ABSTRACT

To help teachers make greater use of technology in the curriculum, students can be a valuable resource. In this article, we describe two projects that illustrate the way that the roles of teachers and students are changing.

In the TRUST project, a group of computer literate middle and high school students were trained in the use of a variety of technologies that can be used in the classroom. They then worked with one teacher to help plan and incorporate the use of technology into a specific class session.

In the SAXophone project, approximately a dozen middle and high schools around the world are connected via compressed video (PictureTel and ISDN phone lines) to meet for one hour each month to focus on a specific topic ranging from book reviews to electronic field trips and musical presentations. An important element in this project is the building of multicutural relationships and enhanced appreciation of different viewpoints.

INTRODUCTION

In the Communication Age, it is important for teachers and students to work together as they explore ways to use technology to improve the teaching/learning process. It is not unusual for some students to know more than their teachers about the use of technology. However, it is more unusual to find a teacher who has enough self-confidence to allow these technologically-advanced students to publicly share that knowledge.

During the last two years, faculty at Nova Southeastern University (NSU) and teachers at the University School of NSU (U-School) in Broward County, FL, worked together to infuse technology into the grades 6-12 curriculum. These efforts succeeded only because the teachers and students were willing to change their traditional roles. Students became teachers and teachers became facilitators and managers of learning. Students assumed a large share of the responsibility for their own learning.

Undeniably, the use of modern technology added an exciting element to the classroom and captured the attention of the students. In fact, everyone became entranced with the opportunity to join other youngsters around the world to meet with experts or to conduct their own sessions over compressed video. Within the traditional classroom, the use of computers and LCD projection panels to prepare and present graphic material enlivened even the most mundane topics.

Along with the novelty and mutual excitement generated simply by the use of these new technologies, many of the students became more involved as they helped prepare the lessons, collect data, rehearse skits to share online, and act as MCs for their sites on compressed video. With involvement came ownership.

In this article, we describe two projects that make extensive use of technology and result in new roles for teachers and students. These projects should provide the reader with a model or simply the impetus to take advantage of the often underutilized resource of student involvement in learning. The first project that we will describe is a collaboration enhancing Teacher Resources Under Student Tutors (TRUST). The second is a global videoconferencing project with Students All over the world eXchanging over the phone (SAXophone).

Background

Nova Southeastern University is a technology-based institution that, in addition to traditional undergraduate education, delivers graduate education at a distance to thousands of professionals located around the globe. Faculty and students are encouraged to make extensive use of technology in the classroom and in the delivery of instruction. Therefore, it is in our interest to help our affiliated lab school, the University School of NSU, make extensive use of technology to improve the teaching/learning process in the K-12 setting.

The University School of NSU

Founded in 1970 as a laboratory school for Nova University, the University School has grown into one of Florida's largest independent college preparatory schools. One campus includes a lower and middle /upper school and the second site houses a lower/middle school. Both campuses maintain a unique blend of both traditions. As a member of the Coalition of Essential Schools, the faculty and administration continually reflect upon their practice toward the goal of school improvement.

Faculty at the Upper School have implemented a variety of innovations in the last few years, especially in the field of technology. These have included the addition of:

       • a multimedia computer laboratory,

• an enhanced media center that contains a variety of technological           resources,

       • the placement of computers in every classroom in the school,

• the dedication and commitment of all concerned to make technology work for them, and

• the technological tools necessary for teachers and students to facilitate teaching and learning and to pursue their personal goals.

One outgrowth of the increasing use of the technology by students was a concern of the upper school media specialist and the computer teacher in regard to those students who were technically advanced but had little or no training in the standards of ethical behavior when using computers.

There was also the challenge that arose from the recognition that the University School had the technological hardware to greatly enhance teaching. However, there was also the disturbing realization that many of the students knew how to use the equipment and software but most of the teachers didn’t. Since the U-School is an integral part of a major university that emphasizes the use of technology, it seemed reasonable to us to expect to see heavy use of technology in the K-12 setting. However, when we reviewed the teaching practices in the University School, we found that only a small number of the faculty made extensive use of technology while most made minimal use.

