In Complex Teaching Environment, Access to Data is Key

I read author and English teacher Jim Burke’s excellent list of “10 Elements of Effective Instruction” he developed, and two things struck me.

First, he notes with the complexity of the classroom, managing time is critical for teachers.

“Every year it seems we are asked to do more, though never, of course, given more time in which to accomplish the goals,” he wrote.

In the work we do with districts, we’re constantly finding ways so that technology can help teachers do their jobs the best way possible. I often go back to something an administrator told me once:

 “Put yourself in that mindset, hurried, low frustration level, interrupted continually…” 

I thought of that description again in reading Burke’s list that he modeled after a surgeon’s checklist.

The second part that struck me was No. 5 on his list: “Integrate assessment throughout the instructional process, using the data to establish initial understanding, measure progress, provide feedback, refine instruction, and prepare students for future performances; this includes students reflecting on and assessing their own performance and progress.”

In the work we do with districts, it’s common to discover most schools have more data than they know what to do with it, and often it’s not presented in a format that can useful to them. Burke is right on that integrating assessment and using data to help students improve is critical. The context of his list related to the lack of time that teachers have is even more significant. 

To be able to use data effectively for instruction, it needs to be in format that’s accessible and easy to use for teachers with their busy and complex schedules. It’s also important for data to be timely or in the hands of the teachers as quickly as possible. That’s where technology, if applied correctly, can make a huge difference. Otherwise, “using data” is something that sounds good in a checklist, but it can easily be either scrapped or not used to its fullest potential because, like Burke noted, teachers are never given more time, only more to do.

Daunting task, but great potential for schools in Common Core switch

Remember the line from the 2004 Disney movie “Miracle” when Kurt Russell, playing 1980 U.S. Olympic hockey coach Herb Brooks, gave a pre-game speech before the historic upset of the Soviet team? 

“Great moments, are born from great opportunity.”

Here’s a video that makes me laugh all the time based on that scene.

 

I thought of that quote when I read this article about the recent Kentucky assessment test scores where proficiency levels dropped by a third or more for elementary and middle school students. The results are significant because this is the first set of scores tied to the Common Core Standards. Most states will start taking assessments linked to the new standards by 2014.

This is a one-state sample, but experts expect this to play out similarly in other states. It will be discouraging for districts, educators and students because the bottom line will show a drop in proficiency levels as they apparently move to more rigorous standards.

But if you think about it, this does present a huge opportunity. As districts and states are already preparing for the change, they should be motivated to get the most out of students, especially if the Common Core Standards are tougher than what they are doing right now. Think of it as an “achievement wake-up” call. It’s a major challenge for schools and teachers.

Even if proficiency levels lag or drop initially, if districts are pushing themselves and their students to measure up to tougher standards, the students will benefit in the long run.

In our daily conversations with districts in a number of states, the switch to the Common Core is in the forefront of their minds. It’s one aspect that makes it critical that districts are using as much data as they can on how students are performing to prepare not only for the change in standards but to give teachers the most effective tools for daily instruction.

It’s a huge challenge. It will be difficult. But it is such a great opportunity that can result in so much more than one “great moment.” It will drastically improve schools in nearly every state and ensure that students are better prepared than they ever have been for college and entering the work force.

Matrix

There is a lot of controversy out there about whether or not we should be even using standardized testing as the best means of understanding a student’s academic performance ability. I am not going to make an argument for or against it, but I will say that it doesn’t appear to be going anywhere anytime soon. So I’d like to tell school districts how they can better use the data that they receive from those standardized tests.

The answer is that we have to find a way to make that data become useful information. Often times schools collect this information but find it too overwhelming or costly to make use of. We cannot have administrators and principals making important decisions for our schools based solely on intuition.

Enter “Matrix.”

Matrix is a web-based software program that acts as a data warehouse and student data analysis tool. With Matrix, school districts will be able to have all of a student’s information in one centralized location. Data from the district’s Student Information System (SIS) is integrated into Matrix right alongside the students’ assessment test scores, so that Matrix can make correlations between and generate reports for these two important data sets.

What does that mean?

Well the demographic information, like gender, ethnicity and meal-plan status from the SIS are correlated to assessment test scores for each student and then presented in an easy-to-read and -understand format for school officials to examine. This helps school officials look into factors that occur outside of the classroom, which may be playing a role in how well the student performs. For example, there may be a correlation between the students who receive free or reduced cost meals and their below average test scores. Of course there is a significant difference between correlation and causation, which must be kept in mind. Just because two things are correlated does not mean that one caused the other to occur, but on the other hand it doesn’t necessarily mean that it didn’t either. Matrix at least presents this sort of information to the school districts and gives them the ability to examine and understand teacher and student performance at a much deeper level.

Consider how a teacher may receive a really bad score (which is just the average of all of her students). Does this mean that the teacher should be let go? No, it means that more information needs to be taken into consideration.

Why did he or she get such a low score?

First of all, Matrix allows all aggregated values to be viewed by their raw components. This allows teachers to see which students are doing well and which are not.

Second, Matrix shows not only test scores, but also growth. Perhaps the teacher teaches a large number of academically failing students, but he or she gets a majority of them to improve their scores throughout the year. Even though the ending score is still not proficient, there was great progress made.

Third, Matrix was designed to accumulate data over a long period of time. This means that school officials can examine information for a teacher over the past several years that he or she has taught; the same goes for students. It is never wise to make critical decisions based on a one-time occurrence. Matrix shows when students or teachers consistently perform at a certain level.

Fourth, Matrix allows higher-up school officials to see which cohort of teachers produces the best students or the worst students. This may point out some key areas that are in need of improvement. This also presents school officials with the opportunity to inquire about the teaching methods of those teachers who seem to consistently performing well and then share those methods with the under performing teachers.

