Digital Learning Environment Inventory

2014-2015
1
The following Digital Learning Environment Inventory assesses the digital tools available to teachers and
students at Highlands High School, the only high school in the Fort Thomas Independent School District, in
Fort Thomas, Kentucky.

1. What tools, software, operating systems, and equipment are available in your school and classroom?
(Including but not limited to: videoconferencing, streaming, photos sharing sites, video sharing sites,
document sharing sites, podcasts, blogs, wikis, social networking sites, etc.)
a. Throughout the Fort Thomas Independent School District, there is one computer in every
classroom designated for teacher use. A vast majority of the teacher workstations are PCs
employing Microsoft Operating Systems. However, a limited number of classrooms (5) at the
high school level employ Apple computers running Mac operating software. Teachers are
given the choice of computer formats (laptop vs. desktop; PC vs. Mac). Twelve teachers are
currently participating in a Technology Cohort using MacBook Airs. The purpose of this cohort
is to evaluate and test learning opportunities with the technology in advance of the 1:1
initiative that will be implemented in the 2015-2016 school year.

b. All teacher computers are equipped for Internet access, primarily using Internet browsers such
as Internet Explorer (PCs), Safari (Macs), or Chrome (Google). All teachers are equipped with
the Microsoft Office Suite (Word, Excel, Power Point, Access, Outlook).

c. The Commonwealth of Kentucky has a contract with Microsoft with regards to software and
Internet access, therefore teachers and students are limited in their access to email providers.
The only email providers accessible through the school Internet is Microsoft-owned
corporations. Gmail is not accessible, but students and teachers can access Google Drive.

d. The district uses Infinite Campus to record student grades and attendance. All students have
access to this information via the IC student and parent portals. Students and parents also can
download mobile apps that give access to grades. Likewise, teachers are able to access Infinite
Campus from home.

e. Due in large part to recently completed construction and upgrades, all classrooms at Highlands
High School are equipped with Epson BrightInk projectors with special interactive software
that function similarly to SMART technology. The district is actively promoting appropriate
use for this new technology, and is providing several training opportunities for faculty to learn
the various uses of the resources.

f. Similar to the BrightInk projectors, all classrooms are (as of October 25, 2013) equipped with
Wi-Fi accessible to both teachers and students.

g. Highlands High School also uses a videoconferencing program for professional development and
faculty purposes. This is available by request through the principals office. All teachers are
also able to access Skype through their classroom computers for additional video-conferencing
opportunities with students.


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h. The district technology coordinator has established a very strong firewall that blocks numerous
websites from teacher and student use, including most social media sites (Facebook, Twitter)
and many other sites due to key word searches deemed inappropriate. YouTube is blocked
from student use, but is accessible to teachers. The district coordinator will grant student
access to YouTube when requested by teachers for classroom purposes.

i. In addition to the above-described technology in individual classrooms, there are four computer
labs available to faculty and staff. Two labs are classroom-sized rooms with approximately 30
PCs each; the remaining two labs are mobile labs that can move from classroom to classroom.
Each mobile lab has 30 laptops, one dedicated to PC use and another for Mac uses. Teachers,
through an online reservation program, can reserve these labs.

j. Although the school has not employed a 1:1 technology program yet (forthcoming in 2015-
2016), the addition of Wi-Fi access in all classrooms has expanded student opportunities to use
technology in classrooms. The school allows students to use cell phones, iPods, and all other
devices in any part of the school, at the discretion of each individual teacher. Many students
regularly use laptops, tablets, and cell phones to access e-books and conduct research/projects
throughout the school.

k. Through the school library, students are able to borrow technology for in-school use including
a number of laptops.

l. The schools library also pays for several research databases for student use, including:
1. Science News
2. Issues in American History
3. Encyclopedia of American Government
4. Poem Finder & Literature Finder
5. Gale E-Books
6. Salem Press
7. SIRS Researcher
8. Kentucky Virtual Library
9. Opposing Viewpoints Resource Center
10. Blooms Literary Reference Online
11. Teen Health & Wellness

2. How does your school make use of school and/or teacher websites?
a. The Fort Thomas Independent School District has a comprehensive website that provides access
to district news, calendars, faculty and staff information, and links to individual school
websites. It also provides access to the districts social media usage (Facebook, Twitter), as
well as to resources such as curriculum guides for every level of instruction and content area.
1. Fort Thomas Independent School District Website:
http://www.fortthomas.kyschools.us/
2. This website, along with all teacher websites, are maintained by SchoolPointe, a
program that all teachers in the district are required at least one hour of professional
development training.

