[JITT Site Map] [On the Web] [In the Classroom] [For the Teacher] [At the District]


Oregon Department of Education
and the
Oregon Association of Education Service Districts
Regional Strategy for Technology,
Staff Development and School Improvement
OPEN Clearinghouse
Just-In-Time Training Project
Final Project Report
June 30, 1997

The following narrative documents the development of the Just In Time Training (JITT) Web site by Eugene Public School District 4J, under the umbrella of the Oregon Public Education Network Clearinghouse (OPEN) project, during the period of October 28, 1996, through June 30, 1997.

 -- Marilyn Kelly, Team Leader, Eugene School District 4J

Contents
[v] (i) Introduction
[v] (ii) Discovery Phase
[v] (iii) Planning and Designing Phase
[v] (iv) Implementation Phase--Making It Happen
[v] (v) Lessons Learned
[v] (vi) Conclusion
Appendices
[v] (a) Helpful References
[v] (b) JITT Site Design Documentation
[v] (c) Helper Application Documentation
[v] (d) Standards Database Documentation

(i) Introduction

The project goal was to develop and identify high-quality Web-based professional development and technical assistance resources for K-12 educators and present them on a "showcase" Web site. Specific objectives were to:

With a lot of energy, committed team members, and funding through the Oregon Department of Education (ODE), we set out to make it happen. Throughout the project we benefited from close collaboration with our Clearinghouse partners and generous support from Eugene Public School District 4J and ODE staff, members of the OPEN Instructional Networking Group (OPEN-ING), ESD staff, and technical coordinators, teachers, and administrators all around the state.

This report divides the project into phases. However, the reality is that once each phase is begun, it continues. Web sites come and go, technology advances, and needs change as people gain experience. A Web-based resource such as this must evolve in order to remain viable and valuable. [^]

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(ii) Discovery Phase

The first step was to gather information. Our aim was to create a site that would help educators get connected to teaching and learning with the Web. We wanted it to be easy to use, accessible, timely, reliable, and elegant. The big questions were, "How do we do that?" and, "What do we include?"

Studying

We studied models for professional development, the Internet, and the legal and ethical issues related to integrating the Web into classroom instruction. We studied Web-site design, HTML, and publishing of Web pages.

Assessing needs

To create a "timely" resource, we had to find out what people needed. We developed and conducted a skill assessment survey, using a test group of 150 Oregon educators. Results of this initial survey guided development of the project and are available on the Web site. The survey form is also online and may be freely used or adapted by schools and districts.

Identifying the scope

It was a difficult task to identify the scope of the project and how high to set the entry bar. After much discussion and review of the survey results, we decided to focus on the various aspects of using the Web (as opposed to other technologies) for teaching and learning. We would assume our clients were using a graphical Web browser, a 14.4 bps or faster modem, and had an ISP connection. We assumed they would know how to start their computer, connect to the Web, and use a mouse or other pointing device.

Exploring and evaluating

We examined hundreds of Web pages and bookmarked the good ones. We were looking for quality and speed--the best site in the world may not seem worth the wait if you feel like you can go take a shower while each page is loading.

We developed site evaluation criteria and a scoring system so that we could begin evaluating the Web sites we'd found. The site evaluation form and scoring system are posted on the Web site and are available for anyone to use. They also served as the basis for the site evaluation criteria and scoring system for the Arts In Education database, another piece of the OPEN Clearinghouse project.

Evaluated sites were stored in an Access database on one system and in a Filemaker Pro database on another system. Team members worked offsite and were able to share data by exporting it in comma-delimited text format.

Meeting

Monthly face-to-face meetings with OPEN Clearinghouse team members were integral to the success of the project, helping to create a common vision and maintain a spirit of cooperation and camaraderie. In between meetings, business was conducted via the project listserv, e-mail, and an occasional long-distance phone call. This proved to be a good mix of personal and electronic communication.

