Curricular Activities

The educational philosophy of Common Knowledge: Pittsburgh emphasizes a constructivist approach to learning. The examples below show how teachers and students are using the technology to create curricular resources. From this work a new paradigm is evolving - an open classroom with dynamic materials.

RFPs, Proposals and Action Plans | Acceptable Use Policies
Exemplary Work | PPS Schools with WWW Homepages

The technical architecture of CK:P allows every participating student, teacher and school to create online resources. As these groups gain experience in this environment, they will place an increasing fraction of their classroom activities online. The examples below show the current status of this work.

RFPs, Proposals and Action Plans

Leveraging Change in Public Schools: The RFP Process

Acceptable Use Policies

Common Knowledge: Pittsburgh brought together a group of teachers, students, and support staff - the accounts working group - to develop acceptable use policies for Internet access. The group created two documents - one for students and one for teachers and staff of the Pittsburgh Public Schools.

Exemplary Resources Created by Teachers and Students of the PPS

Increment Credit Course on Using the Internet for Research
Many PPS teachers expressed interest in learning more about using the Internet for research purposes. Two librarians, Linda Savido and Kathy Olesak taught an 18 hour course on the subject for PPS teachers. The course outline and teacher projects are online.

The HTML Language and Creation of Home Pages
Oscar Huber and Regine Fougeres, teachers in the PPS, have led the way in using HTML and the WWW in their classes. These two teachers taught an 18 hour increment credit course for PPS teachers. The course and the homepages created during the course are online.

Regine Fougere's Lesson Plans | Roxanne Gaal's Lesson Plans
Curriculum development takes on a new meaning when educators feel empowered to use the Internet in their classrooms. Regine Fougeres, a German teacher at Schenley H.S. is now using the World Wide Web to develop lessons for her German classes. Roxanne Gaal at Carrick High School is using the WWW to take her classes to exhibits on French Impressionism. The book is not necessary when a teacher chooses to use primary sources available on the Internet.

Linda Savido and Kathy Olesak's Virtual Library
The Pittsburgh Public School Library Home Page is the result of a professional collaboration between Kathy Olesak at Schenley H.S. and Linda Savido at Westinghouse H.S. Through use of the Internet, these two educators in remote locations have collaborated and developed products that are useful for the school district and the Internet community.

The Inventors of SlipLube
Two students - John Fail and Brian Miles, at Brashear H.S., developed a package of software that provides SLIP software and configuration for the PC. This independent project (part of their gifted IEP) provided John and Brian with the opportunity to go far beyond typical classroom activities and develop a user-friendly product for the school district.

Deanna Harris and the SAM Project
The Westinghouse Science and Mathematics Program (SAM) gives students the opportunity to conduct scientific research. SAM students use the Internet to post research questions to newsgroups, to collaborate with online mentors via email, and to publish their final reports on the WWW. Use of the Internet has forced the SAM program to restructure how classes are scheduled and how students work together. This restructuring has students beginning their introduction to the Internet in the 10th grade problem solving courses. This continues in the 11th grade where students collaborate with 12th graders to conduct their research.

The 3Rivers Poetry Forum.
3Rivers is an online poetry forum. It includes a number of Western Pennsylvania writing groups - elementary schools, high schools, and local writing workshops. Each group publishes and maintains a presence on the Net through the forum. This is an example of providing a place where multi-age groups can publish their work and receive feedback.

Student Links at CAPA.
Dennis Childers is a photographer, artist and musician. He is also a teacher of video at CAPA High School. Dennis is working with his students on putting the PPS Friends of Art collection on the WWW. This entails taking photographs of donated art in Pittsburgh schools, scanning the photographs, and uploading them to an online collection. In addition, he has put a virtual photography exhibit on his homepage. He uses this as a model for student work at CAPA.