Lastly, Matrix presents all of this information in such an easy-to-read and easy-to-understand format that school districts wouldn’t need to waste money on hiring a data maven or training teachers how to use the product. Also reports can be easily generated and printed in order to share the information with other school officials and/or parents.

The bottom line is that if we ever hope to improve the education of our students we have to know what areas need help and what some of the reasons for that may be. Matrix assists in this process in a cost-efficient, easy and fast way. We know that schools are facing increasing budget cuts as well as increased pressure from the State to meet assessment standards and that is why we developed a tool for educators to use to start understanding where improvements need to be made. Matrix gets that conversation going.

Shopping for a Curriculum Management System

A couple weeks ago, I wrote about the need for curriculum management in higher education--specifically in programs with defined standards and competencies required for accreditation.

Since then, I’ve been considering how a program should shop for a curriculum management system. Choosing the right system is a heavy decision. You want to have a really good idea of what you’re getting into before you make the commitment. The system you choose will affect the lives of your faculty and your students daily.

Before you decide on a curriculum management system, I hope you will consider the following questions.


Does it do what your program needs it to do?
For the programs we’ve been working with, this means tracking the standards required for accreditation and simplifying the accreditation process. As we’ve been researching the current practices related to curriculum tracking and mapping within institutions of higher education, I’ve learned many institutions are spending amazing amounts of time tracking curriculum. Some programs meet every month, some meet every week (usually in addition to lengthy meetings at the beginning of each semester) to go over each course and ensure it has met the standards and competencies it was supposed to. Programs are also spending incredible amounts of time preparing for their accreditation reviews.

With the right system, much of this work can be eliminated. A lot can be automated; the rest can be made easier using a web-based system in which information is centralized, giving members of the faculty access to the curriculum information all the time. The right system will also simplify your accreditation review preparation with automated reports and other features to make your review much less daunting.

Can it be customized?
Every Physician Assistant program is different, as is every Dental Hygiene program and every Chiropractic program. Though each and every Physician Assistant program, for example, must meet the same standards to be accredited, each program finds unique ways to serve and educate. Your curriculum management system must recognize that. Customization should include more than changing the font or a title. You don’t want a cookie-cutter solution. You should not need to adapt to the system--the system should adapt to you.

Was it designed to be a curriculum management system?
A generic content management system cannot merely be tweaked to handle your curriculum. You need something designed specifically for the unique needs presented by curriculum management. A generic content management system will not generate reports. It will not consistently structure your information. You’re looking for something that will simplify your life, not complicate it.

Additionally, a system that tries to do everything (admissions, online assessments, demographics, delivering pizza...) misses the point. Because it tries to do everything, it risks not doing any of them well. A system with an all-in-one approach may lack the detail you need to efficiently manage your curriculum. Focus on the needs your program has. Do you need admissions, or does your school already have an admissions department? You know you need curriculum management. Find a system that handles your curriculum extremely well--not one that manages it ok but also has a million features you’ll never use.

This idea goes hand in hand with customization. Ideally, the company you choose to work with will have experience and expertise in a variety of areas--certainly in curriculum management, but also in content management, maybe online examinations or catalog management as well. The more experience the company has--the broader their range of expertise--the better that company will be able to ensure that the system does all you need. If you have an incredible system for tracking your demographic information, but need a little help with managing your curriculum alignment, an all-in-one system probably is not for you. Why would you trash what you’ve already got going for you? The company you choose should be willing to work with what you have, build on your strengths, and give your program a boost where it needs one.


Is the system easy for your faculty to learn and implement?
Your entire faculty will need to use the curriculum management system to some extent, so you need to be sure it’s easy to understand and to implement. Curriculum management should not require extensive technical knowledge nor extensive training--you have more important things to do than study a technical guide or attend countless training sessions. Check out your system before you buy it. Is it intuitive, or do you guess where to find the information you need? Learning the right system should be a natural, easy process.


Does the company know what it is doing?
The company you choose to work with should have experience in curriculum management. Having experience in the field is the only way the system they build will be able to do what you need it to do. A company that works only in general content management can’t know what educators need and will therefore either fall terribly short of those needs or will take forever to get it right.

Is the technology up to date?
Before buying a system, you should make sure you see a demonstration of how it works. In the demo, consider whether the technology seems modern. Does it look like something built in the early nineties? Is it direct, or does every action require a circuitous path? You should also study the company’s web site. If it is not presented well, if it is difficult to navigate, your system likely will be as well.

Curriculum Management in Higher Education

Earlier this year, Tracy posted a blog discussing research about curriculum mapping for higher education and some reasons why schools (especially programs with defined standards and competencies that the curriculum should meet) don’t already have curriculum mapping.

Since then, AllofE implemented eCurriculum HE for five different programs at Bridgeport University. Soon, Bridgeport’s Dental Hygienist, Naturopathic, Chiropractic, Nutrition, and Physician’s Assistant programs will all be using this curriculum mapping system.

And let me tell you: the administrators there are pumped. They are excited about the how easy it will be for them to manage, share and track their curriculum.

There is a real need in Higher Education for a curriculum mapping tool.

Recently a few of us here at AllofE have started a research project around current practices related to curriculum tracking and mapping within similar Higher Ed institutions.

The answers have a familiar tone to them yet I never fail to be surprised by the archaic methods used in most cases. Some schools are using spreadsheets. Some are still putting pencil to paper.

Let’s look back at those reasons Tracy listed that Higher Ed was doing without curriculum mapping:

• They think their needs are more complex than the K-12 districts that have been using curriculum mapping successfully for years (and, if they are being honest, are maybe reluctant to follow the lead of K-12 schools)

Yeah, their needs are complicated. The Chiropractic program has over 250 competencies, as well as learning measures to track. The Physician’s Assistant program? More than 470 topics to track, as well as more than 50 ARC standards and countless labs and experiences every student needs.