Obtaining permissions

We based our skill assessment survey and our evaluation criteria on documents we had found on the Web, and we would be including other "found" documents on our site. We e-mailed the appropriate parties to obtain permission to use or adapt their materials. Our experience here was very positive; we found most people more than willing to share their work and grant the necessary permission. [^]

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(iii) Planning and Designing Phase

Quality was a top priority, as was building a site that could grow. We intended this project should serve as a base for future development.

Gathering the team

It was time to hire someone with more Web experience and technical expertise than we had to help put this all together, someone with teaching experience, energy, enthusiasm, and the ability to work independently. As fate would have it, the perfect person appeared on our doorstep. She proved her mettle on a couple of short contracts and we contracted with her and her company, Depot District Computing, Inc., of Eugene, for the remainder of the grant period.

Identifying the audience

With any product or service, you need to know who your audience is. Our targeted audience would be Oregon Public K-12 educators--teachers, media specialists, tech coordinators, administrators. Some would be self directed, some "other" directed. They would come with a wide range of computer and Web experience. They would have varying degrees of access to the site, dependent on their connection speed (e.g., T1, modem), hardware, and browser software.

Establishing site standards

The OPEN partners adopted standards and guidelines for development of the Web site, based on the U.S. Department of Education World Wide Web (WWW) Server Standards and Guidelines, March 18, 1996. These standards covered issues such as navigation, graphics, footer information, use of color and backgrounds, contact information, file formats, and accessibility. Within those parameters, we developed conventions and guidelines for the JITT project.

Developing rules to live by

In the process of evaluating sites, we had spent hours waiting for Web pages to load. The reward for patience was often a graphics-intense home page with little or no content, a page of no interest, or just plain trash. Like all Web users, we had experienced the phenomenon of "sideways progress"--exploring links to the point where we had no idea where we had come from, why we were there, or what our original intent was.

To help clients stay focused and avoid dead ends, we established a few guiding principles. We would:

It was also important to utilize existing resources, such as CAM InfoNet, and to avoid recreating the wheel.

Outlining the structure

Results of our initial survey indicated that educators wanted and needed help with Netscape operation and Internet research, telecommunications use (e-mail), ethical-use understanding, and integrating technology and learning. Guided by these results and our audience profile, we focused on the "how-to" of technology integration, rather than specific content areas, and went at it from these four perspectives:

We took a top-down approach and outlined the site. We determined the entry points, how the site would be navigated and what graphical navigation aids were needed. These and other design considerations are documented at Quick Start and in the JITT Site Design Documentation.

Developing templates

Templates were developed for the various levels of pages so that anyone could easily add or edit content.

Graphics

Graphics were developed jointly with OPEN team members and additional assistance from New Paradigm, Inc., in Eugene, Oregon. To accommodate clients with older browser software or slow connections, we made a point of keeping graphics small and using them only to help clients orient themselves and navigate the site.

This was one area where working long distance was not efficient. It's difficult to convey via e-mail or over the phone what you do or don't like about a graphic. Colors vary from machine to machine, people's perceptions differ, and attempts at describing changes are limited by vocabulary. It's much easier to sit down together, look at the same image on the same monitor, draw pictures, point, exclaim, and simply try things out. [^]

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(iv) Implementation Phase--Making It Happen

The extensive planning and design work made it easy to forge ahead with creating the content, the bulk of which took place during the last three months of the project.

Developing content

Major accomplishments of the project include the following:

Skill Assessment Survey. The Skill Assessment Survey was developed early on in the project. It was originally e-mailed to survey participants and later converted to HTML.

Site Evaluation Form. The Site Evaluation Form was also an early product that was later modified for online use. Additionally, it served as the basis for the site evaluation form for the Arts In Education project, another part of the OPEN Clearinghouse.

Annotations. The JITT team evaluated, selected, and annotated resources for each of the areas where we were not directly creating content.

