East
Telephone (603)
352-6955 FAX (603) 358-6708
Kenneth R. Dassau - Superintendent
Director of Elementary
Library Services FAX (603) 358-6708
E.
October 24, 2007
The
Walker Fund
c/o
New Hampshire Charitable Foundation
37
Pleasant Street
To
the grant funding committee:
Please
find attached the application cover sheet and grant proposal for a Walker Fund
Grant. We are very excited to offer you
our proposal to create six video-podcasting kits which will allow elementary
students in our regional school district the opportunity to view themselves and
others reading book reviews that they have written in their classrooms and
videoed in their libraries. These video
podcasts will be available for viewing throughout the school in which they were
created. We hope that you find our
proposal and supporting data a worthwhile submission.
Almost
three years ago we wrote a successful Walker Fund Grant which created
circulating audio-book collections in two elementary schools which are shared
in the summers with the public libraries.
We are pleased to let you know that these collections have almost
doubled in size from the original amount purchased by the grant, now include a
new audio-book medium (play-aways), and continue to be taken to the public
libraries in the summer where they are very popular. Both school libraries have loaned audio-books
to other schools as well. We hope that
this successful grant will demonstrate to you how we are able to take a vision
that you fund, and support it on our own afterwards.
Thank
you for your consideration.
Sincerely,
Susan
Kessler, Service Learning Coordinator
Melissa
Alexander, Library Aide
Jean
Minnich, 3rd grade classroom teacher
Betty
Tatro, Principal
Molly
Linn, 6th grade classroom teacher
Dave
Mousette, Principal
Community Supporters:
Film
Studies departments at Keene State College,
Nancy
Newton, Reading Specialist/Curriculum Coordinator, SAU #29
The Walker Fund
c/o New Hampshire Charitable
Foundation
37 Pleasant Street,
Date: October 24, 2007
Name of Applicant Organization:
Elementary Library Services,
600
School Principal/CEO:
SAU number: SAU#38 Telephone: (603) 352-6955
GRANT PROPOSAL:
“BookTube”
Elementary Library Services for the
PROJECT OBJECTIVES:
To create six video podcasts kits
To immediately use two kits in two classrooms in two different schools as a pilot program
To help library staff assist students in meeting the district wide goal of focusing on writing skills
To inform teaching staff of alternative ways of showing students the connections between reading and writing
To encourage students to read books from their school libraries
To use new technology to entice reluctant readers to participate in the writing process
To strengthen connections with the community both by using outside experts and by inviting families to school to celebrate their children’s success.
ORGANIZATION DESCRIPTION:
Elementary Library Services provides supervision,
instruction, databases, tech support, curriculum development and lesson plan
kits for the paraprofessionals who provide library services in the six
elementary schools of the
PROJECT DESCRIPTION:
Based on the popular Internet video site “YouTube”, we will call our video podcasting program “BookTube”. This will be an age appropriate in-school site, housed on networked computers, where students can view video podcasts of their friends and fellow students promoting reading and writing.
Elementary Library Services proposes to create six video podcasting kits that will be permanently housed at each elementary school library in our district and used by library staff and classroom teachers to create video podcasts of students’ book reviews. The contents of a kit will include: a hand-held digital video camera, a resource notebook, an external server hard drive which will store the podcasts, portable document camera, a director’s chair and clapboard, and reusable supplies for parent events.
Our primary
intention is to have a classroom teacher work with their school library staff,
and/or possibly building IT staff, to develop a unit in which students 1) read
a library book 2) write a book review and 3) video themselves presenting their
review. The library staff member will
help students select their books; the writing process will be done in the
classroom with the classroom teacher. Writing and reading, as one of the
pilot program teachers said, are so interconnected that it is almost impossible
to separate them.
The actual videoing
will happen in the school library and ideally be done by students. A document camera, which is a digital
overhead, will be used to project the book cover and/or illustrations or other
sections of the book or possibly artwork created by a student in response to
their reading. The director’s chairs and
clapboards will be used by students during the videoing process. These video podcasts will then be placed on
an external server hard drive that will be networked school wide. This will allow the “Book-Tube” to be viewed
on any networked school computer, but not over the Internet. These digital videos can also be saved as
part of a student’s digital portfolio, which is a requirement of the new ICT
(Information and Communication Technologies) standards from the NH Department
of Education. An end-of-unit
parent event will also be incorporated into the timeline. This event will
be to celebrate the students’ accomplishments and will allow parents and family
members to view the “BookTube”.