The computer teacher and the media specialist believed that the technically advanced students needed to understand and be committed to the importance of computer ethics and set good examples for the other students. They also realized that these students could also demonstrate to the faculty how to use technology to present their curriculum in different ways ... but the question was how to make this happen.

The situation gave the U-School a unique opportunity to combine forces with Nova Southeastern University. Toward the end of the 1994-1995 school year, discussions between staff from the NSU School of Education (FCAE) and the Upper School concluded that there must be some way that the Education Center could work with the U-School to encourage greater use of the technology in the classroom as well as to challenge the technically advanced students.

Review of the Literature

In searching the literature, we found that teachers and students can be used successfully as mentors to enhance training. For example, Black, Klingenstein, and Songer (1995a) discuss the Boulder Valley Internet Project (BVIP) where, during the past two years, 21 teachers have been given time, support and training to develop their Internet knowledge and skills. These teachers have been trained as “Internet teacher trainers” and currently they work with about 80 staff from around the Boulder Valley School District. Two hundred more teachers have received informal training from their colleagues or attended district-sponsored after-school Internet seminars. Over 2,500 students, primarily middle school students, have learned to use the Internet. Of these people, at least 150 teachers and several hundred students are regular, ongoing users. A large percentage of this use is after school and on weekends via dial-up connections.

Black, Klingenstein, and Songer (1995b) in their part 2 of BVIP, report that Boulder Valley School District teachers use e-mail more frequently than other telecommunications services like gopher and ftp, although some variation of this by grade level was noted. Black, et al. (1995b) emphasize that teachers and students need to be encouraged to utilize other tools like local bulletin boards that can help to set up and maintain mailing lists or interactive conferences where students and teachers can discuss topics of interest online. These tools can certainly facilitate cooperative projects between students and teachers. Black, et al. (1995a) go on to say:

Students can also be effective trainers. We recommend to teachers that they find a student who is computer savvy, bring him or her onto the network and develop a learning partnership. Students usually have more time to experiment and more patience to troubleshoot and hunt for things. The teacher gains a reliable, available, and often immediate, support mechanism while the student develops a relationship that is empowering and gratifying. Since we try to keep the learner-to-teacher ratio very low, (12:1 or below) in workshops, student assistants are very valuable. Students need to be supported with instruction in their role as trainers as well. They have a tendency to tell answers instead of asking questions that lead to answers. Some students, with good intentions, will take control of the keyboard to solve a problem for someone. Although this always expedites the process, it is discouraging to the workshop participant who might have to solve the problem at a later date when no one is around to help (pp. 79-80).

THE TRUST PROJECT

As a consequence, we helped create a project to a cadre of computer literate students at the U-School to be used as mentors to the teachers and to work with selected teachers on specific projects to incorporate the use of technology in the curriculum. The Dean of the University’s Education Center supported the plan by pledging a supply of instructors to speak and agreeing to loan the Upper School any equipment it might need.

We anticipated that some University faculty would help teach the class even though it meant they had to drive to the U-School, find a parking place, come upstairs to the class, give their presentations, and then reverse the procedures to return to the off-campus Education Center Building. However, we also realized that others would be willing to teach but couldn’t afford the time and trouble required to help if they had to go to the U-School itself. Therefore, we planned to obtain a compressed video desktop unit for the U-School to communicate directly from the Education Center’s PictureTel unit to the computer classroom. We plan to begin using this unit in the near future to enable faculty to participate without having to leave their offices.

The TRUST project began immediately when the U-School administration announced the formation of a 7th period elective during the last four weeks of the 1994-1995 school year. The project was advertised in the morning announcements, by word-of-mouth, through personal invitations, and on the school’s video news.

An interested group of students formed the nucleus of the class. There were approximately fourteen students who expressed an interest in the project and had the skills necessary to begin. They were required to have basic Internet navigational skills and told that they would need to pass a basic computer skill test in the fall. They met during that last month and had speakers from the University as well as hands-on experience on the computer to see where they were skill-wise.

