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Read TestimonialsLibrarian
Searingtown School
Herricks UFSD
Albertson, New York, United States
Division Category: An Educator in the U.S.A.; Projects for ages 5 to 10
Candidate Personal Narrative
| NAME:
Karen Kliegman
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| HISTORY (10 points) | TOP | ||
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As I look back over my teaching career, I realize now that there were four major events that have impacted the course of my life. The first was that decision by my principal to place me in the library. For four out of the five days a week I saw classes on my own; on the fifth day the library media specialist was there. What a panic! I had little teaching experience and had to quickly figure out what I was going to do with the classes that came in on a scheduled basis. I felt so insecure and inadequate, despite the fact that many teachers told me I was doing a great job and had a natural knack for teaching. Some of them advised me to go back to school and get a teaching degree. At the time, I thought they were crazy! At some point, I decided to look into a masters program in library science. I had certain stipulations, however. I would take only one class and it had to be on a Saturday so it would not interfere with taking care of my children. If I didn’t like it, that would be the end of it. Well, the rest, as they say, is history. I LOVED it, and after that semester I was full speed ahead and received my master's a year later. In 1998 I applied for my first library media specialist job and was hired by the Cold Spring Harbor School District. I taught happily there for two years but it was a long commute from my home and when a job closer to home in the Herricks School District came along I applied for it. This decision was the second turning point in my teaching career. The day I went to Searingtown School for my interview, I instantly knew in my heart that this was the place for me. I arrived at 8:20 AM just when the children were being let in. I was surrounded by hundreds of happy, smiling kids of several different nationalities, eagerly and energetically trotting down the hallways. Nancy Lindenauer, the principal of Searingtown School, offered me the job the day I was interviewed and it was the luckiest day of my life. Since 2000, Nancy has allowed me to transform the library program into a program that revolves around inquiry-based activities, causing students to revise their prior understandings and deepen their understandings of the world. I sought to institute an approach to learning that involved exploring the world, asking questions, and making discoveries in the search for new understandings. I wanted the students to develop skills such as careful observation, reasoning, critical thinking, and the ability to justify or refute their existing knowledge. Shared inquiry naturally lends itself to collaborative activities that are multidimensional -- students collaborate with each other and with teachers, as they learn alongside with the global community provided by technological access in the library. In 2001 I heard about an exciting graduate program at Long Island University. T.E.A.M. (Technology, Education, and Multimedia), a unique program, consists of select groups of educators interested in playing key roles in shaping and building learning communities for the 21st century. The program is based on team building, collaboration, constructivism, shared inquiry, critical thinking, project-based learning, performance assessment, multiple and emotional intelligences. Enrolling in this program opened the door for me to immerse myself in collaborative, constructivist, project-based learning. This was the third key event in my career and absolutely helped to shape me into the educator I am today. Through TEAM I was introduced to educators and innovators in the world of educational technology. The program allowed us to create partnerships with local and national community members and it was through this opportunity that my first online project, The Circle of Life, was born. Through TEAM I was introduced to marine biologists from The Riverhead Foundation, a nonprofit organization whose mission is the rescue, rehabilitation and release of Long Island injured or sick marine animals. I created a project for students to work in teams to problem-solve and direct their learning as they explored a real-world problem. They worked with The Riverhead Foundation through both personal and online interactions. It was a gratifying feeling to bring this collaboration to my school and to see the entire school involved in it. I submitted my students’ Inspiration concept webs and was awarded an Inspired Teaching Award from Inspiration. I had my first taste of using technology as a tool to make connections between communities inside and outside the walls of the library and I was hooked! The next shared learning project I created was the Federal Holidays Project (2002). The project started as a fifth grade curriculum unit focusing on core values of democracy. I put out a call for participation and was thrilled when Scuola Media Alfredo Oriani, Casola Valsenio, Italia eagerly joined the project. My students were able to exchange information about how holidays were celebrated in America and in Italy. To the best of my knowledge, this was the first time that students at Searingtown School connected with other students on an international basis. The Federal Holidays project is one of my most requested projects. I am always surprised to receive an email from somewhere in the country requesting permission to use the project! An idea emerged from a workshop I attended with TEAM, a seed of an idea that eventually became Walls That Talk, a project which later would be awarded first place in the ISTE SIGTel 2004 Online Learning competition. Walls That Talk was the catalyst for many exciting career opportunities. I began to give workshops at conferences, I was asked to become a contributing author to a college textbook and I wrote an article for The SIGTel Bulletin in August 2004. The fourth pivotal event in my career occurred in 2002 when I read on a listserv that an online publication called MidLink Magazine was looking for a teacher/editor. I sent in my application and was hired by Caroline McCullen, the editor and founder of MidLink. Being part of the MidLink team, a small group of educators from around the United States and Canada, has impacted me both professionally and personally and I will discuss that later in the narrative. Since Walls That Talk, I have created Political Cartooning (2003), an online project in which our fifth grade students studied editorial cartoons, created their own, and shared them with other schools in New York and Meet the Candidates (2004), an election project based on the Bush-Kerry presidential election. The election project had 21 schools participating from across the United States! Presently I am working on two new projects: Ye Olde Colonial Fair and We Are the World. In the colonial project, our fourth graders will study colonial life in New York; I will be posting a call for participation with the hope that schools from the other twelve original colonies will sign up so that we can exchange information about the different states. We Are the World (tentative name) is very exciting. This project will focus on the issue of global child labor. Searingtown’s art teacher, Beth Williams, has arranged for child labor activist, Chivy Sok, to visit our students. I have arranged for Ms. Sok to give an all day child labor workshop at Long Island University to teachers. I am creating a website for the project; our fifth grade students will learn about this important topic beginning in April and will create artwork and poetry that will be published into a picture book through a grant I received from Teaching Tolerance. Proceeds from the sale of the book will be donated to organizations that are devoted to helping victims of child labor. The web project will include a call for participation… who knows how far it will go? | |||
