Creating an Educational Network:Using Current Technology and the Arts to Connect with High School Students

Dana Jung Munson

In partial completion towardsA Masters Degree in Curriculum and Instruction,

Creative Arts in Learning,Lesley University School of Education

Abstract

The US students of today are inundated with technology; from iPods to Facebook, they

have technology at their fingertips. Teachers today need to learn how to harness one of the

greatest technology platforms available, social media. Understanding that play is the center of

the social media platform and that play is what appeals to their students is the key to creating an

educational social network that will fit the needs of teachers and students. By developing an

educational social network that is based the arts – drama, storytelling, visual arts, and music -

teachers and students will be able to connect to learning in a new and innovative approach that

will make life-long learners. The problems with creating an educational social network are (1)

creating a teacher-monitored environment so schools will not block the network, (2) using a

good assessment tool that will help teachers evaluate their students’ performance online, (3)

developing the proper software that will hold the students’ attention, and (4) encouraging

teachers to take advantage of this unique educational tool. By creating an online educational

social network that addresses these problems, I hope to create the synthesis of science and the

arts that will help the students of today become life-long learners.

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Table of Contents

Abstract............................................................................................................................................ii

Table of Contents...........................................................................................................................iii

Introduction and Rationale..............................................................................................................1

Description of Project....................................................................................................................14

Implementation Plan......................................................................................................................19

Sustainability Sources....................................................................................................................22

Evaluation......................................................................................................................................23

Conclusion.....................................................................................................................................26

Appendix 1.....................................................................................................................................29

Appendix 2.....................................................................................................................................30

Appendix 3.....................................................................................................................................31

Appendix 4.....................................................................................................................................32

Appendix 5.....................................................................................................................................33

Annotated Bibliography.................................................................................................................34

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Introduction and Rationale

Using technology both inside and outside of the classroom can be fun and interesting for

students and yet difficult and time-consuming for teachers. Students of the twenty-first century

have grown up living with a virtual world of information at their fingertips. US students today

are not been bound by the flat pages of a book and are attracted to every digital device that

conveys even the smallest scrap of information as long as these devices provide some

entertainment value. From iPods to Facebook, US students are bombarded by technology

everyday. Their lives are immersed in virtual communities. Unlike our students who have

adapted to the fast changes in technology, teachers have not always found the best uses for the

newest and most innovative technologies (Bernard, 2010). One of the fastest growing

technologies in the US culture today is social networking, and more specifically Facebook usage

(Facebook, 2010). In order to tap into the potential for reaching students through social

networking, US teachers today need to understand how the social network platform works, and

how a teacher can create an online learning community that can encourage students to learn as

they “play” on an educational social network that is developed through the arts.

According to Facebook’s press page in December of 2010, there are more than 500

million active users and over 50% of the active users log onto Facebook on any given day.

Finding specific statistics on social media usage of teens in the US is not so simple. There are

many sites that offer unsubstantiated facts about teen usage, but few with specifics. In 2009 the

Nielsen Company published a report on the use of media by US teenagers. According to their

data of the teenagers polled, over half of US teens use Facebook. Of these teenagers, 67%

updated their pages at least once a week. These teenagers used Facebook to gossip, to share

photos, a source of current information, and for advice (Nielsen Company, p. 7). Though the

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Nielsen survey provides some hard facts on teenage use of social media, it is now almost two

years out of date. For most data this would seem current, but social media changes everyday and

as these platforms adapt and grow so does the teenage use of this media.

In order to get current data, I informally polled 132 of my own students about their social

media usage in December 2010 at Riverwood International Charter School. Of the 132 students

polled, 89% used a social network and 83% of those students specifically used Facebook. These

students were also asked to guess how many

friends they currently had on Facebook. Of the

132 participants, there were a total of 71, 033

friends with an average of 538 friends per

students (Figure 1). Since all Facebook users

must be 13 years old to join (Facebook), of the

students polled most students joined Facebook at age 13,

while many joined as early as age 9 (Figure 2). These

students were also asked to guess at the average amount

of time spent on Facebook during a day. The result was

an

average

of 1.83 hours a day spent on social networking

(Figure 3). These students were also asked to

rank their favorite activities online. While

updating their statuses on their profile pages was

one of their most favorite activities, they also enjoy

Figure 1. Number of friends reported

Figure 2. Age students began using Facebook.

Figure 3. Hours spent a day on Facebook.

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sharing photos and playing games on the social network. The most glaring detail this informal

survey shows is that students have begun at an early age to use social media and will continue to

adapt to the virtual environment as a part of their daily lives. Overall, it is perplexing to imagine

that teachers are missing an opportunity to capture the attention of their students for at least 1.83

hours a day. The problem that teachers face is how to use the spirit of the social network to their

advantage. If the playfulness of the social network can be tapped into and used academically then

the students can learn in an environment where they will take an active part in their learning and

not just merely connect with friends.

