SWSWedu 2012 and The Power of Project Share

SWSWedu 2012 is becoming the Texas global think tank conference. As an active participant last year, it is great to see the conference really take shape and grow to include industry professionals, young future start up companies, top educators, journalists, film makers, administrators, and teachers.  All collaborating to attempt to solve the many problems facing our educational system. Our public education system encourages that all students can learn, and this is the strength of our nation's economic future. The idea that anyone who works hard, is given the equal opportunity to learn, can achieve and pull themselves out of poverty through education is a uniquely American idea. My biggest take aways this year includes the following.

  The Power of Project Share: Project share will continue to be the platform for Texas educators to tap into, and is currently funded through 2020. Project share is powerful, versatile, easy to use, flexible, includes many top resources, and is well designed. Administrators need to encourage and model active participation, and explore all of the possibilities and connections that project share provides. Project share developers are open to suggestions for improvement, and I am very pleased with the progress. Developers and leaders working on Project Share initiatives have listened to critiques, corrected many, and have promised to continue to enhance the system. As I research other alternatives, I have yet to find another state that empowers classrooms with a true course management system as powerful as Project Share. Yes, there are other alternatives, but can you truly collaborate with other classrooms beyond your district? Do other course management systems include a content repository where educators can create, share, and embed content within the system for future use? Project share will soon receive a face lift. Parents and community members will have increased access to the many powerful learning tools and features. Districts should see a continued dedication by the state to implement project share. Training resources and support will be more widely available.  


The Power of STEM: Robotics is a science, art, and engineering challenge. Industry leaders are begging teachers to provide hands on activities that engage students in the areas of science, math, technology, and art. Robotics can be introduced as early as first grade and can be coupled with advancing robotic experiences throughout grade levels. Robotics gives students hands on approaches to solving real problems, and students are able to connect math concepts to real world engineering problems. Solutions are tested with a physical model. Students are allowed to fail and learn how to apply the scientific method to produce a real product or idea.

  Challenge Based Learning: Challenge based learning engages students, can improve academic performance, and allows for the entire learning experience to become more authentic and real for the student. Challenge based learning is student centered, and can be integrated in any teacher's curriculum.

  Highly Effective Teaching: Steven Farr's session on Teaching and Leadership encouraged me to think about how highly effective schools operate. His organization, Teach for America, encourages teachers and students to set goals. Highly effective teachers do believe all students can learn when given the opportunity. Kids believe there is no correlation between hard working and being smart. We must change how kids view hard work.

Enhancing Your Project Share Course

Project Share is providing classrooms and educators with many new resources, collaboration features, and productivity tools, which will really enhance mobile learning opportunities for students. How can you enhance your courses and collaborations using Project Share? Here are some tips that I have found useful.

1. Reach out and collaborate daily. Add and invite students and professionals to join you in professional learning and dialogue. Post a cool new resource, ask questions, or give student examples of integration for other educators to use. Begin by searching for groups in your content area. Don't be afraid to email other educators or teachers that you find in project share. I have found that many educators are excited about the possibility of collaborating and just need an invitation or push to do so. So send a quick note to someone within project share that can add to your collaboration efforts in the classroom.

2. Use productivity tools in project share courses. I began doing this by creating weekly announcements, utilize the calendar feature, post your syllabus, and use your course mail system to keep students up to date. There are many other productivity tools you can encourage your students to use. These include the Take Notes feature, Work Groups, and Drop Boxes. Teachers should consider creating a drop box for each assignment submitted. Other classroom productivity tools include: attendance, grade grid, reporting features, Test/Quiz generator, and alert feature.

3. Use collaborative classroom tools: I am finding that students really love embedding content in the course wiki, forum, and blog tools. Encourage students to post feedback and model feedback for students. Consider grading feedback and teach students how to participate appropriately in a collaborative educational setting. My students are graded on the following scale. Fifty percent of a student's discussion grade is on their original posting of content to the course in the collaborative tool. Was the content appropriate or did it add meaningful subject matter to the course? Did students embed content? The other fifty percent of a student's discussion grade is how students respond to other peer postings. Did students pose a higher order thinking question? Was the response and feedback thought provoking? Did it generate more discussion?


3. Consider adding resources to course lessons. One of the many exciting tools available for educators to tap into when building online lessons is The New York Times Knowledge Network Repository. This tools gives educators access to content from the top minds and organizations.

These include

New York Times: Tap into articles, media, and content that dates back to 1851.
MIT OpenCourseWare
NASA
Star Date: University of Texas McDonald Observatory
Aventa Learning
PhET Simulations that are Interactive with University of Colorado
International Children's Digital Library
Flat World Knowledge: Free online college textbook resources

4. Embed other tools inside your course to make for a more enjoyable experience. Students love embedding tutorials or content within course wikis, forums, and blogs. Our students use Quicktime Player to create a screen recording and upload tutorials to schooltube. Other students have used Prezi and Animoto to create How To Presentations, which they then embed in the course content.

Instructors can model and do the same. Embedding third party interactive websites within project share gives students the ability to access quality and interactive content and packages content nicely in one place: Your Project Share Course.




Project Share is a true course management system, allowing educators to not only collaborate but create a true online learning environment.