December 2009 Archives

Does being certified guarantee good teaching? That's the question NPR asked recently, after examining the Halifax County School District in rural North Carolina where only six of 10 students graduate high school, despite 98 percent of the staff being certified.

In North Carolina, licensed teachers must demonstrate that their students are learning, and student test scores play a huge role in determining whether or not to renew a teacher's license every three years.

"Student performance on assessments must be a major component in determining which teachers are effective," said Rebecca Garland, who oversees teacher licensing in the state.

And yet, even with close to a full staff of certified teachers, students in Halifax County continue to struggle.

"I've gotten my [diplomas and teacher licensing] on the wall but that doesn't make me effective," said Phillip Rountree, principal of Northwest High School in Halifax County. "The effectiveness comes from here, right here in the heart. This don't mean a hill of beans."

For Andre Stewart, the chair of the social studies department at Northwest High, "being a good teacher goes far beyond test scores." (Stewart has raised his student's scores each of the three years he's been teaching, which makes him an "effective" teacher in the eyes of the state.)

Certified or not, teachers must still confront the challenge of inspiring their students to work hard.

"Unfortunately, for us in the teaching profession, we don't know whether you're good at it until you actually get into it," says Stewart.

Posted by Bryan Toporek at 12:08 PM | Permalink | Leave a comment | Recommend

For all the emphasis on interactive technology and hyper-connectivity in schools today, some educators are finding it can still be beneficial—maybe even essential—to expose their students to slower and more time-honored modes of learning.

For example: The card game bridge is apparently gaining a toe-hold in schools, with a small but growing number of math teachers and after-school programs using it to teach strategy, concentration, and abstract-thinking skills. Seem too time-consuming or off-curriculum for you? Consider that both Warren Buffet and Bill Gates are known to be avid players and have contributed millions to the School Bridge League, launched in 2005.

One problem, however, is that it's not always easy to find someone in today's schools who actually knows how to play bridge. After hearing about the potential benefits the game might have for her 4th grade gifted education students, for example, Kansas City teacher Rosemary Brown ended up turning to a local retirement community to find a group of people who could train her in its nuances. "They loved the idea," she said.

Similarly, a music teacher in Clinton, Miss., is intent on teaching students an unhurried craft she learned from her mother: Knitting. Along with a group of like-minded educators in her school, Catherine Stagg has started an after-school knitting club now attended by 30 6th graders (including even one boy, who was inspired by a friend who learned to knit last year).

"Research is showing emotional and educational benefits to this art form," Stagg noted. "The repetitive movements and patterns are calming." She has also noticed that the process seems to help build students' confidence and pride in accomplishment.

It's seems worth keeping in mind, at any rate, that there might be something to some of last century's skills ...

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A recent study of 3,001 children by the National Literacy Trust in the United Kingdom finds that children who engage with technology have stronger core literacy skills than their technologically unsound peers, according to BBC News.

The survey found that 24 percent of children ages nine to 16 have their own blog, and that 82 percent of those children send text messages at least once a month. "This suggests a strong correlation between kids using technology and wider patterns of reading and writing," said Jonathan Douglas, director of the National Literacy Trust.

"Engagement with online technology drives their enthusiasm for writing short stories, letters, song lyrics or diaries," Douglas explained.

The survey found that 47 percent of children who didn't blog or use social networks rated their writing as "good" or "very good." By comparison, 61 percent of students who blog and 56 percent of the social networkers described their writing the same way.

Dismissing the criticism that texting can adversely affect communication skills, Douglas said, "Our research results are conclusive—the more forms of communications children use the stronger their core literary skills."

John Coe, general secretary of the National Association for Primary Education, recognizes the potential benefits to texting and "online speak."

"It is a form of reading and writing. It might not be conventional but they are communicating, so there is a general gain," said Coe.