Within my own school district, all social networks are banned including Facebook,

MySpace, and even small online communities like Ning.com. There are many reasons why

school districts block these sites, but mainly it is so that the students will not “waste” time

playing instead of learning and will not participate in cyber-bullying (Ray, 2010). According to a

June 2010 CNN report on the PTA and Facebook trying to make online activity safe for students,

parents are most concerned about bullying within the online networks and with the weakening of

literacy skills (Gross, 2010). The PTA feels that without parent or teacher monitoring, the youth

of today are in danger of deciding on his or her own ethics, social norms, and basic civil

behaviors, cyber bullying or stalking. Understandably there are problems with teenagers using

social networks where they can play in an unmonitored virtual world, but it is their preferred way

to build communities. Teachers today must decide to either ignore sites like Facebook, or use

them to our advantage. The problem is that teachers must be able to balance a meaningful and

educational use of social media while keeping the students interested.

Teacher use of technology today varies in many degrees from simple blogs (Figure 4.) to

interactive sites, but there are no accepted guidelines on how to make an educational site

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entertaining,

factual, and safe.

According to

EduDemic.org, a

site for connecting

higher education

and social media,

there are 8 ways a

teacher should use

Facebook: (1) to

share presentations

and notes with

students; (2) to

answer questions from students while they are doing homework; (3) to “humanize” yourself with

your students; (4) to share photos of what students have been doing in your classroom; (5) to find

other teachers and exchange ideas, best practices, gossip; (6) share as much information as is

ethically possible; (7) to join and actively participate in educational groups; and (8) to use it a

teaching tool, but not a way to avoid teaching (Edudemic.org, 2010). All of these eight ways to

use social media can be done through blogging and are not original enough to be more than an

extension of the everyday classroom. My own class blog addresses all these ideas (Figure 4) and

I have limited visitation for my blog. My students tell me it is just like their class and doesn’t

allow for any interaction, so they don’t bother with accessing it. Social media is a good way to

empower students and is not used to its full potential (Marcinek, 2010). To be able to truly

Figure 4. Class blog site, December 23, 2010.

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realize the full potential of an educational social media site, educators need to first understand

what a social media site is.

The common definition of a social network is a social structure where individuals are

connected by common interests and can communicate freely. On social networks, people build

small communities that can interact with each other or within other larger communities. From

uploading photos to playing games, these social networks have become virtual worlds for

meeting, sometimes working, but mostly for play. Through the Facebook format, each user has a

personal profile page with some ability to change its layout to suit each user’s needs or interests.

An educational network needs to be able to have the same functionality so each student will feel

more empowered as an individual within a larger learning community. Facebook offers users the

ability to make common interest group pages and helps users foster a sense of community online

through the ability to post personal photos and videos to share with a group of friends. Facebook

also uses free community games that encourage cooperation and collaboration for each of the

game participants. An educational social network would need to have the capability of building

learning communities in a playful way that could collaborate with other learning communities

through photo and video sharing and through online community games. Building an educational

site that mimics Facebook but empowers the students to learn is the key to making a successful

use of the social media platform.

The playful spirit of the social networks is one of the reasons social networks are blocked

throughout the schools in the US (Ray, 2010). Most school districts believe students will only

want to play and not complete their work. By creating an educational social media site that

schools could feel safe in allowing student-access to is the key. Teachers would need to be the

guides and monitors for this type of site. In other words, instead of creating a virtual classroom,

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teachers would be group administrators and monitor the students for inappropriate behaviors as

the students learn through “playing” within learning communities on the educational social site.

Creating the right educational social network is the key to creating a learning

environment of the future. “The challenge for our education system is to leverage technology to

create relevant learning experiences that mirror students' daily lives and the reality of their

futures” (U.S. Department of Education, 2010, p. 8). Teachers of today need to use current

technology, but also to be able to get their students involved and hold their attention, if not,

teachers will only be creating a boring virtual classroom. One of the best ways to engage

students within the traditional classroom is through the arts. For decades the arts have offered a

way for educators to actively engage students in their own problem solving and not merely

present them with facts or theorems (Fowler, 1994, p. 5). By integrating the arts with other

subjects on the educational social network, the students will feel learning is more fun and be

more actively motivated to participate (Wraga, 2009, p. 93).

In order to create a social network that will be as successful at capturing the attention of

US students as Facebook has been, an educational social network needs to employ the spirit of

play while integrating the arts, such as drama, storytelling, visual arts, and music. Employing

drama into classroom assignments provides teachers with opportunities for building communities

and engaging students to learn through empathy (Wilhelm & Edmiston, 1998, p. 24). Drama

helps to take teachers beyond the traditional teacher–student relationships encouraging a sense of

play while learning (Schneider, Crumpler, & Rogers, 2006, p. 8). Drama is a perfect tool for an

educational social network and makes for a framework of play necessary to capture and hold the

attention of students online.