Tracking their ability to hit these competencies, standards and labs—this is all part of the accreditation. They need these for their school to stay a school.

Yes, these could be tracked by hand. But tracking them by hand involves hours of work—work that most schools probably put in at the last second, with the accreditation date quickly approaching. At this point, they’ve either taught the skills or not. They may have taught the same competency several times, then run out of time to teach another vital skill.

And they wouldn’t know until it was too late.

eCurriculum is built to avoid these errors. It lets you plan your semester week by week, simply checking a box to include a competency in an instruction module. It also provides reports that let you know what you’re overteaching and what you’ve forgotten about. It helps you ensure everything is covered when it should be.

• Schools have intense and exact customization needs — they can’t take a cookie-cutter solution, and the customization must be quick and cost-effective

eCurriculum is no cookie-cutter solution. While it comes preloaded with the standards needed for accreditation in each field (ARC Standards and NCCPA Competencies for the Physician’s Assistant programs, for example), the customization is anything but limited. Individual programs can insert their own curriculum needs—labs that are specific to their school, for example. Professors’ and student names are added, as well as class names.

eCurriculum also automatically generates a comprehensive curriculum web site from the entered curriculum information—a web site that matches the University’s overall branding and web site standards so that it provides a seamless experience for university web site visitors.

• Finally, they think they are saving by doing it themselves.

As Tracy said, “Without going into all the details here, this often ends up not quite achieving the results intended. Rather than saving money, it ends up being ten times more expensive, takes forever to develop and creates something less robust than a high-end customizable product.”

I mentioned earlier that eCurriculum generates a web page showing all the curriculum information. This automatically generated web page shows students what they will be learning, and may bring more interest to your school. (I know when I applied for graduate programs, if I couldn’t navigate the web site, I didn’t apply.) It shows potential students and parents what they’re spending their money on.

Most importantly, with one easily shared link, the accreditation board has all the information they need. The presentation does not need to take hours, or be changed every year. eCurriculum will update the web page as changes are made, cutting hours from the accreditation process each year, let alone the time it takes to create the system in the first place.

edYOUcator Facebook Poll

We're excited to introduce the edYOUcator Facebook Poll to help us decide what new feature should be added next to the edYOUcator site! As edYOUcator grows, we want the edYOUcator community be part of the process. This is your chance to help shape the search engine and help it become what you would like it to be, so that you can benefit from it.

There are four different options to choose from:

• User accounts with points
  This option would allow users to create an edYOUcator account and earn points by doing searches, clicking on lesson plans, submitting lesson plans, submitting an error or bad search, and referring new users.
• Tracking favorite lesson plans
  By tracking your favorite lesson plans you could bookmark a lesson to come back to at a later date or keep track of your favorites without having to do another search.
• Earning badges for milestones
  Badges would be based on milestones such as frequency of searches, lesson plan/assessment submissions and submitting a problem or bad search.
  
• Rating lesson plans
  You could view ratings and rate a lesson plans on the search results page.

The poll will last until next Thursday the 26th at 5 PM EST - so get your vote in now!

2011 SchoolE Award Winners

The nominations have been sent, sites judged, the votes cast & validated and now we’re proud to announce the 2011 SchoolE Award Winners!

Small
Lexington City Schools



Medium
York County Public Schools



Large
Clear Creek ISD


Congratulations to these districts and thanks to all the districts who participated! Also a big thanks to everyone who helped make this year's awards happen.

Prizes
Each winning district will receive the following prizes:

• Video review of district site by Nick Denardis.
  Nick will be reviewing the top district in each category. As host of his EDU Checkup video blog he reviews education websites through the eyes of a first time visitor, while critiquing the design, information architecture and code of the sites. Keep a look out on the blog and Twitter for links to these videos when they’re done!
• Full Feedback Analysis of Website
• Tons of exposure
  In addition to the media exposure of the event, winning districts will be featured in a press release to major media outlets that include national and regional newspapers and news sources, targeted both to your geographical area and nationally. Winners will also be featured heavily within Social media and networking sites, such as Twitter (@allofek12), Blogger, Facebook, focused on the K-12 sector.A badge to proudly display on their district website
• And More....

Recap of Voting
The voting round ended up being a total of 6 weeks and the districts really took advantage of every single one of those weeks. The competition started out strong with Brownsville, Rockingham, and Lexington being the category leaders.

In the Medium category Rockingham came out ready to win with over 1,000 votes in the first week - that’s more votes than they had nominations! Overall the category maintained their momentum all throughout voting. There was so much competition and many lead changes within this category that you never know what district might steal the #1 position. York County had been on Rockingham’s tail since week 2 of voting and finally surpassed them for the #1 position in week 4. Their victory was a little short-lived; Rockingham came back the next week and with over 1,000 votes in one day, they regained the title. But York hadn't been too far behind since. When voting ended Rockingham was in the lead, but once the votes were validated York was so close behind they ended up in the first place position! Oxnard Union High, Upper Darby, and Independence 30 we also strong competitors. While they didn’t see quite the vote count of the lead districts, the competition for 3rd place was definitely worth watching.

Districts in the Large category had their fair share of competition as well, but it didn’t start until later on. It seemed no one was going to give Brownsville or Keller ISD any trouble until week 3 when Clear Creek started receiving votes in droves, providing both schools with competition and stealing the #1 spot. Although Brownsville was never able to steal back that position, they stayed strong and kept up with Clear Creek’s voting. Both districts put forth a lot of effort in this competition!