Posted by Bryan Toporek at 4:07 PM | Permalink | 1 Comment | Recommend

A bipartisan group in Congress hopes to expand the federally run Troops to Teachers program, which has helped nearly 12,000 former military members go from the armed forces to the classroom in the past 15 years, according to the New York Times.

By all counts it is a diverse group. Men account for roughly 80 percent of the participants, and about 35 percent are members of minorities. Participants are being encouraged to fill some of the toughest teaching positions in math, science, and special education.

Congressmen introduced legislation in October of this year that would allow service members with four years of service or three months of active duty since the attacks of September 11th to participate in the program. (Currently, a service member needs six years of duty to become eligible.)

The vets who have found their way into the classroom have typically found the transition easier than one might expect.

"We're finding that these teachers seem to be able to really manage a classroom from the start, which is the biggest problem a lot of teachers have going in," said C. Emily Feistritzer, president of the National Center for Education Information. "And they come in thinking all children can learn, without any sort of socioeconomic biases."

"Either way, you still have to kind of wipe their noses a bit and kick them in the behind every now and then," said Tammie Langley, a former Air Force instructor who now teaches at Kannapolis Intermediate School near Charlotte.

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More From NSDC, St. Louis-- Yesterday, my co-live bloggers Nancy Flanagan and Sheryl Nussbaum-Beach and I put ourselves in the spotlight and gave a presentation at the NSDC conference on "Leveraging Online Tools for Teacher Learning." I offered a short contextual intro (after figuring out how to work the microphone and realizing I shouldn't stand in front of the projector, that is), and then the pros took over. Nancy gave an excellent primer on the art of facilitating online training sessions, and Sheryl provided a stirring look at the transformational potential of new learning technologies (complete with a live Skyped-in visitor and contributions from her twitter followers).

Further practicing what she preaches, Sheryl had also put all our presentation materials online before I even arrived in the conference room. The slide show is below; other resources are available on her wiki. In addition, after the jump, Nancy and Sheryl--who apparently don't stop thinking about teaching and learning, ever--share a dialogue they had about their respective presentations.

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Live From NSDC, St. Louis--
Scene from "The Principal Story," a film exploring the gritty reality of being a principal in a tough school:

The principal is prowling around a room filled with teachers, a staff meeting called to discuss student achievement. The looks on teachers' faces reveal the seriousness of the issues. There's more than a little anxiety. The principal says:

"Who is the lowest-performing student in your class? How do you know he is the lowest? What is your evidence?"

The teachers are thinking. Concentrating, chewing on their lips. Reluctant to write down any child's name, even though their principal has directed them to do just that. Pondering the nuances of the principal's question--how do we evaluate student achievement? What indicators do we use to judge their work? Are those the right indicators? If we label a student a failure, what happens if we're dead wrong?

It's one of many teachable moments in a trailer full of provocative clips. This morning, the NSDC breakfast crowd watches the video, and then hears from the filmmakers and the two principals whose best and worst moments were captured over the course of a year.

The filmmakers were on a mission to show the nuts and bolts of leadership--and many such documentaries don't show principals in the best light. Filmmakers come with an agenda. But the principals also note that having filmmakers in the building for a year pushed principals and teachers to be the best they could be, and the net effect of putting themselves under the microscope was positive.

Both principals talk about relinquishing their personal lives to the job--doing more, doing it faster and more efficiently with fewer resources. The personal relationships in the learning context are webbed and complicated, and getting teachers to pay attention to data is an ongoing struggle. Both stress that principals who aren't amenable to being learners themselves will never be able to persuade teachers to grow and change.

Then one principal says: It's not hard work, it's heart work.

That's a catchy line--a sweet sentiment--but I'm thinking that teaching, like other jobs in this 21st century, is much more layered, intellectually complex and innovation-driven than it was even a decade ago. It is rocket science, and the challenge of keeping everyone on target and moving forward is immense. On top of all kids' "heart" needs, the school is held accountable for the academic achievement of every child, directly caused (or impeded) by carefully selected, data-based instructional strategies and measured by psychometrically valid assessments.