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One of the greatest lures of an online community is that users have the ability to develop

alternate personalities and can then imagine different worlds for themselves. This is the best way

an educational social network can provide the structure for learning about history, literature, art,

music, and science in a new and different way that will appeal to a modern teenager. If students

can learn about history by imagining a different life, then figures from throughout history can

come to life in cyberspace. Wilhelm & Edmiston (1998) assert that imagining and becoming

another person (as one would on the online social network) creates deeper learning in multiple

contexts, through reflection, and by implementation and use of new understandings beyond

merely writing an essay or research paper. Drama online can be just as engaging as drama in the

classroom, and for today’s students it will seem even more in step with their popular technology

trends and even more alluring. Literature students who are studying Hamlet could be required by

their teacher to join an online Hamlet group. Each student could be assigned a character from the

play to become. The teacher could create discussion board questions that would require

interaction between the characters. The students would answer in character and could reflect on

different outcomes for the characters. By creating an online world for the students to play as

characters from Hamlet, it would encourage a deeper understanding of difficult material

(Wilhelm & Edmiston, 1998, p. 129). According to Charles Fowler in his article Strong arts,

Strong schools, the best way for students to learn is for them to study first hand (1994, p. 4), in

other words to be as much into the world of study as possible, and by creating the world of the

play online each student would be participating within a virtual world of Hamlet.

In the spring of 2010, I created a small online community for my Drawing and Painting

students where my students became famous artists online. Each student had to learn about a

famous artist and to “talk” online in the voice of the artist. I developed research and discussion

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questions for the students to answer and incorporated responses to other students into the

assignments. As they learn about their own artist, they are also learning about each other’s

research (Hetland, 2007, p. 79). In order to make the site more playful, I had a performing

dramatic artist visit my students to help them get into character. These drama techniques offered

a way for the students to act outside of their everyday roles (Wilhelm, 1998, p. xxi). As the

students imagined another personality outside of their own reality and had the opportunity to

play as this personality online, I had created new learning opportunities that created a deeper

understanding of art and history for my Drawing and Painting students.

I believe one of the best uses for an educational social network is to create virtual

communities based on historical, contemporary, and literature figures. Students can use drama

techniques to help each student to take on the personality of a historical figure. Researching a

historical figure, time, or literature character is a usual classroom assignment, but by taking the

assignment to an online learning community where the students become personalities from

history, then the students will deepen what they learn and the knowledge will more personal. By

adopting a new personality from history, not only will the students be able to fulfill curriculum

requirements in a new way, but will also have the means for carrying over the knowledge for the

future. Using modern technology to help students connect to their own learning, to each other,

and beyond their everyday classroom can lead to life-long learning (U.S. Department of

Education, 2010, p. 8).

Not only can an online social network develop through drama, but also through the art of

storytelling. One of the more interesting outcomes of my own social network last year was my

Drawing and Painting students learned how to tell the story of an artist instead of making a

report to cite facts. As the students created their artist personalities they had to learn how to tell

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stories about their artist. The students had to research their artist and find the facts that were most

important, and then how to make them interesting online. By creating stories of their artist-

personality online, they not only learned more about the artist, but how to evaluate outside

information sources and reflect on how to make the information more engaging (National

Storytelling Association, 1994, p. 125). My students had to learn how to tell a convincing story

through their online personalities creating a deeper, more comprehensive knowledge (National

Storytelling Association, 1994, p. 116). At the beginning of our social network, the students

would post about their artists and the postings were monotone and sounded like they were just

repeating facts from other sources, but as the students began to evaluate facts and to talk in the

voice of the artists online, they began to tell more personal accounts of the artists and were using

compelling storytelling techniques.

An educational social network can take storytelling further by allowing for video retelling

of historical events. In social studies students are required to learn about events, dates, and

persons from the past, but if they were to join an online American Revolutionary War

community in order to tell stories through video, they would be more motivated to learn

(National Storytelling Association, 1994, p. 125). Social studies students could develop short

videos to upload to their online community based on personal accounts of the Revolutionary

War. With an established educational social network, students studying the Revolutionary War

could connect with other classes throughout the US and exchange their videos while learning

from each other. The teachers would monitor each video for content and could even have open

discussions online about whether the student told the story accurately giving other students the

ability to evaluate each other.

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Throughout history, images have given us a window into the past. The visual arts for

centuries before the camera was invented supplied the world with visual references of the past.

Throughout the ages, artists have drawn the content of their art from the entire world of

knowledge (Unsworth, 1999). Visual artists have been the

historians for decades. If visual art students were

researching an artwork like the Death of Marat by Jacques-

Louis David (Figure 5), students could not only learn about

the Neo-Classicism art style of David, but also the history

of the painting and what led David to paint this

masterpiece. Students could post their work to a common

photo gallery and leave information on the painting for

other students to learn from. Learning not only about the

artist who created a famous artwork but the forces that impelled the artist to create are both

integral parts of the national standards for the visual arts and art history (Kennedy Center, 2010).

By being able to place this work in a photo gallery online on the educational network, each

student who posts will be able to have a more personal connection with the work and its history.