Small districts started off the competition slowly, but they surely moved their way on up in votes. Lexington City and Zachary Community were the front runners in this category. Once they hit over 500 votes their competition was only with each other. These two districts changed #1 position for the category almost weekly until the last two weeks of voting showed a landslide of votes from Zachary Community, which put them further ahead than they had ever been before. At the end of voting Zachary Community seemed to be the winner but after a validation of all the votes Lexington came out on top! With these two districts it was a close call! They should both be proud though, their overall vote counts were in the same range as Large category winner Clear Creek!

Exposure
With this year’s awards every district is a winner! The exposure districts have received has been phenomenal! The SchoolE site has seen page views from 64 countries around the world and of all the page views 75% of them were unique visits!

SchoolE has also gained exposure in the news. Local newspapers and radio stations have been doing stories on the awards and finalists such as K2 Radio in Casper, WY and The Ledger in Lakeland, FL. and Daily Press in Newport News, VA.

As well as news articles, SchoolE press releases have been featured on a number of educational blogs and sites such as eSchool News. The districts were very proud of their finalist statuses as well, they displayed their finalists badges on their sites and issued press releases about the awards. Here are just a few of the many press releases done by schools- Keller ISD, Clear Creek ISD, and North Mason SD.

In Closing
This year’s SchoolE Awards was a great success! So many schools were dedicated to giving their district site the recognition it deserved. It’s so awesome to see communities come together to support their schools.

Although the awards for this year are over, your part is not! Please let us know about any suggestions, comments, or questions you’ve had about the competition. Leave us a comment on the SchoolE homepage and tell us what you liked, didn’t like, or would like to change. We listen to every single one - suggestions from last year helped us make this year’s awards even better and that’s what we want to see with next year as well!

Thanks again to all the districts, everyone who nominated and voted, our amazing judging panel, and everyone who helped with the awards along the way.

Make sure to keep an eye out for Nick’s video reviews and check back for more information on this year’s awards and next years!

Here’s hoping to another great year of SchoolE Awards in 2012!

edYOUcator: 3 Months

This week marks 3 months since the launch of edYOUcator. Over the past months it has seen thousands of unique search topics and even more searches. But as the edYOUcator community continues to grow so does edYOUcator. We’ve received lots of feedback and plan on implementing some new features in the near future to help out our educators!

Since its launch in February, educators from around the world have been searching not only for lesson plans, but assessment help and instructional help as well (such as how to deal with cyber bullying and differentiated instruction). edYOUcator has become much more than a lesson plan search, it’s becoming more of a community every day.



The most popular subject areas for searches have been English and Math - especially math. Not a day goes by that someone isn’t searching for fraction help!

Speaking of which, the most popular search with the greatest number of lessons visited has been fractions - and any form of fraction, fraction multiplying, adding fractions, fractions to decimals, etc. Next to fractions, Africa came in a close second.




Many have been searching for upcoming holiday activities, lesson plans, and unit plans as well. This is a perfect example of why edYOUcator is so useful. All you have to do is type in the holiday. No need to type lesson plan or scour through the Internet looking for legitimate sites- edYOUcator does that for you. It also comes in handy with current events such as the Japanese Tsunami and Osama Bin Laden’s death. When you’re not planning on teaching about time sensitive events like these, a quick search can go a long way.

There have also been a few really unique searches, one being the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory Fire. (For those of you who might not know the fire happened 100 years ago. It was the single most deadliest industrial disaster in New York City until the Twin Towers of the World Trade Center in 2001.)
Another unique search was aphorisms, which, according to Princeton’s Wordnet means: a short, pithy, instructive saying. Here's an example: One today is worth two tomorrows. - Benjamin Franklin.

There is no limit to what you can search for on edYOUcator! If your search doesn’t give you the results you’re wanting please, please, please tell us about it! We thrive on feedback, so we’d love to hear from you.

Or if you'd like to figure it out on your own, take advantage of the video overview we posted last week. You can find it here. In it we give a quick overview of how to use edYOUcator and the advanced search options. It also shows how to utilize the help options while searching. If you still can’t figure it out, it shows you how to contact us from the site as well.




We hope to do more video tutorials on edYOUcator in the future, so if you have any questions or comments on what you’d like help with tell us about it!

edYOUcator has been spreading like wildfire. The more that people hear about it the more feedback and exposure it seems to get. James Gubbins, a self proclaimed EdGeek, and host of the blog Zenodotus, focused one of his posts on edYOUcator last week. You can read it here. This is what we love to see: People spreading the word and helping out the educational community.

To celebrate 3 months of edYOUcator we’re also introducing a Facebook Question for the edYOUcator community to vote on what feature you’d like to see next. Keep an eye out for it later this week (we’ll be tweeting about it and will post another blog when we post the question.)

This is just one of the many things we have planned for edYOUcator, so keep searching, submitting lesson plans, and telling your educational friends and family about it. The bigger it becomes, the more resourceful and useful it will be to you!

SchoolE Update: One Final Week to Vote

If you missed the announcement earlier this week, the SchoolE Awards voting round has been extended until May 12th. That's a whole extra WEEK of voting so take advantage of it. As of now, it looks like the 2nd place districts in each category could really take advantage of the extra time. The competition is so close, this extra week is going to keep us on the edge of our seats until the winners are announced Friday. So since voting was pushed back we'll get some logistics out of the way first.

• Voting will end Thursday, May 12th at 5 PM EST
• Winners will be announced on Friday, May 13th (time TBA)

Remember that the standings you see now are based on unvalidated vote counts, so positions can change once we close voting and validate the votes. At the end of voting on Thursday, don't celebrate your win or defeat just yet, wait until the winners are officially announced! In the nomination round we did see position changes once they were validated, and the same thing may happen with voting as well.

