Date: February 15, 2007

To: Bay Area Educators, Curriculum Leaders and Education Technology Leaders, CTAP Region IV Contacts

From: Bonnie Marks, Executive Director

Subject: BARC Meeting March 20, 2007, 12:30 p.m.

CTAP Region IV: Serving the counties of Alameda, Contra Costa, Marin, Napa, San Francisco, San Mateo and Solano

Alameda County Office of Education
313 West Winton Avenue
Hayward, CA 94544-1198
http://www.ctap4.org
(510) 670-4168

We are pleased to invite you to the next Bay Area Regional CTAP (BARC) meeting. The meeting will focus on Literacy in a Digital Age – with special guest speaker, Mark Wagner, Technology Educator. If you want to learn how web-based tools such as wikis and blogs promote and engage students in new literacies, this meeting will provide you with ideas and resources. In addition to technology leaders, we extend this invitation to curriculum leaders and library media teachers, and we encourage regular BARC attendees to bring guests who are interested in new tools for teaching and learning.

We'll be videoconferencing this meeting to a second site, the Marin County Office of Education so that those of you in the northern part of the region can participate without having to travel as far.

The meeting will be held on:
Tuesday, March 20th
12:00 Registration and Refreshments
12:30 - 3:30 p.m. (BARC meeting)
at the
Alameda County Office of Education
313 W. Winton Ave., Hayward, CA 94544
with Videoconference Remote Location at the Marin County Office of Education
1111 Las Gallinas Ave. - San Rafael, CA - 94903

Other BARC Agenda items include:

• State Educational Technology Survey
• Funding and Grants updates
• Plans for future meetings, activities, and events
• And, as always, Sharing and Collaborating

Please see the attached flyer, and use the registration form provided to let us know if you plan to attend or register online at http://www.ctap4.org/registration/ .

Meeting Minutes for the BARC Meeting held March 20, 2007

at Alameda County Office of Education
with video conference to Marin County Office of Education

Welcome and Introductions – Bonnie Marks

State EdTech Update

New Staff at CDE

• Nancy Silva – EETT Competitive -- Nancy has joined the staff at the CDE as a consultant and will be coordinating the EETT Competitive grant. Nancy came from a school district where she managed an EETT C grant.

• Nadine McPhil – CTAP & SETS -- Nadine is new to the Office of Technology at the CDE and will be filling Gary Quiring’s position in leading the SETS and State CTAP projects.

California School Technology Survey - Get those school sites and districts surveys done by April 6, 2007.

CTAP Region IV Update <http://www.ctap4.org>

Upcoming Events and Web Resources –

• Check our website and calendar for several upcoming trainings including the March 27 Data and Technology workshop, March 22 Google This or Google That at SMCOE, Wiki Wiki Quick Quick on March 29 at SMCOE and April 11 at CCCOE.

Grant updates, EETT, K12Voucher

• Several Region IV schools have been approved for K12 Voucher grant. Be sure to follow up with the K-12 Voucher Program Settlement Claim Administrator to find out what are approved purchases. For contact information and additional links see: <http://www.ctap4.org/grants/k-12/index.htm>

• EETT has been cut back and the CDE has a new advocate working in the position of coordinating EETT, Nancy Silva. Final deadline for technology plan and EETT Formula funding is April 6, 2007. When you receive email notification of approval of your plan, be sure to save the email as proof for E-Rate because the CDE no longer sends approval letters. Please download the Tech Planning Checklist for submission guidelines from our website at: http://www.ctap4.org/grants/planning.htm

Newsletter
The new newsletter is out! Check it for your favorite articles or download it from our website. http://www.ctap4.org/about_us/newsletter.htm

Technology Funding Alert!:
Hot off the press the newest funding alert was released March 15, 2007. Download it at <http://www.ctap4.org/grants/funding_alert.htm>

Resource Spotlight: Literacy in A Digital Age

Entering the Territory – Kathleen Ferenz and Sandy Oliver

• When I hear literacy in the digital age…

• Things about literacy in a digital age I’m worried about are…

• We compared how many of us digital aliens or digital immigrants learned to read vs. our digital natives of today by looking at two video segments. Kathleen shared a showcase video on vocabulary learning today from the K12 CA High Speed Network called vocabucasting. You can find it at: <http://showcase.k12hsn.org/gallery.php?cmd=vi&typ=mda&id=16>

• We talked about where we are on the digital native –-- alien continuum and learned to, “Show no fear!” when running with the squirrels, we mean, digital natives.

• We also watched the video

• We analyzed the Framework for the 21st Century Learning to see where lie on the continuum and encouraged folks to attend our upcoming literacy workshops and summer Google It institute. <http://www.ctap4.org/infolit/index.htm>

Lead Learner Presentation – Mark Wagner, CUE to YOU <http://twowayteaching.wikispaces.com/>

• He talked about the U2 song, “A Miracle Drug,” which is a story about the power of science and the human heart when a paraplegic child was given a new drug that allowed him to move his neck and use a keyboard for typing and became a published poet.

• Four Philosophies for Lead Learners: 1. the best leaders are also learners 2. Face-to-face philosophy where we have a conversation and produce something 3. “And Life” Philosophy reminds us to tap into what people are passionate about for their learning 4. The Kindergarten Philosophy says that anytime students have a positive learning experience, it’s a $1 deposit in their bank of love of learning and anytime they have a bad experience, it’s a $10 withdrawal. So our job is to make it as positive as possible.

• Mark summarized the 21st Century Learning research that attempts to capture the literacies and understandings our students need to have in order to succeed in the future. In most of our schools, we just barely scratch the surface of basic literacies, and we don’t get anywhere near visual and info literacies, multicultural literacies, global awareness, inventive thinking, collaboration, civic responsibility and so-on.

• Mark sited research from Nancy Stetson, that stated one-way teaching retention is about 42%, a week later it drops to 17%, and she found that two-way teaching improves student learning, institutional effectiveness, and seeks immediate feedback from students.

• Education blogs at the very least can be a teacher website, but also allows for students to be the scribe and take notes and post to the class blog. Each student would have their own blogs that teachers and others could comment upon and through RSS the teacher could be subscribed to all students’ blogs. Will Richardson would also record or podcast the comments on his students writing. <www.edublogs.com>

• Wikis are a great opportunity for learners to collaborate and share their learning. Mark mentioned Houghton-Mifflin’s textbook and their site hmtech.wikispaces.com where teachers create and post ideas for every unit.

• Concerns – Mark addressed several concerns like information literacy, inappropriate content, inappropriate sharing, threats and cyberbullying, stalkers and predators, free speech concerns, and perhaps the worst is the lack of understanding on the part of those who don’t understand the power of these technologies. Mark mentioned <http://www.saveyourspace.org/> that was created during the DOPA legislation to try to protect the use of these tools in classrooms.

• Creative Commons <www.creativecommons.org> provides various copyright licenses for producers of content because everything created has a copyright and you need to track down the creator to get permission to use it. Every teacher using podcasting should be using creative commons to give permission to other educators to use their podcasts.

• In closing, we all wrote ourselves a postcard to be snail mailed to us and remind of a resource, site, or technology we want to use to continue our learning.

Upcoming Events

CUE<http://www.cue.org>

• State CUE Board election is coming up and Micheline LeBlanc from CTAP has been nominated.

• East Bay CUE is in the midst of reading grants and will be announcing winners soon.

Next BARC Meeting

Focus on Using Data and Data Tools from CTAP
May 22 , 2007
Alameda County Office of Education
with videoconference to
Marin County Office of Education