Creating a full complement of works of art throughout history could become an online

competition at the same time it gives students more learning opportunities.

Just as visual arts have recorded history visually so has music been the auditory recording

of centuries prior to recording devices. By playing music from Beethoven and Bach, students can

hear the sounds of the time of the artists who created them. Musical students can record their

own recordings of the music and could have a place online to share their talent as well as their

research of the music. By performing their own versions of famous musical scores, students will

Figure 5. The Death of Marat by Jacques-Louis David. 1793. Oil on canvas, 65" x 50 3/8". Musées Royaux des Beaux-Arts at Brussels.

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have a deeper understanding of the “passion and excitement of the times” (Page, 1995, p. 45).

Students could also be exposed to many and varied forms of music as they develop the sound

gallery from throughout history.

As the online educational network evolves and more student groups participate, the sound

gallery could also encompass music from different cultures as well as from throughout history.

Students who study music from a multicultural point of view are more easily able to accept the

intrinsic value of each music and can develop a deeper sense of a world perspective (Reimer,

2002, p. 18). Students studying different Native American cultures could develop groups online

on the social network that incorporate a study of not only the music but also the dance of each

tribe’s culture. By creating an online collection of music and dance, these students could create a

virtual community of Native Americans and be able to compare and contrast the differences

between geography and time that contributed to the formation of different indigenous groups.

Creating a virtual community that revolves around the students becoming famous artists,

musicians, writers, politicians, adventurers, or explorers opens up learning to a new world based

on twenty-first century technology (U.S. Department of Education, 2010, p. 8). An online

learning social network provides the framework for the students to have their own voice in their

education (Smith & McLaren, 2010, p. 334). By learning to become other people and having the

opportunity to connect with other students who are learning in the same way, the students online

can make connections to each other and to their own education. By combining modern

technology with the arts online on the educational social network. According to Charles Fowler

in Strong Arts, Strong Schools (1994, p. 7), students would be able to not only to learn data but

they would also gain the insight and wisdom needed to develop a true meaning as they learn

through the arts.

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In order to fully complete the idea of an educational social network, teachers would be

the essential administrators for the site. In addition to setting assignments, teachers would be

necessary to monitor their students. Lack of appropriate adult supervision is one of the problems

with current social networks and why they are blocked by school districts. Teachers would

provide the adult supervision necessary to prevent cyber-bullying and inappropriate behaviors

(Gross, 2010). Each teacher would ultimately be in charge of his or her own students to make

sure the students behave appropriately and provide correct information.

While teachers monitor their students, they will also be able to collect reliable

information on how students participate and use the educational network. Since the educational

network would provide an online record of each student’s participation and entries, it would be

an ideal system for tracking and collecting data to show how students can participate in their own

learning and how this platform creates learning connections with other students. Since the

climate in the US public schools today is accountability of teaching practices and what students

are learning through standardized testing (Marsak, 2003, p. 229), the online social network

would need to be able to provide objective reportable data. According to David Marsak in No

Child Left Behind: A Foolish Race into the Past, the problem with standardized testing is that it

is more reflective of the beginning of public education during the first two decades of the

twentieth century based on age-graded schools and tests that don’t meet the needs of the different

learning styles of students (2003, pp. 229-230). Post-industrial education should include “digital-

age literacy (scientific, mathematical, technological, visual, information, cultural, and global),

inventive thinking (ability to manage complexity, creativity, risk-taking, higher-order thinking),

effective communication (teaming, personal and social responsibility, communication skills), and

high productivity (Marsak, 2003, p. 231).” Learning through the online educational social media

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fits Marsak’s definition. Not only will it provide a great way for students to use technology to

take part in their own learning, but it will also provide the assessment data critical for today’s

teachers and administrators.

By using an online educational social network based on the arts, teachers could find the

bridge to the youth of today. An educator’s use of technology is only limited by his or her own

knowledge of technology and how he or she implements the technology. Students today learn

from a broad variety of sources, some are unreliable while others are more scholarly. Finding a

way to tap into today’s students need to connect online with a teacher-monitored educational

social network is the key to innovative and creative learning through technology. The arts can

build the bridge between research and the social network, making it a community of connected

students who learn from each other and build on each others experiences, research, and abilities

– a true blending of educational and social media.

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Description of Project

Step 1: The Beta Version. The first steps to creating an educational social network have already

been established through my own beta version, the Montmartre Café. In the spring semester of

2010, I created a social network on

Ning.com (Figure 6). This social network

which I called Montmartre Café after the

section of Paris where famous artists like

Vincent Van Gogh, Renoir, Degas,

Monet, Manet, and Pablo Picasso (just to

name a few) would meet to discuss art,

politics, and life. I wanted my online

social network to be just the same – a

place where my Drawing and Painting students could become famous artists online and connect

with each other while learning about art, love, and history of their prospective famous artists

instead of just writing a research paper about a famous artist.