This week there has been an insane amount of voting! Both Rockingham Co. and York Co. have reached over 4,000 votes. WOW! Their voting has been non-stop all week. While Rockingham is still in first place, York County is working hard to keep up with them. On Tuesday when Rockingham passed the 4,000 vote mark, York soon caught up. These two districts have been neck and neck the entire voting round and the battle is driving their vote counts way up. With the extra week, I wouldn't be surprised if they each receive over 6 or 7 thousand votes...or more.

The Small districts have really increased their game in these past few weeks of voting. In the beginning their vote count wasn't too impressive, but this week Zachary Community took over and now holds the first place position. With almost 2,000 votes, their vote count is in the same range as the #1 district in the Large category Clear Creek. Second place Lexington City isn't too far behind either with just over 1,000 votes. Lexington can really use this extra week to catch up with Zachary, these two schools rotate 1st and 2nd place positions almost every week, but this is the week that both of them need to go all out.

In the Large district category, Brownsville still can't seem to get ahead of Clear Creek. They have been right behind Clear Creek since being knocked to the #2 position but haven't been able to pull off a #1 position steal just yet. Although they're about 500 votes behind I don't anticipate them giving up to easy. They have been a very big contender throughout the whole competition including nomination rounds, so I wouldn't be surprised if they give Clear Creek some stiff competition in these upcoming days.

While at the moment the really exciting competitions are between the top 2 schools in each category, that doesn't mean that the other districts aren't voting as well. Anything could happen in this final week of voting- including an underdog coming up to steal the #1 position! So to all districts- keep voting! The competition isn't over yet.

This extra week sure is going to make things interesting so keep an eye out, take advantage of the school profile pages, rally your district's community, use all the voting tools (E-mail, Facebook, and Twitter) and vote! If you have any questions or comments contact us at the SchoolE Interact page or to cheer on your district leave a comment on your district's profile. Keep an eye out for the winners on the SchoolE site, next Friday the 13th could be your districts lucky day.

edYOUcator: Video Overview

I'm excited to show you the newly created video overview of edYOUcator! Whether you've been using it, haven't used it in awhile, or you're a new user, this overview will help guide you in making the best searches possible.

Make sure to visit the edYOUcator site after viewing to sign up for a PIN, contact us, or most importantly start searching! Remember the more you use edYOUcator, ask questions, and suggest, the better it will be.

Happy Searching!



If you have any additional questions regarding the video or the edYOUcator site please feel free to e-mail us at edYOUcator@allofe.com.

SchoolE Update: One Week Left of Voting!

We are in the final week of voting for the SchoolE Awards! Voting will end on Thursday, May 5th at 5 PM EST and winners will be announced on Friday the 6th (time TBA). Remember that voting is open to everyone, so they don't have to be a direct part of your district to cheer you on and vote. Talk to your friends and family to help your district's website get the recognition you feel it deserves.

There have been so many close races throughout this year's competition. The top two districts in each category are within 350 votes of each other, making it really anybody's game. Voting this week has been intense, with a ton of lead changes, and the total vote count is now almost 14,500 meaning there were 4,500 votes this week!

Most of the intense voting in the contest has come from the Medium category. Rockingham has been working overtime this week to not only steal the #1 position from Polk County, but also to reach over 3,000 votes! Rockingham called its community to action on Tuesday when it overtook Polk County, casting almost 1,000 votes in one day! Rockingham can't get too comfortable yet, though. York County is right behind them, needing less than 350 votes to tie. The competition in this category doesn't end there. The 3rd, 4th, and 5th positions are battling it out as well. Although Upper Darby currently leads the pack, Oxnard Union High and Independence are both within 65 votes of the 3rd place position. While they have quite a way to go to catch up with Rockingham's 3,600+ votes, anything is possible in this last week of voting!

In the Large category, Clear Creek and Brownsville have been battling it out, but it seems that this week their voting has really slowed down. Clear Creek hasn't had more than 25 votes this week and Brownsville no more than 30. With these two districts so close in vote counts they need to keep up the voting to fight for 1st place!

The voting in the smaller categories has been a bit stagnant most of the week. Zachary Community has kept a well-maintained lead over Lexington City but just today that's changed. Lexington has been voting all day to come within 30 votes of the category leader. With this new competition and the fact that the overall vote count in the Small category is rather low compared to the other categories, this next week may be full of surprises.

Here are the Top 3 districts in each category based on [unvalidated] vote counts as of Thursday afternoon:

Large:
1. Clear Creek
2. Brownsville
3. Polk County

Medium:
1. Rockingham Co.
2. York Co.
3. Upper Darby

Small:
1. Zachary Community
2. Lexington City
3. North Mason


There's only one week left so don't let your districts voting fade out now! Even just one day of voting could knock your district out of it's position. Remember to keep an eye out for the announced winners on Friday, May 6th!

Good luck to all the districts!

SchoolE Update: Week 4 of Voting

It's the end of Week 4 which means there's still about two weeks left to vote for your district, but this week the districts have been acting like they're in the final minutes of the game. We had almost 2,500 votes this week bringing us to over 10,000 total votes.

The Large Districts are still bringing their A-game this week. Though Clear Creek's voting has dwindled a bit compared to the landslide of votes they had last week, they've still managed to maintain their lead over Brownsville for the #1 spot. Polk County and Keller ISD are still a bit behind the two leaders of the category, but have been within 100 votes of each other all week.

The Medium category is where it's at this week. Just today York County upset Rockingham County for the #1 spot! Currently York County is only 60 votes ahead of Rockingham. While York has been very active in voting, it’s the voting in the past two days that have really made a difference for them. This is the second big upset of the competition, just last week Clear Creek took the #1 spot from Brownsville in the Large category. There are no clear front runners anymore in these two categories; it will be interesting to see how it all plays out!

