Journal features Spain Park High School

Photography blogs, wiki deemed models for other visual art teachers

Photography students at Spain Park High School post images online and do peer reviews with students at several schools across the United States. Because of the photography teacher's innovation, the school is featured in the latest issue of the Working Toward Excellence journal.

Working Toward Excellence, the journal of the Alabama Best Practices Center, is published in print and online formats to help professional educators adopt the best ways to teach. The latest edition, "Alabama's 21st Century Schools Are Blazing Trails Through Cyberspace," focuses on Alabama teachers who are changing the way they teach to better prepare their students to succeed in life and the digital economy.

Find the online version of "Alabama's 21st Century Schools Are Blazing Trails Through Cyberspace" at www.abpc21.org.

Spain Park is one of 40 schools that participated in the Alabama Best Practices Center’s 21st Century Learning Project, underwritten by Microsoft Corp. and the Wachovia Foundation. This project does two things for teachers: helps them understand what students need to know to be successful in our ever-changing world, and provides them with the skills and tools to effectively engage their students.

Spain Park, a Hoover City school, won notice for A Daily Dose of Digital Photography, a blog where teacher Erik Myers posts images for feedback. He has developed collaborations with high school photography programs in Rhode Island and Washington State. Myers also maintains a second blog for art shows and exhibits, plus a wiki that serves as a continually updated syllabus.

Teacher Tosha Caston-Smith used a blog for her freshman English students, and she collected resource links on a del.icio.us site.

"Spain Park High School is a pacesetter in this work. Erik Myers and his colleagues at Spain Park have worked hard to expand the use of effective teaching strategies that not only help students learn more, but have fun while they are learning!  This project is about using inquiry-based learning strategies to facilitate teamwork across the miles," said Gassenheimer. "In this Digital Age, in addition to the basics, children will need a broad range of skills, such as critical thinking, problem-solving and how to effectively collaborate with others."

The A+ Education Foundation in Montgomery is home of the Alabama Best Practices Center, which receives major support from Microsoft Corp. and the Wachovia Foundation. Since 1991, A+ has advanced policies, programs and initiatives that result in high achievement by every child in Alabama's K-12 education system. A+ believes Alabama's economic future depends on strong public schools.

KEY LINKS

A Daily Dose of Digital Photography http://sphsdigital2.blogspot.com/
http://Sphsdi.blogspot.com/
http://Digitalimaging.wikispaces.com/

http://toshacs.edublogs.org/
http://del.icio.us/castonsmith

Digital version, Working Toward Excellence journal: www.abpc21.org

FIND IT FAST
These articles mention Spain Park High School: http://www.abpc21.org/blazingtrails.html and http://www.abpc21.org/classroom20.html

PDF (449 Kb) of the Working Toward Excellence journal's 16-page print edition, www.bestpracticescenter.org

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