Note: Each description was submitted by the school district.

Iowa Learning Technology Grants

2008 Recipients

Brief Project Description

District Size 0-600: George-Little Rock $45,194.00

The George-Little Rock (G-LR) Community School District project would provide for more frequent assessment and immediate feedback to a pilot group of students in fourth, fifth, seventh, and ninth grades at George-Little Rock CSD.  The project will include the purchase of nine Classroom Performance Systems (CPS).  These systems would provide for more effective measurement of students responses and alignment of those responses to standards and benchmarks.  It would also include the purchase of nine CPS Chalkboards for the pilot classrooms.  These systems would provide the teacher with mobility within the classroom during the use of technology.  Also included in this project will be the purchase of nine electronic interactive whiteboards (smart boards) for the use in pilot classrooms.  These pilot classrooms would include math, science, social studies, and reading in grade four and five in four classrooms, math, science, and reading in seventh grade in three classrooms, and science and language arts in ninth grade in two classrooms.  These smart boards will provide for interaction for students and teachers directly with the technology.  This pilot program would directly affect approximately 200 students at G-LR.  The selection of these students for the pilot program was made due to the appropriateness of the age of the students and the type of technology that is proposed.  


District Size 601-1500: Jefferson-Scranton $36,425.00

Jefferson-Scranton High School is engaged in maintaining a student-run restaurant called the RAM. As an integrated part of the Family and Consumer Science curriculum, this restaurant provides snacks and meals for community clubs and special events for the Jefferson and Scranton communities. As this community partnership grows it is important that the technology in these courses grows. The district will purchase 20 laptop computers with a cart for use in the family and consumer sciences classroom. These will have basic Office software installed as well as their Chief Architect software, which will be used by the interior design courses. Students in the family and consumer sciences courses will share these computers with other vocational courses, just as they do computers in the high school lab.  Linking education opportunities with another discipline in the high school curriculum and incorporating community involvement makes this a unique opportunity for the Jefferson Scranton students. This opportunity is also offered through a sharing agreement to the students of East Greene and Paton Churdan, which will incorporate all of Greene County. Family and Consumer Science classes are very “fluid” with students working on a variety of tasks which require use of technology at one point while others are working on a different component of the same assignment. For instance, in commercial baking class and student-run restaurant, a group of students may be preparing their power point on the product they just created while another group is in the process of preparing a product for sample and evaluation by their customers. This type of setting allows students the freedom to work independently, but causes difficulty with supervision. Laptops will create a situation where students can interact with technology in one room, such as web searching for new recipes/ideas (already equipped with wireless capability) while others prepare and evaluate their plans. The restaurant serves 60 students and staff daily and has catered events for up to 250 people. In addition their interior design class students can design their homes with their Chief Architect software, while others will be working on their illustration boards for rooms already created.

District Size 1501-9000: Ames $72,000.00

Ames Community School District Middle School 2007-2008 program design will include two days of supplemental small group instruction using literacy strategies, such as Project CRISS (Creating Independence through Student-owned Strategies), and two days of computer-assisted instruction (CAI) supported through Achieve3000. Project CRISS was created to help students better organize, understand, and retain course information. Students learn to become strategic when teachers teach the process of learning directly through explanation, modeling, and reflection. When introducing a new strategy, teachers need to take the stage. They show, tell,  model, demonstrate, and explain not only the content, but also the process of active learning. As the student learns, there is a gradual release of responsibility from the teacher to the student. The CRISS Project has been implemented in the Ames Middle School for over four years.

Achieve3000: The Power of One is a Web-based, individualized learning solution to accelerate reading comprehension, vocabulary and writing proficiency for students in grades 3-8 (-8 (www.achieve3000.com). TeenBiz, a component of Achieve3000, aligns to their literacy curriculum, standards, and grade level expectations and would be implemented in 6th grade. As recommended, the program will be used a minimum of two times per week per student to achieve the desired results. In addition, the subscription for TeenBiz will be available through the summer months for their students. While they have summer programs that are available for talented and gifted students and at-risk students, TeenBiz will be available to all students, including those who require a Spanish version.

The TeenBiz materials include highly engaging, interactive reading and writing activities with a focus on informational text for science and social studies as well as math story problems and national surveys. The database of articles is extensive and will provide an opportunity for teachers to access informational text across content areas. In accessing informational text, it is critical to know the reading levels of the students being served through this program. Developed by MetaMetrics, Inc., the Lexile Framework measures reader ability and text difficulty on the same scale, called the Lexile scale. A pre-assessment identifies student Lexile levels. When students log in, the program automatically delivers materials leveled to their reading ability. Teachers and administrators will receive ongoing management and diagnostic data as well as summative data three times per year using the LevelSet Lexile Reading Assessment.