The trailer closes with a clip of one principal congratulating the students who are moving from middle school to high school. Congratulations, she says. I love you. A tiny pause, and then the students affectionately say "Love you, too."

Loving the students is an essential part of the complexity, not some cheap emotion that masks a lack of rigor or bad decision-making. Bring on the instruction based on tested strategies and protocols--good instruction requires rigor and consistency. But don't forget to love the kids, too. You need all of these things to launch rockets.

Posted by Nancy Flanagan at 11:37 PM | Permalink | Leave a comment | Recommend

Live From NSDC, St. Louis-- - Determined not to let lack of sleep, cold freezing rain, or flight delays keep me from St Louis or from attending the 41st NSDC Annual Conference, I dashed from the taxi, checked into the hotel and rushed to my room just in time to facilitate a couple of webinar sessions for a PLP cohort I am helping to lead. Anxiously, I finished up and was out the door to meet up with co-live bloggers Nancy Flanagan and Anthony Rebora.

Dodging the cold wind while waiting for the shuttle, I ran into two educators from Allegany County in Maryland. Their passion was hard to miss as they were excitedly buzzing about all they had been learning for the last few days.

"You must be attending the NSDC conference-- learning anything worthwhile?" I asked. Their response was overwhelmingly positive, with one of the ladies touting the sessions she had attended as some of the best PD she had ever experienced. As I dug deeper, I discovered they were most stoked about a preconference session they attended given by Jennifer Abrams entitled, "Having Hard Conversations."

One of the activities they had to do during the session was to map out their "hard conversation" and one of my new found friends felt that it was a great way to structure what she wanted to say in advance. "I like the idea of deciding what I want to get out of the conversation in advance and the mapping helped me to do that. So often when the conversation goes south I freeze, not even remembering why we were having this hard discussion it in the first place. The mapping gave me an advance organizer that will keep me on track."

"Learning how to address tough issues in a professional way without emotion was a skill I needed to master and this session gave me the confidence I needed to not only start the messy conversations in my role as an instructional coach, but also the skill set to see them through."

Abrams has written a book on the subject and both educators strongly recommended I purchase it. As the bus pulled up to the curb I found myself quite optimistic about the quality of presentations I was going to experience while here. NSDC here I come!

by Sheryl Nussbaum-Beach

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Live From NSDC, St. Louis-- I didn't get to attend the Michael Fullan session yesterday, but a lot of people were talking about it, and I was interested to read Nancy's description of his emphasis on "broad goals" and cultural change as opposed to a fixation on detailed outcomes. Variations on this idea have popped up in several sessions I've attended--often enough that I think it could be designated as one theme of the conference.

At a session I attended yesterday on instructional leadership, for example, author and University of Minnesota professor Karen Seashore Louis emphasized the importance of making "soft improvements" in a school's culture. By this, she meant attending to relationships within a school, helping staff understand the forces and conditions shaping learning and curriculum goals, creating an environment of trust and collaboration, and "consistently checking that aspirations for change are understood." Louis said that her research--which involved a study of (I think) 36 districts--shows that principals who create these kinds of changes in schools (alas, they are few in number) actually have the greatest impact on instruction and (ultimately) student achievement. Improving school culture, she said, "affects how people feel, but also student learning." It's not just Kumbaya stuff, in other words.

As food for thought, Louis also played the following video, asking attendees to consider what, in their own institutions, is standing in the way of the sort instructional change envisioned:

Posted by Anthony Rebora at 9:17 AM | Permalink | 4 Comments | Recommend

Live From NSDC, St. Louis-- At lunch, I sat next to three teachers from Iowa. Their school district has adopted a new formal peer coaching program, and they were attending a day-long session to learn about the model. Which is why, they said, the district popped for funding a national conference; they were very excited about the wealth of professional learning opportunities as well as the speakers and the exhibits. For the next few days, they're in the leadership club. They will be held accountable for bringing back and rolling out some specific skills and information. In the meantime, their perspectives have been honored and their ideas stretched.

