Corey+Simmins



My name is Corey L Simmins, and I am currently in my 13th year of teaching. I teach pre-AP British literature along with Futuristic literature and linguistics. Besides attempting to convert my classes from a 20th to a 21st Century focus, I am the department chair of the Fairfield High School English department. My goal in life, besides being the greatest teacher since Aristotle and raising three children (1 natural, 2 adopted), is to circumnavigate the world without using air travel. I figure when merit pay becomes institutionalized and my worth is properly calculated, my $150,000 a year salary will allow me to embark upon this Vernian excursion. Until then I shall slog on.

Currently, I am attempting to evolve my Futuristic Literature and Linguistics course into a 21st Century Schools model for Fairfield H.S. Listed below is a list of actions I have taken this 2010 Spring Semester.

1. Obtained access to 24 netbooks 2. Had each student create an Evernote account for note taking 3. Had each student create an I-Google page with calendar for time management. 4. Ordered access to class delivered Time, Newsweek, and U.S News World Report, and National Geographic Magazines to scan, search, and inject modern world issues into class in order to apply to the novels and develop critical thinking skills 5. Built a Wiki for class to post homework, articles, and discussion concerning the aforementioned.

**Feel free to peruse my current class WIKIs for proof of implementation. This assignment will close out the year.**
http://futuristicliterature.wikispaces.com/

http://alphapavlovianenglish.wikispaces.com/

=**See the final senior project for my class.**=

http://futuristicliterature.wikispaces.com/The+Final+Project%21

Posted April 4th 2010.


