Vestal Central School District

Office of the Assistant Superintendent for Instruction, Mary M. Surdey

1. Grassroots professional development combined with an instructional technology application resulted in a plan submitted last week to the Professional Development Department, Vestal Central School District, to present a Wiki workshop at Vestal High School.

During the 2008-09 school year, a social studies teacher experienced success with Wikis in her classroom and shared her enthusiasm with another member of the department, who is now action researching Wikis with her own classes. This sharing of expertise happens in districts committed to collaborative, risk free and embedded professional learning. The proposed spring workshop will use the action research of these teachers as they focus on creating Wiki projects, essays, and assignments through PBWorks. Wikis heighten student engagement by allowing them to write and create in an interactive collaborative forum.

Teachers will learn the many benefits of using Wikis in the classroom, such as allowing students to learn from their peers, improving student writing, challenging students to think critically, honing team-working skills, preparing students for the university classroom, and building strong classroom communities. In addition, teachers of all content areas will have an opportunity to see Wikis in action in an instructional setting, and then develop Wiki assignments for their own classes. Teachers will be learning from each other, which always contributes to increased student achievement.

2. Dave Osinski, technology teacher at Vestal Middle School, Vestal, NY, has been teaching traditional technology education for the past 17 years at VMS. However, this year he and his colleagues are tossing away the antiquated technology curriculum for a cutting edge pre-engineering program directed at 21^st century learners—Gateway to Technology middle school Project Lead The Way curriculum. To meet this challenge, Mr. Osinski eagerly collaborated with Information Technology teacher, Scott Smith, to learn the ins and outs of instructing a class with a SMART Board. Mr. Osinski also dedicated many hours revisiting the features of the new Autodesk Inventor software that drives the main engineering concepts. Recently while instructing a classroom of 7th grade students and utilizing a laptop and the

SMART Board, Mr. Osinski helped his students create a 3-D simulation of a block with a bored hole. Mr.Osinski paused, stepped back and said to his class, “Isn’t this awesome!”

Later he told Mr. Kasson, assistant principal, “I have a new bounce in my step this year.” Furthermore he stated, “I never thought I’d see the day when I would be using this much instructional technology in a classroom.” Mr. Osinski’s comments did not stop there, he remarked on how fast his students were learning the material through the use of technology. He compared the pace of teaching dimensioning concepts with traditional methods and noted this year his students have been more motivated and have gained a stronger understanding at a faster pace. At one point, Mr. Osinski chuckled and said each night he sits down with his own children, and while they complete their homework he works on his laptop to gain more experience with the software.

Even with all of the practice, he said students often teach him features about the software that he was not aware of. Mr. Osinski expressed his excitement of collaborating with his colleagues, sharing various instructional methodologies, utilizing the instructional technology in the classroom and witnessing student excitement and desire for learning. Additionally, Mr. Osinski’s four colleagues are just as eager and have expressed excitement for teaching and learning associated with PLTW. It is most obvious that the PLTW curriculum, teacher training, district support and available classroom instructional technology has revamped the Technology Education department at VMS.

 3. On September 30th and October 1st, curriculum nights at Tioga Hills Elementary School, Vestal, NY, parents and students had the opportunity to utilize Senteos, one of the technology tools recently purchased in the district. Mr. Maslin and staff developed a quick, fun quiz about Tioga Hills and set up the equipment in the main lobby of the school. Participants used a Senteo remote to take the quiz, check their results and see how they performed as a group. Sample question:

What year was Tioga Hills Elementary constructed? Answer: 1967. A parent was heard commenting, “I wish we had these available when I was in school. It certainly makes learning more fun.”