Student+Wiki

=PEARLS – Student Advisory Teams= Using technology to raise the achievement of ALL students is a guiding principle of the work we are doing this year in with the PEARLS project. The primary focus of the PEARLS project is to improve teaching and learning by targeting school level administrators, teacher leaders and **students** in a collaborative team approach to professional development in order to create a comprehensive, systemic professional development community. . Student team members may join and be part of the NING community if the school team feels like that would be a positive experience for your student member. They will be encouraged to contribute to the threads of discussion where appropriate. They will also have their own GROUP room in our VLC environment. While having student leaders on your team is a mandatory piece of this professional development, having your students in NING is NOT mandatory. We will have activities in the discussion tab of this wiki for all students, so those who are not members of NING will have multiple chances to share and learn.
 * How will this be done?**

Specifically, the student piece of this professional development opportunity will create a new "powerful conversation” stream that will elevate student voice and build strong and positive relationships between school teams and student leaders.

. 1. Each team will choose a student leaders to be part of their PEARLS team at the school. We suggest you look for students who: (1) show an intuitive understanding of classroom objectives and consistently find creative means for demonstrating mastery; (2) are good at completing tasks; (3) have exhibited leadership and teamwork skills; and (4) are known as “idea generators.”
 * Here are the steps for getting your student team members involved:**

2. Once the student agrees to participate on the PEARLS team we will need a copy of the school's media release form for this student and parent permission for the student to participate.

3. We hold three archived Elluminate sessions (1 hour each) that will cover 30 minutes of 21st Century content and 30 minutes of focus group discussion. These sessions will be attended by the student team members and an adult sponsor. The sponsorship can be shared by the team on a rotating basis so that it only will require one extra hour of time (for the entire school year) from the sponsoring teacher. The dates for the student advisory meetings are as follows: Session 1: June 17 @ 9am-10am or June 18 @ 1:30-2:30 (please sign up here) Session 2: TBA Session 3: TBA

Student team members are also welcome to attend the regularly scheduled Elluminate sessions held for the PEARLS teams if Team members feel they should attend.

I think we would all agree that today, more than ever, student voice is important. Students bring a very unique perspective on how they learn best in today's changing world; which may be very different from the linear, text based experiences that made up our school years. Experience has shown us that when we include students in the four scheduled Elluminate sessions we have for the educators involved, students have a tendency to be quiet and listen. Additionally, teachers are not as candid about their personal technology experiences as they would be without students present. We have found that by giving students one hour to share and engage their voice and opinions, we all learn a great deal about the needs of 21st Century learners.
 * Why are we having separate Elluminate meetings for student team members?**

These sessions will be archived and shared in NING so that those who are interested and did not attend can listen.


 * The Student Advisory Session Content**

//Session 1//- This will be a "getting to know you" session where students will introduce themselves and talk about ways they use technology in their personal and academic lives. We will have an informal conversation about social networks, and digital safety just to get a feel for where students are and how, if at all, technology is being used in their classrooms.

Student Wiki We give a short orientation our 21st Century Learners project and intro/overview NING and the wiki we will be using with students over the course of the school year. As part of a follow-up to Session 1 there will be articles for them to review and a discussion prompt. There will also be a short online survey.

//Session 2//- this will be 30 minutes of content around specific tools used for communication and collaboration followed with a discussion of possibilities they see for how these tools could be used in the classroom or their personal lives. The follow up on the wiki will include questions about how their classroom teacher's practice is changing as a result of the PEARLS PD and what evidence they have seen or not seen of participatory media being used in the classroom.

//Session 3//- this will be student created demos and presentations from their project work with a discussion following about what they have learned or what they have been able to teach others during the school year.