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b. Each individual school has an SchoolPointe administered website that provides more specific
information and calendars for parents and students, as well as links to teacher websites. For
example:
1. Highlands High School:
http://www.fortthomas.kyschools.us/school_home.aspx?schoolID=1
2. Highlands Middle School:
http://www.fortthomas.kyschools.us/school_home.aspx?schoolID=2
3. Woodfill Elementary:
http://www.fortthomas.kyschools.us/school_home.aspx?schoolID=3
4. Moyer Elementary:
http://www.fortthomas.kyschools.us/school_home.aspx?schoolID=4
5. Johnson Elementary:
http://www.fortthomas.kyschools.us/school_home.aspx?schoolID=6

c. All teachers at Highlands High School are required to maintain a teacher website through the
SchoolPointe program that includes (at minimum): syllabus and course expectations for each
course taught, and teacher contact information. Teachers are encouraged to use these
websites to include additional information, but it is not enforced and many teachers will not
maintain these websites, as they are rather difficult to manage and maintain. As such, many
teachers elect to use outside web-hosting programs to create classroom webpages, including
Google Pages, Edmodo, or Schoology.

3. How are you currently utilizing technology for learning?
a. Currently, I use the following technologies for learning purposes:
b. Schoology Each class period has a dedicated class website on Schoology through which all
students can access assignments and readings. Students are also required to participate in
classroom discussions on Schoology, based on news articles related to class topics. Students
are required to provide a paragraph summary of the article, and then answer a guided
question that asks for their opinion as well as connections to classroom topics. Students must
also respond at least three times to the comments of other students. This happens on a weekly
or bi-weekly basis. Parents are encouraged to join the Schology groups in order to access
assignments and unit calendars.

c. I employ Internet sources and the BrightInk technology on a daily basis to display images,
videos, and Power Point presentations related to classroom discussions and topics. I feel
comfortable in my use of Internet sources, but as the BrightInk technology is new to my
classroom, I feel I am vastly underusing this resource.

d. In the past, I have used Skype to interact with classrooms in other countries; I am currently
working on a similar connection for this year that expands the Skype discussion to later
discussions via shared Google Drive resources created by my students and students in
Australian classrooms.

e. One of my classes, We the People: the Citizen and the Constitution use e-books on a daily basis.
It is also a research-intensive class that asks students to research and collaborate on issues
surrounding American constitutionalism. Students work in small groups and share
information via Google Drive and conduct research for scholarly sources through Wi-Fi access
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on their laptops, cell phones, or tablets.

f. In addition, I have a dedicated Twitter handle (@YouCanCallMeBH) through which my students
may contact me with questions about tests and quizzes. I will also tweet and re-tweet
interesting news articles that connect to recent discussions.

4. From the list of global e-learning sites included below, which are available and which sites are
blocked by your firewall? The only sites that you're required to explore are listed here, but feel free to
look at/comment on others on the list that I have attached. Please reserve time to explore these sites
and process what they have to offer.
a. All of the provided websites (see list below) are available to teachers through the Highlands
High School firewall.
1. Skype www.skype.com
2. iEARN www. iearn.org
3. ConnectAllSchools http://www.connectallschools.org
4. Peace Corps Speakers Match http://wws.peacecorps.gov/wws/speakersmatch/
5. ePals http://www.epals.com
6. Global Nomads Group www.gng.org
7. Omprakash http://www.omprakash.org/about
8. Primary Source www.primarysource.org
9. Edutopia http://www.edutopia.org
10. Outreach World http://www.outreachworld.org
11. The UN Works http://www.un.org/works/
12. Global Education Conference http://www.globaleducationconference.com
13. Online Newspapers http://www.onlinenewspapers.com
b. Skype was blocked from student use, however students may coordinate the use of the website
through a teacher or librarian if it provides a classroom connection.

