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Collaboration is Key: How a Community of Practice Promotes Technology Integration

Posted on: Saturday, 8 October 2005, 03:01 CDT

By Zorfass, Judith; Rivero, Heather Keefe

This article discusses how one professional development program (STAR Tech) used communities of practice to help teachers help each other integrate technology tools into the curriculum to benefit students with and without disabilities. This case study focused on the experience of one team member, a third grade teacher of an inclusive classroom. The study provides evidence that a community of practice promoted technology integration.

Wenger defined communities of practice as "groups of people who share a concern or a passion for something they do and who interact regularly to learn how to do it better" (http://www.ewenger.com/ theory/). Beginning in the business world, communities of practice have been found to help employees manage change, access new knowledge, build trust, develop a sense of common purpose, generate new knowledge, and decrease the learning curve for new employees (Wenger & Snyder, 2000). Migrating to the field of education, the term communities of practice is being used to describe schools in which staff members provide meaningful and sustained assistance to one another to improve teaching and student learning (Sparks, 2002). Here practitioners come together to study, put into practice what they are learning, and share results (Joyce & Showers, 2002). Findings are starting to accumulate about the value of communities of practice in education. For example, Grossman, Wineburg, and Woolworth (2001) found that when secondary English (ELA), social studies, special education, and English second language (ESL) teachers met regularly over a 2 1/2 year period, they learned new content related to history and literature, as well as new ways of thinking about their subject matter.

In what ways can a community of practice foster technology integration to benefit students with and without disabilities? Education Development Center, Inc. (EDC) addressed this question during 5 years (i.e., 1997 to 2003) with funding from the U.S. Department of Education, Office of Special Education Programs. In collaboration with schools in Boston, New York, and New Mexico, EDC developed and tested the professional development program named, STAR Tech: Supporting Teachers to Achieve Results by Integrating Technology into the Curriculum. STAR Tech's four interrelated components, as shown in Figure 1, include three professional development components (The STAR Cycle, 1:1 Assistance, and Knowledge Acquisition) and a leadership component.

Overview of the Four Components

The four components of STAR Tech align with the three standards for staff development proposed by the National Staff Development Council (1998).

1. Setting a strong context for professional development: Together, district-level and school-based leaders set goals, address logistical issues, provide teachers with ongoing support and resources, gather formative data, assess impact, and plan for scale- up.

2. Using a range of processes that support adult learning: Forming a community of practice to address teachers' genuine concerns and promote change at the classroom level; engaging teachers in varied activities to expand knowledge of scientifically- based instructional strategies and technology tools; and providing teachers with individualized assistance for translating instructional strategies and technology use into practice.

Figure 1. The four components of the STAR Tech Program.

3. Making sure the content includes building knowledge and skills that are directly relevant to the needs and concerns of those involved: Focusing on improving curriculum, instruction, and assessment by integrating technology tools into scientifically- based instructional strategies.

The STAR Cycle

The STAR Cycle is deliberately placed at the center of the graphic (in Figure 1) to emphasize that a community of practice is at the core of the program. The STAR Cycle brings together general education, special education, technology, and curriculum teachers and specialists who share expertise about a topic, interact on an ongoing basis to further their learning, and over time build a shared body of knowledge. To guide the work of the group, the STAR Cycle relies on an expanded version of the looking at student work process (LASW).

1:1 Assistance

The purpose of 1:1 Assistance is for teachers to have personalized and sustained assistance from an expert (e.g., an external or internal change agent, a staff developer, a technology/ media or curriculum specialist, a special educator, or another teacher) to translate into action technology-based ideas generated within the community of practice. This component responds to the finding that "teachers really need in-depth, sustained assistance as they work to integrate computer use into the curriculum and confront the tension between traditional methods of instruction and new pedagogic methods that make extensive use of technology" (The CEO Forum, 1999, p. 11). Teachers need help in understanding the features of a particular high tech tool, determining how it aligns with the curriculum, learning how to operate it, and figuring out the logistics of its use (i.e., when, where, and with which students) (Woodward and Cuban, 2001).

Knowledge Acquisition

This component was designed to deepen teachers' content knowledge and pedagogy, understand the complexity of a subject, and know when a practice can or cannot promote student learning (Bransford, Brown, &. Cocking, 1999). Knowledge Acquisition strengthens a community of practice by helping members to notice more when they examine student work, make more insightful interpretations, and offer more productive strategies for instruction and assessment. When teachers have expertise about scientifically-based strategies, their exploration about how to integrate technology is more likely to begin with a grounding in effective practice. Activities to deepen knowledge might include, for example, attending workshops, having experts join team meetings, seeing demonstrations, observing classrooms, and reading and discussing articles.

