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. It’s possible that the effort at creating Parent Connector Networks will live on as OneVille, or maybe nothing will live on as "OneVille" per se but all the work we seeded will grow.

We now hope to work with people in other communities toward a "toolkit" for public education, sharing tools and strategies for supporting communication and collaboration between the diverse people who share young people's lives.

In Somerville in 2011-12, we'll:

-continue to test texting "teams"; we will wrap up the texting pilot at the end of this year or possibly, next fall. We're going to work 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 will continue to develop the efforts of the Parent Connector Network. We will also produce a parent-friendly "how to" guide to the puzzle pieces that work.

-Possibly, we will pilot and tweak our dashboard views with principal, teachers and families.

-Students and teachers are seeding ePortfolios across Somerville High School! They are also going to make a Somerville High eportfolio website by teachers, for teachers exploring eportfolios.

In 2011-12, with funding from the Digital Media and Learning Hub at UC Irvine (itself funded by the MacArthur Foundation) and in collaboration with the Berkman Center for Internet and Society at Harvard, we've been inviting OneVille participants to share their work and ideas in person with local colleagues from MIT, Emerson, and Tufts concerned with how youth and adults in public schools can innovate such uses of everyday tech.

One goal for the year will be 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 Equity, Assessment, and Teaching Excellence) at the University of California San Diego (http://www.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 programs and youth development efforts, so Mica will now be working with West Coast colleagues to learn how to help network UCSD 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 folks among us will hone, over time and in collaboration with folks in multiple communities, a toolkit of 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 qu's 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:

• 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 are now going to try a teacher-to-teacher website as well. 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 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?