Link to: [Hewlett Foundation's Open Education Resources](http://www.hewlett.org/oer) page The Maine International Center for Digital Learning project explores uses of OER, including remix and creation of new materials, as a means to engage K-12 teachers and students in using new technologies and developing new habits of mind. The Maine Learning Technology Initiative (MLTI) is currently the largest, most successful, longest running digital education project in the world. The scope of data gathered and experience working in classrooms exceed anything available elsewhere. Sharing this information and building new educational approaches are essential tasks for the future, and will be undertaken under the auspices of the new Maine International Center for Digital Learning. Six years into the MLTI project, we have achieved equity of access to hardware, software, and information resources for all middle school teachers and students. We have also successfully provided equity of access to relevant professional development. What has not come to full fruition is equity in the utilization of these resources across all disciplines, classrooms, and schools. We find that approximately 50% of teachers are not using technology and resources at levels critical to transforming teaching and learning, despite the fact that teachers describe themselves as being technologically competent. Through this project, we will address stagnation in the improvement process in some schools, and equity of instruction and learning issues, together with the implications for work at the high school level. Through our research design, and creation of a testbed and ethnographic study, we will also be able to examine the ways in which OER materials and resources are used. This pilot project will provide the resources to help frame the critical project question, focusing on targeted algebra topics and two specific professional development strategies. We will then be able to answer questions around our hypothesis: Can the introduction and flexible uses of OER, including remix and generation of new materials, meaningfully engage teachers and students in the creative use of new technologies and digital resources, and help them to develop habits of mind essential to realizing their full educational potential for the 21st century? Initiatives Within MICDL image/jpeg 2009-02-17T14:26:30Z 20 Garden.jpg 200 13 11998

The Maine International Center for Digital Learning project explores uses of OER, including remix and creation of new materials, as a means to engage K-12 teachers and students in using new technologies and developing new habits of mind.

2010-02-23T20:02:40Z 267 Last fall MICDL Executive Director, Bette Manchester and Director of Research, David Silvernail, were invited to Paris to meet with colleagues involved with international education technology projects at the OECD's Centre for Educational Research and Innovation (CERI). A joint report on innovation in Education using computer technology will be coming out in June 2009. [CERI News Events Website](http://www.oecd.org/department/0,3355,en_2649_35845581_1_1_1_1_1,00.html) About CERI (from their [Website)](http://www.oecd.org/about/0,3347,en_2649_35845581_1_1_1_1_1,00.html) "What is CERI? CERI stands for Centre for Educational Research and Innovation. CERI was set up in 1968 as an independently funded programme by member countries and other organisations. CERI has established an international reputation for pioneering educational research, opening up new fields for exploration and combining rigorous analysis with conceptual innovation. With more than 20 staff members, we are a major division of the OECD Directorate for Education. What does CERI work on? CERI’s work covers learning at every age, from birth to old age. It goes beyond the formal education system. We have a particular concern with emerging trends and issues, futures thinking in schools and universities. We often have a longer timeframe than most work, typically aiming to set an agenda for the next 5-10 years orlonger. Our goal is to ensure that the futures work is thoroughly integrated with empirical analysis. We also put specific emphasis on accumulating evidence on the value and quality of futures work. Who does CERI work with? CERI works with all Member countries, often in small groups of between five and fifteen countries. We draw extensively on experts from Member countries for research and analysis. We have developing links with educational and other research associations and national and international multidisciplinary networks. How does CERI disseminate its work? CERI disseminates it work to a wide range of audiences including researchers, policy-makers and practitioners, extending beyond education. Our core outputs are conferences , publications, reports, and policy briefs . Increasingly, we are striving towards a more web-based and interactive dissemination of results." Initiatives Within MICDL 2009-05-12T21:22:25Z 30 24

Last fall MICDL Executive Director, Bette Manchester, and Director of Research, David Silvernail, were invited to Paris to meet with colleagues involved with international education technology projects at the OECD's Centre for Educational Research and Innovation (CERI).

