Projects

Author’s Note: This list is slightly out of date—but I’ve got a good reason, so we’ll let it slide. I’ve got so many projects going on right now that I don’t have time to maintain a list of them. All in all, that’s probably better having than the opposite problem.

Current and Ongoing Projects

Open Access Education Technology Journal RSS Feed

Geoge Veletsianos is working to put together a comprehensive list of free, open access scholarly journals that cover educational technology. I’ve compiled an RSS Feed that aggregates these free articles into one source for your viewing pleasure. I’m working to make sure that it is kept up to date. For the most part, I’m working off of George’s list, which can be found here. If you know of any additional journals that I may be missing, please let me know. For more information about the project, please visit my original post.

Project ICT and OPAL

Project ICT and OPAL are two Title IId grants funded by the New York State Department of Education and executed by the New York City Department of Education’s Office of Educational Technology, for whom I’m lucky enough to work for. The two grants are different but they overlap. Project ICT is focused on taking project-based learning and enhancing it using the latest digital technologies. OPAL, on the other hand, is focused on online learning. We provide professional development to teachers in Brooklyn as well as in-class support. We also manage an online community of some very talented and innovative educators who are dedicated to bringing cutting edge pedagogy to their students.

Office of Educational Technology Website

I’m lead designer for the New York City Department of Education Office of Educational Technology’s website. The site was built by me using Wordpress and Thesis—just like this site. It’s the launching page for the five borough offices. As soon as I get some free time, I plan on updating the design a bit as well as moving away from Adobe Flash and towards jQuery.

Twenty-First Century Schools Websites

I’m currently in the process of designing and developing web sites for a few of the twenty-first centuries schools in New York City. The sites are based on Drupal and are highly interactive as well as easily maintainable. I’ll most more information here as soon as they’re read to show off.

Previous Projects

Educational Manifesto (Version One and Version Two)

Since I began working for the Office of Educational Technology, I’ve learned a lot. I’ve had a lot of time to really dig down into what really good teaching entails. I really should get around to writing a third version. The first version was written during the very first weeks of my second year teaching and is one of my most read essays—despite the fact that I’m constantly finding new errors in it. The second version was written the summer after in an education philosophy class when my professors made me aware of 70% of the errors in my first draft. All in all, I still like the first version more.

Point of View Unit of Study

This purpose of this unit is to teach students in 4th and 5th grade how to understand and identify different points of views taken by characters within fictional texts. It is crucial for students to understand how every event, whether fictional or real, could be interpreted through many different points of views. Students will therefore learn to see any event as a multi-layered, complex incident that needs to be analyzed at a much deeper level. The ability to identify different points of views within fictional texts will enable students to understand the different points of views of events that they witness or partake in their own lives.