| PROJECTS (10 points): | TOP | ||
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In the fall of 2001 I created the Circle of Life project for our four classes of fourth graders (approximately 100 students). The project was a collaboration between Searingtown School and The Riverhead Foundation for Marine Research & Preservation. Students worked with The Riverhead Foundation for Marine Research & Preservation, to actively study the marine environment of New York, particularly marine mammal and sea turtle populations. The goals of the project were to integrate technology into instruction while promoting intellectual curiosity and creative expression. The online learning module allowed students to use a variety of research skills to locate, collect, and organize geographic and scientific data related to New York marine mammal life. During the research process, students were engaged in higher order critical thinking skills that required them to evaluate information from a variety of sources, including books, videos, the Internet, and hands on experience. Students were required to analyze the information they collected, connect ideas using technology tools, and demonstrate their learning through the development of various multimedia products and through art making which nurtured and celebrated children's positive connections to their local environment. Students were assigned different roles: “marine biologists,” “artist-naturalists,” “stranding specialists,” and “public awareness specialists.” The website allowed them to explore various resources that would support their research. Students used PowerPoint, Inspiration, digital cameras, and FrontPage to create their own website . The construction of a website as the final culminating product enabled them to develop multimedia views of their research that could be shared with others around the world. I was so proud of our students! Let me preface this by saying that nothing like this had ever been done before at our school! The thought that students could create a website was unheard of! Their website was a showcase of their learning. The Circle of Life site was featured in the education portion of the Riverhead Foundation’s website as a learning module. It was chosen as a four star Blue Web'N "Pick of the Week" and received an excellent review at Education World. The project helped me to become one of 20 winners worldwide of the 2002 Inspired Teaching Awards for Visual Learning from Inspiration™, was recognized by Sea World, and was presented at the NSBA Technology & Learning Conference in Dallas in 2002. Not bad for my first online learning project!!
The Federal Holidays project was developed during a workshop uniting library media specialists with classroom teachers to develop projects that paired information literacy specialists with curriculum content specialists. With content ideas provided by two fifth grade teachers, I developed Federal Holidays for our five fifth grade students (approximately 125 students). I posted the project with a call for participation on MidLink Magazine and various listservs. Three other schools participated, a fifth grade class and an eighth grade class in New Jersey and one middle school class in Italy! The project was designed for upper elementary and middle school students studying the meaning of American culture, United States symbols and core values of the American democratic system.
Federal Holidays proposes two main tasks: 1) students will teach their class about an existing federal holiday by creating a PowerPoint presentation; and 2) student teams will imagine a new holiday that represents the spirit of America and then write a persuasive argument which will be supported by either a poster or a postage stamp in order to convince the class that their idea is the best one. The site includes links to all the required resources, a teacher guide, and a voting ballot. A sampling of the new holidays proposed by my students is available online as well as some of their persuasive essays. One is included here.
Dear Fellow Students, As we all know, a tragic even took place on 9/11/2001. As a result, we strongly believe that a holiday should be made to honor those men and women for we, as Americans, cannot stand as a statue amidst a battle while our kinsmen are being shot to death on the battlefield. We also feel that this holiday would be a time for Americans to be able to observe a moment of silence and remember those who sacrificed their lives for their country on that tragic day. We think this holiday should be called "Justice Day" and it would be symbolized by the fallen Twin Towers and an American flag to represent our unity. This holiday would be a federal holiday and would be observed on the 2nd Monday of September. All Americans would participate in this holiday by wearing flag pins, shirts, and caps to symbolize our unity. Families who lost family members on that tragic day will gather together with friends and other family members to mourn their loss. On Justice Day, all government offices, companies, and schools will be closed. All Americans would be free to choose their ways of observing the holiday. Some of them could go to Ground Zero, the site where the towers crumbled to debris, to pay their respect to those who lost their lives while others could watch the event of remembrance from TV news broadcasts. "United We Stand," we believe justice will at least be served when all Americans can participate in this commemorative holiday. We thank you for your time in listening to us and we hope you can take into consideration making Justice Day a federal holiday. A few students put together a Photojam of the proposed holidays which they submitted to the Multimedia Mania student contest. Although they did not win, it was a wonderful learning experience for them and for myself. I continue to receive email on this project, some of which I am sharing below: "FRIEDMAN, PAMELA" Old York School Dear Ms. Kliegman, Dear Karen, Gian Carlo Visani wrote: Hello Karen! Thank you for your e-mail. I like your project, and a class in my school will participate in it. The students will find information about Italian National Holidays in Internet. Then they will try to propose a new Italian holiday and the meanings. Your idea to compare the holidays and the students' envision is interesting. I think we will have a great collaboration too!
Gian Carlo Visani Scuola Media di Casola Valsenio School Web page: www.dinamica.it/mediarc Karen, I am a fifth grade teacher in Danville, Illinois. I really thought that the Federal Holiday project was outstanding! I would like to use it as the basis of my project. I would like to seek your permission to use the Federal Holiday project and modify only the standards so that they would address the Illinois Learning Standards. I would be very grateful if this would be possible! I also noticed that you are looking for a call for participation. I would be very interested in finding out what this entails. Although I am not a whiz with technology, I am trying to find ways to integrate the use of technology with my students and to involve them in collaborative projects. I will look forward to hearing from you!
