freely available. The combination of free and for-fee online services along with traditional books, periodicals, and other primary source materials helps provide students with a wide range of sources and perspectives that not only give students familiarity with different types of writing, but also can improve the quality of their research. | |
| The Effectiveness Of An Online Algebra Course (PDF) | |
| The role of mastering algebra is to learn to manipulate abstract symbolic representations for underlying mathematical concepts, an ability with increasing importance in a world where relatively abstract technology is used to organize work in a great many domains (Moses, 2002). As a gateway course to further education, algebra is a critical milestone in secondary education. Algebra is increasingly integrated into elementary school mathematics, and the majority of secondary level students take a stand-alone algebra course. States, districts, schools, and instructors need information about effective approaches to teaching algebra. The quality of algebra curricula and instruction has received special attention in recent years when the mathematics test scores of students in the U.S. have been compared to scores of students in other countries, scores on state mathematics tests have been used to evaluate schools, and the need for qualified scientists and engineers has grown. | |
| High School Classroom: Part One (PDF) | |
| The ongoing assessment of student progress can provide a foundation for personalized instructional delivery. Technology tools can rapidly generate feedback from a variety of assessment types. Using technology-based diagnostic assessments, students and teachers can understand what a student already knows and help plan an instructional program to get him or her to the next level. Frequent formative assessments can allow students and teachers to monitor student progress and understand how close they are to their goals. Summative assessments allow students to demonstrate mastery and teachers to document student achievement. Technology-based assessments can also adapt to student understanding, becoming progressively more difficult as students learn more. | |
| Animating Dreams | |
| The ACME Animation Program is a school-based program where studnets connect with professional animators through teleconferencing technology and receive instant feedback from these experts on their animations. The program has also developed a website for anyone in the world to get similar feedback. This allows students to form relationships with professional mentors, which has improved the quality of their work. Teachers report that students produce better work when they know that professionals will be judging it, and that they also learn to work with deadlines in mind. | |
| Cinema Program: Cultivating A Career In Film | |
| At the Northeast School of the Arts, students are engaged in a filmaking class which instructors use a context for developing their thinking and writing skills. Students document school projects and trips in the class, and their films have been screened at festivals. The students learn how to write and develop a storyline, all while realizing that their stories do matter, and that the public is interested in what they have to say. | |
| The Global Dimension: Walter Payton High School | |
| Walter Payton College Prep in Chicago infuses a global perspective into every subject that they teach in order to achieve their goal of teaching students to be global citizens and leaders. Four years of language studies are recommended for students. The school hosts many international visitors to gain a global perspective. Technology plays a key role, both within the school and as a means to connect students to real-world experts and to their international sister schools. | |
| High School Classroom: Part Two (PDF) | |
| Short for web log, a blog is a website where individuals or groups share ideas, events, and insights with online audiences. A classroom blog is a way for teachers to communicate with students, parents, and the community in general. | |
| High School Classroom: Part Three (PDF) | |
| Digital portfolio is an electronic collection of student work that is assembled, managed, and shared by the student. Developing portfolios, students collect work products over time, so the students, teachers, mentors, and parents can see students' growth. Students can prepare portfolios for a variety of purposes, such as to include with college applications or to demonstrate their academic skills and community involvement. When students are allowed to manage the contents of their portfolio, they not only reflect on the elements of mastery but also learn to selectively choose the work that best displays their skills. | |
| High School Classroom: Part Five (PDF) | |
| Quality teaching is critical to using real-time classroom collaboration. Teaching a class that includes both local and remote students requires an awareness of the needs of both groups. Videoconferencing can be useful in giving both sets of students the feeling that they are in the same room, but for the teacher the ability to read faces, call on remote students for questions or responses, and include them in the discussions is vital to helping remote students feel they are truly part of the class. | |
| High School Library: Part One (PDF) | |
| Technology can provide students unprecedented opportunities to express their creativity and harness new media. From digital storytelling to movies, podcasts, presentations, games, and simulations, new technology tools are available that even young children can use effectively to share their ideas, explore art and expression, and demonstrate what they know. Because of the participatory nature of these projects, most require students to plan, design, and script or storyboard before they even begin production. They also almost always require students to work collaboratively, negotiating ideas and sharing responsibilities. | |
| High School Library: Part Two (PDF) | |
| E-books are electronic versions of books. They can often be highlighted and annotated while being read and even provide audio to be "read" aloud. The size of the text can be expanded or reduced, and e-books can also be extensively cross-indexed and linked directly to resources such as definitions or other explanations outside the text itself. In addition, an electronic book can include animated graphics, audio clips, and movies that are not possible in traditional books. E-books can be more flexible for many readers and can provide significant adaptation for students with special needs. Similarly, audio books can provide opportunities for students who are struggling readers to read along with the text or to cover material in keeping with their peers. | |
| A Change in Attitude: Incorporating Technology In the Classroom Gives Curriculum A Boost | |
| This video shows how technology was integrated into a classroom in Mississippi | |
| More Students Getting Laptops Instead Of Textbooks | |
| This article highlights a Louisiana high school which is switching to an all-digital curriculum. Along with the new curriculum, students will receive their own laptops for use in school, which will replace traditional textbooks. | |
| The Impact Of Cognitive Organizers And Technology-Based Practices On Student Success In Secondary Social Studies Classrooms | |
| This is a study which investigated the impact of cognitive organizers and integrated software on student performance. Researchers examined a sample of students in an inclusive high school social studies class to determine if the user of a cognitive organizer had any impact on content-area learning. They found that students in the cognivite organizer sub-group significantly outperformed those students receiveing traditional textbook instruction. | |
| Planning And Conducting Professional Development That Makes A Difference (PDF) | |
| This document outlines a step-by-step approach to planning and conducting effective professional development. The guidelines cover planning, coordination, implementation, and follow-up of professional development. | |