Ning.com, at the time I set up the initial site, was a free site, but in order to be free there

were ads on each page. My school district, Fulton county, had blocked all social sites, so I

thought if I could have the ads removed from the site and make sure it was totally blocked to the

public then I would be able to have the site unblocked at my school. Unfortunately, removing ads

required a monthly fee of $21.95. I knew I would need a small grant to make this happen.

Since I was writing a grant, I decided I would enhance the Montmartre Café by taking the

students on a field trip to the High Museum of Art to see the exhibit, the Genius of Leonardo da

Vinci and to have a visiting dramatic artist come to help my students learn how to get into

Figure 6. Home page for Montmartre Cafe.

xvii

character online. Fortunately, my school, Riverwood International Charter School, has a

foundation that raises money just so they can help teachers with grants for ideas like mine. The

Riverwood Foundation was happy to grant the money I needed.

The next step was to make sure my students had Internet access. Instead of just asking

them if they had computer access, I decided to ask how many were members of Facebook. All of

my two classes of Drawing and Painting students used Facebook. Once I had established the

Montmartre Café site, their ability to go online, and begun the process of unblocking the site at

my high school, it was time to select who the students would become online (Appendix 1).

xviii

The students were then asked to register and complete their own personal pages on our

social network. Each student needed to make a collage with their own picture and either the

artwork of the artist or a photograph of the artist. They needed to incorporate the name of the

artist into their own name. They could use Photoshop if they knew how to merge photos, or the

students could print out the images and make a collage, then together then post them online. The

students were creative with their names and photographs. They enjoyed beginning the process. I

had begun a site for artists like Kourtney Matisse, Claude Sahiba Monet, and Gabema Moses

(Appendix 3).

Before we began any

more work on the site, we all

went on a field trip to the

High Museum of Art in

Atlanta, Georgia to see the

exhibition of the Genius of

Leonardo da Vinci. The

focus of the exhibition was

to show the influences from throughout Leonardo’s life and how these affected his artworks. It

was the perfect complement for the online social network.

The students were given their first research assignment for their social network

discussion board. They were to find out who or what was the love of their artist’s life. The

responses were to be written in first person, but their first attempts were more like research than

personal entries (Appendix 4). My whole idea was to use the fun and personal nature of a social

network site, so I knew I needed to bring fun into the project.

Figure 7. Paula's page for Leonardo da Vinci.

xix

I arranged for a visiting dramatic artist, Edwin Link, to do two short workshops with my

Drawing and Painting students to help them get into character. He led them in a series of warm-

up exercises, which gave the students the permission to laugh and have fun. Edwin had planned

two different activities where the students were to find the intent of an author through a written

statement and then act it out. Edwin brought the drama exercises back to the social network and

tied the drama into their research.

Their next discussion board assignments grew increasingly into the first person and by

the end of the semester, each student had begun to truly understand their artist and was actively

engaged in their projects. The discussion board assignments ranged from a personal ad statement

to researching what was a technological development of the day of each respective artist. The

students were beginning to develop their entries online and to connect to each other. They were

teaching each other about their artist. The artists began to take form online and they even

developed an artist gallery without any assignment or prompting from me. They uploaded their

artist’s work and even some of their own artwork. The social network had begun to have its own

life.

This beta version only had a shelf life of one semester due to the timetables of my high

school. I needed a way to bring closure to the process, so I asked each student to make a

presentation in class about their online artist from the social network. They were required to be

creative in their presentation and to make three trading cards about their artists – one to keep, one

to give me, and one to trade with another artist (Appendix 2). This was the best way to assess

how well the students had responded to the online community.

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This beta version has become the genesis of creating an educational social network. I was

plagued with technology problems that stemmed from the Montmartre Café being blocked at our

high school. It was a constant problem for all of us and I was only able to have the basic

structure of the site unblocked. The students were never able to work with me fully on the site in

class. This was an impediment to the whole process, but it made it me think that if I had a true

educational network in place then my school district would not block it. I began looking into

creating my own network. I knew I could not use a current network site like Ning.com, wall.fm,

or especially Facebook. I needed to create my own space.

Step 2: Establishing Thoughtspace.org. I have since established my social network based on

free source networking software. My site is called Thoughtspace.org and is in the beginning

stages. My plan is to take my beta version and expand it within my high school. I can get more

funding for my project, as I need it through the Riverwood Foundation. The goal is to involve

teachers from the music, literature, and history departments. Each teacher will lead a group of

students in building their own network of “famous people” student pages and discussion board

assignments. Teachers will administer their site and monitor their own students, but there will be

connections made between the groups.

Step 3: A national site. Once Thoughtspace.org is established at my high school, my hope is to

take it to a regional level and then finally nationally. I would love to see Thoughtspace.org

become a national way of connecting students through an educational social network.