2009-12-02T19:07:39Z **EAST Alliance2 in Science and Technology** The National Science Foundation has awarded $3.1 million to a team based at the University of Southern Maine (USM) to increase the number and diversity of Maine students receiving degrees in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM). The five-year grant will fund the development of an alliance among USM, two Maine Community Colleges and southern Maine high schools which will provide support and training in STEM activities for educators and students. The alliance, called the EAST Alliance2 in Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics for Students with Disabilities, welcomed guests to an inaugural meeting announcing its plans at Portland High School. In addition to USM, EAST members include Portland High School; Deering High School in Portland; the Casco Bay High School for Expeditionary Learning in Portland; Bonny Eagle High School in Buxton; Southern Maine Community College and Central Maine Community College. The $3.1 million grant is an extension of a project first funded in 2003 designed to encourage students with disabilities throughout New England to study a STEM discipline and, ultimately, to pursue a STEM-based career. For more information, contact USM Professor Samantha Langley-Turnbaugh at 780-5362, langley@usm.maine.edu or Lynn Lovewell, director and project manager of EAST at 780-5449, llovewell@usm.maine.edu. Maine Initiatives 2009-06-16T16:55:33Z 40 25

EAST-2 is funded by the National Science Foundation, and located at the University of Southern Maine, with a mission to increase the number of students with disabilities receiving degrees in science, technology, engineering and mathematics. To learn more go to the website at [EastAlliance2.Org](http://eastalliance2.org)

2009-12-02T19:06:57Z Working in some of the poorest, most challenging places, the Rural Trust involves young people in learning linked to their communities, improves the quality of teaching and school leadership, and advocates in a variety of ways for appropriate state educational policies, including the key issue of equitable and adequate funding for rural schools. **Goals** *High quality place-based education, widely practiced in rural schools and communities* *Effective, permanent organizations of rural people, active in every state, participating in state and local policy development and ensuring high-quality rural education.* *A national agenda where rural people and their issues are visible and credible.* The Rural Schools and Community Trust recently granted funds for the Skowhegan Area Middle School and The Skowhegan High School to explore the initiative whereby the schools and the community would come together in a dynamic partnership. The results of this initiative can be seen on our published website celebrating this union. Technology integration was a key factor as students researched, communicated, designed websites, authored oral histories and much more. It can all be seen at : Link: [MSAD 54 Revitalization Project](http://www.msad54.org/district/placedbaseded/index.shtml) Link: [Rural Schools and Community Trust](http://www.ruraledu.org/) Maine Initiatives image/jpeg 2009-02-26T13:10:58Z 50 meeting.jpg 179 18 23189

The Rural School and Community Trust is a national nonprofit organization addressing the crucial relationship between good schools and thriving communities. Our mission is to help rural schools and communities get better together.

2009-11-25T19:58:41Z 320 Website: [EcoScienceWorks](http://www.fbr.org/swksweb/esw.html) EcoScienceWorks is an NSF ITEST project for seventh and eighth grade science teachers and students in Maine. Its major goal is to develop computer-based curriculum for the Maine laptop program that will spur student interest in computer modeling in science while learning ecology. EcoBeaker: Maine Explorer™, the software portion of EcoScienceWorks, can be found in the Applications folder of all Maine Learning Technology Initiative (MLTI) middle school student and teacher laptops in Fall 2008. The software is at the heart of the new EcoScienceWorks curriculum, which was written by Maine middle school science teachers. EcoBeaker: Maine Explorer™ has been developed and thoroughly field-tested in Maine classrooms over the past 3 years. The EcoScienceWorks curriculum includes unit and lesson plans for each EcoBeaker: Maine Explorer™ lab as well as an accompanying field exercise. The units include assessments that align with the new Maine learning standards and are designed for use "right out of the box." In addition, students are given a "look under the hood" of their ecology labs through a Code Blocks programming challenge called Program a Bunny. The EcoScienceWorks curriculum is in a NoteShare notebook that can be downloaded from the software developer's site following a simple registration. Registering will allow teachers to be advised of any updates to the software and curriculum and allow the project to collect usage data. More information and links to podcasts that describe each of the labs can be found on the [EcoScienceWorks](http://www.fbr.org/swksweb/esw.html) web page. Maine Initiatives image/jpeg 2009-02-10T20:07:49Z 60 esw_ebme1.jpg 200 1 70494

EcoScienceWorks is an NSF ITEST project for seventh and eighth grade science teachers and students in Maine. Its major goal is to develop computer-based curriculum for the Maine laptop program that will spur student interest in computer modeling in science while learning ecology.