And that's the way teacher leadership is usually defined: through roles, competencies, titles and tasks. Someone is chosen to lead, and they are trained to lead specific initiatives. My afternoon session, however-- "Accomplished Teachers as Leaders and Advocates"--had a different focus.

The presenters were pushing participants to explore their own leadership skills and capacities with a variety of interesting tools and ideas--a more flexible and organic conception of teacher leadership. What we're learning about today is turning a disposition or desire for leadership into an action plan--as opposed to mastering pre-defined leadership skills.

I'm greatly enjoying this deep wallow in ideas about teacher leadership. I learned that of four leadership dimensions--action, structure, caring and meaning--I am most moved by meaning. There was a good discussion about what moves teachers to lead, what's uppermost in their minds as they try to turn their passions and compulsions into action. Are you constantly thinking about the people you're leading? Do you need a master plan, with checklists and indicators of progress? Does a lot a talking and no action make you crazy? I can only speak for myself--but I have to know why I'm doing something before I can plunge in, heart and soul.

An interesting point in the session--the facilitator asks "why aren't there more teacher leaders?" The room explodes with thinking: Roles get in the way of what really matters. Teachers are shy, and worried about being seen as too big for their britches (it's the "caring" folks saying that). There are hierarchies and rules in the way--the teacher's good idea has to go through the department chair and the curriculum council before it becomes action. Teachers don't recognize that what they're doing is leadership.

And then a teacher says "Teacher leadership is very risky" and the room quiets down, heads nodding. A sobering moment. These are hard questions to answer. In many ways, it's safer to be in a skill-based training than an open-ended seminar like this. But--taking risks is good. Right?

Posted by Nancy Flanagan at 5:49 PM | Permalink | 6 Comments | Recommend

Live From NSDC, St. Louis-- So there's an impressive vendor hall here, with six long rows of booths (many decked out with impressive technology) from which education organizations of various stripes are working hard to promote their staff-development or instructional products and services. But here's the kind of amusing thing: The vendor who's getting by far the most traffic is--you guessed it--the "Scarf King," a guy who's selling cashmere scarves for $10. His stall is seriously mobbed; you can't even see the display table unless you maneuver your way in. There has to be lesson in this somewhere. ...

Posted by Anthony Rebora at 5:41 PM | Permalink | 2 Comments | Recommend

Live From NSDC, St. Louis-- Don't want to get on my high horse here, but bringing student groups in to entertain large education conference audiences is a mixed-message concept. At best.

On the one hand, there is the nice idea of celebrating "what we're all about:" student learning and excellence. In introductions for the very fine middle school band that played at breakfast this morning and the St. Louis Children's Chorus at lunch, there was warm applause and nice language about "this is why we're in education" and compliments for the student performers. I spent 30 years teaching middle school music, and these were, in fact, superb student musicians. I know something about the level of preparation necessary for such a performance (not to mention the permission slips, buses, getting the kiddos out of school, the broken reed crises, etc.).

On the other hand, a high-profile performance--especially one for 3500 educators--perversely reinforces the idea that children can be patronized, even ignored. While the videographer was framing the serious, focused faces of the tenor saxophone and oboe players on the big video screens, thousands of people were chatting through the music. The kids became a kind of aural wallpaper--a backdrop for what the adults chose to do: converse. When the first speaker stepped up to the microphone, however, the room fell silent. The message was clear: the kids were cute, but the adult speaker was important.

The kids' music--what I could hear of it, over the chatter--was fantastic. And I ought to know. I hope someone has explained to them why many adults weren't really listening.