Peace Day at Colfax Elementary School.
On World Peace Day November 17, 1995 two PPS schools celebrated by having a poster contest. The schools were Greenfield and Colfax elementaries. The schools' Developmental Advisor, Cheryl McLaughlin made it her job to teach her students about peace. What made the project unique was the communication with people on the Internet who were coordinating the activity. These are pictures of the students and their posters.

Scoring Rubrics for Student Generated Homepages.
A common problem for educators is how to assess student learning, especially that which takes place on the Internet. At Westinghouse H.S., 4 teachers - Ed Henke, Linda Savido, Joanne Valco and Tom Valco - have created a scoring rubric that can be used to evaluate the quality of students' homepages.

Liberty E.S. Newsgroup (only accessible within PPS)
Students and teachers at Liberty Elementary School use a local newsgroup - pps.school.liberty - to conduct a variety of school business. Homework assignments, problems of the week, the school newspaper, announcements of meetings, etc. are posted on their newsgroup for all to see.

Stokan's Studio
Stokan's Studio is a second grade class with a language arts emphasis on art history. We have studied art from Medieval Times and are approaching art in the present day. One of the artists we've studied recently is Van Gogh. The children wrote their impressions of one of his paintings.

ONLINE - A PPS Internet Event
On Friday May 17, Common Knowledge: Pittsburgh took a snapshot of Internet activity in the classrooms and homes of PPS teachers and students. We were interested in finding out exactly what Internet activities occur during the time period from midnight to midnight on May 17. We want teachers and students to send: that relate to curriculum, professional development and learning. During the day this homepage was expanded to include all contributions. The homepage was completed by midnight on the 17th.

Woolslair Computer Bytes
One of the interest classes offered during 2nd semester in the afternoon at Woolslair Gifted Center was "Computer Bytes". The teacher was Mrs. Ochs. The students in this class went on the Internet using Netscape, a Webcrawler, and Pine, an e-mail program. They got their own accounts and were able to write to other students from grades 2 to 6 (at least) in different states and countries such as Canada and Finland. The students wrote reviews after exploring the web. They rated the sites as "Bytes". 1 byte = poor, 2 = a little better, 3 = fair, 4 = pretty good, and 5 = great. Some children really liked the sites, but some found sites that they rated either 3, 2, or 1 bytes. That means they weren't satisfied. The children helped to design the Woolslair Computer Bytes Homepage. They have done a lot of work and have come up with good ideas. They all seem to have had a great time as they explored the 'Net, wrote reviews, and designed pages.

Westinghouse H.S. | Carrick H.S.
There are many PPS schools that have homepages. However, these two schools have school homepages created only by students. This forces students to organize, write, and visualize how they want their schools presented to the rest of the world. Not only does it create school pride, it develops skills that empowers students.

The PPS School-University Collaborative
The School District-University Collaborative is the exemplary national model for producing professional educators who express a preference for the special challenges of educating diverse students in urban settings. It is characterized by true partnerships between basic and higher education, in which theory and practice are successfully combined to advance teaching and learning. What makes this page unique is this is the first example of Board Administration using the WWW to disseminate information.

Pioneer Education Center
The Pioneer Education Center is a PPS school for students with profound learning impairments. This school submitted a proposal to CK:P which they then sent to a local foundation for funding. They are looking for ways to use the Internet with their unique population.

Dr. Detschel's German Page
Dr. Detschel is a German teacher at Knoxville M.S. She put together this page of German resources and information for her students.

Mr. Mertz's Art Classes
Mr. Mertz is an art teacher at Knoxville Middle School. He is developing a new art curriculum that is based on creating documents in html. These documents include scanned photos, images, text and links.

Art/Math/Nature
Joan Brindle, a teacher at the District's Elementary Gifted Center, has created a homepage for her students that relates art, mathematics and nature. This page, through her wonderful drawings, has hundreds of links to sites through the Internet.

PPS Schools with WWW Homepages A number of our schools are beginning to create WWW sites that reflect their talents and pride. They are putting in place homepages that open the door to their schools. The pages are in a constant state of growth and change. Enjoy!


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