Leadership

To support the successful implementation of its three professional development components, STAR Tech builds the capacity of leaders in two ways. First, it identifies key leaders at the district and school levels in curriculum, special education, and technology. One leader assumes the role of champion, advocating for STAR Tech and shepherding the implementation process by working closely with principals and school-based team facilitators. A comprehensive set of guidelines, called Leading inDeed, steers leaders through a multi-phase implementation process that involves exploration and decision-making, start-up, implementation, formative evaluation, summative evaluation, and scale-up.

The purpose of this article is to show how the STAR Cycle creates a community of practice and what is its impact on component teaching. The first half describes the STAR Cycle in depth, relying heavily on the experiences of Graciela, a relatively new third grade teacher in Brooklyn, New York. In fact, it is Graciela who deserves credit for the title, telling us repeatedly that "collaboration is key." The children in Graciela's inclusive class came from many diverse backgrounds (e.g., recent immigrants, students with disabilities, second language learners). Most struggled with all aspects of literacy development, as evidenced by their low standardized test scores. In the second half of the article, we shift gears to focus on the value of the STAR Cycle in fostering technology integration. For this section, we turn to stories of collaboration from a small, but highly diverse school in Boston, Massachusetts, that has both inclusive classrooms and substantially separate classes for students with severe disabilities. The cases were chosen because they are representative of the work of schools and teachers across our districts, including not only the schools we worked with during five years of federally-funded research, but also afterwards, when we consulted to school districts to support the implementation of STAR Tech.

A COMMUNITY OF PRACTICE IN ACTION

The obvious prerequisite for building communities of practice is to form working groups. In the STAR Cycle, collaborative groups typically include approximately seven teachers and specialists, drawn from general education, special education, curriculum areas, technology, and as relevant, ESL and the related arts. In some districts, elementary school teams have cut across the grades (e.g., K-I, 2-3, and 4-5). At the middle-grades level, teams have been organized both by discipline (within and across grades) and interdisciplinary teams. In high schools, teams have usually been organized by department. Some districts have organized the entire faculty (K-12) into teams; others have focused on the elementary grades.

Led by a facilitator (e.g., a staff developer, specialist, teacher, or administrator), STAR Cycle teams meet on a regular basis- perhaps every other week, every third week, or once a month. They can meet before, during, or after school, depending on the school schedule, culture, incentives, and preferences of the team members. Most importantly, however, is that meetings last at least 45 minutes to ensure a produc\tive session.

When the STAR Cycle was implemented at Graciela's school in Brooklyn, the team included one general education teacher from each of grades 2, 3, and 4; a special education supervisor and a special education teacher; a technology specialist; and the principal and assistant principal. The team met every other week from October through May for 90 minutes each time. The principal and assistant principal, who both placed a high priority on creating a learning community, arranged for substitutes to cover the teachers' classrooms if they did not have a preparation period.

It is important for the work of the learning community to be aligned with the school improvement plans and key initiatives based on findings from a needs assessment. For example, administrators might survey teachers and examine student data to identify the key areas of curriculum-based needs. With a focus on technology, they might inventory available technology tools, as well as teacher experience and comfort level with technology integration. By anchoring the work of the community in an authentic need, concern, or question, the sense of purpose becomes both explicit and shared by the participants. At Graciela's school, the concern focused on raising low achievement test scores in English language arts. Given that a technology specialist had recently joined the faculty at beginning of the school year, the staff had hopes of increasing their technology use in the classroom, since most had been using available resources on a very limited basis.

The STAR Cycle Process

The STAR Cycle was so named because it creates a cycle of collaborative team discussion, individual teacher application in the classroom, and reflection (first individually and then with the team). What anchors the team discussion is LASW

LASW is a promising strategy for supporting rich and productive collaboration among practitioners (Little, Gearhart, Curry, and Kafka, 2003). Its varied history stems from work at Harvard's Project Zero, the Coalition of Essential Schools, the Annenberg Institute for School Reform, and our own organization, EDC (Dunne, 2000). According to Joan Richardson (2001):

Examining student work helps teachers intimately understand how state and local standards apply to their teaching practice and to student work. Teachers are able to think more deeply about their teaching and what students are learning. As they see what students produce in response to their assignments, they can see the successes as well as the situations where there are gaps. In exploring those gaps, they can improve their practices in order to reach all students (http://www.nsdc.org /Hbrary/results/res2-01nch.html).

