The vision of the National Endowment for the Humanities Schools for a New Millennium Implementation Grant is grounded in collaborative planning and projects initiated by participants in the NEH Schools for a New Millennium Planning Grant. The planning phase leveraged a process for accessing electronically, primary resources not available within the walls of West Junior High. Our team representing local museums, educational institutions, technology centers, and the print media is producing a Web site containing local history materials. A database is being compiled to provide information, and simultaneously serve as the focus of student projects. Access to authentic information, professional collaboration and training, and support for student leadership in the area of technology applications profoundly impacts lesson design and the quality of instruction. As the Community Connections project reaches more students, it increases enthusiasm for humanities studies and enhances academic achievement. Continuation of our efforts will establish a prototype for professional best practices in the area of humanities education, through the integration of technology within the core academic curriculum.
The steering committee, with 15 members, has met once a month. (Appendix 1) Areas of concentration during this first year of the implementation grant are 1) development of the Web site database of community resources, 2) development of teacher Web pages, 3) development of collaborative projects, and 4) increasing individual teacher's technology skills. These areas were selected as focus points in the new vision-building sessions ending last January. (Appendix 2) In addition to collaborative projects within core teams and pairings between several curricular areas, we are laying the foundations for two larger collaborative projects. The first is an oral histories project which will culminate in a multi-media presentation/performance replacing the traditional spring play. Community members will be interviewed and videotaped, scripts will be written based on these interviews to dramatize significant events. The project potentially involves several curriculum areas: Communication, Media, Drama, English, History, Art, and Music, as well as the extra-curricular drama club, Junior Players, which meets regularly after school. A project of this scope requires advanced planning, discussions, and coordination this year in order to implement it next year. A second area of collaboration is to develop projects within the thematic umbrella of the Underground Railroad. As we compile community resources about the role Lawrence played, then add them to our Web site, we will be looking for ways to exchange information with schools in communities also involved in the Underground Railroad. This will allow us to collaborate with the other three junior highs in Lawrence, as well as schools across the country. We have only to identify possibly collaborators.
Progress continues toward the goal of integrating humanities curriculum with other areas in project-based instruction. Integrated units this year -- 7th grade Introduction and Orientation to West and city library resources; 7th grade Olympics, for which each student selected a country; Germans in Lawrence; and 8th grade Tolerance (Holocaust) unit -- that have been reorganized as student projects are being refined. Student products have improved. Territorial Diaries, a 9th grade social studies unit was greatly improved because of increased resources available. (Appendix 3) One math teacher, K. Gyles, experimented with a graphing project for 8th graders based on data about businesses in Lawrence posted on our Community Connections Web site ( http://history.lawrence.com/project/community/business/1860.html). While most results were disappointing on the first attempt, the activity was interesting and will be refined and adapted after the format of this Web page has been improved. Once the activity is successful, the graphs will be of interest to social studies students comparing the amount and level of economic activity in Lawrence from 1860 to 1978. Student graphs will then be posted on the Web site. (Appendix 4) The project of documenting historic places in Lawrence was turned over to the new photo teacher who taught P. Farrar's Photo 2 classes starting mid-October. In order to pass this project successfully from one teacher to the next, more comprehensive instructions were written. Several projects will be added to the Community Connections Web site by the end of the school year. (Appendix 5) The family ethnic heritage interviews planned for the German 2 "Germans in Lawrence" unit were reworked and moved to German 1 when family vocabulary is introduced. Students in small groups interviewed (in English) staff members and community members with strong German heritage. The results of these interviews were presented in class in German. Patterns of immigration and language suppression emerged, even though the amount of information students shared was limited. Through this process of interviewing community members, we found photos and artifacts which can be posted to the Community Connections Web site. As a result of this year's German 2 "Germans in Lawrence" unit, two documents were transcribed for the Community Connections Web site. (Appendix 6) Eighth-graders prepared National History Day projects. Several competed at the state level. Katy Kline's entry about new frontiers in animation pioneered by Walt Disney won first place among junior high students in Kansas. It won 6th place in the nation. (Appendix 7)
Progress toward the goal of integrating technology in humanities curriculum continues throughout the building. Routines for taking students to the computer writing labs, which have 'normalized' with some teachers, are spreading to others. J. Stafford continues writing one Web-based 7th grade English assignment per year; this year it's a poetry unit. Through her Web page, students access a variety of resources before writing their own poetry. (Appendix 8) Three more teachers authored Web pages and all teacher pages were moved to the new "Community Connections" Web site, at http://history.lawrence.com/project/teacher/, for a total of six. Teacher or Course Web pages were also completed by students as GenY projects or as results of Warhawk Web Staff work. The Kansas State and Lawrence School District Writing Assessments and Social Studies Assessment were all heavily dependent on the integration of information and communication technologies as they were administered in our building. Since every student must complete these assessments, the use of technology must be so familiar and so seamless that the student concentrates on the content being assessed. (Appendix 9) Teachers and students have begun to make use of "Inspiration" software to support our building-wide Quality Performance Accreditation goal of improving reading scores through the use of graphic organizers. Several classes, especially Communica-tions and American History, made extensive use of this tool. (Appendix 10) The two Educarts which arrived last fall, were in the debugging phase for a couple of months. They provide the capacity for presentations integrating Power Point, internet, hard copy, and notations written on a white board. Problems with software compatibility between the carts and our network server, enabling teachers and students to access their accounts were eventually solved. They were added to the check-out system in the Media Center at the beginning of second semester, and were used with increasing frequency through spring. On Collaboration Time, several teachers worked together to self-tutor basic use of the Educart components. Training of more teachers will continue in the fall; special focus will include the PowerPoint and Tegrity programs.
