The centerpiece of New Hampshire’s ICT standards initiative is an emphasis on engaging and empowering students through the creation of digital portfolios. Poster attendees will be able to talk with New Hampshire educators working at both the state and local levels about how New Hampshire is accomplishing this through a multi-year change process.

New Hampshire’s new ICT Literacy Standards were meant to address the need to embed technology and information literacy deeply into core content learning, instead of being taught as a separate subject area. The standards specifically refer to teaching ICT within each core content area and then assessing ICT competencies using rubrics applied to artifacts within digital portfolios. This poster session will review the state’s ICT standards and the variety of ways in which New Hampshire schools are addressing them.

Participants will be introduced to case studies, sample portfolios and rubrics, portfolio literature, online courses, and other materials used over the past few years to build capacity among teachers and administrators. Participants will also learn about the various portfolio storage solutions being employed by New Hampshire schools as part of their efforts to update their technology infrastructure to support the new standards.

New Hampshire’s ICT standards are program level standards, containing language from key frameworks, including the six NETS-S categories, the information literacy standards, and the 21st century skills. Since they are program level and not curriculum level standards, they allow local districts a great deal of latitude in designing and implementing a local ICT Literacy Program. This poster session will reveal the variety of locally developed programs, providing many “take-away” ideas for participants.

Outline

State-level data
Sample student portfolios
Case studies of schools developing a portfolio process
Online PD course syllabus
Resource websites
Research references

Supporting Research

Hewett, S. (2004, September). Improving Instructional Practices. TechTrends: Linking Research & Practice to Improve Learning, 48(5), 26-30.

Higgins, C. (2007). Digital portfolios in middle school: A phenomenographic study of student engagement and achievement. Doctoral dissertation, Argosy University, Sarasota, 2007. Excerpts available online at www.thinkict.org.

Kelly, M.G., Haber, J. (2006). National educational technology standards for students: Resources for student assessment. Eugene, OR: International Society for Technology in Education.

Presenter Background

Dr. Cathy Higgins is the State Educational Technology Director for the state of New Hampshire and is responsible for assisting K-12 schools to implement digital portfolios as part of their required school ICT Literacy Programs.

Cathy will be joined by other NH educators who have been involved in the digital portfolio work and will be happy to share their experiences, including Sonja Gonzales, Deb Boisvert (Deerfield), Karen Switzer (Laconia), and other NH educators TBA.