During the summer, the computer teacher worked on the course, referred to as “TRUST: Teacher Resources Under Student Tutors." She created a course syllabus to guide the students during the semester courses. The topics covered included 1) the Internet 2) creation of a home page using Netscape 3) PowerPoint for slide presentations 4) scanning video images 5) incorporating sound into a video presentation and 6) use of laser discs to develop a subject-based curriculum lesson.

Evaluation

We conducted the evaluation in three parts. The first was a test on navigating the Internet. Other grades were given for their various projects. The final evaluation was based on the successful completion of a technology project in partnership with a teacher. This evaluation was done by the participating faculty member and the class that viewed the project.

When class began in the fall, seven of the original fourteen students began the pilot TRUST class. Other interested students were unable to enter because of scheduling conflicts. University faculty continued to support the class by speaking frequently with the students. As an outgrowth of the class, a demonstration of students’ home pages and PowerPoint presentations was given at a teacher workshop to demonstrate what may be achieved using technology and a motivated student.

The students demonstrated their high degree of motivation by working overtime on their projects, by their enthusiasm, and by the quality of the final products that they created and used. Other students asked if the course will be offered again. We anticipate making it a full year course in the future.

Future of the TRUST Concept

We anticipate that membership in TRUST will grow as word of their successes grow--and as an increased benefit, it can serve as a demonstration of the success that can happen as a result of collaboration between teachers and students and between a university and a K-12 school. We believe that the TRUST model is one that can be emulated by other schools at all levels. Collaboration with a university is helpful but not crucial. It helps to have some contacts, either local or via Internet, to bring guest speakers into the classroom. You may find the type of experts you need right in other schools in your area. Working together is a positive outcome for all participants.

THE GLOBAL COMMUNICATIONS PROJECT: SAXophone

The concept for “Students All-over-the-world eXchanging over the phone” (SAXophone) began in an informal conversation between two participants in the PictureTel Users’ Group (PUG) Compressed Video Annual Conference in Nashville, TN, in September 1995. Colonel Bengt Kroon of the Swedish Military College and Dr. Al Mizell of Nova Southeastern University met during a PUG session and discussed ways they might communicate via compressed video. Kroon mentioned that there was a nearby high school that could use the Military College’s equipment to participate in a video-conference. Mizell suggested that NSU’s University School use the University’s Fischler Center for the Advancement of Education’s (FCAE) PictureTel model 4000 videoconferencing equipment to connect with Sweden.

Mr. Thomas Ziegler, Computer Center Director at Ulster BOCES in New Paltz, NY, attended the Nashville meeting and spoke with Mizell about adding three schools in New York to the project. Mr. Ted Detjen, Assistant Director of the BOCES Computer Center, was contacted via e-mail and invited to join the planned Sweden-Florida videoconference. NSU had a videobridge at that time that could accommodate up to four sites in a multi-point conference. Because the sites crossed several time zones, the sessions were scheduled for 9:00 a.m. EST, 3:00 p.m. in Sweden. Later, as sites on the west coast of the U.S. joined, time zones made scheduling even more challenging.

Following several months testing the connections, etc., teachers and administrators from each location met to begin planning the project. The first year of the project (1995-1996) became a year of exploration, experimentation, and expansion. As other schools heard about the project, several asked if they could listen in. Many of these “lurkers” then asked to join the project. With the addition of other countries, we changed the name of the project from its original meaning: “Swedish-American eXchange over the phone” (SAXophone)--with the final “e” capitalized when England joined the project (SAXophonE)--to its new name: “SAXophone: “Students All-over-the-world eXchanging over the phone.” The sessions were videotaped whenever possible.