Oregon Standards. We contracted with New Paradigm, Inc., in Eugene, Oregon, to put the Oregon Standards document published by ODE, January, 1997, online. This included creating a standards database searchable by subject, sub-category, and grade level. Important considerations in designing the database were making it portable (so that it could easily be ported to a different platform if necessary in the future), making it expandable ("extra" fields were incorporated so that links to instructional ideas, resources, assessment, curriculum content, tasks and other information could be added), and making it relatively easy to maintain without the assistance of a programmer. It was our intent that the database could serve as a base for other development efforts relating to the standards. An abstract of the Standards Database Documentation is included at the end of this report.

Writing Assessment. Late in the project, we took on the task of putting the state writing assessment support materials online. This entailed creating templates, entering the state scoring guides, scanning student work samples and entering the scoring comments for them, linking the samples to the appropriate grade level and writing trait, creating a master index page, and careful proofing. We contracted with official scorers to identify representative student work samples, and to review and "flesh out" the scoring comments. The writing assessment module can be accessed from the Performance Standards page, "Writing."

Mathematics Assessment. From the Performance Standards page, "Mathematics," we inserted links to the state teacher and student scoring guides; reporting categories for multiple choice mathematics assessment; sample open-ended math tasks; and example elementary, middle, and secondary open-ended mathematics assessments, student work, and scoring criteria.

Science Standards. From the Performance Standards page, "Other Standards," we linked to the state Draft of the Scientific Inquiry Scoring Guide.

Helper Application. From the onset of the project, we were agreed that we wanted to foster a sense of community and provide a bit of the "human touch." We designed a Help system staffed by volunteers who provide assistance via e-mail to others who request help with technology-related questions. We developed the initial forms and then contracted with One World Internetworking, Inc., of Corvallis, Oregon, to create the Helper database and automate the maintenance process as much as possible. To date, we have 23 volunteer helpers. The Helper application can be accessed from the Help page and is documented in the Helper Application Documentation at the end of this report.

CAM InfoNet Forums. Again with an eye toward providing assistance and connecting people with colleagues who share their interests, we set up discussion groups and a chat session on CAM InfoNet.

Grants Workshop. An increasingly important aspect of technology integration is finding the funding for it. Maureen Russell, grants specialist for Eugene School District 4J, kindly put together tips and resources for producing a successful grant application, particularly useful for Oregon K-12 schools and teachers. We converted the documents to HTML.

Internet Workbooks. With the permission and cooperation of Sam Miller and Lynn Lary, we converted their beginners' guides to the Internet to HTML and posted them in our On The Web section. These guides were created for the Oregon US West/NEA Teacher Network, and are available for both Mac and PC platforms.

Quality control

Throughout the development cycle, pages and page design were tested using Netscape, MS Internet Explorer, AOL, and Lynx, both on Macs and PCs. We took care to format tabled information so that it appeared reasonably well in text-only browsers.

Feeling strongly that published works should not contain errors, we paid special attention to proofing our work. It was often a hard thing to do after expending extra effort finishing up a particular section, and it sometimes required extensive checklists and dogged determination. On the other hand, a piece isn't really finished until it's been inspected with pride of workmanship. We hope there are no errors here (otherwise, we have egg on our face).

Training and public relations

Regional ESD training sessions, in conjunction with our OPEN partners, were held and several promotional presentations were made in School District 4J. In all instances, the Web site was received with great enthusiasm and viewed as a much-needed and valuable resource.

Feedback and evaluation

Feedback and evaluation are ongoing processes. Feedback from regional training sessions and presentations was incorporated whenever possible. Some will be incorporated in Phase II development. [^]

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(v) Lessons Learned

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(vi) Conclusion

We believe we have met and surpassed our objectives. The JITT site is in and of itself a model for professional development. Each separate piece could be considered a model as well. The site has room to grow, and we hope this report can serve as a methodology for creating new just-in-time training modules.