Three teachers (C. Derusseau, P. Farrar, and K. Gyles) completed an on-line course on authoring Web pages through Connected University. Four teachers also audited the course. The project coordinator took a workshop offered in the district for training with "Dreamweaver", an html authoring utility, which we have installed on three computers and plan to install on at least one more. This will help teachers and students authoring Web pages; thus a major barrier to integrating technology into the humanities curriculum will be overcome. The grant sent one teacher, M. Andersen, to a "Tegrity" workshop, which is the Educart software that allows drawings and projected images to be captured and incorporated into PowerPoint presentations. She will help develop a training or tutoring session for teachers or Gen/Y students on Tegrity's capabilities. We created a technology in-service training for half of the staff in mid-March (while the other half was required to be elsewhere). The concept was to try to meet teachers' technology training needs, regardless of their levels of expertise. We also tried to incorporate tasks which teachers were currently being asked to complete, thus helping them be more efficient, learning skills to make their jobs easier. It seemed to be a useful format, one which encouraged reluctant users of technology to come forward with questions. Following a list of topics, we shifted topics approximately every 20 minutes. Teachers could participate or step back to work on previous topics as they desired. We will continue this format on a regular basis next year. (Appendix 11) One steering group member, the computer lab paraprofessional who filled in as librarian this year (B.Briscoe), provided ongoing technology tips. When she encountered lack of understanding or knowledge of a particular skill, or found a Web site or function of local network software that seemed timely, she provided a quick and simple explanation. These were dispersed to all building staff through e-mail. Because they were distributed in a 'need-to-know' fashion, they were practical. If saved in an e-mail file, they can contribute significantly to over-all technology competence in the building. (Appendix 12) Farrar's German Web page has been submitted for review by the Web staff of the American Association of Teachers of German. To date, two of her "TrackStar" activities have been incorporated into their site.
GenY projects culminate in an open house at the end of the school year. Each student works on a project which supports the curriculum. Projects for the 2000-2001 school year include PowerPoint presentations on: Martin Luther King, Jr; diversity; a quiz game for Knowledge Master competition practice; "Welcome to 7th grade geography"; and safe food handling tips. Two Web pages are being created: one for Gen Y and one for a science teacher. An Avid Cinema video is being prepared about History Day, and a video about nutrition and healthy choices is being made. A 2000-2001 Web page staff of 6-8 students developed and maintained the general school Web site at http://schools.lawrence.com/wjhs/. These students met twice per week. They have published student work in art and music and provided a variety of information about the school. The computer club continued to develop student leadership. This year's officers learned the basics of administering a small Windows NT network, maintaining the computer club's lab of 24 units, located in the library and used by the entire school. At the end of the year, the outgoing officers train incoming officers in network administration. The officers taught themselves Flash, in order to train those who will teach it next year. General members had a choice of learning HTML or Visual Basic. Attendance at weekly meetings varied from 10 to 30 students.
A Lawrence history Web site where learners access and contribute information has been under construction for the past year and a half. The site, titled Lawrence Community Connections is now public at http://history.lawrence.com. It is currently organized into four parts. "Topics" contains a resource database of items found at Watkins Community Museum, Spencer Research Library, at the Lawrence Journal-World archives, and borrowed from private individuals. Procedures for requesting and finding materials, copyright verification, digitizing, crediting, editing, and publishing, have been established. This database has been set up so that a research assistant need not have more than basic computer skills in order to enter data. "Projects" contains four sub-headings: "Student", "Community", "Teacher", and "About Us". The Student section includes student work resulting from class assignments pertaining to Lawrence History. The "Community" section contains several original publications including a thesis and a book, larger text resources, as well as a few documents written specifically for the Web site. The "Teacher" section contains general teacher Web pages, including (but not limited to) assignments pertaining to Lawrence history. The "About" Section provides background information about the Schools for the New Millennium NEH grant project, our goals, resources, and personnel working on this grant. This is a scaled-down version of our planning grant Web site. (Appendix 13) The Web site team consists of five people who meet monthly with the project coordinator to manage creation and maintenance of the site. This includes: K. Dixon, Web designer, Lawrence Journal-World; G. Burt, Web programmer, Lawrence Journal-World; E. Neuteboom, research assistant, Watkins Community Museum; S. Thiel, digital projects librarian, Spencer Research Library; and B. Webber, Webmaster. Areas of responsibility and processes for problem solving and decision making have been established and function well. Student-processed information must meet strict standards in order to be added to the Web site. Several items will merit publication this year, and should be added by the end of June.