STAR Tech's version of LASW is similar to other frequently used versions (Blythe, Alien & Powell, 1999) in the following ways: a facilitator guides the conversation, a presenting teacher shares a genuine concern, the group uses a protocol to guide its work, student work is carefully examined, and a volunteer records the conversation. Two features, however, distinguish our approach. First, the presenting teacher brings the work of three diverse students instead of one (i.e., a typical student, a student who is struggling, and a student with disabilities who has an IEP) to serve as a proxy for the diversity in the classroom. second, there is explicit attention given to integrating technology into the discussion of instructional strategies.

The STAR Cycle captures what happens inside the team meetings and also goes beyond the in-team discussions to include application back in the classroom and reflection. Each letter in the word STAR serves as a mnemonic to make the ongoing process within the STAR cycle explicit.

1.S (Set the Context)-For each meeting, a teacher volunteers to be the presenting teacher who launches the conversation by introducing three focal students and an instructional need.

2.T (Teamwork)-At the team meeting, teachers examine the student work, make objective comments, make interpretations, generate instructional strategies that integrate technology tools, and plan to apply strategies in the classroom.

3.A (Apply Strategies)-Back in the classroom, teachers carry out their plans for applying instructional strategies and technology tools, often with help from experts and colleagues.

4.R (Reflect on Results)-After teachers apply strategies, they reflect on the results (e.g., How did the strategies and technology tools help students?). At the next team meeting, they share their reflections.

For each step in the process, the facilitator and teachers rely on a set of tools to guide and document the ongoing collaborative process: the protocol; LASW Record Sheet, Set the Context Tool, Apply Strategies Tool, and Reflect on Results Tool. The complete set of tools is included in the Appendix. Each step of the cycle is described in more detail.

Set the context. A presenting teacher shares an authentic, classroom-based concern about teaching and learning, the prerequisite for meaningful technology integration (Zorfass, 2001). The first time that Graciela volunteered to be the presenting teacher, she arrived at the conference room early, along with the team facilitator. Before the other team members arrived, Graciela placed a filled out version of the Set the Context Tool with an attached packet of student work on each team member's seat. After the facilitator convened the meeting, she asked Graciela to set the context. Referring to her handout, Graciela did the following:

1. Described the abilities and needs of three focal students who represented a range of learner differences. For example, one student, the typical student, "was making good progress as a reader, but needed help as a developing writer." A second student was at risk, particularly because of "difficulties in producing text." The student with disabilities "demonstrated seiious difficulties in writing, even at a basic level of sentence structure."

2. Described her narrative writing assignment. "After writing a first draft, I did a mini-lesson on general vs. specific words. Then I asked the class to revise their drafts."

3. Identified her curriculum goal. "Have students 'show and not tell' by using detail in their writing."

4. Stated her guiding questions. "How can I encourage my students to add detail and help them organize their writing better? How can I help my students take more risks with their writing?"

5. Referred the team to the three work samples she had distributed.

Teamwork. The next part of the protocol begin with each team member silently examining the three pieces of student work for several minutes. Then the facilitator asks them to make objective comments, noticing exactly what was in the work that could be documented. The facilitator reminds them to use phrases such as "I can see,""I note,""Here is," or "There is" as they begin each comment. The purpose is to take note of elements or aspects of the students' work. What typically happens is that teachers find evidence of both strengths and weaknesses in all three samples of the focal students' work.

In Graciela's team, after silently observing the work for five minutes, the facilitator asked members to share their observations. Starting with the typical student, they considered each work sample individually. Although the teachers discussed both weaknesses and strengths, they tended to look for the positive in each student's work. For example, one teacher said, " I note a sense of suspense in the typical student's work. The typical student creates a sense of suspense." Another said, "I see lots of details in the at-risk student's writing. The at-risk student uses lots of details." The principal, with a strong ELA background observed that, "the student with disabilities followed a typical progression of a story, appropriate for grade level." This step helped lay a foundation for generating strategies that build on students' abilities.

Continuing to follow the protocol, the facilitator then asks the team members to go beyond the objective description of the work to make interpretations. Interpretations focus on why something is happening, what the student might be trying to do, or what factors could have helped or hindered each student's performance. The facilitator reminds team members that their interpretations should relate to the presenting teacher's curriculum goals and guiding question.

