[nice words about Business Week deleted--MOD.]
I was reading the most recent posting of Technology & Education #17, July 22, 1997, about Rhonda Toon (KDPW49B@prodigy.com) who wrote, "For the past seven years I have been a classroom teacher in a rural Georgia school system"
She is far from alone, and her story is similar to others, yet unique in its perspective.
Part and I say "part" of the process that technology and education share are drawn from a long and richly textured and interwoven history. Today, with the advent and the discovery of the "internet" by the masses of new (and not so new) cadre of teachers; that discovering process by those "front line teachers" has yet to tap the truer nature of the creative processes that they alone possess.
The best resources of quality data and analyses will come from the imagination of teachers.
Albert Einstein, has been quoted as saying "Imagination is more important then knowledge"... Here is a short formula that may be applied to that quote.
GROWTH = (CREATIVITY + INFORMATION) x (IMAGINATION)
This Fall a new, free information, communication resources will be launched to help support the ideas, concepts, programs, curriculums and classroom projects that have been developed by teachers from every corner of the globe.
K-12 schools, universities projects and programs, from MIT, Stanford, to name just two well known US based schools of higher learning... Add Canada the UK, Ireland, Scotland, Mexico, The European continent, South and Central America, Japan, Korea, from the Pacific to the Atlantic, from Greenland and many more.
Linking ideas not just programs and projects, but what is working, how it works, what positive effects are different programs having on the single greatest asset that schools and teachers have, THE CHILDREN!
Art, Math, History, Language, and Science, projects and programs will be available. But far more important will be the ideas and concepts that are being used by the teacher for the student. More precisely what data can be assembled about achievement, information assimilation and other baseline accreditation oriented data that may be useful to the teacher when making core program changes or key decisions that can or will effect the student?
One example of the kind of data that would be helpful can be found at the follow URL... IBM Success Stories http://www.solutions.ibm.com/k12/success/success.html
IBM is just one resources, for quality content. It is not the only one. The above reference will be available as will many others.
If you have a success story and would like to share it, on a web-site devoted to the exchange of teacher ideas in the use of technology and have baseline data about student achievement, please feel free to contact:
George C. Fortner
THE BRIDGE MAKER
gcfco@earthlink.net
Costa Mesa, California
Jane Coffey
http://www.readin.org
I just read your July 28 story "A Class Act on the Net" and felt compelled to alert you ASAP to a unique project combining literacy and technology for which I've just started volunteering. It's called the Read In!
This has been an incredible one-woman project [Jane Coffey, AFCJane@aol.com, www.readin.org MOD.] since 1994 and now is in the process of forming a Foundation, recruiting a Board and applying for 501C3 non-profit status.
(What follows is from the initial draft of the first ever three year Strategic Plan.)
----
Overview of the Project
The Read-In! is an annual daylong reading project for grades kindergarten through high school. It incorporates and integrates language arts and telecommunications via a unique educational collaboration among peers throughout the U.S., Canada, and abroad.
The day of The Read In!, students and teachers at each participating site bring blankets, pillows, and reading materials and spend the day together reading and celebrating reading. If they have an Internet connection on site, they use telecommunications to join in an interactive exchange with tens of thousands of other participants around the world.
At predetermined times, all the classes meet in designated chat areas on the Internet through Internet Relay Chat. They discuss books they are reading, relate classroom activities, inform each other of special guests on site, trade suggested book lists, and "speak live" to special guests-favorite authors-with whom they discuss their love of reading.
History of The Read In!
1994: The Beginning
The first Read In! was held in May,1994. During the 1993 - 1994 schoolyear, Jan Brown's third grade class in Turlock, CA, linked via a slow 2400-baud modem to Dolores Willoughby's third grade class in Chickasha, OK. The teachers became "keypals." Their classes exchanged greetings and email, had a "virtual" Valentine's party, and even wrote a round robin story online.
When Ms. Willoughby mentioned that their school had a reading day in the spring, Jane Coffey, the site computer technician in Turlock, suggested that it would be fun to read and chat together online, live. The Read In! was born. The first Read In! was less than four hours long but filled with a great spirit of adventure.