2009-11-25T19:58:57Z 294 Web page: [Vital Signs](http://www.gmri.org/education/vitalsigns.asp) **Vital Signs** is a field-based science education program that builds on the knowledge and skills that students gain as 5th or 6th graders in the Cohen Center for Interactive Learning. Vital Signs links 7th and 8th grade students and scientists in the rigorous collection and analysis of essential environmental data across freshwater and coastal ecosystems. Innovative technology, relevant content, and critical partnerships create an authentic science learning experience for students, a distributed data gathering network for scientists, and a statewide community of teachers, students, and scientists collaborating to learn about and steward the Gulf of Maine watershed partners in a collaborative, service-learning effort to study local aquatic environments. Vital Signs promises to: * Provide students an authentic science experience that enhances learning, empowers students as citizen scientists, and raises aspirations for science careers; * Collect data on a comprehensive, frequent basis to assist scientists and resource managers in monitoring the health of aquatic ecosystems statewide; and * Build a replicable open source technology system that facilitates citizen participation in environmental research and improves public access to information on human and natural communities. The Vital Signs education experience is carefully designed to give students an opportunity to learn science as though they are real scientists. Students use the same scientific process, protocols, field equipment, and technology tools that scientists use to study ecosystems and to share their findings. This authentic research-based approach to science education challenges students to think critically about their local ecosystems, offer creative solutions to real environmental issues, and develop essential communication skills. Maine Initiatives image/jpeg 2009-02-10T22:04:42Z 70 VS_beach_bucket.jpg 200 10 24801

Vital Signs is a field-based science education program that builds on the knowledge and skills that students gain as 5th or 6th graders in the Cohen Center for Interactive Learning. Vital Signs links 7th and 8th grade students and scientists in the rigorous collection and analysis of essential environmental data across freshwater and coastal ecosystems

2009-11-25T19:59:13Z 147 Website [CREST](http://crest.islandinstitute.org) A three-year, $1.2 million grant to the [Island Institute](http://www.islandinstitute.org/) from the National Science Foundation (NSF), a U.S. government agency. The grant has been made under NSF’s “ITEST” (Information Technology Experiences for Students & Teachers) program. The project that has been funded is called “CREST” (Community for Rural Education Stewardship and Technology), and in addition to the Island Institute, involves 11 island and coastal high schools and middle schools, and a number of academic institutions. Island communities will benefit from this grant in the form of technology equipment and stipends for students and teachers to attend CREST career fairs, college campus visits, and summer institutes. The program partners include Bowdoin College and University of Maine Machias. Photo: *CREST- Career Fair - Ship Bridge Simulator* Maine Initiatives image/jpeg 2009-02-10T20:26:14Z 80 Crest_Bridge_simulator.jpg 200 2 5625

A three-year, $1.2 million grant to the Island Institute from the National Science Foundation (NSF), a U.S. government agency. The grant has been made under NSF’s “ITEST” (Information Technology Experiences for Students & Teachers) program. The project that has been funded is called “CREST” (Community for Rural Education Stewardship and Technology), and in addition to the Island Institute, involves 11 island and coastal high schools and middle schools, and a number of academic institutions.