When Graciela's team members finished making their observations, the facilitator asked them to share their interpretations about what they had seen in the work, keeping in mind Graciela's guiding questions. In the ensuing conversation, one teacher noted that the typical student did not take any risks in writing-just used short sentences. "Maybe her goal is to be correct, not to challenge herself." Graciela agreed that she recognized this about the student. She added, however, "this student is inclined to try something new if she sees it modeled first in a book." Graciela reported observing the student using this technique. In terms of the student with disabilities, one teacher thought that the student appeared to be struggling with making a transition to English from Spanish.

The three previous steps-(a) silently examining the work, (b) making objective comments, and (c) making interpretations-all lay the groundwork for generating instructional strategies that can enhance learning. The facilitator asks two prompting questions: "If the presenting teacher was going to work towards similar goals in another lesson, what might she do differently? What did we see in this round of student work that can help us develop strategies for other similar lessons?" The facilitator also asks the team to draw upon the scientifically-based strategies they have been learning about through their knowledge acquisition activities. The facilitator encourages teachers to consider ways in which low, mid, and high tech tools could be integ\rated into these strategies to meet the needs of all learners in the class in accordance with the principles of universal design for learning (Rose & Meyer, 2002).

After Graciela's team discussed their interpretations, they were eager to share their suggestions for instructional strategies. The fourth-grade teacher started off the discussion by recommending a strategy to help the typical student take risks in her writing. He suggested that Graciela "point out examples of students taking risks in their writing and commend them for doing so even if they did not get it quite right." Another teacher added, "If the typical student came to understand that experimentation is a worthwhile part of the writing process, she might become less critical of her own mistakes and freer with her writing." Other suggestions included using graphic organizers to help students organize ideas and add details, pairing students with more advanced writers, grouping gifted writers together to focus on the author's craft, using the work of good writers as examples for mini-lessons, and having student partners conduct a peer conference while other students observe and later debrief.

The team's recommendations embedded various technology tools. For example, two low tech solutions included (a) having students use highlighter tape to pick out important topics that they could expand on later and (b) using a transparency to reproduce and cut students' work into strips, giving them room to add details. In terms of high tech solutions, someone suggested conducting a class activity in the lab using Kidspiration (2000) to map out and develop the story. Someone else recommended using Co:Writer (2000) or Wnte:OutLoud (1993-1998) with ESL students.

Apply Strategies. Before the team meeting ends, the facilitator follows the protocol for applying strategies by turning to the presenting teacher with the following question: "Have you heard any ideas during the discussion that you are interested in trying back in your classroom?" The facilitator asks the volunteer recorder to read back the ideas that were documented on the LASW record. As the presenting teacher mentions each suggestion, the facilitator asks what kind of help the teacher might need to actually implement the idea. This prompt creates an opportunity for another teacher, a technology expert, and/or a staff developer to offer help, which naturally embeds the 1:1 Assistance component into the community of practice.

Following the protocol, the facilitator asked the recorder to read back all of the suggestions. Graciela responded by saying, "Since I already use printed graphic organizers with my students, I would like to learn more about how to work with my students on the computer." Matt, the technology specialist, offered to help her explore the program Kidspiration after the meeting.

However, in the STAR cycle, the presenting teacher is not the only one expected to apply strategies. The goal is for as many teachers as possible to make a public commitment to try something out in their classroom. Sometimes, the facilitator does a round- robin, asking participants what they heard that was relevant for their teaching. This is the time to ask for and make arrangements for help from teachers and specialists with particular areas of technology expertise. To document plans, the facilitator hands each teacher the Apply Strategies Tool.

Graciela had the advantage of individualized assistance later on the same day to begin applying strategies discussed at the meeting. With a substitute covering her class, she spent two hours exploring Kidspiration in the computer lab with Matt. He gave an overview and demonstration of the program's capabilities and then showed Graciela some examples in the Kidspiration activity folder, which is included with the software. For example, she showed Graciela how she could use the program to make a variety of symbols, label them with ideas, and link them together to form a web. Matt also opened up the Inspiration/Kidspiration Web site, which had several sample activities and suggestions for use in a variety of curriculum areas. Then Matt walked Graciela through some of the operations, telling her the steps to follow. Being a fairly comfortable computer user, Graciela learned the new skills quickly.

Graciela was very excited about the program and brainstormed several ways she could use it for writing activities with her students. "I like the idea of having my students organize their ideas visually because it could help them understand patterns and relationships between concepts." She could also see how it would stimulate creative thinking. "Maybe I'll start with a character map to help my students pull out important information from their reading and become more aware of specific details."