On December 11, 1995, the students in Sweden, New York, and Florida held their first planned videoconference. Each site gave a 4- to 6-minute presentation that included skits, songs, etc., describing the major winter holidays (i.e., Thanksgiving, Festival of St. Lucia, Hanukkah, Christmas, and New Years) celebrated in their culture. The document camera was used to show close-ups of actual food, games, decorations, and photographs. Many of the Swedish students had been electronic penpals with students at the University School in Florida and were very excited to see each other for the first time. The second session, held on February 27, 1996, described “A Day in the Life” of a typical student in each culture.

The third planned conference was held on March 22, 1996 when the students took an electronic video tour of the NASA Space Center in Houston. Astronaut Bill Shepherd, first crew member of the future International Space Station, happened to walk within camera range so the students started asking him questions. In addition, the participants “walked through” eight different remote camera views of the full-scale mock-up of the space station.

On April 24, 1996, an exciting musical project was conducted with 15 sites connected together through NSU’s new 16-site Montage 570 bridge. Ten of the schools had groups of students performing musical presentations ranging from choral to rock music. Several of the schools indicated they would like to see a new group formed within SAXophone for band and music directors so they could do musical presentations each month.

On June 5, 1996, seven schools met online to do a joint book review of the book, The Giver, by Ms. Lois Lowry. Ms. Nancy Botkin, of the University School, distributed a brief study guide to the participating schools so the students could have a meaningful online discussion and exchange of views. The discussion was lively and the students showed considerable comfort in using the equipment and voicing their viewpoints.

A special summer project with New York Institute of Technology (NYIT) was held July 17, 1996, when NYIT presented Astronaut Eileen Collins with a special award. The project received a lot of press following this event with newspaper articles and photographs in papers from Maine to Florida. Following the presentation, participating students interviewed the astronaut. Two of the SAXophone schools participated in the videoconference along with special participants that included Bellcore, NASA, and students in the White House’s CyberEd Van. We found the use of Internet Chat to be especially interesting because it meant that additional participants without videoconferencing equipment could be involved in the session.

On June 14, 1996, the newly formed SAXophone Advisory Board met to plan summer and fall activities. The first session of the year was a conference on Country/Cultural/Political Perspectives held in September, 1996. The topic was of great interest to the students and led into a comparison of the buying power of the average teacher’s salary that was earned for one hour of teaching in their home country or district. Items compared included concert and movie tickets, food, etc. The author (Lois Lowry) of the book (The Giver), that was previously reviewed as part of the SAXophone project, met with the students online in October through the assistance of the PictureTel Corporation. In November, students met online to share the results of their local pollution studies following guidelines sent out by the moderator, Dr. Stan Silverman of NYIT. Students gathered and analyzed actual pollution data that they collected in their own environment. The December, 1996, plans are for a middle school interchange of winter holiday experiences. The Second Annual Compressed Video International Music Concert will be scheduled for Spring 1997 to allow adequate preparation time.

The SAXophone Project was featured in presentations at several international, national, and local conferences and is included in an e-magazine at URL http://www.nova.edu/fcae/emag596.html. SAXophone’s homepage is located at http://www.mhrcc.org. Further details on the TRUST project may be found in the forthcoming book, Wired Together: The Online Classroom in K-12 Volume III (Berge/Collins, Eds.), chapter 8, Tapping Hidden Resources: The Use of Students as Faculty Mentors (Mizell and Kontos, 1997).

REFERENCES

Armstrong, S. (1995). Telecommunications in the classroom. Computer Learning Foundation and International Society for Technology in Education.

Black, L., Klingenstein, K., & Songer, N. B. (1995a). Observations from the Boulder Valley Internet Project. Technological Horizons in Education, 22(10), 75-80.

Black, L., Klingenstein, K., & Songer, N. B. (1995b). Observations from the Boulder Valley Internet Project. Technological Horizons in Education, 22(11), 54-57.

Mizell, A. P. & Kontos, G. (1997). Tapping hidden resources: The use of students as faculty mentors. In Z. L. Berge & M. P. Collins (Eds.), Wired Together: Computer-Mediated Communication in K-12. Volume 3. Teacher Education and Professional Development. (pp. 81-92). Cresskill NJ: Hampton Press.

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