2009-11-25T19:59:27Z 150 **The Maine ScienceCorps sponsored by an NSF GK-12 Fellowship grant** Web Page [Maine ScienceCorps](http://research.usm.maine.edu/Maine_ScienceCorps/index.php) The Maine ScienceCorps connects science teachers and students at rural high schools with the biosciences research community of the University of Southern Maine (USM) and the Education Division of the Foundation for Blood Research (FBR). Since 2001, grant support (NSF, DGE-0086341 and DGE- 0440560) from the highly successful National Science Foundation program, NSF GRADUATE TEACHING FELLOWS IN K-12 EDUCATION (GK-12), along with significant USM contributions have allowed the Maine ScienceCorps to address critical needs for active laboratory-based learning in science classrooms of rural high schools across Maine. During the first five years, ScienceCorps provided NSF and USM sponsored fellowships for 29 biosciences graduate students and established a strong connection of the USM scientific community with rural high schools across Maine, by providing many laboratory based active learning experiences to about 5,000 high school students. The interactions typically involve graduate Fellows bringing activities aligned with Maine's science education standards (The Maine Learning Results) along with needed equipment and materials into the schools as a part of eight to ten classroom laboratory sessions distributed through the school year. Maine Initiatives image/jpeg 2009-02-10T21:41:59Z 90 Sciencecorps.jpg 200 7 18969

The Maine ScienceCorps connects science teachers and students at rural high schools with the biosciences research community of the University of Southern Maine (USM) and the Education Division of the Foundation for Blood Research (FBR).

2009-11-25T20:00:19Z 250 Website: [IDEAS]( http://arch.eece.maine.edu/ideas/index.php/Main_Page) Principal Investigator(s): Bruce Segee, Yifeng Zhu, and Peter Koons Project Location: University of Maine at Orono This project will connect researchers at the University of Maine with students and middle school teachers, both at the University (during a summer workshop) and at participating schools (during the academic year) to utilize computer modeling and visualization of geological processes in the classroom. The proposed project will have 60 participating teachers each with 120 contact hours at the University of Maine, as well as 180 students, each with 20 contact hours at the University of Maine. The focus of this project is to integrate computational modeling with the existing science curriculum at the middle school level. This will be accomplished largely by collectively utilizing existing laptop computer computational power and networking capability to run computer models, both locally and at the University supercomputer, and to create high resolution interactive visualization displays (from the same laptops) to view the output. Maine Initiatives image/jpeg 2009-02-10T21:25:08Z 100 Ideas.jpg 200 5 12895

This project will connect researchers at the University of Maine with students and middle school teachers, both at the University (during a summer workshop) and at participating schools (during the academic year) to utilize computer modeling and visualization of geological processes in the classroom.

2009-11-25T20:00:31Z 267 (supported by an NIH Science Education Partnership Award) **Audience**: Teachers (grade 3-8 in summer program and K-12 in academic year) Students (grade 3-8 primarily) and adult public (in public dissemination aspects of the project) **Subjects Addressed**: Microbiology, virology, immunology, light and electron microscopy **Project Description**: The unseen world, both living and non-living, at the micro-scale and the nano-scale has inordinate importance for health and disease and is only made visible in detail through the appropriate tools of microscopy. In this project University of Southern Maine (USM) faculty and staff with expertise in electron microscopy, microbiology, virology, and immunology team up with elementary and middle school education and outreach specialists and the staff of USM’s Southworth Planetarium to reveal vast but usually invisible micro-space/nano-space worlds to students through curriculum development work with grades 3-8 teachers in the summer and K-12 teachers during the academic year. Grades 3-8 teachers participating in the summer program return to their classrooms with new light microscopy and curriculum resources and are provided with outreach support in their use of these resources. Resources generated also contribute to new mico- and nano-space planetarium shows that will reach many audiences. Phase I of the project (years 1 to 3) will emphasize collaboration of biomedical sciences faculty and staff, teacher participants, and the staff of USM’s Southworth Planetarium on curriculum materials and production of visual resources for far-reaching educational outreach. Phase II of the project will focus on dissemination of curricula and other products of the project while expanding outreach efforts throughout Maine and integrating the academic year programs for K-12 teachers into the academic offerings of the Department of Applied Medical Sciences. Specific goals of the project are: 1) to reveal directly (with minimal abstraction) to K-12 teachers, their students, and the general public the biological entities and molecular processes at micro- and nano-scales that dramatically impact human health. 2) To support, through new summer and academic year programs, collaborative partnership of teachers and university scientists in developing grade level appropriate standards based curriculum units that will illuminate the impact of the micro- and nano-scale realms on human health. 3) To extend collaborative efforts to include development of Micro-space/Nano-space Planetarium shows to be produced and piloted at the USM Southworth Planetarium and then distributed to planetariums nationally. 4) To sustain the partnership and disseminate regionally and nationally the curriculum materials collaboratively developed during the partnership through publications, a project website, professional presentations, contributions to digital library resources, and active classroom outreach by USM science education outreach staff and programs. Maine Initiatives 2009-02-10T21:55:59Z 110 9

