NDLW Award Nominees: Professional Development for Educators

Name of Nominee: Dr. Gerald Gingras
Nominee’s Organization: Saint Mary's College at Notre Dame

Description of why this nominee should receive the NDLW Award:
Dr. Gerry Gingras, Coordinator for Spanish of the Department of Modern Languages of Saint Mary's College began offering live, face-to-face tutorials in the Spanish language using professional tutors who live and work in Guatemala using the public internet in the fall of 2006

The tutors, provided by InterLangua, use a small bandwidth, high quality video conference. The Saint Mary's students in Indiana meet the Guatemalan tutors over the public internet on standard PCs. The tutoring sessions are all one-to-one. The students meet individually with the same tutor over the length of the semester. The InterLangua software provides a synchronous, full-motion video and voice web-conference without requiring proprietary hardware. Video records of students are available at http://interlangua.com/experience.html

Saint Mary's now offers TWO one credit courses using InterLangua, Spanish for the Business World and Spanish for the Medical Professions, requiring 14 hours of individual tutorial dedicated to a rehearsal of both the language and the culture.

Although the need for these courses at the College had been great, Saint Mary's had been unable to implement them. InterLangua made the offering of these courses possible for the first time by providing tutors, who have been especially trained, over a live internet connection with Latin America.

The program fosters international and intercultural learning and competence critical to education. This offers students an authentic opportunity to cross the traditional dividing lines between disciplines and cultures and, in so doing, to advance their professional expertise and, therefore, their leadership abilities.

The InterLangua tutorial fosters the students' "negotiated" linguistic capacity in the Spanish language within her specific focus on the culture of business or of medicine in the Spanish-speaking world. It affords her a much-expanded opportunity to explore that specific field of study on an international level and from a decidedly intercultural perspective. Dr. Gingras deserves to be awarded for his use of web 2.0 technology, multicultural language tutoring and cost effective implementation of an internet based service to enhance the Saint Mary's language program.

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Name of Nominee: Roxanne Glaser
Nominee’s Organization: Education Service Center Region 12, Waco, TX

Description of why this nominee should receive the NDLW Award:
MysteryGuest IVC Showcase changes the paradigm for bringing new possibilities in curriculum videoconferening to educators. Instead of the standard "talking head on the big screen" model, MysteryGuest IVC engages the participants in seeking the identities of the guests.

The goal for this session is to introduce leaders in K-12 videoconferencing to the teachers and administrators attending the session using a model (MysteryQuest created by Janine Lim from BCISD, Michigan) that is utilized in many student connections.

Handouts for the session are a note-taking guides that is provided to participants upon arrival. After all participants have revealed their identities, participants receive a one-page sheet with contact information and web links for each guest (including a photo of each guest).

Participants commented that this was the most engaging staff development. They learned more in the 1 hour 45 minute session than in all day trainings.

Format:
30 minutes ~ Mystery Guests connect for technical check and roll call (Participants are not allowed in the room at this time.)
15 min ~ Facilitator introductions, survey audience for membership and level of IVC use, and set the stage for the VC MysteryGuest Showcase
30 min ~ Mystery Guests each give 6 clues to their identity (location, organization, and personal)
15 min ~ Local participants are divided into the same number of groups as there are mystery guests. They use the laptops to search the web. Facilitator roams the room to assist with search strategies and probing questions. Microphone is left open in the room so that all mystery guests can hear conversations.
15 min ~ Round of clarifying questions (One yes or no question allowed for each group to ask their Mystery Guest)
15 min ~ Mystery Guests reveal their identity and showcase their blog/programs/organization
15 min ~ Questions from the local participants

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Name of Nominee: Ken Conn
Nominee’s Organization: Data Projections

Description of why this nominee should receive the NDLW Award:
Hands-on, curriculum-based, and complete immersion into videoconferencing and Web 2.0 technologies. 123VC-Jazzing Up Your Curriculum with Videoconferencing changes staff development from telling teachers how to use video conferencing equipment to showing them.

123VC (or JAZZ, as it is affectionately known) is led by nationally recognized leaders in K-12 videoconferencing, Ken Conn, Roxanne Glaser and Janine Lim. Participating sites have included Cooperating School Districts, St. Louis, MO, North Central Ohio ESC, New York, El Paso ISD, El Paso, Texas, Dallas ISD, Dallas, Texas, and Lamar Consolidated ISD, Rosenberg, Texas.

"123VC: Jazzing Up Your Curriculum with Videoconferencing" uses constructivist learning principles to propel educators into the collaborative world of interactive videoconferencing and distance learning. Partnering with other videoconference coordinators to create collaborations and projects is the model for keeping videoconferencing equipment from getting dusty! 123VC showcases how to move from an idea into classroom implementation with content areas from PreK through high school.

Each day of the 123VC staff development, participants move through the following activities: local time where facilitators teach videoconferencing vocabulary and Web 2.0 technologies, group time where best practices in curriculum videoconferencing are modeled using such projects as Read Around the Planet, Math Marvels, Monster Match, ASK, and MysteryQuest, and finally small group time where teachers use videoconferencing, Skype, Google Docs, and course documents in Moodle to create their own curriculum-based videoconference project.

Many districts purchase videoconferencing equipment through grants and try to teach teachers how to use it by bringing in a consultant to "tell" teachers about all the amazing connections that are possible. "123VC: Jazzing Up Your Curriculum with Videoconferencing" breaks that paradigm. Districts that have participated in the summer 123VC program have taken the use of videoconferencing to the next level and integrated it into the curriculum making it an integral part of the instructional day.

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Name of Nominee: Janine Lim
Nominee’s Organization: Berrien County ISD

Description of why this nominee should receive the NDLW Award:
Berrien County ISD has offered online classes supporting videoconferencing since 2003. Participants have attended these classes from across the United States, and even in Argentina, Canada, Costa Rica, and the United Kingdom. Planning Interactive Curriculum Connections is an introduction to videoconferencing and includes how to connect to content providers and prepare for a quality videoconference experience. Kid2Kid Videoconference Connections takes participants step by step through the process of planning and implementing a videoconference project. Participants always appreciate the networking with classmates. In the words of one participant, "It was a very interesting class that was easily adjusted to the different levels of knowledge of the students. I like how geographically diverse the students were. The ideas were creative and interesting." Another coordinator said, "I am so glad that this class was offered. I have really been able to receive some great information. The information that I received was not only great for me, but a lot of the content I can pass on to other teachers. Hopefully, this will get more teachers involved in this wonderful technology." Participants in the class have continued on to create regional and statewide projects for their own service areas. The impact of these classes lives on in continued collaborations and projects that result in impact for our nation's kids.

Reference URLs: http://www.remc11.k12.mi.us/dl/picc/
http://www.remc11.k12.mi.us/dl/k2k/

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Name of Nominee: Linda Delecce
Nominee’s Organization: Smithtown Central School District

Description of why this nominee should receive the NDLW Award:
Linda Delecce should recieve the NDLW Award because she is an innovator in the field of Distance Learning. She was instrumental in the creation of the Distance Learning and Virtual Field Trip program in our district and has single-handedly brought Smithtown into the forefront of using this technology to improve and enhance education for grades K-12. Our large district currently utilizes this technology to teach high school courses at two different campuses simultaniously, by one instructor. If you would like to discuss over the phone, I would be glad to sing her praises in person. I can be reached at 631-382-2810.
Sincerely,
Denise Cicione
Smithtown Central School District

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