1995: The Read In! Takes Off
Jane Coffey, a California State Telementor trained to integrate telecommunications into the curriculum, was required to develop an integrated, online project as part of a weeklong intensive training program.
Expansion of The Read In! became that project.
Through postings to library and educational listservs, participation and interest in the project began to escalate. "Celebrity" letters recounting personal literary favorites were solicited from 250 people. Over 50 celebrities, including Garrison Keillor, Stephen King, R.L. Stine, Alan Alda, and John Glenn, sent letters and photographs. There was even a picture from Clint Eastwood, inscribed "Go Ahead, Make My Day-Read!!" All registered participants received copies of the letters.
The final count of 1995 Read In! participants was well over 5,400 students from the US, Canada, Australia, and Japan.
1996: A Great Leap Forward
In November, 1995, Microsoft inquired whether there was anything Microsoft could do for [The Read In!] and whether it had an Internet sponsor. Microsoft became the first sponsor and funded development of a Read In! Web site by Digital Voodoo, Inc., a Web page design group. The Read In! now had an Internet presence.
On February 29, 1996, the date of the third annual Read In!, the project exploded to include over 19,000 participants. There was a schedule of events, but many teachers stayed online for most of the school day. The highlight of the day for kids and teachers alike was a live chat with R.L. Stine, author of the best-selling Goosebumps series. The first Read In! book report contest, Leap Into Literature, tied in with Leap Year.
1997: Warp Speed
On May 9, 1997, over 140,000 registered participants from the U.S., Canada, Japan, Germany, and Saudi Arabia were involved in the Day Of activities. The Read In! had expanded to the point of moving it to the massive servers of Libraries Online, allowing the Read In! to successfully link over 1,300 sites simultaneously. Over eighteen children's authors and illustrators, notably R.L. Stine, Avi, Connie Porter, David Wisniewski, Mark Kistler, and Ed Emberley, chatted with their fans about reading and writing.
Microsoft funded prizes totaling $2,600 in US Savings bonds for the 23 winners of the second Leap Into Literacy Book Report Contest. Kodak, Inc. donated twenty digital cameras to the authors and to selected sites across the nation for documentation of the Day Of activities.
Why This Phenomenal Success?
· The Read In! is a very simple, yet highly effective way to integrate technology and literacy into the classroom curriculum via the Internet.
· It's a monitored, yet exciting way for students to interact in a safe environment while using the Net.
· It's topical, it's on the Net, and it addresses volunteerism and literacy in an interactive, compelling way.
· Teachers have always had reading days and readathons, but never the added bonus of interactivity offered by The Read In.
· The Read In! is much more than a "Day Of " project. Cross curricular, it can be used in geography studies, map studies, math studies, and language arts classes throughout the school year.
The Future of The Read In!
The Read In! is growing rapidly and evolving to a completely new level of visibility and reach. Participation in the 1998 Read In! is projected at 250,000 but could easily reach 500,000 or even much higher.
---
And this has all been organized and driven and administered by a single dedicated teacher! To go to the next level, it is going to take a huge amount of work, ergo a small staff, and also funding. Fortunately, the basic technology for over 30,000 simultaneous connections is committed and in place, as is continuing support for work on the website. So the show will go on, no matter what, next April. The challenge will be to handle the expansion, which if it occurs in a straight line would be well over 1 million kids. All pretty much spontaneous growth without any real promotion!
For 1998 the focus will stay on North America but the 3-year plan involves a major push to truly globalize the project with authors from all over the world and multiple language capabilities, not to mention time zones . . . .
The possibilities for using computers in schools are so grossly underestimated! The educational establishment hasn't nearly caught up to what creative individual teachers are doing all over America and, increasingly worldwide. I hope you will find a way to cover this story. It has grown quietly from the grassroots without ever seeking, or getting, much attention from any other than the local press.
Visit the website at http://www.readin.org to get a better sense of the project.To be in touch with Jane directly, email her at AFCJane@aol.com
Thank you for your time and attention.
Johanna Bierwirth
Maverick Marketing
Amarillo, TX
