DOTS II North -- Summer Institute 2009

DOTS II North -- Summer Institute 2009

The second offering of Creating 21st Century Classrooms II: Connecting the Dots was held in 2009.   A competitive application process was initiated in the fall of 2008 and twelve teams of three educators were once again selected to participate.

The format of DOTS II North in this second rendition shifted a large portion of the graduate course work to an online format (see syllabus).  This online course began in January, 2009 and continued through May, 2009.  During this time, participants were asked to participate in four of five online modules.  The modules covered:

• Backward design (from Understanding by Design)
• Assessment (from Understanding by Design)
• Differentiated Instruction
• Student-centered Learning
• Project and inquiry-based Learning
• National Educational Standards and 21st Century Skills

Following this online portion, all teams convened at Champlain College for a five-day institute.  During the institute, teams presented new web 2.0 tools and worked to complete their units of study to be stored in the Learning Village portal.

In addition, participants from DOTS I were invited to attend a five day short course on using Moodle to support their units of study. Eight participants from DOTS I attended the Moodle workshop.

Web 2.0 Highlights from DOTS II North

• Animation, GoAnimate
• Jing
• Voice Thread (pbwiki link)
• Photo Editing and Sharing
• YouTube, Teacher Tube, UStream, and Google Video
• Social Bookmarking
• Twiddla
• Wikis

Units of Study

The content teachers from each team created standards-based units of study which are accessible via the Vermont Learning Village Portal.  To obtain an account to Learning Village, please contact Arlyn Bruccoli.