Posted by Nancy Flanagan at 4:28 PM | Permalink | 3 Comments | Recommend

Live From NSDC, St. Louis-- When it comes to the professional literature on educational leadership, I'm pretty much an unrepentant Fullanite. Not that Michael Fullan is a particularly eloquent writer or inspirational speaker. He's neither--and his luncheon keynote today was classic Fullan: turgid, chock-full of video clips, way too much text and information, delivered at machine-gun speed, interesting but borderline incoherent.

But here's the thing about Michael Fullan--his ideas are powerful and they square with the messy, uncontrolled nature of human learning and change. I fell in love with Michael Fullan when I plowed through "Change Forces," and read his theories about premature planning and goal-setting. Having spent a depressing number days of my life serving on school committees, I am well aware of the fact that changes in practice happen after two simpatico teachers share ideas at lunch, and planning teams are generally the place where innovation goes to die.

A few, unrelated nuggets from Fullan's remarks:

It's a myth that profound change in schools takes eons--within two months, an elementary school can turn around a failing literacy program.

Excitement prior to implementation is fragile, and prone to dissipating in the heat of real life. Communication during implementation is vastly more important than communication before implementation. The real trick is getting participants to understand that errors are opportunities for learning.

It struck me, repeatedly, in Fullan's address that much of what he's saying does not align with other change and leadership gurus in education. His "small number of broad goals and tolerance for ambiguity" schtick is directly oppositional to the other hot, sticky topics on the NSDC menu: data mania, "results," and the tools-and-levers school of ed leadership. I looked around at my fellow luncheon guests. Were they buying Fullan's ideas? They were certainly taking notes, and laughing at the video clips. But maybe they will return to their districts and continue with data-driven everything, four-color flow charts outlining five-year goal planning and charting results.

Posted by Nancy Flanagan at 4:15 PM | Permalink | 5 Comments | Recommend

Live From NSDC, St. Louis-- I attended an interesting session this morning on "How Professional Development Fits Into Federal Policy," led by NSDC Executive Director Stephanie Hirsh and NSDC Federal Policy Advisor Rene Islas.

The upshot was that NSDC is putting a lot of effort--through congressional lobbying, grassroots support, and field outreach--into getting a new definition of professional development into the reauthorization of NCLB. Islas noted that the PD definition itself--Sec. 9109 (34), if you're keeping score at home--is a little noticed part of NCLB but has a huge impact on other parts of law (e.g., Title I, teacher quality) where teacher support is referenced. NSDC clearly believes it could be major change-driver in schools.

The definition of PD in the current NCLB ostensibly restricts the use of one-shot workshops, but Islas acknowledged that it "is not having the impact that we think it should." NSDC's re-write of the definition thus goes considerably further, stipulating (among other things) that PD should: foster collective responsibility among educators for student performance; be team-based and facilitated by school-based leaders; take place several times per week in a "continuous cycle of improvement"; define clear teacher-learning goals based on data analysis; and inform ongoing improvements in student learning.

There was a general sense around the room that professional development of this type was not happening at very many schools around the country, and that there would be a number of implementation barriers (including teacher and administrator attitudes) that would need to be worked through even if it did become law.

Nevertheless NSDC's proposal has met with some success already. Hirsh and Islas noted that it is now supported by both the NEA and the AFT and that versions of it have been included in legislation proposed in both houses of Congress. (The latter part of the session was devoted to instructing attendees on how they could press their representatives in Congress to support for the legislation.)

At the same time, Islas noted that NSDC was wary of the possible impact of a recent shift taking place in the policy conversations on teaching. He said there has been an increasing emphasis in Washington and elsewhere on teacher evaluation and measuring teacher effectiveness, with professional development seen merely "as a remediation tool [for underperforming teachers] as opposed to a necessary ingredient to effective schools." That's not at all what NSDC had in mind. ...