5. What sites and tools are colleagues in your building using?
a. Over the course of the next few months, I plan to conduct a more formal review of the tools and
sites used by my colleagues at Highlands High School. Following a very brief and informal
audit of tools and sites used by Social Studies and English teachers, here is what I learned:
1. Most teachers in the two content areas are using websites that correspond to their
textbook or instructional resources to provide students with electronic copies of
textbooks.
2. The following websites are used regularly by a variety of teachers in the school:
a. Youtube: www.youtube.com
b. The Internet History Sourcebook Project:
http://www.fordham.edu/Halsall/index.asp
c. AP Central/College Board: www.apcentral.collegeboard.com
d. Google Drive: www.drive.google.com
e. Edmodo: www.edmodo.com or Schoology: www.schoology.com
f. Public Opinion Poll websites: www.gallup.com; www.pewresearch.org
g. The Living Room Candidate: www.livingroomcandidate.org
h. Various news outlets: CNN; BBC News; MSNBC: Fox News; PBS; NPR

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b. Highlands High School offers several classes that allow students regular use of technology in
their instruction, including but not limited to: Journalism, Computer Applications,
Broadcasting (which creates a daily news program), and AP Computer Science.
c. Some students are also enrolled as technology specialists for technology issues throughout the
high school, and in the middle school, where the 1:1 initiative has already started.
d. Other teachers are utilizing technology to create flipped classrooms, including the creation of
pod-casts and the use of QR codes.

6. Is there a system for evaluating student technology literacy in your school? If so, how effective
or helpful have you found the assessment?
a. At the moment, there is not a formal system of evaluating student technology literacy at
Highlands High School. Over the past two years, there have been departmental attempts to
address such issues, including online research skills and presentation skills that employ
various types of technology. Both the Social Studies department and English department have
attempted to create rubrics to assess such skills, but they have not been adopted outside of
these departments.

7. Gather suggestions from students on their ideas for integrating technology into their learning.
a. Based on an informal survey of my students (10
th
grade AP World History students and 12
th

grade We the People students), the following suggestions were made:
1. Institute a more formal 1:1 program that gives students more options for using
technology in the classroom, as well as support for implementing that technology in the
classroom. This will begin in the 2015-2016 school year.
2. The adoption of e-books in all classes.
3. Update the existing technology (computers and laptops) to the most current operating
systems and software programs to make them more effective in student use. Several
students stated that the computers ran too slow and were not of great help when
conducting research in the library.
4. Create student workstations in each classroom where 1-3 computers could be available
for student use if a 1:1 program is not instituted in the future.
5. Create professional development like programs for students that show them how they
can use technology more efficiently in their own learning (creation of videos, blogs,
podcasts, etc.)

8. What tools that are not presently available, would help to achieve district objectives?
a. I believe the district and high school have all of the tools necessary to achieve district objectives.
However, I believe there are upgrades that can be made to better achieve those objectives. For
example:
1. While the district technology coordinator offers professional development
opportunities each month to learn about new tools and sites to facilitate instruction,
many people do not attend, as they are not mandatory. A greater focus on
implementation of technology embedded in the mandated professional development
hours each school year may combat teacher inability or resistance to new technology
and sites.
2. Implementation of a more formal 1:1 program could allow both teachers and students
the support necessary to facilitate grater technological implementation in daily
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instruction.
3. Either at the district or high school level, a technological skills rubric should be
implemented across curriculum to ensure that all graduates are literate in the skills
necessary to be successful at the college and career levels.

9. Using your Digital Learning Environment Inventory, develop a solution or suggest an
improvement customized to your circumstance and curriculum. Create, implement and evaluate
one change in a globalized lesson plan to use technology for learning in a meaningful way. (PLEASE
NOTE! If you are unable to use technology in your classroom this week, you may do it next week and
submit this assignment next week.)

This week, my AP World History students examined how the expansion of religion and trade influenced
the development of a variety of regions in the Post-Classical Period (600 1450 CE). To start, students
examined the transformative nature of Islam in the Middle East, India, and various parts of Africa (North,
West, East). Next, students compared how the influence of new religions (Islam, Christianity) and
expanding trade routes (Sub-Saharan, Trans-Saharan, Indian Ocean) influenced the development of these
same regions socially, politically, culturally, and economically. In order to make this a globalized lesson, I
wanted to continue this discussion by demonstrating how this trend is still very much present in the 21
st

century world. Students were first asked to consider the following question: Did the expansion of global
trade improve or hurt the development of Post-Classical Civilizations?. Students responded to the
comment via Edmodo. Next, students were asked the same question as applied to the 21
st
century: Does
economic globalization help or hurt the development of 21
st
century civilizations? Students posted their
initial comments on Edmodo. Students were asked to give their opinions based on prior knowledge, and
then conduct online research to see if the facts supported or refuted their opinions. Finally, students
were to post their opinions (post-research) on Edmodo in 1-2 paragraphs that compared Post-Classical
globalization to 21
st
globalization and the impacts of both. Students were also required to continue the
discussion by responding to at least 3 others in the class.
a. Using one of the mobile computer labs, students used the following websites to examine the
issues surrounding economic globalization:
1. Economic Globalization via The Poverty Cure:
http://www.povertycure.org/issues/economic-globalization/
2. The Globalization Website:
http://sociology.emory.edu/faculty/globalization/index.html
3. Various websites found by individual students.