Thoughtspace will be the first educational site to fully use the format of a social network, using

the sense of play the students enjoy while spending 1.83 hours a day on Facebook.

xxi

Implementation Plan

There are several different obstacles to overcome in order to create a working educational

social network that will connect thousands of students in the US. First is finding a software

developer that can work with current social networking software. There are many free and open

source network software programs available online. They are limited in their scope and can only

provide a small social network. Since the first goal to making my educational social network

open to other teachers is to limit the enrollment to only teachers at my high school, I decided to

use free networking software from oxwall.com. I purchased a storage space on a server through

hostgator.com. I also purchased the name “thoughtspace.org.”

Next, I tried to upload the free networking software to my hostgator site. I have created

websites in the past, but I have never worked with the administration side of a social network and

I had no idea how to upload the oxwall networking software. I needed a software designer. I

appealed to a friend, Aaron Karp who has a masters degree in computer animation and is a

website designer. I asked Mr. Karp to donate his time to help me with my educational social

network. He was able to upload the oxwall software and the bare bones of thoughtspace.org are

now in place (Figure 8).

The second problem with creating

the small version of my educational social

network is that I will need time to learn

how to develop the oxwall software and

turn it into my vision of how

thoughtspace.org should be organized.

The oxwall software needs to allow me to Figure 8. www.thoughtspace.org home page.

xxii

create discussion boards, chatrooms, and special interest groups. I would eventually like to be

able to use games on the site, but I realize that will be further down the road. With the oxwall

software, I am very limited in what I hope to achieve. My hope is that if the oxwall software

does not allow the teachers and students from my high school to have enough flexibility to create

a viable educational social network Aaron Karp will be able to help me design a better site.

One huge hurdle is social media is blocked by most public school systems, including my

own. One of the problems is the key search words will block any social media site, so my site

will not use the word social its title, but will be referred to as an educational media site. Finally,

to help further insure it is more accepted by school districts, I have used the ending .org for

Thoughtspace so it will not seem like a company. School districts and administrators are more

likely to unblock a .org ending than a .com. I am sure I will still have some resistance to the

availability of the site, but at this time this is the best I can do until the site is more operational.

As the site grows, I am hoping to be able to make our site available to other organizations

that are interested in how modern technology can be effectively used in education today. I have

already introduced my beta version, Montmartre Café, to art teachers at the Georgia Art

Education Association’s Fall 2010 Conference. In March 2011, I will introduce the Montmartre

Cafe and Thoughtspace.org to art teachers at the National Art Education Association in Seattle,

WA. I will look for teachers who are interested in joining Thoughtspace.com once it is

established at my high school. I will also submit Thoughtspace.org invitations to teachers at Art

Education 2.0 (social network devoted to using technology in art classrooms), edutopia.org, and

edudemic.org. The sites are all looking at new ways social media can be used in the classroom.

Thoughtspace.org will hopefully provide their answers.

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As the site grows, I hope Aaron Karp will be able to work more with the site and make

Thoughtspace.org become more like Facebook. The ultimate goal would be to create an

educational social network that will be available nationwide and will attract more teachers who

are interested in helping their students to take part in their own education.

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Sustainability Sources

In order to begin Thoughtspace.org, I have already used my money to purchase the site

name and the storage space. The initial start up was $20.95 in order to purchase the name

Thoughtspace.org, and for each consecutive month on the basic plan with hostgator, the monthly

fee is $4.95, which I will pay for until I am able to get a grant from the Riverwood Foundation.

As the site grows, I will need to pay Aaron Karp for his time. While the site is limited to

Riverwood teachers, I can depend on the Riverwood Foundation for funding.

Once the site grows beyond my local high school, I will need outside funding. There are

several different sources for grants I can look to for financial support: Target, Gates Foundation,

or Edutopia.org. Another option would be to submit a proposal to Facebook to see if Facebook

would actually be interested in working with an educational social network.

Free social networking software will work fine for a limited network at Riverwood, but

as it grows I will need to purchase more robust networking software program. There are several

Facebook clones available like SocialEngine. Depending on the plugins and licenses I will want

to add to Thoughtspace, it could be as much as $1360. I will also need a software developer to

work with me and will need to pay him or her. Finally, to offset costs and to pay any employees

of a national Thoughtspace, I will have to either charge a monthly fee to schools and/or school

districts, or have a strong vetting procedure for educational ads that would potentially run on the

site.

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Evaluation

Evaluation for this project will have to be shown in two different ways: (1) individual

teachers will need the ability to show how their students are learning on the online network, and

(2) how often the teachers monitor their own students. To evaluate the individual students,

tracking software will have to be developed so the teachers can easily track their students’ posts

and discussions. Also, the individual teachers will need a common rubric to show their students’

participation and progress based on national standards.

To create an individual rubric for teachers participating in monitoring their students, I

have created a basic rubric that reflects student participation based on the tracking software,

media posts like photos and videos relating to their projects, and finally objectives based on each

student’s research and presentation online of an alternate historical, literature, or contemporary

personality. The rubric can be used by classroom teachers to record grades at their local high

schools for their research and work on the social network (Appendix 5).

