VECOT Project TARGET Grant Executive Summary
The Edgewood Grant
Consortium has submitted a TARGET grant proposal to be known herein as VECOT
(Virtual Education Classroom of Tomorrow).
The Edgewood VECOT TARGET Grant Consortium is implementing an expansion
initiative based upon the Edgewood Consortium's TIE 4 SAVE (Strategies
Accessing Virtual Education) Grant.
The VECOT Consortium is
composed of:
1.
Edgewood ISD, the
high-need LEA, an urban district located in San Antonio, Texas
2.
La Vernia ISD, the VECOT
Fiscal Agent, a rural district located in La Vernia, Texas, 30 miles south of
San Antonio
3.
Holy Cross Jr.-Sr. High
School, a private nonprofit school located within Edgewood ISD
4.
St. John Berchmans
School, a private nonprofit school located within Edgewood ISD
5.
St. John Bosco School, a
private nonprofit school located within Edgewood ISD
6.
Education Service
Center, Region 20 (ESC20) in San Antonio, and higher education service provider
partners OLLU (Our Lady of the Lake University) and UTSA (the University of
Texas at San Antonio)
The Edgewood Consortium
has collaborated on multiple grants over the years and enjoys a strong spirit
of collaboration. A major tenet of the
consortium is the belief that all members must have a clear, documented understanding
of their unique needs, desired benefits and individual responsibilities, as
well as of the shared vision including common needs, goals and objectives. The areas of greatest need, and the partners
of highest need, are clearly identified, and remain the ultimate focus of all
grant initiatives. Detailed Shared Service Agreements specify the exact
responsibilities each member has in relation to the Consortium.
The VECOT program, as
previously defined, is designed to focus on the “Virtual Education” in the
“Classroom Of Tomorrow”. For our purposes,
we define the “classroom of tomorrow” as a place where technology tools are not
merely present, but are implemented and integrated into teaching and learning
in a seamless way in which the product or skill is the focus, not the
technology itself. Too often, teachers and students have had the newest
technology placed in a classroom, and have been forced to change their way of
thinking and operating in order to accommodate the technology; this interferes
with the natural flow of teaching and learning, and has resulted in
technophobes who are disenfranchised with the system.
This grant initiative
defines “virtual education” as a classroom in which technology has empowered
teachers and students by making a wide array of learning opportunities available
in a transparent and natural fashion.
Content is available just-in-time from the Internet, streaming IPTV
video, interactive distance learning teleconferencing, challenging online
courseware and online course adoptions in a variety of formats and modalities
designed to fit all learning styles.
The focus becomes the information, skills and knowledge instead of the
technology or delivery system itself.
Too often, program
designs have focused on placing high technology into the classroom for
technology’s sake, without looking at the relative advantages; the technology
may be great, but is the innovation better than what it replaces, and does it
lead to a positive outcome?
In trying to apply
TARGET grant funding in a way that changes teaching and learning for all
participants, assists in crossing the digital divide by eighth grade, increases
technology integration into the curriculum and focuses on the needs of the
high-need LEA, the Edgewood VECOT Grant Management Team and Grant Steering
Committee have worked long and hard to identify the needs, strengths and
weaknesses within each campus and district.
The Campus Level Texas StaR Chart provided critical needs assessment,
and progress as measured by improvement on StaR Chart indicators will be a
primary effectiveness indicator for this grant.
Strategies for improving
academic achievement and teacher effectiveness
Ø
Provide professional development focused on campus
administrators’ needed understanding of technology, TEKS and classroom
technology integration, evaluative methods and the use of technology tools.
Ø
Provide an in-school development program
(Generation Y) designed to engage students in the teaching and learning process
in areas and ways not currently available by training students to be teacher
technology mentors.
Ø
Provide quality professional development through a
variety of means designed to increase teacher utilization and integration of
technology.
Ø
Provide management tools and a technology-based
planning and accountability system in order to improve classroom management and
insure alignment of the curriculum to TEKS standards.
Ø
Provide additional teacher computers to allow
dedicated access
Ø
Provide additional student computers to allow
dedicated access
Ø
Provide additional presentation and collaboration
technology tools to all campuses so that commonly used technologies are
available for assigned use.
Ø
Obtain instructional IPTV online content to deliver
instruction in areas and ways not currently available.
Ø
Provide professional development that models
technology integration by content area and is designed to increase teacher
technology skills to minimum SBEC proficiency levels.
Ø
Obtain on-demand individualized professional
development content to increase the availability of professional development.
Ø
Identify existing pockets of excellence to form
peer-mentoring networks.
Goals
The goal of the Edgewood Grant Consortium's VECOT
(Virtual Education Classroom Of Tomorrow) TARGET program is to provide
assistance to the high-need LEA (Edgewood ISD, including the private nonprofit
schools contained therein) and its collaborative partner (La Vernia ISD) for
the implementation and support of a comprehensive system that effectively uses
technology in elementary schools and secondary schools to improve student
academic achievement.
The primary TARGET grant goal is supported by the
following local goals:
1.
Integrate technology into the teaching and learning
process
2.
Increase student technology literacy
3.
Increase compliance with SBEC and TEKS standards by
increasing the quality, availability and variety of research-based professional
development
4.
Increase the availability of teacher and student
technology tools and collaborative presentation systems
5.
Provide educator support and mentoring systems
through non-traditional means
6.
Increase teacher productivity and student
achievement by utilizing technology to expand the teaching and learning process
7.