Upper Darby and Oxnard Union High are still battling it out for that 3rd position. All week they’ve been within 10 votes of each other and today Upper Darby has only a 3 vote lead over Oxnard. But both need to watch out for Independence 30. They haven't been much of a competition so far, but since the Thursday they've manage to almost catch up with Upper Darby and Oxnard. Keep watching out for them, they're well on their way to move even farther up in this category.

The small category hasn't been idle either. While the vote counts aren't as high as the other two categories, the districts have slowly started gaining more votes. Competition is fierce in this category as well. Basehor-Linwood and University Academy were tied with an even 100 votes each on Wednesday, but Basehor came out on top at the end of the week - currently they are only 16 votes ahead of University Academy. Although the top two Small category districts, Zachary Community and Lexington City, have a well maintained lead over the other schools, with the vote count so small in this category it's anybody's game.

Here are the Top 3 Districts from each category based on [unvalidated] vote counts:

Large
1. Clear Creek ISD
2. Brownsville ISD
3. Polk County School

Medium
1.York County
2. Rockingham County
3. Upper Darby

Small
1. Zachary Community
2. Lexington City
3. North Mason SD


Most of the votes have come from teachers, parents, and staff but remember your community and students can vote too. There are a few students voting, but they can be your district's driving force! Encourage them to show their school pride and vote for their district's website!

There are less than 2 weeks left to vote! Now's the time to rally your community if you want a chance to win!

SchoolE Update: Week 3 of Voting

The competition in SchoolE has been nuts this week! After last weeks wake-up call the Large districts are getting their heads in the game. On Thursday, Clear Creek ISD surpassed Keller ISD and Polk County. Near the end of the day they knocked Brownsville out of the #1 position for Large districts – a position they’ve held from the start of voting. There’s definitely going to be a lot more competition in the Large districts than we thought.

The Medium districts have two great competitions worth keeping an eye on. Rockingham still remains in the #1 spot, but York County is only a couple of hundred votes behind. York has been very active throughout the competition, but toward the end of this week voting for their district has died down. While Rockingham hasn’t had quite the weekly vote count as before they’re still receiving a good number of votes every day. York is going to have to push themselves if they want a chance at that #1 spot.

But they should look out for the current 3rd and 4th place districts - Oxnard Union High and Upper Darby. These schools have been battling for 3rd place all week, but currently Oxnard has come out ahead. Although still over 400 votes behind the top 2 schools, the close competition between these two schools might just drive up their vote counts.

The total SchoolE vote count is now over 7,600 - almost 3,000 votes this week alone. Three districts have even reached over 1,000 votes– Rockingham, York County, and Clear Creek. Keep it up districts!

The current overall voting standings based on [unvalidated] vote counts are:

1. Rockingham Country Public Schools (Medium)
2. York County Public Schools (Medium)
3. Clear Creek ISD (Large)
4. Brownsville ISD (Large)
5. Oxnard Union High (Medium)

Cheer on your school by commenting on Interact page and also your districts profile page under ‘District Comments’. Fans of the districts have been posting thanks and links to articles about their districts making it into the final round.

Also since we're getting even closer to the end, remember the new prize for this year's SchoolE Award recipients - a video review of the winner's district site by Nick Denardis! Nick will be reviewing the top district in each category. As host of his EDU Checkup video blog he reviews education websites through the eyes of a first time visitor, while critiquing the design, information architecture and code of the sites.

Keep your eyes on the prize and keep voting for your favorite District website!

SchoolE Update: Week 2 of Voting

It's week 2 of SchoolE Awards voting and things are starting to heat up (along with the weather)! The total vote count is over 4,800. Many districts that had little to no activity really stepped it up this week, especially Oxnard Union High. The district was voting non-stop on Thursday, bringing them to 4th place in the Medium category, very close behind Upper Darby. Voting runs like that make the competition exciting! It's awesome to see a school go from relatively no votes to almost 500 in a day.

So far the Medium category districts are rocking the voting round. They've accounted for more than 3,300 of the 4,800+ votes so far- that's almost 70%! The Large districts still haven't quite gotten their votes up, they've only received 886 total votes - less than some of the Medium districts had alone. I keep expecting the other Large districts to step up their game, but it doesn't look like any of those districts are going to give Keller ISD or Brownsville any trouble. Where's the school spirit in large districts? With so many people in their communities they should be blowing everyone else out of the water!

Right now, the overall voting standings based on [unvalidated] vote counts are:
1. Rockingham Country Public Schools (Medium)
2. York County Public Schools (Medium)
3. Oxnard Union High (Medium)
4. Brownsville ISD (Large)
5. Upper Darby SD (Medium)

Clearly, the medium districts are extremely competitive, so it's going to be exciting to see what happens over the next few weeks.

Remember that this year there are three categories:

Large - Enrollment > 25,000
Medium - Enrollment 7001 -24,999
Small - Enrollment < 7,000
That means this year there will be a total of three winners! One from each of these categories.

Make sure to check out the Interact Page on the SchoolE website. There you can cheer for your district, ask any questions (we always respond!), or give credit to whoever deserves it for making your site the best it can be! Also remember voting is open to everyone, so if you believe that your site has something special such as a feature or design tell everyone about it! Cheer your school on and tell everyone why you believe your district's site is the best.

Good luck to all the school districts!

Take the Leap into Mobile Learning

Cellphones. Every student uses one. According to a survey by the Pew Research Center’s Internet and American Life Project, most teenagers get their first cell phone by the age of 12 or 13. So why aren’t they incorporated more into the classroom? Many teachers are afraid of venturing out into the world of using cell phones in lessons, but the truth is, cell phones are becoming more and more common in schools. Within the last year, cell phones have gone from banned toys to encouraged tools.