In this project University of Southern Maine (USM) faculty and staff with expertise in electron microscopy, microbiology, virology, and immunology team up with elementary and middle school education and outreach specialists and the staff of USM’s Southworth Planetarium to reveal vast but usually invisible micro-space/nano-space worlds to students through curriculum development work with grades 3-8 teachers in the summer and K-12 teachers during the academic year.

2009-11-25T20:00:04Z **The Maine Professional Development Collaborative** is a group of highly skilled middle and high school teachers working with Don Leu and his colleagues at the [New Literacies Research Lab at the University of Connecticut](http://www.newliteracies.uconn.edu/news.html) to develop and study a powerful professional development model for 1-to-1 laptop classrooms. In 2009 the project is working to integrate online learning skills into the English and Science classroom. The project is structured in a team approach, where each colleague has an important voice and insights to share as they build the professional development model together through action research. The team will collectively build a new model of professional development that will prepare teachers, around the world, for teaching in 1-to-1 laptop classrooms, preparing students for their future in an online world of learning and work. This project uses a collaborative approach to create a professional development model for supporting the acquisition of online literacy and learning skills within 1-to-1 laptop classrooms. The collaboration will include exemplary classroom teachers, university researchers, and school leaders, each bringing their special insights to answer the question, *“How do we build the most effective professional development model possible to help teachers integrate the new literacies of online reading comprehension and learning into the classroom?”* The project will develop a pilot professional development model, which will be used to seek federal research grant funding for the State of Maine to evaluate and improve digital learning on a wider basis. The content will focus on developing expertise with the use of Internet Reciprocal Teaching (IRT) (Leu, et al, 2008), a research-based model for teaching online reading comprehension skills in 1-to-1 laptop classrooms. We will evaluate three different types of job-embedded professional development approaches: 1. A literacy coaching approach, where literacy coaches work collaboratively with classroom teachers to improve implementation of the IRT model. 2. A peer coaching approach, where two teachers in the same school support one another with the implementation of the IRT model. 3. An online coaching approach, where teachers and outside experts support the implementation of the IRT model with bi-weekly, isight videoconferences and an ongoing email discussion group. The project began by selecting exemplary classroom teachers at the middle and high school levels. A two- day professional development session at the beginning of the second semester, will be followed by pilot implementation in classrooms during the remainder of the spring semester. Mid-semester there will be a one-day professional development session followed by additional implementation. Immediately after school is out for summer, a two-day debriefing session will be used to both evaluate and revise the initial model. Pre and post tests of online reading comprehension, Internet dispositions, and school success will be administered to both students and teachers to measure changes during the course of the project. These data, with names, schools, and classrooms removed, will be available to participants as we evaluate the model together and make revisions. Central to this collaborative venture will be the insights, experiences, and recommendations of the classroom-teaching participants. We believe that participating teachers possess the most important information for building this innovative, collaborative model for professional development. Projects and Initiatives Within MICDL image/jpeg 2009-03-20T13:29:02Z 10 Don_Leu.jpg 200 22 34109

_The Maine Professional Development Collaborative_ is a group of highly skilled middle and high school teachers working with **Don Leu** and his colleagues at the [New Literacies Research Lab at the University of Connecticut](http://www.newliteracies.uconn.edu/index.html) to develop and study a powerful professional development model for 1-to-1 laptop classrooms. In 2009 the project is working to integrate online learning skills into the English and Science classroom. The project is structured in a team approach, where each colleague has an important voice and insights to share as they build the professional development model together through action research.

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