 * 21st Century Viral Effect**
 * Project focus should be: (choose one)**

1. **Professional development**- to share/scale what the team is learning with the rest of the faculty. 2. **Instructional**- to co-develop a cross curricular project (PBL or Inquiry) unit of study that is co-taught by team. Not applicable for it would greatly disrupt our current classes though this technique may be in the future. Your development of the project will be transparent so others can follow and replicate if desired and so you can get feedback from the network along the way. We look forward to the oversight and assistance from the PLP leaders. 1. **The problem or question.** What is the problem (or opportunity) you wish to address with your project? Describe what you wish to change, for example, aspects of content (e.g. test scores), process (e.g. ability to collaborate), climate (e.g. morale), or tech use (e.g. embedded use of technology in instruction). Be as specific as possible in describing what you want to change. Fairfield schools currently have very limited amounts of technology embedded into the classroom. Of our 2400 students, we have two computer labs with 50 desks tops maximum and all pushing 10 years in age. The school is languishing without technology; therefore, we hope to demonstrate how through using on-line resources, current in class technology (smartboards-where placed), and students access to computers at home to begin to transition to a 21st Century mindset. Most teachers feel technology means computer labs. We feel that computer labs are going to pass away into oblivion as the technology continues to grow and students bring their own tech to school. We are hoping to get our school and teachers to begin to focus on the future and not updating the outdated mode of technology exposure...i.e. Computer labs. 2. **Objectives and Assessment** Develop objectives and authentic assessments for determining what you want learners (adults or students) to be able to know and do after the project and how you will determine they have indeed mastered the objectives your project laid out. We want students to comfortably be able to post well thought out opinions and problem solving techniques on social networking entities such as wikis, blogs, etc. Furthermore, we hope to exposed students to on-line time managment techniques such as google.docs, evernote, and other like 21st Century skills. 3. **Networked Design** Then think about how you will design your project so participants can share, connect, collaborate, or move to some type of collective action. Teaches will develop on-line social networking sites such a wikis, moodle and blogs allowing open access to the PLP supervising team openly accepting advice in the development of their respected classes. Furthermore, the "protege" teacher will be encourage to begin to immitate the mentor teacher-realizing of course all of this is restricted by the lack of technology available to the staff. 4. **Set the Context** What have others done (at your institution or elsewhere) to address this problem? Do some research as a team to see what others have done. Get ideas. Divi up different research roles to individual team members. The head of technology for the district has wrestled with the issues of lack of funds and aging technology for a while now. We hope to offer the district a viable alternative with our on-line technologies that students could access from home (and eventually in school by bringing their own technology from home) 5. **Proposal** How will you plan to solve the problem or answer the question? The problem will be "solved" as the numbers of 21st century teachers grow. Describe what you will do to address the problem/opportunity described earlier. We hope that whether a levy passes or not our plan could be fluid enough to mutate into an opportunity we are afforded. If we have money and unlimited access-the sky is unlimited. If we are strapped for money, then our plan should help circumvent the problem. Are you doing anything differently than others have attempted? Why or why not? Why do you propose that your approach will succeed better than prior attempts or will work better with your students or faculty? It seems obvious that this is the first time American schools have faced this issue-taxpayer money can not keep up with the rapid advancement of technology. 6. **Evaluation** How will you determine the success and effectiveness of your solution and the impact of your project? This will be determined by 1-success in our own classrooms and 2-imitation by our protege Do you plan to determine pre and post results? Pre is easy...we are doing nothing to very little in the realm of 21st Century skills. We would like to begin implementation. How will you know that the behavior of your students/faculty has changed/improved? With implementation and sharing with the faculty, the improvement will manifest itself Note: You may not be able to obtain your results by the end of your year. However, you should have a plan in place to evaluate your project and report on the results. The idea is to develop a solid plan to share with others. If you implement this year or next is entirely up to you. When possible make this an action research project. 7. **Timeline** How will your project progress? By the end of the semester (Spring 2010) the Fairfield 2 PLP teachers will have evidence of on-line in class activity using Wikis, Moodle, Blogspot or other like minded sites. Indicate the dates of project initiation and completion for each step of your design, implementation, and evaluation. Hopefully, the week of Feb 8th will begin to see the design phase of these projects. It would be hoped that the following two weeks would begin to see the evidence on-line of the various modes of 21st Century technology. Finally, in late May it would behoove the group to meet and evaluate the most efficacious of these tools. Furthermore, discussion of the group will highlight the highs and lows of the experiment along with direction for next year. Consequently, the PLP group at this time will consist of the original 5 members and the protege teachers. 8. **Documentation** How will you document your progress along the way? Evidence on line of student work, discussions, and reseach will manifest itself on the aforementioned tools. Also, the PLP supervisory team will be invited to look in on the on-line tool use. Will you share in your team group room in NING? Yes Will you create a collaborative blog? A wiki? We currently have a wiki...Team Centrality. Documentation and conversation can take place there or on NING-whichever is most convenient for the PLP leaders. A Google Doc? Choose one and then everyone will use the document to make the process transparent.
 * The object of Fairfield Team 2 will be to develop individual class projects in the following courses: English, Science, Math, and Spanish. During the creation and implemenation of these projects the teachers will find an apprentice/protege to follow them and also begin to model the practices, techniques, and technologies that are being used by the PLP. Furthermore, the PLP team will report to the Fairfield staff over the course of the next year to inform them of the development of 21st Century teaching strategies. Due to the size of the school and the complete lack of funds due to failed levies, this is the best approach the five Fairfield Team 2 PLP members could design that would work for their individual classrooms. **
 * Documenting Your Project**
 * Steps**

Our assumptions/goals for this team: **Posted April 4th...yeah on Easter and I am getting admonished for it!** I hope we will communicate via the wiki pages/web 2.0 tools. This team will be a springboard for widespread change in the school/district. The district leadership will respect the knkowledge gained from this learning experience and commit to re-thinking some of our outdated policies. I want to learn more in-depth about the web 2.0 tools - Twitter, Wikis, moodle, Facebook. Where are we going to get funding for training?
 * Team Centrality has a posted WIKI, most work now being conducted in the classroom.**
 * I am serving on a few committee where the focus is changing the school for 21st Century Skills.**
 * I can't change water into wine-that was Jesus.**
 * My classes each have a WIKI that focuses on class networking and problem solving skills. My Viral Effect Buddy is using Moodle. The National Honor Society (I am the sponsor) is using Facebook and Evernote to have better and quicker communication.**
 * District is cutting 20 teaching jobs in the high school, forcing a schedule change to go from block to 6 periods, and stating that the distict will be broke into the foreseeable future. It is sadly probable that this initiative could be put on the back burner.**

