Free PDFs of the digital textbooks are available on the state’s website under a Creative Commons License. Educators and leaders produced six secondary science texts, with plans to expand into elementary school.
Administrators in Indiana’s Plymouth Community School Corporation (PCSC) decided that they wanted to incorporate digital content that would be available on demand, be shared, and would be engaging and personalized.
“Information is readily accessible via the internet and different resources,” said Dan Funston, PCSC’s assistant superintendent. “There used to be a time when teachers held all the information. We have to teach our kids to know what’s good content, what’s bad content, and we have to teach our kids to be self-directed learners.”
The district used local funds and textbook money, following a state ruling that textbook money could be used to purchase digital content, to fund a one-to-one netbook program. The district also received competitive state grants in 2010 and 2012 to create and curate its own content, and project leaders made that content readily available after creation. Those projects led to online classes for district students.
Representatives from the district are joining others across the state in an eLearning Leadership Cadre, in which 12 people will share efforts regarding curating content and sharing best practices.
In addition to its one-to-one program, the district uses a podcasting service housed in a Mac OS X Server, uses My Big Campus for curating content into “bundles” that are shared district-wide, offers Pearson’s MathXL and digits math tools, and subscribes to Discovery Education’s science Techbook for grades 5-8.
When it comes to planning and scaling up successful practices, Funston said that administrators and school leaders should communicate a clear vision for what they want to do, look to teachers and teacher leaders to build up leadership capacity, implement real-time professional development with follow-up coaching, and support a digital culture.
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