Sincerely,
Jeff Cooper Garfield Elementary School 1101 N. Gilbert St. Danville, IL.61832 -----Original Message----- Dear Webmaster: Wow. What an excellent project. I just
received my Blue Web'n update and found your project highlighted. Deservedly
so. It is so obviously well thought out and well produced. It is highly
impressive. -----Original Message----- Hello- We are working on this project assignment for our school educational technology class and were going to use your Federal Holiday Project. We will be taking things from your project and just wanted to make sure that we are granted permission. We will be giving you credit on the assignment since we will be taking things from your project. We hope to hear back from you soon! -Jennifer -----Original Message----- Karen, Once again, thank you, -----Original Message----- Hello, I am the principal at Love Chapel Elementary School in Erwin, TN. Our school is participating in an online WebQuest training professional development activity. One of our assignments is to find a project to modify and use in our school. I was looking at our state standards and searching for a project that matched when I discovered the Federal Holidays Project. It is exactly what I was searching for! May I modify it and use it in our school? I do not intend to post it on the internet. Thank you. Sincerely, Janet Sutphin
WALLS THAT TALK (Winter/Spring 2003)
What inspiration could I bring back to my school that would allow my students to express their dreams in a way that was meaningful and appropriate to who they are? Searingtown students represent an array of cultures. We have students whose families are from Korea, Japan, China, India, and other middle eastern countries – in fact, approximately 45% of our students are of Asian heritage. What if we created walls—a place where students could share knowledge–-that would celebrate and embrace the diversity of cultures that make up the fabric of our community’s population? How could I design a project in which educators and children would work together as contributing partners to build a learning community—one which linked people of different cultural backgrounds in order to create something valuable and meaningful for everyone? The George Lucas Foundation tells us that “the question that will launch a project-based lesson must be one that will engage the students. It is greater than the task at hand. It is open-ended. It will pose a problem or a situation that the students can tackle knowing that there is no ONE answer or solution.” We decided to take an authentic and relevant situation in our school community, that is, an ethnically diverse population, and tried to design meaningful activities built around the following essential questions: What is important for me to understand about the world, myself and others? Who am I as a person within my culture? How can I introduce myself in our community to both show the uniqueness of my culture and how we are alike?
I got a few interested teachers involved and after brainstorming, decided that we would pose the following challenge to our students: Imagine if you could build walls that talk about the different cultures that make up Searingtown School. Imagine if you could study those walls and other walls around the world and think about how these walls could unite people instead of divide them. Our objective was for students to see themselves as architects who could build walls of understanding. By designing activities that emphasized that everyone has a culture that shapes how we see the world, ourselves, and others, we hoped to give the students the tools they needed to build enduring understandings. To support the learning, I created the Walls That Talk website making sure that all necessary telelearning resources were available. Among other things, the project website included a list of the 84 areas of the world our students came from and all electronic resources needed to complete the various activities that were designed to support the project. Fifth grade students were randomly assigned a country or state to research, other than their own, in order to deepen their understanding of other cultures. In order to broaden students' perspectives and increase their ability to see the world from another culture's point of view, students were required to outline their research using Inspiration organizers, Visible Wall and Beyond the Wall that were designed to visually clarify the idea that some aspects of culture are observable and some aspects can only be suspected or imagined. These activities eventually led to over 80 web pages created by our fifth graders using a template made in FrontPage as they researched the cultures of the countries and states that make up the heritage of the Searingtown School family. Our fifth graders created a mural that is a symbolic mosaic of the rich culture that makes up our school. Based on their library research, under the guidance of our art teacher, students created a triptych mural – a global family tree that encompasses the world. Leaves representing different regions of the world are infused with symbolic expressions of different countries and states. After studying real and figurative walls with their fifth grade mentors from our gifted and talented program, fourth graders were asked to consider how walls could serve to divide people or to unite people. They were also encouraged to think about how they, as individuals, fit into the tapestry of the world. Students then wrote a series of poems about real and imaginary walls, as well as “I Am” poems, studies in self-exploration. These poems were later published in a book by the American Poetry Association. In conjunction with their writing, fourth grade “apprentices’ worked with our visiting professional photographer to learn how to transform digital photographs with Adobe PhotoShop and then, along with our technology teacher, assisted over 100 students to create digital self-portraits, in which students explored their identity in relation to their heritage and their dreams for the future. The portraits are powerful expressions of our students' vision of themselves and how they fit into the world.
This project was unique in many ways, but most importantly, it successfully brought an entire school community together. Walls That Talk offered students a small but powerful way to help promote tolerance by providing a conduit for students to express their feelings about themselves and the world while learning to respect and understand other cultures. Their technology and art projects gave them the opportunity to construct walls that bring communities together. Walls That Talk was a collaborative project in many different ways: o A collaboration between teachers o A collaboration with a University o A collaboration between grades o A collaboration with experts (Art Historian; Professional Photographer) o A collaboration between schools (One from Bulgaria, other NY schools at Long Island University’s Building Walls of Joyful Learning Event.) o A collaboration between the community and the school (The Herricks Community Center awarded us a grant for this project; A celebration event took place in our school attended by administrators and parents – our students were the ambassadors for this evening event.) This project was awarded ISTE’s SIGTel 2004 Online Shared Learning Award (first place). I was able to present the project at NECC and the response was so positive! I also presented Walls That Talk at the NYSCATE and ASSET Conferences in New York. The project has detailed instructions for teachers including Standards, Curriculum Areas & Objectives, Required Resources, and Method for Evaluation. There is a Suggested Reading List, a Call for Participation which explains the background and goals of the project and suggestions for various ways to participate. Walls That Talk has taken on a life of its own, much to my delight and surprise. I received an email from Anne Marie Weiss-Armush from DFW International www.DFWinternational.org in Texas requesting permission to reprint one of my student’s webpages on Chile in a Teacher’s Guide to Pablo Neruda & Chile because “I looked everywhere and think it is the best thing for elementary kids that is available on the net.” I also received an email from Craig Roland, Associate Professor of Art Education School of Art and Art History - University of Florida who wants to include the Walls That Talk website in his book, The Artroom in Cyberspace – An Art Teacher’s Guide to the Internet. How proud that made me of my students’ work! POLITICAL CARTOONING (FALL 2003) Political Cartooning was a project I developed as a spin-off a great online project, The Joke’s On…, developed by Susan Silverman, of the Comsewogue, Long Island school district. I emailed Susan, and asked permission to post my project as a spin-off and received the following response: Hi Karen, Your project is FANTASTIC and I'm going to link it to my project right away! Susan’s project asked that students create a political cartoon based on what they are studying or a current event. Cartoons had to include three constructed response questions, which would then be posted on her website. In conjunction with her project, I created Political Cartooning which elaborated on her project, focusing on fifth grade curriculum. An important part of our curriculum is the analysis of primary documents. Including Susan’s students, over 75 students participated in this project from Searingtown School in Albertson, Long Island and in Comsewogue, Long Island, New York. In Political Cartooning, students were asked to design a political cartoon based on a local or national event or current school issue. They then had to write an analysis of your cartoon and compared it to others created by fellow students and students from other schools. The project was based on the essential question, “How do political cartoons represent point of view?” In order to scaffold for success, the project was supported with tools such as Kidspiration graphic organizers that students could use to visually represent the purposes and techniques of cartoonists, and a PowerPoint show introducing symbols used by cartoonists. Students were required to read about issues online to find a topic for an editorial cartoon; use Kidspiration and Inspiration to organize their data and then scan their cartoons on to the computer. The resulting cartoons are impressive! As usual, Searingtown students far exceeded my expectations. They tackled subjects as varied as the Revolutionary War, Bin Laden and school lunches! Teachers were very pleased with the higher order thinking skills required to create cartoons that included symbols and to write a cartoon analysis. I was pleased that our students could exchange opinions with Susan’s students to increase learning from both schools. MEET THE CANDIDATES (FALL 2004)
I developed this project during the summer of 2004 while taking an online course, Ways of Knowing: Multiple Intelligences and Instructional Technology, offered by Walter McKenzie, author of Multiple Intelligences and Instructional Technology: A Manual for Every Mind. The course examined Dr. Howard Gardner's Theory of Multiple Intelligences within the context of today's digital technologies. The activities of the project are aligned to the nine multiple intelligences. The Multiple Intelligences alignment as well as the Social Studies, Language Arts, Information Literacy, and ISTE Technology standards met through this project are available on the website. Goals of the project included:
In Meet the Candidates, students worked in teams to research the platforms and policies of the 2004 presidential candidates and developed marketing plans and public awareness campaigns. Tasks included developing a video based on three promises the candidate would make to the American public, an Inspiration poster detailing the U.S. election process, campaign posters using Photoshop, and a PowerPoint slide show that would educate the public on the importance of voting. All participating schools were invited to vote using our online poll, allowing my students to examine how different geographic areas of the country voted and compare it to the real presidential election. The project was named “hot site of the week” from Blue Web’n and was featured on The Surfaquarium Online. Some Feedback: Hello! I just found your website, and I was wondering
if I could sign up my classes to participate in your online voting
project. I think that his is an excellent project! I teach at Immanuel Lutheran School in Bay City, Michigan. I have 5th, 7th, and 8th graders for different
subjects. I would love to be able to participate. Please let me
know if this is possible. Thanks for some great ideas!
I am joining the Meet the Candidates project. I have adapted for Florida and will use it with Gifted grades 2-6. This is a wonderful project. It shows a lot of creativity and thought. –Kristi Richburg, Rideout Elementary School
Hi Karen, I LOVE your project. Is it too late to add another teacher? Thanks! Susan Silverman Vice President-Iste-Sig for Telelearning
Hello! Kudo's on such a Fabulous Project!!!
Do you do any other online | |||
| COLLABORATION (10 points): | TOP | ||
| In my projects I have encouraged telecollaboration through email. Once I have a list of project participants, I usually set up a group email list to correspond with participants. I always offer to post links to participant’s work on my website. In some cases, as in the Walls That Talk project, I have actually published the work on my website. Unfortunately, my school does not have the technological equipment to do video conferencing so I do not have that option presently. For all of my projects I post a “call for participation” on MidLink Magazine as well as submit project descriptions to many educational listservs. I also try to have my projects reviewed and posted at educational resources such as Blue Web’n and Education Week. The most effective strategy I have employed to promote collaboration has been the use of group discussion boards. I particularly like QuickTopic, a free and easy to use discussion board. QuickTopic was an essential component of Walls That Talk; it was a place for teachers in my school, students from Long Island University, Ellen Griesedieck of Wall of America, and others to stop in to exchange ideas. I love the idea of blogging; I have set up a blog for the newest project I am working on for project partners to stop by; however, this is not a tool I can use with students because our school’s “net nanny” prohibits it. The word “collaboration” to me includes more than the exchange of information between different classes. My definition of the word aligns with the explanation that defines The Electronic Educational Village (The EEV) vision: “Collaboration key elements”
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| LEARNING REQUIREMENTS (10 points): | TOP | ||
| Perhaps because my two master’s degrees are in library science and educational technology, my projects always address Information Literacy Standards and ISTE Technology standards. In fact, along with the other two elementary school library media specialists in my district, I developed an Information Literacy Scope and Sequence because I believe that the ability to locate information, to evaluate it, and to use it effectively is an increasingly vital skill for the success of students today. Thus, my projects tend to focus on creating online virtual environments which support collaboration, promote the appropriate use of technology tools, and encourage the inquiry process. My projects address the following information literacy learning requirements:
All of my projects support the NETS standards, particularly the following: 1. Basic operations and concepts Students are proficient in the use of technology. 2. Social, ethical, and human issues Students develop positive attitudes toward technology uses that support lifelong learning, collaboration, personal pursuits, and productivity. 3. Technology productivity tools Students use productivity tools to collaborate in constructing technology-enhanced models, preparing publications, and producing other creative works. 4. Technology communications tools 5. Students use telecommunications to collaborate, publish, interact with peers, experts, and other audiences. Depending on the project, NYS social studies, science, art, mathematics and language arts standards are interwoven. Some of my projects were created to strictly support our curriculum-- Federal Holidays, Political Cartooning and Meet the Candidates were specifically created to support our fifth grade social studies curriculum. Detailed standards information can be found for Federal Holidays on the teacher page. Political Cartooning standards information is available as well. Meet the Candidates standards information is available for teachers and also includes a unit plan detailing alignment to multiple intelligences. Walls That Talk, Federal Holidays, Meet the Candidates, Political Cartooning and Circle of Life support state learning standards, but more importantly, support my school district’s mission statement: “Herricks School District, a Community of Learners, through its educational programs, promotes intellectual curiosity and creative expression, values diversity, and measures success by one's personal development and contribution to society.”
It was also important for our students to identify connections between different disciplines in the curriculum. In Walls That Talk, for example, various activities were seamlessly integrated and often incorporated standards of many different curriculum areas. More detailed information is available on the Walls That Talk Teacher Information Page. | |||
| ASSESSMENT (10 points): | TOP | ||
| As a library media specialist, I do not give out grades to my students. However assessment is a crucial part of every project I have created – both for myself and for my students. My projects include a rubric and/or evaluation page; in most cases they are available online for both my own students and other participants. In the Circle of Life project, I had assessment pages for each student role to go to monitor how they were doing and self-evaluate. Please see the following links: However, I think the best measure of their learning can be seen at the website they created! Walls That Talk relied on authentic assessment. We gave students feedback on how well they understood the information and on what they needed to improve. Students also did self-evaluations at the end of the project. They accepted responsibility for measuring their learning by writing reflections that discussed what they thought they did well and what they needed to improve. For our purposes, this method of assessment helped us to see where we needed to improve our instructional design. The most informative feedback was the students’ self-reflections. I had my students write reflections on their experiences; I also had an end of the year “Research Program Survey” for my fourth and fifth grade students to fill out. It was absolutely evident that the children were astounded by how much they accomplished and how much they learned. This year’s fifth grade (last year’s fourth grade students) came to our research program (a combination of library and technology co-taught by the library media specialist and technology teacher) with excitement, enthusiasm and anticipation. End of year surveys contained comments such as, “I wish we could come to research more often” That is the best measure of success of all! I used Project-Based Learning Checklists and written self-reflections for Federal Holidays. For Meet the Candidates I had rubrics for each team to fill out and they are on the project website for all participants to use: I also created and was the facilitator of a collegial circle in my school for Walls That Talk, which was a source of excellent feedback throughout the project. I kept a journal of it online. This journal kept track of the development of the project, the timeline, and linked to our discussion group on QuickTopic. Images of both can be seen below:
We were able to monitor and adjust the project as we went along to make sure that the learning outcomes we were trying to achieve were being accomplished.
We had a celebration day attended by administration and Searingtown parents. The response was fantastic which told me that the project had succeeded. Another measure of success of my projects are the responses I got from colleagues, students, and parents. Emails in the Project Description of this narrative attest to that, as well as the testimonials written on my behalf. | |||
| AFFECTIVE AND OTHER OUTCOMES (10 points): | TOP | ||
| In the Circle of Life project, by encouraging stewardship of the New York marine environment, students became aware of the idea that success could be measured by one's personal development and contribution to society. This project focused on creating an online virtual environment, a “floating classroom,” which supported collaboration, teaching and the inquiry process. The project, through the use of the Internet and hands on experience engaged students in the critical analysis of societal issues and empowered them to become active, critically thinking members of the local community. Our virtual "floating classroom" empowered students to become independent thinkers who solve real-life problems by making connections between their studies and their world. I am especially proud of the Outreach page of the site where students put together an informative report based on the exchange of information between themselves and an ‘expert’ – a marine biologist from the Riverhead Foundation. The student website reflects the learning that took place through our collaboration with the Riverhead Foundation. Our students adopted injured sea animals and participated in a beach clean-up of one of our local beaches. One fourth grade girl told me after the project that she wanted to become a marine biologist and was signing up for a summer session in marine biology. Although we did not collaborate with other schools on this project, I feel it was an electronic collaboration in the sense that my students could email questions to marine biologists from the Riverhead Foundation, access their electronic resources, and contribute to the Foundation’s educational knowledge base. The Federal Holidays project began only a year after the 9/11 tragedy, an event which touched the entire world, but particularly those of us here in New York. In our school alone faculty members and a student lost loved ones, and everyone knew someone who perished that day. The feelings of somberness and patriotism that enveloped our country then were reflected in some of my students’ holidays…it was touching, to say the least. Having my students think about and take an active role in contributing to the well-being of our country’s psyche was healing and powerful. Sharing their voice with students from another state and even another continent was empowering. My students were able to learn about how national holidays are celebrated in Italy and compare it to how we celebrate them in the U.S. They also corresponded through email with the Italian students and exchanged cultural information. Being able to do this gave them a different perspective and opened up their world a little bit. The Italian students wrote to us in English, and my students had to learn to appreciate the effort that went into that, since English was not the Italian students’ first language. In Walls That Talk, we wanted our fifth grade students to do country reports that were deeper than the usual school country report that regurgitates statistics, flags, and mottos. Thus, before students were allowed to begin their research, Socratic Seminars, based on lessons from The PeaceCorps Worldwise Curriculum, transpired. Students participated in “quick writes” in which they reflected about the feelings associated with belonging to a special group. They were assigned homework to interview their families to find out what was special about their cultures. These activities increased appreciation of other cultures and self-esteem about their own cultural identity. When we first began the Socratic Seminars, many of the students were embarrassed to talk about their family’s traditions, favorite foods, etc. By the time we were done with the various activities of the project, students were infused with a sense of pride about who they are and where they come from. On May 20, 2003, hundreds of children from school districts all over the metro NY area gathered together on the C.W. Post campus of Long Island University to celebrate Building Joyful Walls of Learning. I ran a Walls That Talk workshop at the event where students participated in creating a wall of peace poetry. Students from about six schools, including mine, from the New York area took turns adding two-line stanzas to the poem. My students participated in a “Let there be peace on earth” rally with hundreds of other students and left handprints on a canvas that will be part of Ellen Griesedieck’s Wall of America mural. Students from Tzvetan Naydenov's class from the Petko R. Slaveikov School in Vratza, Bulgaria wrote poems about peace in celebration of Spring Day 2004 in Europe. When Mr. Naydenov’s class came across the Walls That Talk website he emailed me to have his students’ poetry included on our website. This was very exciting for my students! Over the past couple of years I have received a few emails pointing out errors in the country websites that my students created. For example, on one site we mixed up maps of countries, and one lady from England was quite disturbed by the description of fashion in England on our student site. She wrote: Good morning,
I am an English woman living close to London, and I have just read your website. The facts relating to fashion and food are totally wrong!! the only women wearing "plain skirts and simple accessories" are very rare, possibly over 50, (or the Queen) - the rest of us dress in a very fashionable European style akin to Paris. Our food is also very cosmopolitan, bacon is still enjoyed occasionally as a breakfast dish, and Yorkshire pudding is only served traditionally with beef, usually on a Sunday. Most diets these days are sushi for lunch, and salads, with Italian, French and modern sophisticated food for dinner. The children’s game is also British Bulldog, not Bullfrog, and no-one plays it anymore. With regard to "Sir" or "Ma'am" the only people referred to in this fashion are members of the Royal family, or peerage (Dukes, Lords etc.) The chances of having to use this form of address is very unlikely indeed, although polite efficient hotel and waiting staff may refer to individuals as Sir or Madam, just as in America.
I look forward to seeing some corrections on your website.
With kind regards Elizabeth A. Norton (Mrs)
On behalf of my students, I emailed Mrs. Norton back: Thank you for bringing this to my attention. I will
make the corrections. Would you mind if I gave you credit for these facts? The
site you referred to was created as a research project by a 10 year old; her
facts were found on online sites and books on England. This shows me how
important it is to get real 'expert' data! She responded: Thank you for responding so promptly, I hope I didn't
cause any offence!
Meet the Candidates was a very exciting project for my students because it was timely, it involved many technologies, and it gave them the chance have their voice heard on issues reserved for the "over 18 crowd." I believe that this project demonstrates how technology can redefine traditional tasks. One of my goals was to show how technology can ENGAGE students in learning. I incorporated websites that employed all types of resources and activities to engage the students, such as Time for Kids: Inside the Issues; Weekly Reader: Election 2004 - The Issues and its Election Game. The project combined standards, quality resources, meaningful activities and collaboration. The project allowed them to actively participate by campaigning and voting. Their videos, originally intended to be commercials, evolved into real productions! One group created a Larry King show and another group did a “man on the street” video. Their videos, shown at our election rally, were simply phenomenal. Of course the acting and learning video production was fun for the students, but more importantly, it required synthesizing their research of Bush and Kerry’s political platforms, as did all the tasks. The project was interactive and hands-on; it required teamwork, debate, and consensus building, making it an appealing and effective learning experience. Waiting for our election results to come in from around the country made the learning even more authentic; to end up having the same voting result as the real election was surprising to me, to my students it was a validation. If I can sum up the affect of engaged learning like this it would be: GIVING STUDENTS A VOICE THAT HAS THE POSSIBILITY OF BEING HEARD AROUND THE WORLD ON ISSUES THAT MATTER TO THEM PROMOTES A LOVE FOR LEARNING! | |||
| PROFESSIONAL IMPACT (10 points): | TOP | ||
| Through my masters in educational technology I was fortunate enough to go to workshops given by Howard Gardner, Bernie Dodge, and Dr. Milton Chen of the George Lucas Foundation. I was able to meet people in and out of the educational community – artists, holocaust survivors, humanitarians, museum directors, and people of multicultural backgrounds and concerns. Filled with all of this knowledge and inspired by these great thinkers and trailblazers, I am highly motivated to create projects that incorporate multimedia with a thirst for learning about the perspectives, beliefs and stories of others. It is my mission to use technology to stimulate collaborative work and inquiry based interaction; to promote a constructivist, resource-based learning environment that encourages critical thinking, team learning, mentoring, and shared inquiry; to integrate library, technology, and classroom curricula; to mentor educators in the creation and implementation of technology-based lesson instruction and student assessment in conjunction with state, library, and technology standards. Encouraged by the success of my projects and the recognition the projects have earned, I have given professional development courses in the teacher center of my school district for the past four years. All of the courses I have offered are based on integrating technology into education. I have offered courses on creating webquests, creating classroom websites, integrating digital video technologies, using web-based technology tools, etc. I have been very proactive in my district; I am on the technology committee, I am the webmaster for my school; and I know that my knowledge of information literacies and educational technology are well-respected and often tapped into. Basically, I love to teach and I love to be innovative. I’m not afraid to dream big, and I have written grants to help my teaching dreams come true. I received mini-grants for the Circle of Life project, the Walls That Talk project, and just last week received a grant from Teaching Tolerance to support the next online shared learning project focusing on child labor and children's rights that is being developed right now in collaboration with my colleague, Beth Williams (art teacher). The grant will allow us to publish a children’s book on the subject of children’s rights. I am motivated every day by the wonderful children I teach and the amazing colleagues and principal I am fortunate to work with. I have lead workshops at conferences over the past three years. I have presented workshops in which I have shared the learning outcomes of my online projects at the NSBA Technology & Learning Conference, at NECC, and locally at ASSET (Associated Suffolk Supervisors of Educational Technology) and NYSCATE (NYS Association for Computers & Technology in Education). I will be presenting this March at ASSET again and in May at the NYLA SLMA Conference (School Library Media Association of the NY Library Association) on integrating technology into the library research program. The opportunities to network, go to workshops, and receive feedback on your own projects at these conferences are so valuable. Professional growth naturally occurs through this type of collegial environment where one has the opportunity to learn about what others are doing as well share what you are doing.. I have also given workshops at my school to parents and local community members. As I have mentioned before, I presented the Walls That Talk project to the Herricks Community Coalition, an organization of community members whose mission is to promote tolerance and understanding in the multicultural community I teach in. I have given workshops to parents on using the Internet and on the research program I lead for fourth and fifth grades in my school. I remain an active villager at the Electronic Educational Village, Through the EEV I continue to meet new teachers, get new ideas and set up new collaborations, as I am doing now with the child labor project I previously mentioned: From the EEV April 2005 Online Calendar: Chivy Sok, Human Rights Chivy Sok, a child in the Killing Fields in Cambodia and since then a human rights activitist, will conduct an all day workshops (counts as two for those of you in T.E.A.M.). She will work with up to 20 upper elementary, middle, and high school teachers who want to address this tough topic with their students. She said she wants only passionate teachers, not just mildly curious ones. We know about Chivy through the efforts of Karen Kliegman, graduate of TEAM in 2002 and active with us since. Karen will see who would like to attend from her district, Herricks, and then we will select from the people who sign up here, to make a group with no more than 20. Chivy is coming in from California just for this session. It will be a special EEV event. Sign up if you think you may be interested. We have information now on the day and will be sending it to our students via e-mail. My relationship with MidLink has been beneficial in many ways. First, it gives me the opportunity to exchange knowledge with and learn from the MidLink team. Caroline McCullen is a mover and shaker in the ed-tech world and has been an inspiration and mentor to me. Brenda Dyck, who is also nominated for this award, is a prolific creator of online shared learning projects, a writer, and the best colleague one could want to work with. In fact, all of the people associated with this publication are talented, energetic professionals who have confirmed for me that all of our volunteer effort and time we put into “pushing the envelope” is well worth it and both professionally and personally rewarding. Being part of the MidLink team has allowed me to gain a wider audience for my projects, to attend national conferences, to give workshops to college graduate educational technology classes, and most of all, to work with other educators who share the same passion for using technology as a tool to enhance student learning. My professional growth can only continue to expand through my associations with MidLink, with the EEV and other online communities. | |||
| PERSONAL IMPACT (10 points): | TOP | ||
| Well, I’ve certainly come a long way from putting papers in kindergarten cubbies! I cannot emphasize enough how going back to get my graduate degrees has changed me personally. I have become an active learner and contributor to learning. I have become a mentor to some and am mentored by others. I am passionate about what I do, proud of what I do, and love what I do. I am awed by the colleagues I work with and am honored to be able to learn from them. But, as we are all well aware, there are challenges to contend with and problems to overcome! When I approached my principal (who, by the way, is absolutely the most fantastic, supportive principal on the face of the earth –lucky me!) about Walls That Talk, she thoroughly embraced it. However, not everyone shared my enthusiasm. Change is difficult; doing what one knows how to do is easy. I was disappointed that the whole school was not as thrilled as I was; looking back at that now, I realize how naïve I was. I went back to my principal for advice. She told me that I had to find a way to implement the project without making anyone feel imposed upon and that I had to learn not to take rejection to heart. What good advice that was! A few weeks later, I had put together a luncheon in the library, “La Fiesta en la Bibliotheca,” with my art teacher colleague, where we served up Mexican food and guests from the EEV. It produced a congenial, non-threatening ambiance which, in the end, produced several teachers interested in being part of the project. I found a way to make it work, by putting together interested teachers in a collegial circle, by partnering with the most enthusiastic teachers (our art teacher and computer teacher) to share the brainstorming, work, tears, and laughter. I learned to reach out to others to who could help and to help others who needed guidance. Walls That Talk produced its own energy, it was a snowball of a project, and every step of the way, from the initial disappointments to the rush of success was a learning experience for me. Being part of that experience gave me the confidence to speak at workshops and the motivation to keep moving forward. I also learned that some people will not change and that not everyone will understand how important it is for teachers to embrace technology and to create collaborative online learning opportunities. I’ve learned to not to get frustrated and to cultivate the relationships that I have with educators of a similar vision with the hope that more will join in the fun as time goes on. Learning how to take in the positive and let the negative pass by me has been key for my own professional and personal growth. Another problem which I have not yet solved involves telecollaboration. I find that very often other teachers across the country “participate” in my projects but when it comes to sharing data the participation kind of dwindles away. I am happy that other teachers are using my online projects with their students, there certainly is a sense of self-satisfaction with that, but it is a little disappointing that sometimes the connection ends there, despite my efforts. I am also not able to set up email accounts for students and our Internet filter does not allow any group-type website. That poses another difficulty; at this point, all I can do is send email to the collaborating teacher with attachments. But I would rather that the students truly interact --perhaps one day that will be possible. | |||
| PROMOTING YOUR PROJECTS (10 points): | TOP | ||
| I promote my projects on MidLink Magazine. We have a project registration form on MidLink for all of our projects. I also send out project descriptions to various educational technology listservs, such as Classroom Connect, Riverdeep and MiddleWeb. I have promoted all of my projects at the conferences referred to previously. I have written for the SIGTel Bulletin about Walls That Talk. I have also been able to promote my projects at the Electronic Educational Village at Long Island University. Examples of online “call for participation” pages are below:
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| DIRECT PROJECT ASSISTANCE (10 points): | TOP | ||
| As I have previously stated, I have a teacher’s page on my projects that include standards and project directions. As time went on and I got better at this, I started including timelines and equipment needed. All of my projects have whatever handouts or graphic organizers are needed to take part in the project, they are available as PDF, document, or Inspiration files. I always include my email, in fact, I encourage and hope for correspondence, to answer any questions or concerns. In some cases, as I have mentioned previously, I have started QuickTopic discussion boards. I also do group emails to all project participants. Below are examples of project assistance on my sites;