On January 25, we presented the grant project to the Board of Directors of the Douglas County Historical Society, the governing body of Watkins Community Museum. The project was well received, benefits to the museum were highlighted, and all involved were commended for our work. The event was reported in the Journal-World the following day. (Appendix 14) On February 1, we presented the project to the West Junior High Site Council, a governing group of parents and teachers. On this particular date a School Board liaison happened to also be in attendance. In addition to the group's positive reaction and support, the board member's enthusiasm for this project was included in the public comment section of the following School Board meeting. (Appendix 15) During the last week of April, the Web site was featured on Channel 6 local news. The reporter and cameraman observed students working on the Territorial Diaries project in Derusseau's Kansas History classes. The story was aired twice on the 25th, at 6 and 10 p.m. (Video enclosed) On April 16 and May 7, we introduced the grant project to the Lawrence Sesquicentennial Commission Education Committee. They are in the process of developing and selecting ideas for projects to commemorate in 2004 the founding of Lawrence. They had had preliminary discussions about the possibility of compiling historic Lawrence documents on a Web site and were, therefore, intrigued with both the process and the product recently made public through our site. They were particularly focused on what provisions have been made to sustain the collaborative process, with all parties, after the grant term ends. After the May presentation, one committee member's enthusiastic response was articulated in a letter to the editor. (Appendix 16)
Asynchronous collaborative planning has been critical to success experienced by participants in this grant. It was begun and was fostered in the "Collaboratorium" on our Community Connections planning grant Web site. It continues, but now through the use of e-mail, as new software was adopted in the entire USD 497 school district allowing us to create 'conference' groups. Creation of an 'NEH at West' conference in FirstClass replaced use of the Collaboratorium. Although the latter could be accessed by the public, therefore having greater visibility, the conferences in FirstClass should become part of our repertoire of standard practices for effective communication with administrators and colleagues within the district. We felt the switch was appropriate.(Appendix 17) This year we spent many hours in committees discussing moving to a block schedule with other junior highs in our district. Since a block plan has been given tentative approval for 2002-2003, core teams plan to experiment with blocking in 2001-2002. This provides excellent opportunities to infuse student projects and integrated humanities into the curriculum. We learned very recently that Gen-Y funding has not been granted for next year. Since this program has played a major role in channeling student technological skills and interests to support teacher skill development and the curriculum, we will be affected. It is hoped that the momentum gained in student activities will continue with the support of the NEH grant steering committee. Two essential members of the Web site team are graduating this spring and moving on to college and career. Gabe Burt, Web programmer, will be replaced by fellow Journal-World staff member, Frank Wiles. Eric Neuteboom, research assistant at Watkins Community Museum, will be replaced by a retiring elementary teacher. This teacher, John Jewell, has also been the photographer for the museum and a volunteer in various museum projects. His knowledge of Kansas History curriculum in the elementary schools, of the photo archives, and acquaintance with the museum staff and its collection will be a great contribution as we compile the Community Connections database.
We are making good progress toward implementation grant goals. The dream of creating a Web site database of community historic resources has been realized. Although the process was more challenging, more complicated, and more involved than any of us realized in the initial vision, the results are close to the original concept. The database is organized in general topics, is searchable, can grow with contributions from several community sources, and will be usable for a wide variety of student and community projects. It has the potential for growth both in quality and quantity of information, and the potential for students to experience real historic research with primary resources. Procedures that facilitate this collaborative effort, from finding materials, to clearing copyright, to typing text are being practiced and improved. A presentation of the grant's goals, benefits, participants, and organization was prepared for the entire faculty early in May. In preparation for its final year, all returning staff are invited to find a way to participate in the grant. Those whose busy schedules during the school year can not accommodate developing grant projects and technology skills will be encouraged to use summer time. Several new faculty who teach humanities will be specifically invited to collaborate within their core team on at least one interdisciplinary student project next year. (Appendix 18) The collaboration of WJH staff with the staff of community institutions is rewarding not only for the resources being developed, but also in professional relationships that are developing. Mutual goals and reciprocal support epitomize the meaning of the Community Connections grant title. Collaborative attitudes and growing skill levels of those teachers participating in the grant will attract more faculty members to participate in the grant's final year. We are confident that it will continue to be a catalyst for growth and change in our school community. As we face the transition from the eight-period day to a block schedule we are primed for using innovative methods of instruction, collaborating on student-centered projects. We are also beginning a new five-year cycle in the Kansas school certification process, Quality Performance Accreditation. While our previous report card was satisfactory, we hope to improve. (Appendix 19) The goals in reading, writing, and problem solving that are critical to the QPA process are embedded in the goals of this "Schools for the New Millennium" grant. We are confidant that through the integration of technology within the core academic curriculum, we will continue to achieve new levels of excellence.