--Anthony Rebora

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Live From NSDC, St. Louis-- I laughed when I read Nancy's comment on taking "twenty minutes to understand the twists and turns of registration" here. It took me at least that long--and even longer to figure out where I was supposed to go for my first session this morning. It is a logistically complex conference--there's a sense of beehive-like activity. And it doesn't make matters any easier that's not easy to get a conference program--in the event that, like me, you forgot yours. I had to borrow one from the registration desk. Really, borrow: I was told I had to bring it back because they were running short. As I was glancing through it between sessions this morning, a fellow attendee seated next to me noticed it and asked eagerly if he could just take a quick look. Apparently they are a hot commodity.

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Live From NSDC, St. Louis-- Tony Wagner opened his keynote this morning by declaring that the formulation of the problem is more important than the solution. We're not asking the right questions, he says--we're more focused on the answers.

Well, yeah.

Some of Wagner's key points and the questions they raise for me:

Wagner on the current discourse in Ed World: We are making policy based on buzzwords and half-formed ideas about what students "need." It's a familiar refrain; in my head, I hear stock answers from traditionalists, the humanists, the innovators, the economists.

What is the real problem in American schools? Do we really know? What are we trying to re-form?

Wagner: We've created an economy based on consumption, not manufacturing--buying things we don't need with money we don't have.

Do we lay blame for this problem at the feet of our education system?

Wagner gets on the 21st century bandwagon and makes a solid case for genuine exploration, discovery, mucking around, figuring things out. He takes a stab at debunking the false dichotomy between rich, core curriculum and 21st century skills, using the maligned "critical thinking skills" theme. Educators are not held accountable for employing, let alone teaching, critical thinking--partly because we don't know how to assess it. Critical thinking is the ability to formulate the right questions.

How do we reconcile critical thinking and acquisition of knowledge? And why aren't they automatically intertwined, in our own thinking?

Wagner: We need to begin making good teaching transparent. The most disruptive and productive technology in the classroom ought to be the flip video camera. A great activity for thinking about effective teaching is "Grade the Lesson:" Ask a group of educators to grade a videotaped lesson, and then compare results, which will invariably run the gamut from A to F. Professional educators--with decades of experience, and impressive scholarly credentials--have have wildly different conceptions of effective instruction. Teachers are more than willing to admit that they don't teach perfect lessons--but we haven't given them concrete ideas about what superb teaching looks like.

And we return again to the original questions: What is the real problem in American schools? Why do we persist in looking for simple answers?

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Live from NSDC, St. Louis-I'm a newbie to the NSDC "big" conference, although I've been hearing about it for years--its size, scope and innovative practice in professional learning for educators. It takes a good twenty minutes to even understand the twists and turns of registration--NSDC puts its standards into practice by offering extended learning sessions, eschewing drive-by learning snacks in favor of reflection, conversation and substance. One of my personal questions about this conference is: Do conference participants, trained through decades of 6-period days and 55-minute content dumps, really embrace slow and deep learning?

The opener keynoter is Tony Wagner, one of the Big Names in education conferences, a well-known, Harvard-based 21st century learning guru. The question floats around the breakfast table: Who's heard Tony Wagner before? Lots of folks, in fact. More about Tony Wagner's presentation later--there are lots of juicy content bits, some new and some familiar--but the man who introduces Wagner makes a crack about the fact that Tony is "still recovering" from being a HS English teacher. Wagner takes the stage and repeats the joke. Considering that the room is filled with people like him--former teachers, now in jobs where they approve their own travel vouchers and have access to wonderful, energizing conferences on a regular basis--it's no surprise that calling himself a recovering teacher draws laughter, twice.

In her greeting to the membership, NSDC Executive Director Stephanie Hirsh notes that 1.5% of the average school budget is dedicated to professional development. How much of that ridiculously tiny amount is now being spent on a breakfast-with-speaker for one or two people in a district? Collecting a list of inspirational speakers (and Wagner does stimulate some interesting thinking)--is that how we change practice?

Looking forward to thinking more about how good ideas generated and shared at a conference make it into classrooms, used daily by teachers who have not "recovered."