In the arts national standards from the ArtsEdge site, students should understand the

visual and performing arts within the context of history and culture (Kennedy Center). Standard

4 states students should also be able to question and develop a deeper understanding of the

“multifaceted interplay of different media, styles, forms, techniques, and processes” employed in

the creation of a work of art whether it is in theater, dance, music, or the visual arts (Kennedy

Center). By studying an artist and becoming that artist in an online format, the students will be

able to understand more deeply how an artwork was created based the history and culture of the

artist.

According to the national curriculum standards for social studies, students of social

sciences should develop similar understanding of time, place, and culture (National Council for

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the Social Studies). Social studies students are required to understand the role of culture

throughout history while understanding the human story across time. The online network can

help social studies students fulfill this requirement and this standard can be reflected on a

common rubric.

While Thoughtspace will provide a place for students to connect to their own learning

and the learning of other students, it will also provide an innovative way for students to meet

these national standards in a variety of different courses – art, music, theater, literature, social

studies. These standards can be easy evaluated through the common rubric.

As the site grows, an evaluation tool will be necessary beyond the individual teachers and

evaluation of his or her group of students. The site will need to evaluate its effectiveness through

monitoring the activity of student groups and how often they access certain formats online like

the photo gallery, themed games, video uploads, and discussion boards. The frequency that

students are accessing one of the learning modules on Thoughtspace will provide objective data

as to how effective the online network is.

Teacher monitoring is key to the success of this social network. It is not a site where the

students can just visit alone. Without teacher supervision, the site will be just another Facebook.

One of the problems with schools and Facebook is that the students are self-monitoring and

develop their own ethics, leading to more and more cyber-bullying (Gross, 2010). All teachers

will be the mini-administrators for their own student groups, and therefore will be responsible for

their online behavior, much like a regular classroom. A system for monitoring the teacher

supervision will also be necessary. By tracking the amount of time a teacher monitors his or her

students on a daily, weekly, and monthly basis will be a necessary and integral part of

Thoughtspace. Since this is the way Thoughtspace will be available to school districts, this will

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be one of the most important evaluation tools. Much of the evaluation for Thoughtspace will

occur with online tracking for individual students, class reports, and teacher monitoring.

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Conclusion

Today’s students have a unique worldview based on what the very best of technology can

offer. Not only is a world of information at their fingertips, but they also have the ability to

connect to other students across the nation and the globe. The only hurdle to their ability to

manipulate technology to meet their educational needs is today’s educators. Utilizing the most

current technology in a way that is educational yet entertaining and fun to use is a difficult

proposal. By properly using an educational social network based in the arts, teachers will be able

to harness the power of the twenty-first century and help students guide their own learning and

provide their own critical thinking.

Thoughtspace is slowly in the process of realizing this ideal merging of the arts and

modern technology. Through my beta version, the Montmartre Café, I have been able to

demonstrate how students can use drama, storytelling, and the visual arts to create a virtual

community where students can learn from each other as they assume an alternate identity online.

Montmartre Café was a small version of my much larger vision of an educational social network.

My goal for Thoughtspace is to create the opportunity and tools for teachers not only in

my own high school, but also across the nation, to allow their students to play and learn online.

A social network like Thoughtspace will be able to meet the needs of the different types of

learners (Armstrong, 2000, pp. 13-16). Spatial learners will be attracted to the visual layout of

site and the ability to manipulate it. Students who learn through music will be excited to be able

to perform musical arrangements and to post information about how music influences culture.

Intrapersonal learners will find the ability to work independently as a great way to contribute to

the site, while Interpersonal learners will be attracted to the way the site allows them to connect

to other students. Linguistic learners will like having the ability to write and compose online,

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while the logical-mathematical students will be attracted to the organization of the site and

creating logical sequences. Thoughtspace is an environment for students to play as they learn.

The environment of Thoughtspace will allow all learners to explore their creativity. By

imagining and becoming another person from history, literature, or the arts, each student has the

potential to learn history in context, empathy for other humans, and to create personal

connections to other students (Schneider, Crumpler, & Rogers, 2006, p. 37). These subjects will

come alive in the virtual community as the students build their own connections.

Modern high schools promote a sense of isolationism by segregating learning through

age-grades and subjects mandated by the change of a bell (Wraga, 2009, pp. 88-89).

Thoughtspace will give teachers the opportunity to create connections between subjects and with

other teachers’ groups. By creating a virtual world where dramatic play allows students to

become someone else, these students will be able to guide their own learning. Students will be

able to spend as much time online as needed. If their use of Facebook is any indication of the

amount of time they will spend on a social network, then Thoughtspace has the potential of

going well beyond the average school day.

