Conscience tells me that some cultural and historical perspective is due.
Here is some material then, roughly cut from a primary artifact -- a draft
of a report to the funder written by my predecessor, Dr. J, to form the
basic pattern of a quilted history. "[...]" represents text snipped out
and replacements. I've left out other elements such as the descriptions of
the trajectories of the schools and communities for length and time
considerations. The report was not sent to the funder. most of it
appears here.
A Report of Progress to Date
April 1998
_____________________________________
In August of 1996, Lesley College received a [...] grant [...],to support a
new direction for Project BEST (Better Elementary Science, Mathematics, and
Technology), a very successful program the company had been supporting for
a number of years. This new direction was intended to draw technology into
elementary schools in ways that would significantly impact both the
delivery of the mathematics and science curriculum and new approaches to
instructions supportive of such curriculum. To that end, a partnership
between Lesley College and the school districts of [A] and [B] was
established. The purpose of the partnership was to develop a viable model
to support the integration of technology into the classroom and,
simultaneously, build leadership capacities among teachers and
administrators around technology. This report will document progress to
date around this overall goal.
School Sites
Initially three elementary schools were invited into the Project BEST.
[...] Preliminary meetings convened in September of 1996 brought together
representatives from each partner group to discuss partnership activities,
goals, communication strategies, and technology capacity at each school.
These meetings were held at each of the participating elementary schools.
During the initial months of the project, Dr. X was appointed project
coordinator by [...], dean of Lesley's School of Education. At the time,
Dr. X was the faculty liaison to the [B1]School. She also taught
mathematics methods courses at Lesley.
At the first meeting of the Project NEXT partnership group, it was
announced that the current principal at [school B1] had taken early
retirement and that an interim principal was in place. The interim
principal did not attend any of the organizational meetings for Project
BEST: Next Steps, while principals from the two elementary schools in
[school A] did attend.
Another difficulty encountered [...] had to do with the varying level of
technology capacity among the participating schools. While [the B1] school
is a newly-constructed building that is wired for Internet access and has a
state-of-the-art computer lab, the elementary school buildings at [A] are
not yet wired for Internet access. Instead, computers with modems are
accessible to [...] teachers and students in the schools' library media
centers and in working "pods" where four computers are clustered together
for small group use outside of the classroom. [...] has a technology plan
in place that calls for wiring all schools. To date, however, this has not
occurred.
Project Activities
Initial project activities focused on identifying ways in which the two
school districts could collaborate around technology and curriculum, since
both were engaged in using a similar mathematics curriculum. For this
reason, Lesley anticipated that the curriculum connection might be a good
place to build collaboration and appointed Ms. Y to serve as a technology
resource person for the project, with the expectation that she would spend
time at each of the participating elementary schools. Ms. Y assumed that
role in October 1996 and immediately began efforts to set up a schedule
with each school that would support school and teachers' schedules and move
the goals of the project forward.
The number of teachers who volunteered to participate in the grant varied.
At the [B1] school, only four second- and third-grade teachers volunteered.
In [A], the participation level was much higher; with 12 participants in
the initial group, including principals and a library media specialist. As
expected, technology skills among teachers and administrators varied a
great deal. A small number of teachers at [A] were familiar with computers
and had used them to enhance their regular curricular activities; however,
most of the [B1] teachers and the remainder of the [A] project teachers had
no experience with technology.
Implementation
Though quite critical to the overall goals of the project, the technology
resource person (Ms. Y) had difficulty completing a regular schedule of
visits to each of the schools. The [B1] teachers were experiencing
uncertain leadership from the interim principal and were therefore
reluctant to commit time to a project that did not appear to be a priority
for the school. In [A], the scheduling difficulties had more to do with
the day-to-day demands and realities of working in elementary schools. Ms.
Y's visits often had to be canceled due to changes in school scheduling.
Another obstacle to progress appeared as both Dr. X and Ms. Y had to leave
the project. Dr. X went on a leave of absence from Lesley and Ms Y accepted
a full-time position as technology coordinator at the [...] School. Both
roles became vacant in June 1997.
Since that time, the technology resource role has been filled on a
part-time basis by Z. Ms. Z is the administrator for the Center for
Mathematics, Science and Technology at Lesley and also a resident expert at
Web construction and desktop publishing.
Current Status of Project
Currently, the project is at a point of re-examining its goals and
personnel needs. The [B1] school has elected not to continue with the
program. The [...] schools in [A] continue to be enthusiastic about their
involvement, however, and see the growth in technological literacy among
their teachers as the key to strengthening both curriculum and instruction.
Ms. Z has been meeting with [A] teachers on a consistent basis, helping
them to develop their expertise with building Web pages and in working with
different software applications to support Web page construction,
especially in a hardware environment were direct access to the Internet is
still not possible.
Several meetings have been held between [A] and Lesley personnel to
discuss, among other things, the selection of a new urban school partner
for [A]. The meetings have been chaired by D who is temporarily
coordinating project planning until a new Lesley-based project coordinator
is identified. The School of Education assumed responsibility for Project
BEST: Next Steps in August of 1997 when Dr. J, Director of the Mathematics,
Science and Technology Center at Lesley, went on a leave of absence to work
in a project advisory role with the [...] Foundation.
Bill Barowy, Associate Professor
Lesley College, 31 Everett Street, Cambridge, MA 02138-2790
Phone: 617-349-8168 / Fax: 617-349-8169
http://www.lesley.edu/faculty/wbarowy/Barowy.html
_______________________
"One of life's quiet excitements is to stand somewhat apart from yourself
and watch yourself softly become the author of something beautiful."
[Norman Maclean in "A river runs through it."]
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