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Lemon Grove Connected Learning Community Video Windows Media Player |
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Jay Bass Blanca Brown Katie Dexter George Gastil Timothy Shaw Ernie Anastos, Superintendent District
Overview
The Lemon Grove School District, with eight schools that serve 4,200 students in grades K-8, supports a community of 30,000 residents adjacent to San Diego.
Mission
Project LemonLINK establishes a collaborative learning environment for students, teachers, parents, and members of the Lemon Grove community. The creation of a comprehensive technology-based educational environment stimulates students and helps them learn to challenging standards. Challenge
Lemon Grove School District faces educational challenges typical of other diverse communities. With 69 percent of the district students qualifying for free or reduced lunches, Lemon Grove focused on technology as a way to level the playing field and bring new teaching techniques and rich resources to its students.
Architecture
· Hybrid Wireless Fiber-Optic WAN using RF Microwave links and FSO lasers connect 23 sites at gigabit speeds back to the district's data center · Broadband Internet connectivity from Cox Communications connects students at home · 60 terminal servers running Citrix MetaFrame XPe · 3Hewlett Packard G3 DL360 with dual processors, 2B RAM · Microsoft Windows 2003 servers running in cluster mode support
· Hewlett-Packard mass storage solution 30 TB SAN
Applications Deployed · LemonLINK's applications provide innovative educational tools:
Winterm
Thin-Client Benefits LemonLINK has deployed hundreds of Winterm terminals in six elementary schools, two middle schools, student home and local government facilities
Increased Computer Access With inexpensive Winterm terminals, LemonLINK doubled the number of students who have computer access. The machines are kid-proof, with no moving parts, making them easier to service.
Typical
Classroom
Currently,
a typical kindergarten through third grade has three CPUs and eight
network appliances while a typical fourth through eighth grade classroom
has three CPUs and thirteen network appliances.
Changes in Teaching and Learning Powerful connectivity,
adequate student access to technology coupled with widespread enthusiasm
for technology as a teaching and learning tool has led to a shift in
instructional delivery in Lemon Grove classrooms.
Student Achievement Students who use technology on a regular basis do better academically than students without access.
Results
Comparison of state-initiated standardized tests for the years 1999 and 2000 using matched scores for every student in the district indicate that technology has had a positive academic influence for students in grades 3 – 6 in both Reading and Math.
g Students with computer access g Students without access
Professional
Development LemonLINK
inserviced 20 percent of the teaching staff each year with all teachers
trained after five years. Each
teacher received over 120 hours of curriculum-based professional
development to implement technology in their classroom.
Awards and Recognition
Partners
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Lemon
Grove School District
Lemon Grove, California Raising Student Achievement by Closing the Digital Divide The school district of Lemon Grove, California, is located eight miles east of San Diego. Once an isolated rural community, our city has grown slowly but steadily into a suburban dichotomy of citizenry. On the one hand are the “old timers”—the long-time residents whose families pioneered the area. On the other is a steady, diverse stream of “newcomers” spilling out from the urban, metropolitan area.
Like students in many similar communities, most of Lemon Grove’s students would not ordinarily have access to a computer or the Internet. Yet the city and the school district recognized the community needs and met the challenge by creating LemonLINK. The project focuses on high-speed connectivity, equity and adequate access to resources, development of web-based instructional tools, and ongoing professional development for teachers. Creating
a Connected Learning Community
The heart of the project is the creation of
a Connected Learning Community through business and government
partnerships to develop a unique infrastructure that connects all schools
and the city via microwave, fiber-optic and laser technologies.
The network’s architect is Darryl
LaGace, Lemon Grove School District’s Director of Information
Systems, who envisioned a connected learning community in which the school
district serves as the communication hub for an LemonLINK’s
Educational Application Service Provider (EASP) LemonLINK is a Connected Learning Community model built around an educational application service provider (EASP) for the Lemon Grove community. Using server-based computing, thin-client technology, and a high-speed cable modem network, the school district is the first to become an education application service provider for an entire community. A user-friendly, web-based interface acts as a common portal, linking the city to the educational community and ensuring that families throughout Lemon Grove have an equitable advantage to informational technology access as do those families who live in more affluent areas. LemonLINK’s city-wide Intranet brings parents, teachers, and community together to build literacy, technology, and communications skills in support of student achievement. Government
and Business Partnerships Along with the partnership with city government, significant business partnerships have been the key to make the Connected Learning Community vision a reality. LemonLINK has attracted the attention of a number of technology telecommunications and software companies such as Microsoft, Hewlett-Packard, Cox Communications, Wyse Technology, Citrix, ProQuest, bigchalk, Pullium Group, Cisco, and Sun Wireless. These firms, along with many others, have been assisting us in further development to expand the network into community homes.