Matt showed Graciela how to access the program's large collection of templates and modify them for her own use. Graciela then opened an example that had a diagram for character analysis and revised it for Charlie and the Chocolate Factory (Dahl, 1964), a book her class was reading (see Figure 2).

Matt brainstormed ways in which Graciela's class could begin using the program. Graciela decided to start by printing out the diagrams on transparencies so that she could project them on the wall for her students. She thought this strategy would acclimate her students to working with graphic organizers, "giving them a better sense of how they were constructed before going to the computer lab." Matt offered to do a Kidspiration training session with the entire class once Graciela felt they were ready. Graciela hoped to have students start on the computer by filling in graphic organizers (such as the character analysis) that she had created for them. Once they had more understanding of the concepts and had become fluent with the program, Graciela planned to "move on to having them create their own organizers."

Reflect on Results. Following the protocol, the next team meeting begins with the presenting teacher and others reflecting on results. When her team met again, Graciela described what happened when she had integrated Kidspiration into her writing assignment:

I printed the graphic organizer that I had created when working with Matt and then photocopied it onto a transparency. I read a chapter from Charlie and the Chocolate Factory aloud to the whole class. Then I projected the character analysis graphic organizer using an overhead projector. I engaged the class in a brainstorming activity, inviting the students to tell me what content to fill in for each of the areas. Later, during independent reading time, I gave students similar graphic organizers (blank and printed on paper) to fill out as they did their reading. Later, when students were beginning their draft writing, / asked them to organize their ideas into main ideas with supporting details.

Figure 2. Graphic organizer for Charlie and the Chocolate Factory.

Graciela commented that this activity made her realize "that when the students are struggling, you really have to break it down for them." She was pleased with the results of using the template for a group brainstorming session. "It helped my students generate more interesting ideas for writing. It also gave them a basis for identifying and then using specific details to support their main idea."

How THE STAR CYCLE PROMOTES TECHNOLOGY INTEGRATION

The STAR Cycle builds a social learning system-the hallmark of a community of practice. Across schools, we found that this ongoing, collaborative process helped strengthen teachers' capabilities in ways that promoted technology use as a meaningful part of the instructional process. To provide specific examples of teacher change, we head north from Graciela's school in Brooklyn, New York to a small, highly diverse, K-5 elementary school in Boston, Massachusetts. This school decided to implement the STAR Cycle as a way to strengthen its Balanced Early Literacy (BEL) program, which was being used to improve reading and writing for all students, including those with and without disabilities. Since the STAR Cycle was aligned with their major literacy initiative, the teachers had a shared repertoire of ways of doing things from the outset (Wenger, 1999), which further contributed to community building and a sense of shared responsibility (Wagner, 2001). An analysis of field notes from observations of STAR Cycle meetings in Boston, group and individual interviews, and surveys and feedback forms, revealed that the STAR Cycle process fostered technology integration in two important ways:

1. Teachers gained insights from each other about their students' abilities and needs. This information in turn, helped them make better decisions about instructional process and the role that technology can play.

2. When suggestions and recommendations for integrating technology into the curriculum came from colleagues who understood each others' curriculum goals and students' needs, teachers were motivated to try new strategies in their classrooms.

Teachers Gained Insights about Students

The analysis of students' abilities and needs is interwoven throughout the STAR Cycle process. When setting the context, the presenting teacher briefly highlights the abilities and needs of the three focal students. Many teachers told us that preparing to be a presenting teacher "helped me to look more closely at my students' differences." When colleagues made observations, they noticed both strengths and weaknesses in each student's work. Not only the presenting teacher, but the others on the team as well, felt that this double-barreled approach helped them to better understand what a student could and could not do, what strengths to draw upon in planning instruction, and what areas to emphasize for re-teaching, remediation, and refocusing. Typical comments included:

1. "Helped me to recognize different needs better-e.g., behavior problems, ch\allenged learners, and fast learners-and then tailor lesson plans to the variety of learning styles."

2. "Helped me to isolate students' needs at the keyboard and work out a variety of technical problems."

3. "Opened my eyes to difficulties my students present with outside of my discipline."

4. "I am more aware that we have students with many individual needs."

5."I make more detailed and accurate assessments because when I made my presentations, I had to really focus on the specific child."

Both general education and special education teachers developed insights about student diversity. Two representative examples in Boston came from Janey (special education teacher) and Jessica (kindergarten teacher).

