Project+Overview

This project is based on the premise that technology can change ownership relationships with regard to knowledge and learning. We can all be active participants, since we all will be teaching, learning and creating new knowledge as we go—teachers and students alike. To create a 21st century learning environment, The Bridge Academy and Side By Side Community School will develop a virtual community built around computer-supported collaborative learning within the social studies curricula. The Bridge Academy and Side By Side are charter schools and will co-design and implement this program. We will use the new CT SDE Social Studies Frameworks—this opportunity will allow us to introduce the new expectations in an exciting way and model how the new frameworks align with 21st century skills and knowledge.

In her book //Curriculum 21: Essential Education for a Changing World//, Heidi Hayes Jacobs writes, "We believe that educators at the local, community, state and national levels need open discusssions, and that their actions need to be anchored in a candid response to contemporary challenges." The activities within this collaborative project will serve as a catalyst for administrators from both schools, as well as parents and community resources when appropriate. The project will affect two classrooms at The Bridge Academy; one for high school history, the other for geography in grades 7-8. Ninety-two percent of Bridge Academy students are in these classrooms during the school year. Social studies is the heart of Side By Side’s social justice theme, and all other subject areas are integrated within that context. Side By Side Community School will therefore include all students in grades 6, 7, and 8 in the project. This project affect 220 students, two teachers, two administrators, and two classrooms at The Bridge Academy. It will affect 75 students, two administrators, and two classrooms at Side By Side Community School.

The goal of the virtual learning community will be to deliver high quality instruction that ensures students will learn 21st century skills and social studies content. Our focus will be on the collaboration (improving how we use space, time and grouping structures), and communication using transformational low high technologies. Our model will be for students to create knowledge as they collaborate on tasks. Students will use technlologies such as netbooks, digital video and audio, and web-based collaborative tools such as wikis, blogs, and videoconferencing. There will be multiple levels of student collaboration. Students from the individual schools will work together with their peers on some projects. On others, students in one school will prepare a presentation to supplement the other school's lessons. In addition, high school students at The Bridge Academy will become social studies mentors for middle school students at both schools. Teachers will use electronic assessment tools and maintain an electronic portfolio for each student.