I hope we start on a smaller scale and let it grow. I hope this team will commit the time and energy necessary to overcome the "storming" stage mentioned earlier and be able to accomplish great things! I hope we have open and constructive conversations. I feel so bound by our curriculum, I hope we can work on making curriculum more "real life".
 * The concept of the Viral Approach is to grow the program with the available technology and funding as it comes available. Furthermore, in a large school, whole sale changes-when staff is understaffed, undertrained, and underequipped are rightly met with scorn and derivsion. I am hoping to effect change that I can control and influence.**
 * Though communication with PLP has been lax in the last 2 months, all energy and activity has been directed toward the class integration of 21st Century Skills.**
 * An extra and private session with Sheryl proved fruitful in implementing into my English Class.**
 * As department chair, I purchased subscriptions to magazines (Time, Newsweek, US News, Kiplingers, and National Geographic) in order to provide students with current world and social dilemmas the nation faces. The articles must be read, notated, discussed (on the WIKI) then synthesized into a thesis connecting the articles with the social commentary of the list of Science Fiction novels from my senior course. I have been less experimental in my pre-AP British Literature Course.**

**Feel free to peruse my current class WIKIs for proof of implementation.**
http://futuristicliterature.wikispaces.com/

http://alphapavlovianenglish.wikispaces.com/

1. Each member establishes a PLP Protege for the viral effect. 2. Each member and PLP Protege need to identify the "tool" they wish to impliment into their classrooms 3. Each member and PLP Protege through trial and error should master a given tool in the classroom 4. In their respected departments, each PLP member and his/her protege will demonstrate the successfulness of tool implementation into the two classrooms in hopes of recruiting for next year. 5. The lessons implemented into the classroom by the PLP/Protege team need to use the tools to advance 21st Century Thinking Skills. 6. All documentation of progress shall be logged on the TeamCentrality Wiki 1. The PLP Protege group hopes to expand from 8 members to 12 during the school year. 2. It is hoped that as numbers increase opportunities for cross-curricular projects would manifest themselves. 3. The groups will continue to implement, improve, and develop 21st skills in class measured by Bloom's Taxonomy and the Technology Integration Matrix.
 * 2009-2010 Goals**
 * Goals for 2010-2011**

Your team should be in high gear in terms of project plans late February. @https://sites.google.com/a/parishepiscopal.org/plp-research-project/ Example above of a good PLP Wiki describing team project. @http://flexknowlogy.learningfield.org/2008/04/09/defining-creepy-tree-house/ Example above of a good PLP Wiki describing team project. @http://prezi.com/plkimzpxkb8i/

Fairfield HS project Big Goal – Utilize the tools available to staff to the fullest capability; learning about learning; Utilize a viral approach to embed 21st Century strategies to learning into the curriculum

Experimenting, sandboxing, share with each other

Goal: Create 21st century lesson plans, Watch each other teach it (critical friends)

Objectives
 * 2 people get together to determine what they are going to explore
 * Determine how the tool fits into the curriculum (content area) (content, pedagogy and measurement piece
 * Determine how the tool fits into the curriculum (content area) (content, pedagogy and measurement piece


 * Blooms taxonomy
 * Blooms taxonomy


 * Project focus should be: (choose one)**
 * Professional development**
 * Instructional**
 * Documenting Your Project**
 * Steps**
 * The problem or question.**
 * Objectives and Assessment**
 * Networked Design**
 * Set the Context**
 * Proposal**
 * Evaluation**
 * Timeline**
 * Documentation**