Goals Audience Staff Dev. Strategies Use of Technology Design Process Tailoring Content Motivation/Costs Tools Future Tools Human Support Assessment Evaluation
The goal of the LInC program is to develop a cadre of educational leaders who effectively use technology for engaged learning. The program targets three main areas:
- Engaged learning
- Integrating technology effectively into the curriculum
- Leadership/dissemination
During the LInC course, participants develop a technology-supported engaged learning project for use with their own students. They also work as a school/district leadership team to create a staff development plan for educators in their school or district. In addition, teams have the option to participate in a LInC Facilitators' Academy. During this academy, teams build their engaged learning facilitation skills and develop more detailed plans and materials for facilitating staff development on technology-supported engaged learning in their region.
For more information, see:
- LInC course objectives, syllabus, and home page.
- LInC Facilitators' Academy objectives, syllabus, and home page.
Audience: Our target audience is leadership teams of K-12 educators from a school, district or region. We have worked with educators from all grade levels (pre-K through 12) and from a wide variety of subjects (Science, Math, English, Humanities, Foreign Language, Health, Physical Education, Art, Music, Computers, Drafting, Carpentry, Business, Bilingual Ed., Special Ed., Gifted Ed., Vocational Ed., . . .). We have also worked with educators serving a wide range of job functions (classroom teacher, library media specialist, curriculum coordinator, staff developer, administrator, technology coordinator, resource teacher, . . .). Team members must satisfy specific prerequisites and commit to providing inservice to others.
Participation: So far, 200 educators from 60 school districts in 18 states (literally from Maine to Montana) have participated in the program. By the end of the year 2000, nine teams will have facilitated their own three-month LInC course (some more than once). A majority of other teams have offered 3- to 10-session inservices to educators in their region and offered leadership in other ways such as writing grants or participating on technology committees.
Duration: The LInC course is 12-14 weeks. The LInC Facilitators' Academy is 3-4 days. The mentoring program for new facilitators is 1-2 semesters. Follow-up for LInC graduates is ongoing with a listserv and 4-6 online meetings per year.
For more information, see:
We assume participants are busy professionals with valuable expertise to share with others, a need to have choices in their staff development, and a need to create products that will be useful to them. We assume participants will come from many different backgrounds and have a variety of learning styles. The program models the same engaged learning and technology integration strategies we expect participants to use with their students. We also address different learning styles by using multiple approaches, multiple communication delivery methods and multimedia.
Follow-up for LInC graduates is via a listserv and 4-6 online meetings (chats) per year. Participants are surveyed periodically about their preferences for meeting day/time, topics, and presenters. We also communicate with administrators from teams' districts as needed to provide support for their inservice efforts.
For more information, see:
We assume that the LInC professional development will benefit by using technology effectively in the same ways we expect our participants to have students use technology. This includes using technology to:
- Communicate and collaborate with peers with different perspectives, geography, data, skills, cultural backgrounds, . . . .
- Communicate and collaborate with experts.
- Publish original work to a world-wide audience.
- Find recent or frequently changing information.
- Add value in ways that would not be feasible without the technology.
We have participants that tell us they would not be able to take a course like LInC if it were not online, because there is no local expertise to offer it. This is particularly true of many of the teams from rural or urban districts. Participants also frequently say how much they enjoy and value being able to share ideas with educators from different school districts all over the nation. Another benefit is that asynchronous communication in an online course can promote reflection and allow participants to work in the places and at the times that are most productive for them and fit best with their busy schedules. Besides these benefits, online communication eliminates the time and cost needed for traveling to a class site. Finally, the technology can mask issues such as race, appearance, certain disabilities, . . . .
For more information, see:
We have a design team with five to eight educators from area school districts who have taken and facilitated the LInC course. The team operates on the concept of continuous improvement. Each year we brainstorm ideas for course design and material improvements and updates based on participant feedback, reflections from new and experienced facilitators, and new articles or developments in the field. We also use input from our external evaluator based on her analysis of this feedback, pre- and post-data, and the quality of participant end products. The design team then works collaboratively to make the changes and share feedback on each other's work. The team also creates materials for facilitators so the collective knowledge of best practice in the course can be shared, retained, and grown.
Participants are surveyed once or twice during the course about what is working well and what could be improved. They are asked once again at the end of the course for their suggestions. Participants also have a number of ways they can make suggestions about the course at any time during the course. Facilitators/mentors are asked to jot down notes during the course about processes that are working well and any difficulties they observe participants having. At the end of the course, facilitators are asked to reflect and indicate any process or materials changes that could make the course more effective and provide more support for any difficulties observed. In particular, we have systematically refined strategies for scaffolding engaged learning over the past six years, and strategies for improving online delivery over the past three years.
Communication tools are re-evaluated each year since they change and new tools frequently become available. Potential candidates for new tools are presented to the design team of educators who decide which ones look most promising.
For more information, see:
Originally, we determined the content for the course by conducting a needs assessment with 12 area school districts in 1994. Once the course was offered, the LInC design team made regular content and format changes based on participant and facilitator feedback, input from the external evaluator, and new developments in the field. Online forms, e-mail surveys, bulletin board queries, and online chats have been used to obtain this feedback.
Participants are required to have basic computer skills, e-mail skills, and Web browser skills before starting the course. These are spelled out in detail on the LInC course prerequisites page listed below.
For more information, see:
We hope to have participant teams that have a genuine interest in technology-supported engaged learning and are intrinsically motivated to provide leadership for their district. Participants are also motivated because they are creating an authentic product for use with their students, and because they enjoy the comradery of working with their team and sharing ideas with educators from other schools/districts.