Posted by Nancy Flanagan at 11:09 AM | Permalink | 2 Comments | Recommend

Live From NSDC, St. Louis--I just caught a small part of a session on Response to Intervention given by a pair of educators with the Excelsior Springs (Mo.) school district. Here's something I never realized (and that seems incredible to me): The screening used to determine which intervention "tier" a student falls into--known as the curriculum-based measurement process--takes only one to three minutes to complete. From the results of that lightening-fast assessment, presenter Christina Compton said, she can tell right away which students are on a path to do poorly on the state tests. She added that there is some 20 years of research to support the method.

Other key points on RTI, according to Compton: It's important to remember that the framework is not about giving students a label--it's about improving outcomes for all students. And it's essential to make the sure that interventions take place in addition to core instruction. Apparently a mistake many schools make is to take struggling readers, for example, out of reading instruction.

- Anthony Rebora

Posted by Anthony Rebora at 10:30 AM | Permalink | Leave a comment | Recommend

Live From NSDC, St. Louis— Sometimes on a flight out of D.C., you'll notice that a good number of passengers are reading the latest Bob Woodward tome or (much more depressingly) that week's Federal Register. But on my flight today, several of the passengers--including the very nice woman next to me--were reading Work Hard. Be Nice.: How Two Inspired Teachers Created the Most Promising Schools in America, Jay Mathews' book about the co-founders of the KIPP schools. Upon inquiry, I learned that they were all teachers from Stafford Co., Va.--also headed to the NSDC conference. My seatmate, a 1st grade teacher named Kathy Evans, explained that teams of teachers at her school will frequently read a book selected by their instructional coach and then report on it at a staff meeting and pass their copies on to interested colleagues. She expected that the KIPP story might be particularly relevant and inspirational, since her school has a large number low-income students and is struggling to make AYP ("we were so close last year," she said). Leave it to teachers, I thought, to do professional development reading on the way to a professional development conference. ...

- Anthony Rebora

Posted by Anthony Rebora at 9:27 PM | Permalink | Leave a comment | Recommend

Quick note to readers: Over the next couple of days, we will be blogging in this space from the National Staff Development Council's annual conference in St. Louis. Joining me as special guest bloggers will be renowned teacher-writer Nancy Flanagan and learning-tech expert Sheryl Nussbaum-Beach. (The three of us will also be presenting a session on online professional development at the conference on Tuesday morning.) We hope to have a lot of great, up-to-the-minute information for you on the latest trends in professional development and other instructional issues. So stay tuned. Should be fun ...

Posted by Anthony Rebora at 1:42 PM | Permalink | Leave a comment | Recommend

This spring, with her school district shut down for six days over concerns of the H1N1 flu virus, a math and science teacher at Paschal High School in Fort Worth, TX, reached out to her students in the only way she knew how: online.

Linda Antinone created "Sofa Studies," where teachers can broadcast lessons both online and through the school district's cable channels.

Antinone contacted the district about the idea after her husband pitched it to her, and within hours, teachers began creating all types of lessons, ranging from physical education stretches to science experiments.

"The first ones were pretty basic, but by the end, we were doing dancing grapes and live animals," said Scott JuVette, the district's director of marketing and multimedia strategies.

Now, the district has adopted Antinone's Sofa Studies as part of their revised online media strategy. It also recently debuted a program called Video On Demand months ahead of schedule.

The district hurried to roll out the online video program—one in which viewers can access both live and archived footage of school events and school board meetings—after Antinone's idea seemed to remedy the ill effects of closing down schools for H1N1 flu fears.

"I was freaking out [back in April]," Antinone said. "I was worried that the kids needed to review for the tests. I started off thinking, 'I'm just doing this for my students because I need to help them.'"

Some students in the district's advanced media program have been participating in the production of Sofa Studies, where they get hands-on experience with broadcasting and creating videos.

"It's a brave new world out there, and it's amazing what we can do," JuVette said. "As a parent or student, you have total access to anything you want."

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