Provide innovative learning opportunities to
teachers, staff, students and the community
Steps to increase
accessibility
VECOT will increase student and teacher access to
technology in the high-need schools by purchasing dedicated laptop computers
for teachers. A total of 36 teacher
laptops will be purchased for each school, increasing access to dedicated
teacher stations and facilitating teacher use of online accountability systems
including lesson planning and curriculum management. The desktop computers previously in use by teachers will be
reassigned to dedicated student use, thereby increasing student access to
computers. An LCD data projection device will be placed in each school to
provide teachers additional access to collaborative technology tools.
Additional presentation technology packages, known
as TAP (Technology Advancement Package), will be placed on each high-need
campus. During the years in the grant cycle when a campus does not receive
laptops for teachers, a TAP package consisting of various combinations of
projection devices, digital cameras and camcorders, presentation computers and
SmartBoards is given to each campus. In
order to increase technology accessibility for all students, every high-need
consortium campus, even those not designated as substantial need, receive TAP
packages throughout the grant cycle.
These TAP packages increase student and teacher access to collaborative
presentation technology.
Accessibility to instructional and professional
content in areas and ways not currently available is addressed by populating
the IPTV content engines purchased with TIE grant funding with high-quality
research-based content from major providers, and by increased use of the
distance learning videoconferencing systems.
In order to insure teachers are prepared to
integrate technology effectively into curricula and instruction, VECOT will
provide innovative Generation Y student-mentoring programs to high-need
campuses. Generation Y is an innovative
program that establishes a class in the local elementary, middle or high school
that teaches students technology skills, adult communication skills, and the procedures
and rubrics used to create curriculum units.
Students are assigned as a mentor to a teacher within their school, and
they assist that teacher in integrating technology into the curriculum,
creating technology-enhanced lessons and developing projects that can be
distributed via the Internet.
Generation Y is a heavily research-based Department of Education program
that has received outstanding reviews and achieved proven results. Generation Y empowers students and teachers,
and transforms the students, normally the objects of change, into the agents of
change, thus increasing student involvement in a positive way.
UTSA will provide TIA (Technology Integration
Advancement) training. TIA training
will be held during summer break for the next three years, and will be attended
by teacher cohorts chosen competitively by content area from the high-need LEA
campuses. These teachers will receive
training designed to bring their technology skills up to minimum SBEC (State
Board for Educator Certification) standards while fostering skills needed to
integrate technology into the content areas. This pilot program will be
accessible from the new, high technology downtown campus and the main campus,
providing convenience to all consortium members. OLLU will assist the grant consortium by offering HEIGHTS (Higher
Education Initiative for Generating Heightened Teacher Support) training, which
concentrates on creating a web of support for teachers while fostering their
technology integration, communication and mentoring skills
Promotion of curricula
and teaching strategies that integrate technology
The following initiatives, combined with other
efforts already undertaken within the schools, will improve student academic
achievement as measured by TAKS:
Ø
VECOT will provide innovative Generation Y student
mentoring as detailed in the preceding section, integrating technology into
teaching and learning, and assisting teachers in creating new lessons that
implement technology in compliance with TEKS standards.
Ø
The pilot T-PALs online Classroom Curriculum
Management and Accountability System will facilitate the integration of
technology into the curriculum, assure that TEKS curriculum elements are
included, and allow more customization of curriculum elements to individual
class needs. Parent communication is
also enhanced by the increased ease of reviewing student progress on individual
projects and activities.
Ø
VECOT provides new online instructional and
professional development IPTV content that utilizes technology to provide
instruction in areas and ways not currently available.
Ø
Training for teachers and administrators, including
the previously defined CUT Policy and Leadership training, TIA and HEIGHTS
training
Ø
Mentoring networks within the schools will be
created by identifying the “Pockets of Excellence” that exist within each
school; the knowledge, skills and drive of these early adopters will be tapped
to create local mentoring cohorts within the consortium. Where possible, mentors will be assigned to
teachers located in another school or district in order to facilitate the
spread of lessons learned and best practices
Ø
Use of online curriculum adoptions and supplemental
instruction systems such as NovaNet will improve student achievement.
Ø
Increased access to computers and technology tools
creates communities of inquiry, fostering student collaborative learning and
increasing student use of technology as a tool for research and the acquisition
of new knowledge.
Professional development
Ongoing professional development will be provided
in a variety of ways. ESC20 will
provide CUT (Curriculum Using Technology) training to all high-need campus
administrators in support of classroom technology integration. Administrators must understand the expectations
teachers must meet, and must know how to properly evaluate technology
integration and implementation. UTSA
will provide TIA (Technology Integration Advancement) training. TIA training will be held during summer
break for the next three years, and will be attended by teacher cohorts chosen
competitively by content area from the high-need LEA campuses. These teachers will receive training
designed to bring their technology skills up to minimum SBEC (State Board for
Educator Certification) standards while fostering skills needed to integrate
technology into the content areas. This pilot program will be accessible from
the new, high technology downtown campus and the main campus, providing
convenience to all consortium members.
OLLU will assist the grant consortium by offering HEIGHTS (Higher
Education Initiative for Generating Heightened Teacher Support) training, which
concentrates on creating a web of support for teachers while fostering their
technology integration, communication and mentoring skills.
The additional professional development IPTV
content will provide just-in-time access to the latest high-quality instruction
while eliminating the need for substitutes, stipends or expending hours of time
in workshops. A teacher can access just
the specific information they need during conference periods, lunch breaks, or
other non-duty times, revolutionizing staff development.
Ongoing professional development is also provided
to a larger and larger extent as years go on by the Generation Y student
technology mentor program. Each year,
the students who have been through the program increase in number, creating
large cohorts of teacher mentors and very technology literate students in just
a few short years. Generation Y
maximizes funding as the need for supplemental technology staff decreases, and
as students are promoted, the student mentors impact almost all teachers from
early grade levels through graduation.
Notice Of Grant Award (NOGA) notifications are expected by late December 2002. Stay tuned for further updates!