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Massachusetts
The Virtual Education Space (VES) Project was launched in an effort to serve all of the state's 80,000 K-12 public school educators. Each educator is being given access to an individualized WorkSpace and portal with communication and collaboration tools customized to his or her profile of information maintained in the Department's Directory Admin application. Project leaders expect 10,000 educators to begin using VES within the first few months. The target goal is 40,000 educators using VES weekly by spring 2001.
In the spring of 2001, VES will launch a set of curriculum and instructional design tools into each educator's WorkSpace based on the award winning CLASP application. CLASP is designed and owned by a growing consortium of Massachusetts educators. A 501(c)(3) non-profit called VES, Inc. and a public educational collaborative called VEC have been created to support and maintain the shared public ownership of VES.
The Department has issued two initial work orders under the VES MSA. The first work order is with Blackboard.com for $500,000 for a first year of statewide licenses for their portal and course delivery systems (Blackboard 5 level 3). Additional years will cost $1 million a year. A decision about subsequent years is being made based on Blackboard's commitment to enhanced functionality in their Blackboard 6 product. The second work order is to Classwell for $150,000 for a design and scope documentation process for CLASP On Line. If the design team is satisfied with the resulting document, DOE will split the cost of $2.7 million of development with Classwell for joint ownership. A projected includes the following:
The Department issued a $1 million work order with Mass Networks under ETIS to continue to incubate VES, Inc and VEC and act as general contractor to VES implementation efforts.
Fall 2001, VES 2.0 will launch to all 980,000 k12 public school students.
VES 2.0 will help "bridge the digital divide" by providing every student with a "virtual PC" accessible from every classroom, home, community center, and business with Internet access.
VES 2.0 will establish a virtual classroom to extend face to face classes on line into anytime, anyplace learning.
VES 2.0 will provide an individual educational assistance plan to every student based on their state test results.
VES 2.0 will enable state assessments to use on line tools to increase the authenticity and diagnostic details.
VES 2.0 will increase student achievement.
Contact
Kimberly Joyce
Massachusetts State Department of Education
350 Main Street
Malden, MA 02148
781-338-6817 (p) 781-338-6850 (f)
E-mail: kjoyce@ves.mass.edu
The Massachusetts Empowering Educators with Technology (MEET) initiative involves a five-year (1998-2003) $10 million program, funded by the U.S. Department of Education through a Technology Innovation Challenge Grant. This is a technology professional development project aimed at improving all student learning through the use of good models of teaching. The Project emphasizes the use of online technology for teaching and learning, bringing to bear the best practices and most creative thinking across the Commonwealth and the nation.
Project MEET includes three main components: Teaching, Support, and Policy. The interdependence of these components creates an environment for a successful professional development model.
Teaching:
Project MEET offers professional development for teachers through summer institutes. The Teacher Summer Institute is a required one-week institute designed for school-based teams of teachers. Teacher teams will design and develop an instructional unit aligned to district curriculum guidelines and the Massachusetts Curriculum Frameworks. They will use online tools and the Internet for standards-based curriculum development, teacher and student research, project-based instruction, and publication of teacher and student work.
Teachers will meet throughout the year with the Technology Professional Development (TPD) Specialist to continue the work started during the summer institute. Public television station WGBH's Teacher Center provides the services for the Teacher Summer Institute. Project MEET will offer 4 Teacher Summer Institutes in the summer of 2001. Teachers should come to the institute with basic technology literacy skills.
Support:
Each school-based team will consist of one Technology Professional Development (TPD) specialist, who will participate in a 14-month training program to develop the leadership, curriculum integration, and planning skills needed to support their fellow teachers and to nurture technology programs in their schools and districts. These skills will enable them to understand and use models of technology professional development that support school reform and align to the Massachusetts Curriculum Frameworks. Topics include principles of curriculum development, universal design, and effective technology integration, co-teaching, coaching, and effective workshop skills. These topics are intended to meet the varied backgrounds, skills, and school environment of TPDs. The services for this part of the project will be provided by TERC.
Policy:
The goals of the Project MEET policy strand are to:
... facilitate discussion among district leaders and other people to identify policies which enable or obstruct technology-oriented professional development and the integration of technology into classroom practice;
... serve as a conduit to bring ideas to Project MEET districts and to spread information about best practice technology-supportive policies from those districts to other educators and decision-makers; and
... help district leaders identify the actions needed for Project MEET to have the maximum value in their districts and statewide.
Superintendents and principals are being urged to join their school teams in a number of Project MEET events. Principals are requested to participate in a one-day event at the TPD Summer Institute and again at the Teacher Summer Institute. Superintendents, principals, and other administrators are also requested to participate at three statewide events: the kick-off event in the spring of 2001, the mid-year event in early January 2002, and the year-end event in the spring of 2002.
It is recommended that administrators participate in the following services provided by Mass Networks and other statewide initiatives. They will include the following activities.
... Massachusetts Technology Leadership Consortium (MA-TLC) Program supported by the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation
... Technology & Curriculum Integration Leadership Program (TCI-LP) sponsored by Mass Networks and free for Project MEET leadership teams
... Massachusetts Superintendents' Technology Leadership Conference
... CLASP/VES Online - spring 2001, fall 2001 and winter 2002 free for Project MEET leadership teams
CAST, Inc. and the Institute for Community Inclusion at Children's Hospital work with the other partners to provide information and training about universal design and assistive technology in order to accommodate the needs of all learners. Services provided by Project MEET are free to all Project MEET participating schools selected through the Technology Literacy Challenge Grant 5: Project MEET School Sites.
Contact
Joan Ciampa
Project MEET
781-338-6826 (p)
E-mail: jciampa@doe.mass.edu
Web: http://www.doe.mass.edu/edtech/teacher/projectmeet