Participants are also offered low-cost graduate credit: $300 for 6 credits (i.e., $50 per credit hour). Administrators are encouraged to list incentives the district will provide in their support letter for their team such as stipends, tuition reimbursement, release time, software, hardware, recognition, . . . .
The program has been funded by grants up to this point, so there has been no charge for participants other than for optional graduate credit. In the pilot years, participants were given a $600 stipend. When other agencies offer the course, they will want to charge whatever they typically charge for university credit courses or in-house professional development workshops.
Software for participants has costed $45 for a Web editor and $10 for a chat tool. All other software has been free.
LInC is an intensive program. Participants need 8-10 hours per week for 14 weeks to complete the online course. The Facilitator Academy takes 3-4 days (usually in the summer). When participants become facilitators, they will need to spend 5-8 hours per week teaching the course depending upon the number of people they are responsible for guiding.
The tools are not the main point of the course. They are used only as needed to complete the project. The course goals can be accomplished with varying tool choices as long as the basic functionality, speed, and reliability is there. We intentionally chose the tools with the lowest hardware and software requirements that would serve our purpose because we wanted our course to be accessible to as many educators as possible, particularly for the urban and rural districts. New facilitator teams are shown various options and then choose the tools they think will work best for their district's situation.
When we offer the course at Fermilab, participants use an IRC chat client: MSChat for PC (free) or ChatNet for Mac ($10 each if you buy 10), PageMill Web editor ($45), and COW electronic bulletin board (free). So the total cost for participants is $45 if they have a PC and $55 if they have a Mac.
We chose PageMill as our Web editor because it was easier to use than many other choices, low-cost, and available for both Mac and PC users. Other groups have chosen Netscape Composer (free), FrontPage or Claris HomePage (district-buy program).
We chose IRC chat because the client software is very easy to use, low-cost or free, reliable, and has a very speedy response time to promote good conversation flow. Chat software which causes delays to conversations will substantially degrade the value of the chats. The UNIX IRC server we are using (ircd) is also free. We may switch to TappedIn later.
We chose COW (Conferencing on the Web) electronic bulletin board because it is fairly simple, well organized, free for both client and server, allows searching, lists unread messages, and is accessed through a Web browser so participants don't have to download extra software. Discus (free) is a similar option that looks like it would be a reasonable choice. Several other groups have chosen to use BlackBoard (free) with good results (although it has its busy spells).
We use Fermilab's existing listserv software called L-Soft. Other groups have used eGroups (free with a small ad) for their listservs which has worked wonderfully.
Participants use WS_FTP for a PC FTP client and Fetch for a MAC FTP client.
We have written our own small Perl programs for creating nicely formatted Web pages from plain text chat transcripts, generating participant Web pages from facilitator Web pages by filtering out embedded comments for facilitators, and CGI scripts for online forms. We also wrote an animated modeled project proposal discussion using JavaScript.
For more information, see:
If the hardware, operating system, software, bandwidth, cost and user interface requirements were accessible and friendly to most educators on both Mac and PC (including educators in urban and rural districts), it would be great to use audio- and videoconferencing, streaming stored and indexed audio and video segments, shared document editing, other groupware functions, etc.
We have one half-time person at Fermilab who serves as the project coordinator, editor, and technical support (Webmaster/programmer) for the program. We also have 6-10 facilitators who work for their school district full-time and serve as instructors for the course one evening per week (and communicate with participants after school frequently during each week). In addition, the LInC design team works on revisions during the summer anywhere from 1/2 week to 4 weeks depending on how much work is needed and how much funding is available. During some summers, we have a high school or college student to assist with technical tasks. We also have an external evaluator.
Participant teams need a technical contact they can get help from if their computer has hardware, operating system, network, or filtering problems. Course facilitators take care of assisting participants with course-related software such as the communication tools, the FTP client and the Web editor. On-site technical support for these is not required.
Other agencies who are offering the course only need a:
- Course coordinator (8-10 hours per week).
- Facilitator team of 2 or more educators to be adjunct instructors.
- Technical support person if server software is on site. (as opposed to using services from external Web sites).
Participants reflect and self-assess their work in addition to receiving peer and facilitator feedback. Feedback is received via online chats, e-mail and bulletin board. Rubrics (online forms) are used to assess each project component. An "assignments status" Web page is used to track and display participants' status on assignments using the last 4 digits of their social security number as an identifier.
For more information, see:
Author: Laura Mengel (lauram@fnal.gov)For formative evaluation, participants are surveyed by e-mail or bulletin board once or twice during the course about what is working well and what could be improved. They are asked once again at the end of the course for their suggestions through an online form. Participants also have a number of ways (chat, bulletin board, online suggestions form or e-mail) they can make suggestions about the course at any time during the course. Facilitators/mentors are asked to jot down notes during the course about processes that are working well and any difficulties they observe participants having. At the end of the course, facilitators are asked to reflect and indicate any process or materials changes that could make the course more effective and provide more support for any difficulties observed.
To evaluate impact, we use input from our external evaluator based on her analysis of this participant/facilitator feedback, pre- and post-data, and the quality of participant end products. We collect pre- and post-data via online forms about classroom practices, technical skills, and leadership behaviors. We also ask participants to describe how they implemented a unit before the LInC course that had the same learner outcomes as their LInC project so this can be compared with their project. The online forms produce tab-delimited output that can be read into Excel to make data easier to analyze.
As a result of this evaluation feedback, we have systematically refined strategies for scaffolding engaged learning over the past six years, and strategies for improving online delivery over the past three years. We have also improved the leadership component of the course.
For more information, see: