Technology Matters Minigrant Application

I. Cover Page

Minigrant Title:

Communication Matters: Facilitating Site Projects with Technology

Contact Information:

Northern California Writing Project

400 W. 1^st Street

Chico CA 95929-0830

Minigrant Personnel:

Project Director:

Tom Fox

tafox@csuchico.edu

(530) 898-6462

Technology Liaison:

Peter Kittle

pkittle@csuchico.edu

(530) 898-5305

Abstract:

This minigrant proposes to pilot the use of specific communication technologies, primarily weblogging, to facilitate a research project on the efficacy of the Northern California Writing Project's inservice programs. The use of blogging will assist with the collection, archiving, and analysis of the research project, as well as provide continuity for TCs involved in the inservice program.

Signatures:

Tom Fox, Director               Date

Peter Kittle, TL                    Date

II. Description of Project

The Northern California Writing Project (NCWP) has recently suffered tremendous cuts in funding due primarily to California's faltering economy. This potentially devastating change has caused the NCWP to focus on its inservice programs as a means to make up for the lost state-funded revenue. The effect of this change in focus has been, overall, far more positive than might be anticipated. The increased number of inservices has created a new need for TCs to take on professional development roles, thus enhancing the site's continuity. At the same time, building this capacity has caused some organizational challenges, especially in terms of the collecting, disseminating, and archiving of information. While this is a site-wide issue, the use of minigrant funding will target a specific area as a pilot of using technology to facilitate the functioning of the NCWP.

In Fall 2003, the NCWP began an extensive inservice program with the Marysville Joint Unified School District. The program served two leadership teams-one elementary, one secondary-for building professional expertise in academic reading and writing across the disciplines in the 2003-04 school year, and began a series of site-based inservices which will eventually reach every school in the district. The study of this project has been awarded a research development grant from the NWP Local Site Research Initiative, which we hope to use to acquire a fully-supported NWP research grant next year. In addition to my role as Technology Liaison, I am the lead researcher on this project.

Organization of this inservice program-the largest undertaken by the NCWP to date-is daunting, and keeping track of the work done in presentations and school visits has proven problematic. While two members of the site's leadership team are overseeing the work (one at the elementary, another at the secondary level), the number of actual presenters involved is in the double digits. As the researcher of this program, I need to know what is happening at the inservice presentations, site visits, and model lesson performances; however, scheduling conflicts and other logistical barriers make personal attendance at each inservice session impossible. I propose to use the Technology Matters Minigrant to support the piloting of technology-facilitated communication as a key component to this research project, helping me to manage the information pertinent to the Marysville inservice program.

I have already set up s weblog space, part of NWP's blog service, to become a group information clearinghouse for all TCs involved in the Marysville inservice program. Four categories for posting have already been created, with additional categories easily added should the need arise. Initially, the blog asks presenters to discuss (1) plans and strategies for inservices, (2) reports on inservices, (3) reflections on inservices, and (4) problems and concerns arising in inservices. The goal here is threefold. First, it will facilitate communication among the NCWP members, and allow the various presenters to see how their particular work fits into the overall context of the inservice. Second, it will provide a record of the work which will be integral to assessing the overall effectiveness of the inservice program. Finally, it will serve to introduce TCs to the use of collaborative technology-mediated communication as a genuine, purposeful practice that they may wish use in their own classroom practices.

Regarding this final goal, it may appear that the use of technology in classroom practice takes a figurative back seat to other goals here. I would make the argument, however, that the overall experience of the technology fits the general practices of the NCWP. In professional development presentations, for instance, we always immerse participants in situations that simulate those that their students might experience. The idea is to provide  participants with a solid, students'-eye view of a pedagogical approach. This grant's use of blogging will afford TCs the opportunity to use the technology for a real purpose, and will allow them to assess for themselves (with some scaffolding) the technology's potential for use in future classroom applications, as well as for professional collaborations.

The largest potential problem facing this project involves training the TCs to use the technology. The blog posting will require considerable effort on the part of the inservice presenters, both before and after each session. However, all of the TCs involved know that the Marysville inservice is being researched, and know that the research being done is important not just to our local site, but to the NWP as well. This alone would probably be motivation enough (especially when combined with our TCs generally terrific work ethic) for them to complete the blogs. Still, to reinforce the importance of this blogging work, the budget for the minigrant provides stipends for each TC.

One last issue arising from this project is the fact that the technology being used is hosted and maintained elsewhere-in this case, by the NWP's agreements with Manila Software and the Kern County school district. The NCWP has the physical and technological capacity to host its own services. Some of the budget for this minigrant is earmarked for server and content-management software for implementation at our local site.

III. How Project Meets Grant Criteria

•a)      Integration of technology into core work and priorities

The proposed project integrates technology into two of the three core areas of the NCWP: Inservice and Continuity. As a facilitating technology, the blog use will help the site coordinate and evaluate its inservice work. During face-to-face meetings, TCs spend a significant amount of time just asking one another about what they have been doing in their inservice work. While such interactions are important, they could be focused more clearly on specific problems or issues if the TCs were already aware of what had been happening in the inservice sessions.

In addition, the use of the blog will operate as an indirect service to the site's continuity. While many of the TCs involved in the Marysville inservice program already regularly use technology for communication, the requirement of using the blog for reporting on the inservice will introduce them to a new collaborative technology. It is our hope that, through using the blog in a meaningful context, TCs will also consider and discuss ways of making use of the blogging software in classroom contexts.

•b)      Support of TL as local site leader

I already am in a position of leadership at my local site. I am a specialist in Secondary Programs for the NCWP, and am the lead researcher for the Marysville inservice project. The work that this minigrant would support, however, would allow me to combine my various roles as TC, program specialist, researcher, and tech liaison. My hope is that, through using the blog technology to manage and research the Marysville inservice program, the utility and potential of technology to support the NCWP's core work will become more visible to the leaders and active TCs in our site. As that technological aspect becomes more prominent, so too will the role of the Technology Liaison position.

•c)      Support of national TL network's knowledge base

The NWP and many of its affiliated local sites have already been using blogs and other technology-mediated communication tools in pedagogy for years. The project I propose here would extend the use of such tools into the field of active research. As the NWP is currently making research a priority via its Local Site Research Intitiative, the NCWP's minigrant would connect two important NWP initiatives, and would provide a case study for the ways that TLs can use their expertise to support local site research.

IV. Timeline

September-October 2004:

• v Brief training session on use of blog, including username/password issues, navigation of site, and rationale for using blog for this purpose
• v Individual meetings (as needed) with TCs teaching in the Marysville Inservice program

September 2004-May 2005:

• v Implementation and use of blog to track inservice program
• v Group discussions of blog use (reactions, concerns, suggestions) during regular NCWP meetings

May-August 2005:

• v Analysis of data from blog
• v Meeting with TCs to discuss accuracy of blog's representation of inservice work, and uses of blogs in pedagogy
• v Coordination of research information from blog with data gained through other means

V. Dissemination Plan

There are numerous possibilities for disseminating the results of this project. We plan to publish the results of the research project as widely as possible, from briefs for the school board and news releases to conference presentations and journal articles. Especially in the academic arenas, the description of methodology section will pay particular attention to the ways that technology impacted the study. I also would like to present the specific results of using the collaborative blogging at the NWP annual meeting, as well as publish these findings in an NWP publication (Voice, if short, or Quarterly if a more extensive piece is produced).

VI. Budget

Matching funds are found in the NCWP overall site budget.