Janey. Janey, a special education teacher of upper elementary school students with severe cognitive and behavioral difficulties, found that the team meetings helped her to better identify her students' strengths. She once brought to a team meeting the work of a student who she had expected to be further along in his writing. "I was accustomed to focusing on what the student couldn't do-on his poor writing skills. But during the time when teachers make objective comments after studying the work, another teacher pointed out that the student, in fact, included a lot of information." Janey said that the exchange during the meeting gave her a new perspective. "I didn't look at it that way. I was looking at where he needs to be... I went back afterwards to my classroom and said, you

know, she's right." Re-evaluating the situation, she came to realize that "What I got wasn't what I was expecting. But I got some great stuff... Isn't it interesting that this child did this, even though I expected more?" In contrast to overlooking a student's strength, in another situation Janey felt she overlooked a different child's need. She had not noticed, until a colleague pointed it out, that the child's writing sample lacked details in writing a paragraph. As described later, Janey used this information when she later planned an ELA unit on autobiographies that integrated the application, iMovie (1999).

Jessica. A relatively new kindergarten teacher, Jessica volunteered several times to be the presenting teacher because she trusted and relied on her colleagues' insights. She noted that through these successive sessions, she became much better at looking at each student individually. She explained:

lit helps me] going through and noticing what you see about each student and then inferring about each student instead of lumping them together. Because I do think you really need to look at their individual work and then come up with the strategies .. . There are so many things you can notice and infer from looking at student work. It's sort of opened my eyes.

Once teachers opened their eyes about the three focal students, they would go back to the classroom and look more closely at the work of other students. Many teachers reported that, "I varied my teaching strategies,""I tried new ideas," or "I grouped students differently." One said that she "relies less on testing and more on observation." The value of better understanding students' diverse abilities and needs is that teachers find themselves more able to finely tune the instructional process and make better instructional decisions (e.g., "I focused on certain techniques and developed plans to address students' needs"). Teachers reported that by examining the work of three diverse students, they were better able to understand the range of students' needs (e.g., "I feel that LASW is an extension of the inclusion model." My practice, my colleagues' practices, and student performance have all improved."). For many teachers, these insights about students laid the foundation for trying out practices that integrated a variety of technology tools.

Teachers Changed Practice

Within the team meetings, the LASW protocol was designed to guide conversation from looking at work, to generating strategies, to making technology suggestions, to planning to apply strategies and tools in the classroom. Then, after the meetings, the collaborative cycle encouraged teachers to apply new ideas and reflect on how effectively they worked for students. The teachers in Boston reported that they (a) came to rely on their colleagues suggestions (e.g., "If it worked for them, it can work for me,"), (b) trusted their colleagues because they "understand my situation," and (c) valued their colleagues' willingness to help (e.g., "After the meeting, she found and lent me the software program mentioned during the meeting.").

Jessica. Jessica posed a question at the team meeting about how to improve interactive writing, one of the strategies required in BEL's program. What emerged during the meeting was her hesitancy, as a new kindergarten teacher, to introduce high-frequency sight words to her students. She reasoned, "If I introduced all of those words, then the kids who were struggling would just be lost." So she had decided to hold back. She recalled that at the team meeting, the other teachers noticed that her students did not have specific high- frequency words. Her colleagues encouraged her to explicitly teach these words to all students, using low and mid tech tools to help. For example, they suggested putting sight words on cards, giving each child a set of cards with these words, and having students fill in the last word of a sentence that started with, "I am a..." They also talked about how tape recorders and AlphaSmart keyboard devices could be used. Her colleagues' genuine concern motivated Jessica to immediately start imagining how she could translate these ideas into practice in her writing center. Based on their suggestions, she later reported using a visual matching game, highlighting more of the words that were posted in the room, circling words in print, having students write the words, and using magnetic letters. She found that these low tech strategies worked better than expected. "Many of the kids have a number of high frequency words that they can read and write."

Richard. As a fourth grade teacher, Richard was concerned about how to help his students unpack their ideas into separate paragraphs, each about a different idea. During a STAR Cycle meeting, his colleagues suggested a way to vary the BEL strategy of interactive or shared writing by using a common mid tech tool-the overhead projector. Back in his classroom, Richard immediately decided to apply the ideas. He selected the work of the student who exhibited the most difficulty in creating paragraphs. In a recent writing assignment, this student's essay had been one long paragraph with five big ideas jumbled together. The text begged to be divided into five separate paragraphs. Richard asked the student if he would mind having his essay used as a stimulus for group editing. The student agreed, saying he "felt fine about it" (especially because he expected to get a finished product out of the experience). Richard decided to correct the spelling errors before showing the paper to the class because he wanted the class to focus on the content, not the spelling.

