Next Steps

Our next steps

The OneVille Project’s pilot phase is ending, with point people in charge of completing or continuing – if they want to -- specific pieces. The effort at creating Parent Connector Networks may live on as OneVille, or maybe nothing literally titled "OneVille" will live on as such -- but all the work we seeded will grow.

Everyone on the project is continuing work on the specific tools and strategies we worked on in 2009-11. Many of us now hope to work with people in other communities toward a "toolkit" for public education, sharing tools and strategies that support communication and collaboration between the diverse people who share young people's lives.

In Somerville in 2011-12, we are doing the following:

-We continue to test texting "teams" at Full Circle/Next Wave. We will wrap up the OneVille texting pilot at the end of this year or possibly, next fall, by sharing our ¡Ahas! about texting with youth-serving organizations in the Somerville community. We're also now working with partners at the Berkman Center for Internet and Society to produce a teacher guide to the legal/privacy issues raised for those pioneering texting.

-Parents and staff are continuing to develop the efforts of the Parent Connector Network at the Healey School. We will also produce a parent-friendly "how to" guide to the puzzle pieces that work.

-We have worked to pilot the administrator and teacher dashboard views.

-Students and teachers are seeding ePortfolios across Somerville High School. Their Somerville High eportfolio website also helps next teachers exploring eportfolios: http://sites.google.com/site/shseportfolio/

In 2011-12, with funding from the Digital Media and Learning Hub of the MacArthur Foundation, based at UC Irvine, and in collaboration with the Berkman Center for Internet and Society at Harvard, we all hosted a small "working group" of local researchers thinking about how youth and adults can innovate new uses of commonplace technologies in diverse communities. OneVille participants came to share their work and ideas with local colleagues from Harvard, MIT, Emerson, and Tufts. Another goal for the year was to keep honing online documentation like this wiki's. What online reporting would best support other diverse communities exploring such uses of commonplace and low-cost tech in public school communities? The "guides" noted above are one outgrowth of this discussion.

Mica has moved to San Diego for a new job as Director of CREATE (the Center for Research on Educational Equity, Assessment, and Teaching Excellence) at the University of California San Diego (http://create.ucsd.edu). There, with her new colleagues and community, she's extending the collaborative agenda sparked in the OneVille Project, testing next communication tools and strategies for enabling partnership between university people and local K-12 teachers, families, and young people. CREATE has particular strength in teacher professional development and youth mentoring/outreach, so Mica will now be working with West Coast colleagues to learn how to help network tutor-mentors to youth and local teachers to each other. While working to build next ¡Ahas! in San Diego, she will remain a remote ally to Somerville.

We know various OneVille participants will hone, over time and in collaboration with folks in multiple communities, free/low-cost communication tools and strategies enabling diverse supporters to collaborate in student success.

The Next Layer: Connecting to Folks Doing Similar Work in Other Communities.

We'd love to spark a lively exchange between people working on similar things.

Want to talk further?

Are you working on improving communications in your own school or community?

Contact point people directly at:

Dashboard: Jedd Cohen (jic378@mail.harvard.edu); Josh Wairi (jwairi@k12.somerville.ma.us); Mica Pollock (mica.pollock@gmail.com)

Eportfolio: Susan Klimczak (klimczaksusan@gmail.com); Michelle Li (mli@k12.somerville.ma.us); Chris Glynn (cglynn@k12.somerville.ma.us) (extra questions can also go to Mica Pollock (mica.pollock@gmail.com)

Texting: Uche Amaechi (amaechi@gmail.com); Maureen Robichaux (mrobichaux@k12.somerville.ma.us); Mica Pollock (mica.pollock@gmail.com)

Parent Connector Network: Jedd Cohen (jic378@mail.harvard.edu); Tona DelMonico (tona_d@comcast.net) Ana Maria Nieto (amn956@mail.harvard.edu); Mica Pollock (mica.pollock@gmail.com)

How'd we do in sharing our own first efforts?

We want to connect to more people improving communications in public education and so, we've been experimenting with sharing our own work online!

Tell us (contact the point people above or, mica.pollock@gmail.com):

• Did we format our examples in useful ways?
• Did we offer too much information on what we did, or not enough?
• Do you want to know more about what we've been doing?
• Would you contact us to share what you've been doing?

Some issues we’ve been thinking about (related to our Vision for OneVille documentation) and haven't resolved:

• Audience: can researchers, teachers, families, and youth all share one form of documentation? (That’s what we’ve tried to do here. Eportfolio teachers made their own teacher-to-teacher videos as well on the Someville High School website: http://sites.google.com/site/shseportfolio/. We're going to create a texting guide for teachers specifically, focused on legal issues raised in texting. And, the Parent Connector Network will create a parent-to-parent video guide as well.)
• How do you most effectively show examples of local efforts and innovations in public education? How many words can you use? When might you use pictures or videos? How/when can words and visuals go together?

Another Next Layer: National Networks for Sharing Local Efforts Like These?

Think about it: What might happen if lots of youth, families, and educators started sharing out their educational innovations more generally, online?