Service Learning is incorporated throughout this video
podcasting project. As students work to videotape themselves and others
and to share what they've learned to educate their parents and other community
members, they will be putting Service Learning into practice. Service learning
is a method of teaching and learning that challenges students to identify,
research, propose and implement solutions to real needs in their school or
community as part of the curriculum. A strong Service Learning program
has been developed and implemented in the
Training for
videoing and writing book reviews will be provided by volunteers from the wider
community. We have contacted the Film Studies/Mass Communications departments
of two local universities to have them provide assistance with the video
production. We will arrange with WMUR
(Channel 9) to have a TV personality attend one or more of our end-of-unit
parent events.
Dr. Hodgdon,
assistant superintendent for SAU #38, has created a district document entitled
“Teaching and Learning about Writing” which will be used as a resource for the
writing process. Assistance with the writing piece will come from resources
within our greater SAU and with the assistance of a reading
specialist/curriculum coordinator from SAU #29. In order to help streamline the process and
make it as successful as possible, the podcasting will be piloted the first 3
months in two schools in two specific classrooms, 3rd and 6th,
to work out the “kinks”, before the kits will be available to all the
elementary schools. After the pilot
program, the staff involved and the Service Learning Coordinator will present a
district level staff development workshop open to all elementary teachers to
share the video podcasting kits and instruct teachers and library staff in how
to replicate this program successfully in their schools. A resource notebook will be created for each
kit based on experiences and information gathered from the pilot programs.
These kits will be ready for use by the two piloting schools by mid January 2008 and to the other four schools before the end of the school year at the end of the pilot program. Additional cameras & accessories will be purchased for the four larger schools at the beginning of the 08-09 school year.
STATEMENT OF NEED:
With the demands placed on schools by the “No Child Left Behind” federal legislation, more attention is being placed on literacy instruction than ever before. Students and schools need to make “annual yearly progress” (AYP) in reading (and other subjects) and teachers are struggling to make sure that their students have more than adequate exposure to many different forms of literacy experiences. The 2001 National Assessment of Educational Progress showed that “fewer than one in three fourth-graders are deemed proficient in reading at grade level” and “about 55% of low-income fourth-grade students cannot read at basic level.” Language arts testing (reading/writing) results in the MRSD from the 2006-07 school year placed 39% of 6th graders at basic level, and 18% at novice (lower than basic). As a whole the MRSD did not make AYP in either reading or math, and three of our schools have been placed on the “Schools in Need of Improvement” status (NCLB). As a result the district has taken many steps to improve the quality of reading and writing instruction. Some of the steps include a rewrite of our entire curriculum focusing on integrating the state Grade Level Expectations (GLEs) and creating “Power Standards” focusing on specific GLE’s. In the MRSD Information Literacy (library) curriculum, in addition to teaching information literacy skills, we reinforce the GLE’s and Power Standards and always try to integrate the district wide focus into our lesson plans.
The district has chosen writing, in response to non-fiction reading, as
a district wide focus for this school year.
Dr.
These video podcasting kits are an ideal “avenue” for combining many of
the district’s concerns and writing focus into a simple, replicable and highly
motivating learning activity for elementary students.
EVALUATION:
We propose to create several levels of evaluation of this project.
We will:
- do an in depth evaluation with the two teachers and librarians who pilot the program. This will be documented and included in the resource notebook and will provide the structure for the staff development workshop.
- include an evaluation/comment form in the resource notebook for staff members to record their successes & failures as helpful feedback for staff who borrow the kit.
- survey the students involved in the creation of “BookTube” about their experiences and what they feel could have been improved or changed.
- survey the students who use the school library regarding viewing “BookTube” and whether they actually read a title recommended on “BookTube”.
- track circulation statistics for books recommended by “BookTube”. Our automated circulation system keeps track of circulation so we can compare past circulation history with circulation after “BookTube” is in place.
BUDGET: See attached budget sheet
TOTAL AMOUNT
REQUESTED FROM THE