Meeting with Megan at Peck

Today Janey and I met with Megan at Peck to discuss the different parts of our project and get her feedback. Overall the meeting was very successful. We decided that the survey we were planning on sending to the teachers is probably unnecessary since we already have a pretty good idea of what classes we want to do and Megan knows when would be best to hold the classes. So we went ahead and scheduled the two excel classes. They are tentatively scheduled for March 7th and March 14th. We are also planning on doing an i-Clicker workshop (run by an i-Clicker professional) either the last week of March or the first week of April.

On Monday, Megan is going to check with the computer lab at Peck and send us an email to confirm that we can use it on those dates. Our next steps are create the documentation and handout for the class, create a flier to send out to the teachers, send Megan the lesson plan (when we send the flier), figure out how we want to handle RSVPs and check with Carol on the i-Clicker purchase.

Meeting with Arts Integration Working Group - 2/13/12

Today Travis and I met with the Arts Integration Working Group at Peck School. The group is a collaboration between the Enchanted Circle Theater and teachers at Peck. They are hoping to get the arts into as much of the curriculum as possible and are hoping to expand their ideas to as many schools as possible. We discussed the possibility of a wiki to store their various lesson plans and other resources. The Arts Integration group likes the idea of a wiki so we are going to proceed with that plan. They are going to work on compiling the materials for us to upload to the site by the beginning of March. In the meantime, they asked us if we would create a template that they could use for the lesson plans. It should have the headings below:

• Learning Objectives
• Materials
• Room Setup
• Instructions with time expectations
• Adaptations and Extensions
• Resources
• Attachments and Media

The site should be organized by grade (K-8) then subject (ELA, Math, Science, Social Studies) then theme (immigration, magnets, etc...) which will be added as we go.

We discussed who would have privileges to update the site and determined that it would be best if the Enchanted Circle Theater group has control over the site including hosting and updating.

The last thing we discussed was a list of steps that we need to take to complete the project and came up with 5.

1. Set up account
2. Create template
3. Receive materials from group
4. Upload materials
5. Create documentation and teach group how to maintain site

Meeting with JC Sawyer

This morning Kevin and I met with JC Sawyer from OIT to learn some of the basics about i-clickers and other personal response devices. Ms. Sawyer was involved with the process of introducing i-clickers to the UMass campus, and her tutorial was very helpful for us.

Setting up the i-clicker system is very easy and only requires a USB drive and a basic operating system (i.e. doesn't require Windows Vista). Ms. Sawyer demonstrated some of the helpful features including an instructor remote which allows teachers to ask a question with the simple press of a button, different ways to represent data, and demographics. Purchasing an i-clicker instructor kit for Peck would cost $200. Student clickers would be about $20-$40 each. Ms. Sawyer provided us with some contact information for if we do decide to go with i-clickers and recommended that we check out ebay/amazon for cheaper options.

We really appreciated Ms. Sawyer's help, and her tutorial will be helpful as we move forward in developing out project.

Team Meeting 2/3/2012

On Friday we had our weekly team meeting in the Campus Center. Our agenda for the meeting included making adjustments to the timeline, preparing for the meeting with the Arts Integration group, and preparing for the meeting with JC in OIT. Unfortunately, Megan was out this past week so we were unable to get her feedback on the teacher survey.

In the coming week we hope get her feedback and make the necessary changes so that we can distribute it as soon as possible. We will continue to research the possibility of obtaining PRS devices for Peck, and continue to develop further lesson plans.