District Size 9001+: Des Moines $100,000.00

Des Moines Public School (DMPS) will partner with the statewide reach of the Iowa Communications Network (ICN) and Iowa Public Television (IPTV) to design and implement a technology-enriched pilot project at Callanan Middle School that will develop informed, responsible citizens. This project, 21st Century Participatory Citizenship, will teach students to analyze information from multiple sources in order to actively participate in society, a core component of the DMPS middle school humanities curriculum. Participatory citizenship is addressed by grade level: 6th graders identify and take action on LOCAL issues; 7th graders identify and take action on GLOBAL issues; and 8th graders develop CIVIC LITERACY skills while demonstrating rights and obligations of citizenship. The project will open the dialogue between students and the community as students analyze significant human issues using technologically-advanced tools and skills. The project builds on relationships IPTV and the ICN have developed with experts involved with participatory citizenship and global studies. Using IP videoconferencing, students will have direct access to experts and culturally significant locations in their school. The project will help students synthesize information and ideas from multiple sources while developing critical thinking and reasoning skills. Finally, 21st Century Participatory Citizenship will allow students to present their findings by creating, editing, and narrowcasting video segments for their peers and the academic and professional communities, multiplying the benefits of the project. Callanan has the network infrastructure required to incorporate IP technology into the classroom but not the knowledge needed to take advantage of this capability. Technology cannot be successfully integrated unless instructors have support and training. Using best practice design, a significant portion of the grant will be expended on high-quality, on-going professional development.

This program will incorporate 21st century technology into authentic learning tasks that complement and support their curriculum. The project will focus on humanities at the middle school level, but the project design is replicable in other curriculum areas. Information, content, and facilitated discussions available from IPTV are not limited to social studies, and the technology used in this project is not specialized to one field. All educators will see how technology and project design can be used in their class. This project includes statewide partners for technical and instructional support. ICN will provide expertise to Callanan in the area of IP videoconferencing and will help the district establish a strong vendor relationship. IP videoconferencing will provide Callanan students access to unique, primary sources in an interactive communication platform, even though the building does not have access to the ICN network. The partnership with IPTV will utilize their award-winning Explore More project model, which is designed to engage students in relatable problems, provide compelling content for investigation, and present opportunities for students to form their own points of view. IPTV will also help Callanan students conduct live, interactive presentations. This innovative project is not limited to schools in big cities. The resources that ICN and IPTV will provide are available statewide. These partnerships and the vendor relationship will help other districts see that 21st Century Participatory Citizenship can be replicated in their schools. Success at Callanan can also be used as a model for the 1,000 school buildings in Iowa that do not have ICN facilities.

At-Large: Griswold                        $85,597.00

The Griswold CSD project is “Using Technology to Differentiate Instruction” for students in grades 6-12. Teachers have been trained in Differentiated Instruction (DI) during professional development (PD). This year’s PD focuses on how to use technology to differentiate instruction, with an emphasis on differentiating content and process. They are using peer study groups led by teachers that have been trained by their AEA technology consultant and district integration specialist. Next year’s PD will emphasize differentiating product with technology. This will also correlate with instruction in the Iowa Core Curriculum and teaching for rigor and relevance using Daggett’s Rigor/Relevance Framework. The focus of their grant request is to provide the hardware, software, and resources to assure the success of differentiation of product. They are providing80 Tablet PC’s equipped with project-based software for student use in the four lead teachers’ classrooms. The teachers are receiving PD in the differentiation of product and the Rigor/Relevance Framework this year. With the availability of Tablet PC’s,  students will be able to create authentic products that demonstrate learning in a variety of formats, such as digital stories, podcasts, vodcasts, and blogs. Students who use technology tools to create authentic products will be more engaged in their learning and with well designed lessons they will be working in the upper quadrants of rigor and relevance. This will result in increased student achievement. With expertise gained from PD sessions in differentiating products, and in having the hardware, software, and resources available in their classrooms for student use in creating products, the lead teachers will be prepared to lead their study groups in the differentiation of product and in teaching with rigor and relevance during the 2008-2009 school year. The success of this PD will enable their middle school/high school faculty to have a shared vision of using technology to differentiate instruction for content, process, and product within their curriculum, and be prepared for a successful implementation of a 1 to 1 initiative for their students when funding becomes available. This will help assure an increase in student engagement and a rise in student achievement.

At-Large: Harlan              $100,000.00

The Harlan Community School District is working on implementing a 1-to-1 laptop initiative in grades 5-12 over the course of the next two school years. Their initiative will directly impact three separate buildings –high school, middle school, and one elementary – including 1139 students and 124 staff members. They will acquire software and hardware that will allow their district to provide access to electronic textbooks and novels, electronic assessments, and software that will increase student engagement through implementing Quadrant D lessons and utilizing the Rigor and Relevance framework. They want to expand their students’ access to reading materials by giving access to a vast collection of reading and reference materials that students may access through their laptops. While they seek to increase student achievement through their 1-to-1 initiative, their primary focus is to create a learning environment where students are introduced to 21st Century skills and instructional practices which will prepare all students for post secondary education.  

They will increase reading comprehension proficiency levels in their district through this initiative. This year their high school and middle school have implemented Second Chance Reading classrooms in an effort to reduce the number of non-proficient readers. They have also been experimenting with VitalSource, a software program which allows users to have access to thousands of electronic books, reference materials, publications, internet sites, photos, and videos. Students and staff members are able to use this program to make notations, highlight passages, create notes and journal entries, search within one book or multiple books for key words and phrases. They will implement Vital Source, which will give students equal access to reading materials. This goal is nearly impossible to accomplish with their current hardbound classroom libraries. Another software program they will be utilizing matches up well with the Iowa Model Core Curriculum. They will expand their usage of the Choices program in their buildings in an effort to help students create their six year academic plans. Students will be able to maintain electronic academic plans for easy reference throughout their high school careers. This software will advance their district’s efforts to differentiate course offerings and instruction to all students, especially struggling and advanced learners.