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| EMPOWERING OTHERS (10 points): | TOP | ||
| Through the courses I teach in the Herricks Teacher Center and by modeling technology integration through my projects, I believe that I have empowered and encouraged other teachers to, at the very least, recognize the power of online collaborative learning. I think that the unexpected connections between our students and students from different parts of the country and even the world has enlightened teachers to the possibilities and usefulness of technology and its power to multiply the impact of teaching and learning. Professional Associations:
Publications:
Creating a Learning Community: “This article presents the successful integration of information problem-solving skills, technology, curriculum, and artistic expression. This integration can highly motivate and inspire both teachers and students. Steps to create this project-based module, "Walls That Talk," are provided. The steps are designed to change the way children view themselves as global citizens. This extensive online project promoted the development of a learning community where teachers, administrators, students and parents could learn together in order to benefit student achievement as well as professional and personal growth. Readers will need RealPlayer to view and listen to the clip.” Contributing Author: THE COMPUTER AS AN EDUCATIONAL TOOL, 4e, by Richard Forcier and Don Descy. Publication date: 2005 Conference Workshops Given:
Upcoming Workshops:
Websites: For the past four years, I have been the webmaster for Searingtown School and Searingtown School Library Media Center, both sites have received awards and recognition. (Please note: My district is switching over to a website provider in the very near future; it is possible that those URLs will change during the judging! My web projects were available from the Searingtown website; however due to the fact that the district is switching over to this new service (which will not have the capabilities to host my projects), my online work is now available at Mrs. Kliegman’s Webfolio.
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| GSN's ROLE (10 points): | TOP | ||
| I think the biggest challenge to conducting online collaborative learning projects is overcoming technology-related obstacles. I have found that many teachers from other schools do not have server space and/or have limited tools to electronically communicate. In fact, I almost had this problem myself! As I have mentioned, my district is switching over to a new website provider in the very near future. Luckily for me, I have been able to find server space elsewhere, due to my associations with Long Island University and North Carolina State University. In the past, I have had nine and ten year olds create websites using FrontPage - I will not be able to do that any longer. In any case, server space is an issue for many teachers. Using a free server such as Geocities is not always an option; for example in my district, free web servers are filtered out. Global SchoolNet is a wonderful resource for teachers interested in getting involved in collaborative projects and I am embarrassed to say that I was not even aware until now that I could register my projects there!! I will take care of that immediately! I think it would be wonderful if GSN could provide discussion space for teachers and for students, too! There are other free discussion boards available on the ‘net, but if one were participating in a project listed in GSN, it would be great to be able to stay within the site. I think the main goal for encouraging teachers to electronically collaborate is to make things as easy as possible for them. Time is always an issue and an obstacle! I don’t think I am savvy enough to develop new tools, but I certainly would be interested in testing them! I was very surprised, honored and grateful to be nominated for this award and I thank you for taking the time to consider me! Karen Kliegman | |||
I graduated from Washington University in St. Louis in 1979 with a Bachelor of Arts in English. After a stint in the advertising
world, I married and had two children. One day I walked into the office of my
children’s elementary school and noticed a job posting for a school aide. I
thought that it might be a perfect way to put a little money in my pocket while
my kids were in school. I applied for the job and was hired by Watson Elementary School in the Rockville Centre, NY school district. When I look back on it
now I laugh! I went to that interview in shorts with my two young children in
tow, thinking that I would never get the job. However, much to my surprise, I
was hired as a Kindergarten Aide -- my educational career was off and running!
I remember that during that first year as an aide, my most troubling dilemma
was figuring out the teacher’s cubby system! At any rate, the following year
the school district made the decision to hire teaching assistants and to reduce
the number of library media specialists in their five elementary schools from
three to one. My principal called in all of the aides to tell them this news
and to offer all of us teaching assistant jobs. I fervently hoped to be the
Kindergarten TA, but he had me earmarked for the library. I was very
disappointed! Little did I know what a huge impact his decision would make on
my professional life. To this day I am overwhelming grateful to him.
There is so much to
say about this project, I don’t know quite where to begin, so I will start at
the beginning! You never know how or when your imagination will be sparked.
Sometimes a great book will inspire your creativity. Sometimes it is an issue
or a world event. For me, it was a trip to Connecticut with a group of
graduate students from Long Island University’s educational technology program,
T.E.A.M. We chartered a bus and visited the home and studio of artist Ellen
Griesedieck. A former photographer for Sports Illustrated and an artist for
Paul Newman’s line of products, Ellen is a petite woman with a grand vision.
She is in the process of creating The Wall of America: a giant painting –110
feet long, 40 feet high – a kaleidoscope of men and women engaged in 38
different kinds of work. In 
Our 
Meet the Candidates
was probably my most successful project so far in terms of participant
response. Fifth through eighth grade classes from New York, Illinois,
Virginia, Massachusetts, Minnesota, Louisiana, New Jersey, Ohio, California,
Florida, Pennsylvania, North Carolina, and Michigan participated in our
project, so I am guessing over 400 students participated!! 
By facilitating the
love of learning, Walls That Talk affected the way children interact as global
citizens by fostering the development of students as good citizens in a
culturally diverse, interdependent world. By giving them the tools to develop
understanding, students felt connected and empowered, allowing them to reveal
the potential within themselves. We asked out students to be writers, to be
artists, to be researchers, to be technology experts, and to think about their
hopes and dreams for the future. They far exceeded our expectations.
School Library Media
Activities Monthly, December 1999. Authored and published library curriculum
unit.
