PART A - Description of Need or Opportunity

Educational Need or Opportunity:
I teach elementary students computer skills in a technology lab.  I see every class for at least 45 min. once a week.  During this time I introduce the students and teachers to technology skills that the teachers can expand upon with computers in the classroom.  Our school has COWs (computers on wheels) and a library computer lab, so the students and teachers have several opportunities to work on the computers outside my technology lab.  I struggle with having 26 students of different skill levels, learning at different paces within a single class.  My educational need is to be able to reach each student at their skill level without slowing other students back in the learning process or leaving slower students behind.

How I plan to address this need with Technology:
I would like to have multiple solutions, but using our school website as the foundation and central location for these solutions.  First, I would like to create screencasts of my lessons, so that students can revisit the tutorial if they get stuck.  This will also be useful for teachers when they go back to their classroom to reinforce the lessons.  I can use Quicktime, Screenr or Camtasia and load them to a "video tutorial" section of our school website.  Secondly, I would like to create advanced skill lesson options for those students who finish early.  Our school website is set up to be a central location for the students to access educational resources.  However, I only have educational games, no skill specific lessons with goals.  I plan to utilize the 21things4students site to help me with my initial ideas.  Third, our school also has 40 itouches and after I researched the 'flip your class' concept, I would love to put some of my video tutorials on an RSS feed from the school website for our students to access on these devices.

Logistics of Solution:
The tutorials and advanced skill lessons will be posted on our school website (www.creeksidecomets.org) under our student links section.  This will allow me to use it in my lab, however, it will be open for all teachers to use in their classrooms or for parents to use with students at home.  We already have a section for students to access educational games and websites we use in the lab, however, I would like to make this more inline with the lessons and skills I am teaching the students.

Relevant Research and Resources:
I plan to use the resources on 21things4students.  I hope to check out a few district wikis, Mariah said she can share her districts resources.  I will be utilizing the professional tutorials provided by Apple, Google and other companies whose webites, software, and programs we use.  Our website is broken into grade levels, so I can also post grade level specific videos of my own.  The websites below are a few I've gotten some inspiration from:

http://weblearning.psu.edu/blended-learning-initiative/what_is_blended_learning
http://www.21things4students.net/
http://www.apple.com/findouthow/mac/
http://electriceducator.blogspot.com/2010/09/flip-your-classroom-through-reverse.html
http://www.peterpappas.com/2011/07/how-to-flip-flippingyour-classroom-get-your-students-do-work.html


A plan for the portion to be implemented during CEP 812:
I plan to redesign the student links section or our school website during CEP 812 to add the advanced skill lessons.  I also plan to create a video tutorial section and populate it with lessons we have already introduced this year in computer lab.  I would like to do at least one lesson before Nov. 1st, using the 'flip your classroom' concept.

Indicators of a successful project:
I plan to get feed back from teachers and students after I redesign our lessons.  I also should see improvement in the flow of our tech lessons.  Teachers are not utilizing the computers in their classroom as much as I hope they would and if my project is successful they should have an easier time teaching with the computers in their classrooms.