Richard reproduced the student's writing and displayed it on a large screen. He gathered together everyone in the front of the room. After they had a chance to read the draft, Richard "asked the class to identify where they saw the author's thoughts changing." He said that they could use this shift in ideas as a marker for another paragraph. He began by asking, "Where do the new paragraphs start?" He then made notations on the overhead transparency. After 15 minutes of brainstorming, the students returned to revising their own drafts, some on and some off the computer. After using this strategy again during another writing session, coupled with other strategies aimed at promoting paragraph structure (e.g., using sticky notes), Richard found that his students were showing marked improvement. "They pretty much have mastered the concept of paragraphing," he told his team at the next month's meeting.

Vicky. Vicky taught a primary transition classroom that offered students an extra year between kindergarten and first grade. She was interested in helping her students develop their writing skills. At a STAR Cycle team meeting, one teacher suggested using PixWriter (Slater & Slater, 1998-2000), a word processing program that uses graphics to give struggling and emergent writers visual and auditory support/feedback as they compose. The user can type just as he or she would on an ordinary word processor. As the word appears on the screen, a corresponding picture pops up above the word. It also speaks the word out loud. One of the most important features of PixWritei is that it allows teachers to create set-ups for students. Simply by typing words on the keyboard, an array of buttons with the words and symbols is created at the bottom of the screen. This allows students to create stories just by selecting these buttons (somewhat like a digital communication board). Teachers can save a variety of set-ups for different students and subjects. Vicky liked this process and wanted to try it in her classroom.

Based on ideas generated at the team meeting, Vicky was able to create five connected activities that spanned several days. On the first day, she asked the students to brainstorm what they knew about the ocean. She wrote their ideas on the board and then placed the ideas on sticky notes as had been suggested at the team meeting. The second activity involved having students form sentences using word cards. Each card had a word and a picture or icon on it. The students arranged the words/pictures into a sentence and pasted them onto a blank piece of paper. In the third activity, the students typed the sentences using PixWriter with picture cues. Building on this, in the fourth activity, they used the "type tool" in Kid Pix (1994-1998) to compose sentences witho\ut pictures. Finally, in the fifth activity, the students wrote their own sentences (at least two) by hand, while retrieving sticky notes with key words and referring to the word card. Vicki was delighted with the results. Every student was able to compose at least two meaningful sentences.

Chns. Chris taught a class of 12 young primary school students. All had language processing delays and cognitive disabilities, and four had autistic tendencies. Varying the protocol, Chris asked her team to help her focus on the needs of one student, Christian. While he was nonverbal at school, his parents reported that he spoke Spanish at home like the rest of the family, and the paraprofessional reported that he had communicated in both English and Spanish the year before. Chris told the team, "He seems to comprehend what I say to him in class, enthusiastically participates in classroom activities, communicates mostly through movement, has limited writing ability, and draws very well." Her team's suggestions led Chris to make a communication wallet for Christian using BoardMaker (King, 1994), which has numerous symbols for creating a communication board. By pointing to the symbols contained within his wallet, Christian could communicate with his teacher and classmates. In addition to creating the communication wallet, she followed the recommendations in the BEL Program by placing symbols along with the corresponding words throughout the room next to the corresponding objects. Chris noted that the BoardMaker symbols not only helped her nonverbal student communicate better, but they also helped many of her students begin to make stronger word/symbol connections.

Gradually, Chris found other ways to integrate BoardMaker into her emergent literacy curriculum. She began using the BoardMaker symbols as visual enhancements for the writing prompts she gave to all of her students. For example, on the writing center wall Chris displayed the prompt, "Which would you want to be: A Bird or A Fish?" She used the symbols for bird and fish to help students understand the prompt better. She also used BoardMaker symbols to write out the recipe when the class made gingerbread men.

Janey. At a STAR Cycle team meeting, Janey became intrigued when Richard described how he was using iMovie with his fourth-grade students to produce lively autobiographies that combined text, music, and pictures. Janey became interested in doing something similar with her students to meet her district's ELA standards for language, literature, and composition. Janey's six male students, ranging in age from 9 to 12, were easily distracted and required a great deal of individual attention to complete tasks. All had difficulty with word recognition and reading comprehension, as well as in expressing their ideas orally and in writing. Setting high expectations, fancy's motto was, "I have never met a child who I could not teach." She reasoned aloud to her colleagues that the technology could motivate students to persevere through the writing, revising, publishing, and viewing process. Past experience revealed that her students exhibited an aptitude for using high technology tools, such as Microsoft Word, Excel, Inspiration (19982000), and TimeLiner (1995-2001). They were also familiar with the concepts of biography and autobiography, having read and written in these genres.