Thin-Client Technology
In 1997, the Lemon Grove School District partnered with Cox Communications to deliver high-speed Intranet connectivity between the district and students’ homes. Using cable modem technology and a network appliance, students are able to access the Internet as well as resources at school from home. With increased access at home, children can complete homework assignments online and submit them via e-mail. Parents can easily communicate with teachers. Research is made easier using filtered Internet access to connect to education-related sites. Bigchalk Library, a collection of more than 1500 current and archived periodicals and newspapers, and Encarta Online Deluxe are also available. This connection extends literacy beyond the traditional classroom, not only for students but the rest of the family members and other subscribers in the community as well. Network
Appliances Replace Many Classroom PCs The
Lemon Grove School District recognized the importance of adequate access
to technology in order to make an impact on the teaching and learning
process. Unifying the project is the understanding that technology is
effective in the classroom only when teachers and students have adequate
access to computers. Under the direction of Project Director, Barbara
Allen, the initial goal of the program was to provide one computer
with Internet connectivity for every four students in every classroom.
With this ratio, it was quickly realized that the kind of interactive
learning that Lemon Grove educators envisioned would be impossible. To
increase access to a 1:2 computer-to-student ratio, the network
appliances developed for the home connection were installed in district
classrooms by replacing half the classroom allocation of CPUs with three
times as many network appliances. Changing
the Culture Full immersion of technology and literacy at the district level imbeds the use of technology in all areas of work within the district. Therefore, technology staff development is ongoing and significant for people to accomplish their work. Every teacher has had a computer workstation on his or her desk for at least seven years, most for nine years. Procedural expectations require that e-mail be the basic mode of communication throughout the district. Many daily classroom management tasks, such as attendance and grades, are accomplished by using the computer. Student data is centralized and available across the district making information such as class lists, student schedules, and biographical data available to teachers using their workstation. Teachers in this district are comfortable using the computer. This comfort level facilitates the migration of computer/technology use into instruction. New
Classroom Environment The evolution of technology integration in
the classroom environment has brought about changes in the structures of
teaching and learning. With
adequate numbers of computers in the classroom, teachers report that they
are integrating its use in every curriculum area at every grade level. The 1:2 computer-to-student ratio made possible by
the use of network appliances has enabled unique classroom configurations
with computers placed on student de Technology’s Impact on Student Achievement Not only are these resources increasing students’ reading and writing
skills, but they also provide new ways for students to demonstrate
knowledge and understanding not possible through traditional instructional
practices. California standardized testing scores indicate a marked
improvement for students who used computers as compared to those who did
not have access. Spring 2000 As technology implementation reached 100% of district teachers and students, achievement continues to rise. In 2001, API results indicated seven of the eight schools in the Lemon Grove School District were eligible for the California governor's cash awards program. Three of the four district's Title I schools received awards from ht California Department of Education as "High Achieving Title I Schools."
Professional Development Professional development is a key element in the technology implementation process. Lemon Grove’s commitments in this area are substantial in order to accomplish the goals of the Connected Learning Community. LemonLINK’s five-year goal of having every district classroom teacher trained to use educational technology effectively in instruction requires substantial commitment from district management, school administrators, and teachers. To meet this challenge, LemonLINK uses the collaboration-coaching model for implementing technology in classroom instruction. The overall strategy targets curriculum and engages teachers in learning from each other. Key district teachers become trainers of other teachers, building capacity and developing internal support. Since the focus on technology is a district effort, collaboration teams form naturally within schools, grade levels, and curriculum areas for support and sharing of ideas. Each year, 20 percent of the teaching staff joined the project with each teacher receiving approximately 120+ hours of ongoing training. To date 100 percent of Lemon Grove teachers have been trained to integrate technology into instruction. |
sks
enabling students to use computers for a significant portion of their day.
With adequate student access to computers, the creative ways that the
teacher has discovered for using a classroom Intranet have been most
impressive.
marked the halfway point of classroom implementation with 60 percent of
teachers trained and 60 percent of the classroom computer installations
complete.