Skip to Content

Digital School Solutions

Re-Thinking Teaching and Learning

Home » Results

Marta Valle

The 2008-2009 school year continued a partnership that has taken place over the last few years with AUSSIE/DSS and Marta Valle School.. At the start of the school year, the school and their consultant established a collaborative set of goals and objectives for how their educational team could best utilize existing technology resources to support instruction.

The goals of the work were to:

  • model best practices of pedagogy and technology;
  • work with school administration and selected teachers to develop an Innovation Team in order to determine how technology (hardware/software) is distributed throughout school, and establish the Marta Valle online learning community (martavalle.org) to improve overall school communication;
  • create an archive of successful technology-based student production projects and activities, and related support resources;
  • implement and plan collaboratively with a series of teachers across the grade levels to develop technology infused units of study that bridge classroom curriculum objectives with technology skills practice;
  • work with teachers to assess their integration knowledge and skills through inter-visitation and debriefing sessions;
  • conduct workshops on particular applications and skills that are necessary for technology integration project development and completion;
  • explore and recommend new resources with teachers and administrators.


The Outcomes of the Professional Development

Throughout the 2008-2009 a great deal of progress was made as Marta Valle builds long-term capacity in efforts to become a full-scale 21st century learning community. The focus is always on teaching and learning and not on the technology involved.  The curriculum always drives the technology not the other way around. Projects created or published this school year have been linked on the school website according to the NYCDOE’s acceptable use policies, and are accompanied by tutorials, lesson plans and other support resources. Some of the major outcomes DSS along with Marta Valle achieved this year are:

  • worked collaboratively with the Marta Valle Secondary School Innovation team to manage the online learning communities (eChalk, wiki, blogs), assess the needs of the staff, administer technical support, and develop support resources related to the use of the schools’ online learning communities;
  • conducted a series of after school professional development sessions geared towards infusing technology into the curriculum, with an emphasis on collaboration and the modeling of best practices;
  • managed the rollout of the second annual school-wide Innovation fair, with a focus on showcasing best practices, standard alignment and innovative lesson planning;
  • worked with teachers to complete a variety of technology integration projects with an emphasis on making connections between traditional curriculum and the 21st century skills aligned to NYS state standards and the National Technology Standards (NETS);
  • worked collaboratively with the Marta Valle Innovation Team and administration to design a web-based educational technology action plan based on the SMART goal setting methodology.
  • Assessed the classroom value of several emerging web 2.0 tools and online activities.


Future Recommendations

We expect our partnership to continue into the 2009-2010 school year  and  based on the schools overall goals,  we will continue the work with:

  • implementing a regular series of Innovation Team meetings devoted to continued development and assessment of the Marta Valle Secondary School educational technology action plan;
  • devising grade level technology competencies, connected to the traditional curriculum maps, with clear guidelines about what students should know before moving to the next level;
  • creating a professional development calendar devoted to preparing teachers for using technology to drive instruction;
  • collaborating with school based technology coordinator to develop a student-driven technical support program;
  • encouraging more staff use and familiarity with the school online learning communities;
  • begin sharing important school wide communications through email;
  • continue to work with the Innovation Team on the development of the Marta Valle online learning community--reaching out to teachers, students, parents and beyond;
  • help staff set and post modest goals for technology integration in their classroom, and develop action plans for achieving those goals.