Richard offered to help Janey implement her autobiography pilot unit at the end of the school year as the final project. Using iMovie, the students created autobiographies with photos of events, people, and places; stories related to the pictures; and even a musical score. They were thrilled to have an opportunity to experiment with new media. Jfaney was impressed with the quality of the writing the students produced and their level of focus and commitment to completing the project.

CONCLUSION: COLLABORATION is KEY

Even though schools have been introducing technology into instruction since the early 1980s, almost 2 decades later, when we began our research project in urban schools, we found that technology use for students with and without disabilities was anything but pervasive. While our needs assessment data indicated that teachers spanned the continuum of technology use-entry, adoption, adaptation, appropriation, and invention (Kleiman, 2000)- most fell within the early stages of entry and adoption. It was not uncommon to hear them make comments such as the following:

1. "I am in the process of learning about software programs, such as Co:Writer and eReader (1999). I need lots more time to learn these to use them with my students."

2. "I'm pretty much of a low tech kind of instructor, but with baby steps I know I will get there."

Over time, collaboration helped teachers make slow but sure incremental changes in their use of technology-in ways that met their goals, interests, ability levels, and most importantly, needs of students with and without disabilities. For example, in the Boston school, 85% of the teachers began using low tech (e.g., highlighter tape, magnetic letters), mid-tech (e.g., AlphaSmarts, overhead projectors, and tape recorders), and high-tech tools (e.g., AppleWorks (2000), eReader, Kidspiration, iMovie, KidPix, Fix Writer, Co:Writer, Intellipics (1992), and BoardMaker) alone and in combination.

Echoing Graciela's words, we found that "collaboration is key" in promoting technology integration. Collaboration within a community of practice addresses head-on one of the major barriers to technology integration often discussed by Larry Cuban, a national leader known for charting the course of technology use in schools. Cuban (2003) asserts that one of the prime reasons why teachers do not adopt technology innovations is because technology initiatives are top-down, administrator-driven, lacking the essential element of giving teachers enough of a say in the process.

A community of practice allows teachers to drive classroom change based on genuine concerns, the curriculum goals identified in the standards, and available low, mid, and high tech tools (e.g., "I loved the fact that we focused on technology this year. I learned how to use our scanner, digital cameras, and Smart Board."). Within a community of practice, teachers can share their areas of strength and acquire knowledge to bolster areas of need, and have the support of colleagues to translate ideas into practice (e.g., "I gained confidence to try new ideas."). When the area of need is about integrating technology tools, they have the support of colleagues for generating and then applying ideas. On any given team, the comfort level might be starting with low tech tools (e.g., "My students benefited greatly from new ideas, especially low tech interventions.") or mid and high tech tools (e.g., "I was more willing to use technology such as Inspiration, AlphaSmart, and Homework Helper when working with my students."). Even Janey, a long- time and confident technology user, found ways to push her technology envelope further with a complex application-iMovie.

As teachers expanded and deepened their use of technology tools across a classroom, they tended to find ways to benefit students with a range of diverse abilities and disabilities (e.g., "I work with students who have a huge range of abilities and deficits. Programs such as, Kidspiration, Write:Outloud, and Fix Writer address the different kinds of issues my students deal with."). In today's educational context, where all students are expected to meet high standards, teachers are finding value in become collaborative partners in this important endeavor-finding ways together to better understand students, identify curriculum goals, use effective instructional and assessment strategies, and meaningfully integrate technology into this equation for improving student outcomes.

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JUDITH ZORFASS

HEATHER KEEFE RIVERO

Education Development Center, Inc.

Judith Zorfass is Associate Center Director and Senior Director of Strategic Planning for the Center for Family, School, and Community (FSC) at Education Development Center, Inc. Heather Keefe Rivero is a research associate in the Center for Family, School, and Community. This article was written with support from the LINK'US Project, a contract with the U.S. Department of Education, Office of Special Education Programs, under Contract No. HS97022001. The opinions expressed in this article do not necessarily reflect the policy or position of the funding agency, and no official endorsement should be inferred. Address correspondence to Judith Zorfass, EDC, 55 Chapel Street, Newton, MA 02458-1060. Email to: jzorfass@edc.org.

Copyright Journal of Special Education Technology Summer 2005

Source: Journal of Special Education Technology

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