Team Collaboration. Wiki Style.

Today representatives from the North Carolina Department of Public Instruction (NCDPI) visited our school to videotape our team's (Garry, Mike, and Curtis) collaboration meeting with the school's media and technology facilitators(Gina and Julia respectively). I felt that the meeting went exceptionally well.

This was our second collaboration meeting relating to our interdisciplinary unit on "Change". Before getting into the details of today's meeting, here is a little history on how the unit had developed up to this point. In October we were charged with the task of deciding on the theme of a collaborative unit that we would develop and implement as a team. This was the only required piece going into the first meeting. The key to selecting the them was deciding on a time frame in which the unit would be implemented. We decided to "kick-off" the unit early in the third quarter. (Late January) Garry shared that he would normally cover the civil war during that time period in his Social Studies class and his Science class would cover evolution. These both lent themselves well to the theme of "Change". The Math curriculum pacing guide (provided by our district) indicated that I would be covering linear equations early in the third quarter. It was only a small leap to tie in slope or "rate of change". Our theme was born. We selected "Change". Mike hit the ground running. He instantly tackled the theme with a contagious excitement. We met with Gina and Julia late in October to brainstorm lesson ideas that matched our curriculum with the theme. We came up with several tentative ideas at that time. Here a few of the key ideas:

Teach slope/rate of change (Math - Curtis)

Cost of Civil War -- Twist Notebook [Electronic Scrapbook Activity] (Social Studies - Garry)

Point of View journal entries related to Civil War (Social Studies - Garry)

Walt Whitman poetry -- Change reflected in art (Language Arts - Mike)

Red Badge of Courage novel (Language Arts - Mike)

Seminar [topic to be determined later] (Language Arts - Mike)

The first meeting began rather awkwardly. With the mandated interdisciplinary unit collaboration meeting, we were unsure what we were supposed to bring to the table. After the initial awkwardness, we plodded through and gained at least enough ideas to get us thinking about and preparing for the unit. Shortly after our first meeting, Gina created a wikispaces page that permitted everyone to collaborate online. This really improved our preparation for today's meeting.

It only makes sense to direct you at this point to the wiki so that you can see how the collaboration developed from random ideas to carefully selected activities. Please keep in mind that the wiki is a work in progress. I would like to acknowledge Scott Elias. I plugged his presentation

View Upload your own

when it was suggested that one of the student products for Social Studies would be created using Powerpoint or Photostory 3. It occured to me that students might benefit from these pointers before creating presentations.

Does the school of the future buy textbooks?

Part two of commuter conversations revolved around the concept of textbook free schools. We all found the idea rather intriguing. Like children at Christmas time, we began calculating the amount of funding that could be redirected toward enhancing the technology offerings in classrooms. It's certainly worth considering. Take for example a grade level of 225 students. Estimate textbooks at approximately $100 each. Textbook adoptions are revised about every five years. If a school purchases textbooks in the four core curriculum subjects (Math, Science, Social Studies, and English) they spend about $90,000 in a five year cycle for textbooks on one grade level. This is obviously an overly simplified scenario. Actual implementation of such a plan would require significant logistical planning, but it's certainly food for thought.

Vouchers for Private Schools?

The on-going argument for vouchers and/or tax credits for parents who opt to send their children to private school has been an ongoing debate for several years now. It really starts to boil around election time. Guess what? It's election time again and the same old rhetoric surfaces yet again. It amazes me that so many people cabbage on to the concept of paying for private education for their children and thinking they should no longer pay for public education because they're not using it. In fact, they continue to "use" public education even after their children enroll in private school. We don't, as a society, pay for public school so that our children can go to school. We pay for public school so that everyone's children can go to school. Should we get a tax credit because our house didn't catch fire this year? The fire department never put out a fire at my house. So, why should I have to pay for it?

Additionally, the biggest supporters of a voucher system usually seem to be the most vocal opposition to "tax and spend" policies. Vouchers and tax credits won't make public schools any cheaper to run. Where will we get the money for these tax credits and vouchers? The obvious answer is that government spending on education would increase and in turn taxes would increase to fill the void.

Finally, let's not delude ourselves. Vouchers and tax credits won't equal the playing field. Low income families still won't be able to afford quality private education. The tax credits and vouchers only increase the divide between the "Haves" and the "Have nots". The wealthy, (or even middle class) who can already afford private education, get help paying for private schools at the expense of those who cannot afford private school.

Sorry for the rant, but I've never heard an argument for vouchers that didn't seem rooted (at some level) in greed. The greater motivation should Social responsibility and doing what is right.

This rant brought to you by edspresso.com who posted EDITORIAL: Charter school moratorium.