Teachers can have trouble incorporating new media into the classroom, especially cell phones. It’s a risky venture to use something students are used to playing with and turning it into something they learn with. So where do you start?

edYOUcator was made for this. It’s hard to keep up with new technology, trends, and things that you’ve never used, or maybe never even heard of before. edYOUcator helps you find the best lesson plans, especially when you have no idea where to start.

This week, I came across some awesome plans on edYOUcator that use cell phones. They are great starter plans to ease you and your class into mobile learning. Mobile Learning Lesson Plans, found on the Scholastic web site, offers simple step-by-step instructions for educators. These steps even include instructions on setting up other media used in the plans, like Flickr.

My favorite plan is Collecting Biological Phenomena in Everyday Life. In this lesson students use their cell phones to take pictures of plants and animals they observe in their everyday life. Then they send the pictures to Flickr with a short description of what they found and where they found it. In class they are able to put all their photos on a Flickr map and the teacher covers biological classifications. How cool is that? Most kids use their phones to interact with friends and family, why not have them interact with learning too?

Not every student will use them only for learning. Inappropriate use of cell phones is one risk teachers take when using them in the classroom. The Pew survey mentioned earlier stated that 26% of teens have been bullied via text message and that 15% of teens age 12-17 have received a "sext message.” Luckily, lesson plans like these present a great opportunity for educators to teach mobile safety. Include a safety lesson or review every time cell phones are used in the classroom. However, the more engaged your students are, the less likely they are to stray away from your lesson.

These plans are just one example of the great resources available on edYOUcator. Not ready to use cell phones in your classroom? Start with something small like a blog. Do a quick search in edYOUcator for "blog" and pick a plan. This will help both you and your students begin with a familiar way of media based learning. Then you can progress to using different types of media.

edYOUcator helps teachers think outside of the box. Use it to help broaden your horizons and you’ll have the opportunity to grow and learn with your students.

Do you have any mobile learning lesson plans you would like to share? E-mail us at edYOUcator@allofe.com!

SchoolE Nominations are Now Closed. Who are the Semi-Finalists?

Time has really flown - the SchoolE Awards nominations closed yesterday! What an exciting nomination round it’s been. This year, we received more than 7,500 nominations, which is almost 5 times more than last year! I can’t wait to see how many votes we get this year, just based on the turnout thus far. These last few weeks of nominations have been VERY busy ones, with hundreds of nominations coming in each day. We have received nominations from districts across all 50 states. It’s awesome how many people have been cheering their districts on.

Without further ado, here are the Top 15 school districts from each category that will move onto the judging round. Congrats to these school districts!

Large	Medium	Small
1. Brownsville ISD 2. Marion County School District 3. Newport News CPS 4. Fayette County 5. Prince George’s 6. San Bernardino City 7. Clear Creek ISD 8. Montgomery County 9. Chatham County 10.Fairfax County Public 11. Keller ISd 12. Polk County School District 13. Clark County 14. Elk Grove Unified 15. Kanawha County School District	1. Rockingham County 2. Independence 30 3. North Allegheny SD 4. Upper Darby SD 5. Township HSD 6. Blue Springs R-IV 7. Oxnard Union High 8. Walker County 9. Richland County 02 10. Hurst-Euless-Bedford ISD 11. McAllen ISD 12. Lawrence Public Schools 13. Bradley Cty. School District 14. York County Public Schools 15. Natrona Cty. SD #1	1. Danville Independent 2. Zachary Community Schools 3. Groton School District 4. University Academy 5. New Milford 6. Lakeland District 7. Godfrey-Lee Public 8. St. James Schools 9. South Texas ISD 10. North Mason SD 11. Basehor-Linwood USD 12. Beggs Public Schools 13. Grain Valley R-V 14. Metcalfe County 15. Lexington City Schools

So what’s next?

Over the next two weeks, our Panel of Industry Experts will evaluate the district websites based on the Design, Content, and Overall presence. Our Panel of Industry Experts includes innovative leaders in areas such as educational technology, Higher Education web content, and graphic and web design.

Curious to see an example of what criteria the experts will be judging on? Check out a sample rubric here.

Judging will end on March 25 and based on the scores, only the top 7 districts in each category will move on to voting (21 districts total). We will be announcing the finalists on Monday, March 28th and after that, the voting will begin!

Voting will continue through May 5th and winners will be announced on May 6th.

Once again congrats to the 15 semi-finalists and good luck in the judging round! Make sure to keep checking out the SchoolE website for updates, district profiles, and more!

SchoolE Awards Update for Week 2/26 - 3/4

There's only one week left until SchoolE nominations close. We've received around 7000 nominations from across the country, and they just keep rolling in. In addition, the SchoolE Awards now has at least one district represented in all 50 states. Hawaii became the last state to enter the race with the Kauai Complex Area District on the island of Kauai.

The Rockingham County School District has received more than 1,000 nominations, which is pretty awesome for a medium size school! Another medium size district, Independence 30, is also not too far away from reaching 1000.

We are seeing a very surprising trend...
small > medium > large

What does this mean?

The smaller school districts are bringing in more nominations than the medium districts, and the medium districts are bringing in more than the large!

Based on the total number of nominations, smaller school districts are behind the medium-sized ones, but overall, the smaller districts have been more active. To give you a bit of perspective, the top district in the Large category, Brownsville ISD, has almost 50,000 students, but has little more than 675 nominations, whereas the second-place district in the Medium category, Independence, has less than 12,000 students and more than 800 nominations.