Respectfully,

Marilyn Kelly, Team Leader
June 28, 1997

Team Members:

Les Moore, CIS Director, School District 4J
Jack Turner, Project Coordinator
Marilyn Kelly, Team Leader
Melissa Anderson, All-Around Team Member Extraordinaire [^]

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Appendices

(a) Helpful References

Hahn, Harley. The Internet Complete Reference, second edition, 1996. Osborne McGraw-Hill.

Serim, Ferdi. NetLearning: Why Teachers Use the Internet (Songline Guides), June 1, 1996. O'Reilly & Associates.

Tilton, Eric, and Carl Steadman, Tyler Jones. Web Weaving: Designing and Managing an Effective Web Site, January 1, 1996. Addison-Wesley Publishing Co.

Williams, Robin. The Non-Designer's Design Book: Design and Typographic Principles for the Visual Novice, August, 1994. Peachpit Press. [^]

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(b) JITT Site Design Documentation

by Melissa Anderson

I began the site design with a collection of pre-evaluated sites, feedback from the JITT survey, and audience considerations. The JITT site was to serve teachers statewide, many with little or no experience with computers or the Internet. The variations in connection cost and speed, hardware, and browser software necessitated a site that was compatible with older browsers and that made sparing and quality use of graphics.

Essentially, Just in Time Training was to provide annotated resources for teachers and content of its own as "holes" in coverage became apparent or high-quality materials were made available. The needs of the users and the kind of sites already selected lent themselves to classification into four major categories: training for teachers on how to use the technology itself, what to do with it in the classroom, ways of using technology for professional development that might or might not be technology oriented, and how to handle technology integration at the larger district level.

Starting with the home page as level one, these four categories became the level two pages. Each second level had at least four subtopics of annotated links, which became level three. Then several projects, like the acceptable use policies in "At the District" and the PC and Macintosh Workshop Guides in "On the Web" became level four. Quick Start covers the basic navigation devices. Level One was designed to transition from the OPEN look and feel to the JITT site, using the sidebar background gif, OPEN navigation buttons, and blue bullets.

The level two and three pages maintained some elements, including the blue bullets and linked site titles. Rather than using a sidebar, which we felt took up too much screen real estate for the JITT content, we opted for a menu in the left-hand column of the page. Careful attention was paid to the use of tables to determine that they were sensible in "non-tabled" and text-only browsers.

Although few members of our audience will access the site via Lynx or any other text browser, we discovered that Internet Explorer 4.4, a buggy Microsoft product that does not render tables, was being distributed and was in use in some of the ESD training facilities. The effort expended to take advantage of the considerable layout benefits of tables without preventing access by older browsers paid off in this case.

The basic structure of the navigation is outlined in Quick Start, the bulk of which is included in the following explanation.

First, we opted against image maps for the navigation graphics at the top of the page, choosing instead to include separate images that:

The distinguishing characteristics of each level:

All Pages

Top Images: Graphical Images of the four main categories, plus a JITT Site Map image.

Bottom Links: Text links to the OPEN Site.

[O.P.E.N. Home] [Search] [Help] [Feedback] [Site Map]

Standard Footer.

Levels 1 and 2

Blue Bullets: Clicking on the blue bullets leads to another page on the JITT site. Blue bullets are always followed by the topic they will take you to. Both the topic and the bullet are anchored, so clicking either one works.

Level 3

Links off-site: Include the site title, annotation, and the URL of the site. We felt including the URL would give clues about leaving the site, while making printed copies of the annotated links actually useful.

Both the name of the site and the site's address should take users to exactly the same location.

Levels 3 and 4

Red Arrows: Red arrows pointing down allow faster navigation of long pages. Though not all pages needed this device, most did, so for consistency's sake, they were used on all level-three pages.

Red arrows pointing up not only serve to take users back to the top of long documents, but they serve as a visual clue to section endings, which were useful for several level-four pages.