Upon reviewing the lesson at its creation, I learned a few things. First, my students were really excited to
have a chance to learn about modern connections to very old topics. While I usually try to implement
modern connections on a daily basis, I realized that using technology in this way did not take up very
much more time AND it allowed students to make more meaningful connections to the content. Many of
the responses on Edmodo by the end of the lesson were far more nuanced and thoughtful than what I had
received up until this point. Second, the use of technology allowed students to demonstrate their levels of
digital literacy to me. While many students excelled in this lesson, others were held up by the inability to
conduct basic Internet research (i.e.: conducting productive Google searches). While I may assume they
are digital natives, this does not mean that all digital natives are created equally; as such, when
implementing such programs, I need to model these skills for my students just as I would model the skills
of primary source analysis or essay writing. Next, I discovered the need to implement even more
Edmodo discussions into my instruction. Up until this lesson, I was hesitant to do many online
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discussions only because I did not want to over-burden my students with readings, essays, AND online
discussions. However, this lesson demonstrated that it did not take much more time for my students to
add a quick comment to the website. Finally, while I was pleased with the overall results of this lesson, I
think it could have gone better with more planning prior to the start of the lesson.

Assessing Current Resources:
As mentioned throughout this analysis, Highlands High School is currently piloting a program with 12
teachers that will result in a full 1:1 program in the 2015-2016, through which all students and teachers
will be issued MacBook Airs for classroom, instructional, and homework purposes. As part of this pilot
program, I have chosen to assess resources I am currently experimenting with so that this tool can be a
better aid for all teachers in the coming months and year.

Resource #1: Schoology (www.schoology.com )
Currently, all teachers in the middle school have been issued a paid Schoology account through which
they are to organize assignments, grades, and course activities. Students have access to this tool, and it is
expected that the same program will be adopted in the high school next year. As such, I have transitioned
from Edmodo to this source for the current school year. While I am using a free account with greater
limitations than a paid account, the source has proven to be helpful so far. There were some technical
issues, but those have been fixed. Students are able to access homework assignments at any time,
parents find it much easier to communicate with teachers and monitor their students work. Regarding
global competencies, students will start participating in online discussion panels through the site, to
better engage with each other and their content acquisition while at home.

Resource #2: Google Cultural Institute (https://www.google.com/culturalinstitute/home)
As a social studies teacher, focusing on World and European history, the role of art and culture plays a
large role in my instruction. Googles Cultural Institute allows teachers and students to access major
works of art, or take virtual tours of world wonders, thus giving students more access to resources. More
importantly, from a global perspective, it puts students in contact with monuments, museums, and works
of art that they otherwise would have not had access to in the past. Such a resource allows students to
analyze cultural contributions in order to draw clearer conclusions about the nature and relevance of art
and historical time periods. Students are also able to create their own galleries for gallery talks, or
compare two pieces side by side.

Resource #3: Haltadefinizione (http://www.haltadefinizione.com/en/)
Similar to Googles Cultural Institute, Haltadefinizione provides students with the opportunity to
manipulate and enhance significant pieces of art to gain a better perspective of the cultural and socio-
political consequences of art and architecture. In doing so, students are better able to understand
cultural elements of various regions and make comparisons to their own artistic experiences.

Resource #4: Google Drive (drive.google.com)
As mentioned earlier in this assessment, students in We the People: the Citizen and the Constitution are
entirely paperless. This system has worked for years as it allows students to collaborate in the creation of
documents and presentations in the real-time, while also providing the instructor with the potential to
provide constructive and meaningful feedback while students work. As the school moves to a full 1:1
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program next year, I plan to fully implement this resource in all classes.

Resource #5: Google Forms (http://www.google.com/google-d-s/createforms.html )
Part of my personal growth plan is to further engage in formative assessment to assess student
understanding. By creating short assessments in Google Forms, students can take quizzes or provide
feedback through their phones, tablets, or laptops. That information, in turn, is collected and viewed in
real-time thus allowing me greater understanding of their needs, as well as providing students with a
better sense of their classmates and their learning environments.