Pretty ironic. I guess being a larger district doesn't necessarily mean more nominations. But that also gives large districts a huge opportunity to take over the lead or at least move into the Top 15 during the last week of nominations.

One large district that has been very active this week is Marion County School District in Ocala, Fla. The district has accounted for over 50% of nominations every day since Wednesday and has moved up to the 4th-place position in overall nominations. And it doesn't seem to be done yet! I love seeing the competition that comes out toward the end of nominations.

Most of our nominations have been from teachers, faculty, staff and the community but don't be afraid to encourage your students and parents to nominate also!

Remember it's the last week for nominations. They will close on March 11th, so make sure to nominate you district now! The judges will begin scoring the websites the week after. Voting will open on March 28 for only the top district websites.

Have fun and happy nominating for this last week!

SchoolE Awards Update for Week 2/19 - 2/25

There are only 2 weeks left until SchoolE nominations close! That means school districts only have the next 2 weeks to get in as many nominations as they can to be a part of the top 15 in their category. Only the top 15 most-nominated districts in each category will move on to the judging round. If you want your school there, tell your friends, family, coworkers, students and community to nominate your district by E-mail, Twitter, Facebook, or even all 3. Don't forget that we will be validating email addresses, so any invalid addresses will be void and those nominations will NOT count.

Even if your school is in the top 15 right now, that doesn't mean it will stay that way. In the final weeks, we expect nominations to grow by thousands, so keep up that nominating! Rockingham County Schools still has the #1 spot, and they are just shy of 1000 nominations. Will any other schools reach it to 1000 nominations before the round ends?

One district that is really starting to make their move is St. James School from Alabama. They received their first nomination only last week but are looking to quickly move up - they were the most active district Thursday with over 41% of the nominations!

Before last week we hadn't even received a nomination from Alabama and now we have multiple districts competing to move on to the next round. Maybe the next state added to our competition will do the same! SchoolE had it's first nomination from Montana by Shepherd Public Schools in Shepherd, MT. Congrats to Shepherd for being the first district to nominate from Montana. With 49 states participating, that means we only have 1 more to go until we've received a nomination from ALL 50 states!

Remember that only the top 15 districts from each category will move on to the judging round. The categories are determined by the number of students enrolled in the district; they are small (less than 7000), medium (7000 - 24,999), and large (25,000 +). The number of nominations each district receives will determine the top 15 districts which will be judged by our expert judging panel. From there, only the top 7 districts from each category based on their scores from the judges will move onto the voting round, where the top district from each category based on validated vote counts will win.

Good luck and keep nominating your district!

edYOUcator: How To

So you’ve heard all the buzz about edYOUcator. You might have access or you might still be waiting to receive your pin number, but either way, you'll be using it soon. We want you to help edYOUcator grow. Every day, we index hundreds more of the best lesson plans, units and other instructional materials that we think educators will benefit from, but we want to hear from YOU.

edYOUcator was built for you, the educators. Using the edYOUcator search engine results only in what we believe to be the best resources for educators. As many of you who have used the edYOUcator search engine have seen, it’s easy and simple to use. But there are a few advanced options you may wish to use as well.

1. When searching use the “Advanced Search Options” to search within a specific subject or grade level. Say you’d like to find crafts for a Kindergarten class. Just type in Crafts and click the “Advanced Search Options” then check the “K” box like so:
   
   
   
   
2. To be more specific in your search, choose a subject area to search in by using the drop down menu in the “Advanced Search Options” as shown in the screen shot above. By choosing a subject area, your search is limited to lessons within that subject.
3. Another edYOUcator feature is being able to preview a page before you visit it. You can do this by hovering your mouse over the magnifying glass by the lesson title. By using this feature and reading the short descriptions you can be sure it’s a plan you’re interested in without even leaving the search page.
   
   
   
   
4. Another option is to click “Help” under the search bar. This will bring up a list of helpful ways to type in your search. One helpful way is the Title search. It is used when searching for words or phrases in the title of a lesson. If you search title:”ABC” your results will yield material with “ABC” in the title of the plan.
   
   
   
   
5. If you still can't find what you're looking for, then please, please send us an email at edYOUcator@allofe.com. That's the only way we'll know to look into the problem and once we're aware of it, we will do everything we can to fix it. We want you to take ownership over this, and we want you to get the most benefit possible.
   

Here are some more helpful tips to find exactly what you're looking for in you edYOUcator search:

• Keep it simple - don't complicate your search. There's no need to specify you're looking for a lesson plans, so instead of searching "algebra lesson plans", just search algebra.
• Use the Advanced Search Options - You can choose one specific grade level or multiple ones and even search within a certain subject area.
• Keep using it - The more you search the more edYOUcator will grow and the better your search results will become.
  

So what’s next?

As edYOUcator grows we will be incorporating new features into the site! There are some features in progress:

• By having an account on the site you’ll be able to fully benefit from these future features, especially ones like tracking and rating your favorite lesson plans.
• Another feature we’re currently developing is allowing users to search for state specific and national practice assessments. These resources will focus on tests like the SAT, ACT, Texas’ TAKS and New York’s Regent Exams to name a few,and will include helpful practice tests, former exams and answer keys. If you can't find practice assessments from your state, please let us know at edYOucator@allofe.com.
• Finally one of the features we’re very excited about is allowing educators to be able to contribute their own plans! edYOUcator is a network of educators that we want to share and engage with other educators. While this is not something we’ve added as a feature yet, if you’re interested in contributing lessons please let us know at edYOUcator@allofe.com.

As educators you are the focus of edYOUcator! If you’ve been using it, how do you use it and how would you like to use it in the future? Any suggestions on how we can improve? Leave a comment or e-mail us at edYOUcator@allofe.com!