Level 4

Some pages will also have document-specific buttons. These take users to different pages of related topics, like multichaptered manuals.

The HTML Source Code is commented to indicate where various repeated elements are located, making it easier to find, replace, and update those elements. In addition, I have tried to include notes mentioning key format elements, such as the <TD Width=150 nobr> which maintains the width of the menu column to prevent the wrapping of long words while allowing the second, more content laden column to resize with the browser window. This element need exist in only one column per table to serve its purpose. [^]

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(c) Helper Application Documentation

The OPEN Helper application is a searchable database of volunteer helpers who provide assistance via e-mail to educators with technology-related questions. The database can be searched by specialty, hardware platform (e.g., Mac, Windows, Unix), grade level, and ESD. It basically works as follows:

Sign up to be a helper

Helpers sign up. Their information goes into a "pending" list.

The system sends the help administrator e-mail notification that there's a pending helper.

The system sends an e-mail message to the pending helper with guidelines and instructions, requesting a reply so that we can confirm the helper's e-mail address and that he/she wants to participate.

The pending helper replies to the help administrator.

The help administrator then approves or denies the pending helper. This step is primarily to prevent malicious signups. The administrator can edit the pending helper's record if necessary.

If approved, the system moves the pending helper record into the database, removes it from the pending list, and notifies the helper that he/she is now in the database. The help administrator can add comments to the standard "approved" message.

If denied, the system removes the pending helper record from the pending list and notifies the pending helper that he/she was not added to the database. The help administrator can add comments to the standard "denied" message.

The help administrator can directly add records to the database or edit and delete records in the database.

Helpers can edit their information by clicking the Edit link under Sign Up To Be A Helper on the OPEN/JITT Help page. Each edit creates a new pending record. When the pending record is approved by the help administrator, the database is updated with the helper's changes.

Search for a helper

Clients can search the database by specialty, platform, grade level, ESD, or a combination of these criteria.

Search results are sorted by specialty, based on the assumption that people will be looking for help with a particular specialty. So, if a helper signed up with more than one specialty, the helper is listed in the search results once under each specialty. (If you select a specialty on the Search screen, each helper is listed only once. If you don't select a specialty, you'll see multiple entries for the same helper.)

Helper administration

There is an "administrative user" with add, edit, and delete privileges. The administrative user cannot be deleted from the database.

All testing is done in a development environment. For version control, all changes to helper HTML files must be made in the development directory and then copied over to the production directory.

Important: The .html files cannot be treated as if they were normal HTML documents. They are quite literally *Perl code* and as such must be treated very carefully (as documented in the Specification and Support Document). Files must be uploaded in ascii mode, otherwise the application will break. [^]

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(d) Standards Database Documentation

This information is provided for Oregon K-12 website developers who want to incorporate a search of the Standards. For more information, you may contact webmaster@open.k12.or.us.

Abstract

The search engine for the Oregon Standards site allows for not just direct browsing of the Standards through the JITT website, but also via any other website that wants to incorporate a Standards search. A universal keying system was agreed upon that allows for anyone with a copy of the printed Oregon Standards to build the appropriate query to give the CGI script that returns the results in a tabular format similar to the printed publication.

Data flow

Though a search can occur at any point along this flow, most users will take the following course when performing a search:

  1. Choose one or more top-level subjects (i.e. English, Arts, Mathematics, etc.)
  2. Choose one or more sub-level subjects along with one or more of the following:
    • Grade 3 Benchmarks
    • Grade 5 Benchmarks
    • Grade 8 Benchmarks
    • Grade 10 Benchmarks
    • Grade 12 Benchmarks
      All searches return the Common Curriculum Goals and Content Standards with the chosen Benchmarks.
  1. Optionally link from the benchmarks to additional resources. Each benchmark is associated with a number of additional resources including lesson plans and so on. Each resource has a name and URL defined in the database. There are also a number of additional "future" fields with names and URLs that can be used in the future without redefining the database. [^]

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