In 2008, Daniel Pink, author of A Whole New Mind, interviewed Thomas Friedman,

author of The World is Flat, for the American Association of School Administrators. In this

interview, Friedman and Pink both agreed that the students of today need to be able to compete

in a global economy and need to be innovative and curious. Thomas Friedman explained that two

of the most successful and innovative Americans of this age are Bill Gates and Steve Jobs. For

both, the traditional educational institutions did not allow them to explore their curiosity and find

new answers to apply to real-world problems. Steve Jobs claims he came up with the idea for the

apple computers not through algorithms (although they came in handy), but through a

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calligraphy course. It was the synthesis of art and science that made the Mac computer (Pink,

2008).

Fostering a sense of curiosity, creativity, and imagination is not the main concern of

administrators today; instead they are more concerned with accountability and standardized

testing (Smith & McLaren, 2010, p. 333). “Standardized testing and pre-packaged teaching

materials are being forced on educators by ‘education’ experts and policy makers in the US

government” (Smith & McLaren, 2010, p. 333). Thoughtspace is a relatively inexpensive

alternative to systemized teaching and evaluation. Hopefully it can become the bridge between

innovative technologies, the arts, and learning. Thoughtspace will make students want to learn

and research in order to participate. By creating active learning experiences, students will

actively become life-long learners, not just test-takers. The best way to prepare students for the

future is to enable students to deal with problems that have more than one correct answer

(Eisner, 2003, p. 7). Thoughtspace will provide the opportunity for multiple answers to questions

the students pose from their own research.

My hope is that Thoughtspace will be the synthesis of science and the arts that will help

the next generation of innovators to think outside of the box of a standardized test. The social

network platform is ripe with potential for use in modern classrooms. Through Thoughspace, I

hope to create a new platform for connecting students to their own learning and to each other in

order to prepare them to be life-long learners in an ever-expanding virtual world.

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Appendix 1

Montmartre Café Online! Artist List – By Monday, February 2nd choose an artist you are most interested in studying from this list. Find out Who?, When?, What?, How?, Why? – anything you can. If you don’t choose an artist and research him/her – you will be given an artist from this list.

Bacon Francis Magritte ReneBearden Romare Matisse HenriBenton Thomas Hart MichelangeloBeuys Josef Miro JoanBlake William Mondrian PietCarravagio Monet ClaudeCassatt Mary Morisot BertheCezanne Paul Moses GrandmaChagall Marc Munch EdvardChardin Jean-Baptiste Munter GabrielaChirico Giorgio de Neel AliceClaudel Camille O’Keeffe GeorgiaCole Thomas Pollock JacksonDa Vinci Leonardo RaphaelDali Salvador RembrandtDegas Edgar Renoir AugusteDix Otto Rivera DiegoDurer Albrecht Rossetti Dante Gabrielel Greco Rubens Peter PaulErnst Max Shapiro MiriamErte Stella FrankEscher M.C. TitianFlack Audrey Van Gogh VincentGaugin Paul VelazquezGentileschi Artemisia Vermeer JanGoya Francisco Vigee-Lebrun Marie LouiseHopper Edward Warhol AndyIngre Jean-AugusteJohns JasperKahlo FridaKandinsky WassilyKeifer AnselmKirby JackKirschner LudwigKlee PaulKlimt GustavKollwitz KatheKrasner LeeLaTrec ToulouseLawrence JacobLeyster Judith

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Appendix 2

Artist Trading Cards Final Exam Assignment - Must be completed prior to the final day. Your

presentation is due on the exam day.

Objective: Create three trading cards about your famous artist with the following-

• Creatively use mixed media collage to create an image of your artist that is representative of his/her

art style and include some portion of the artist’s most favorite work

• Cleverly design a title for the card on the front so that the artist name is a part of the overall design.

• On the back, provide vital information about the artist that is creatively and correctly drawn

(remember writing is a form of drawing)

• Creatively present your artist card and artist on final exam day

What To Do?

1. Use the attached template to design three trading cards. You can cut out the copy paper

template and work with that paper, or cut out the template from any material you want; or use

a regular 3.5 x 2.5 sized playing card or any trading card.

2. To design the front cover – use any 2-D media you want. You can include one small portion (no

larger than a 1/3) of either the artist portrait or the famous artwork, but not both. You must

enhance this image in some way. In other words, don’t just glue it down and say you’re done –

be creative. The front cover should offer some insight into the artist style and personality.

3. Script – Don’t forget you must have a title on the front. Make the title a part of the overall

design. As well as think about how you will present the information on the back.

4. Vital Information – Birth & Death (if applicable); where he/she was born and where was the

place your artist did most of his/her work; technology of the artist’s day; most famous work;

your favorite piece and why; and finally who or what was the love of your artist’s life.

5. On final day, bring all three cards to class and present your artist. You will be graded on how

creative the experience is. You can write a poem, compose a song, dress as the artist, be an art

critique of the artist’s time, dress up as the artist’s love – you will be get points for how it is

presented.

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6. You will give me one card, keep one card, and trade with one other student.

Appendix 3

Montmartre Café Profile Photos

Henri Sahiba Monet Eva MOHal

Kourtney Matisse Gabema Moses

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Appendix 4

Comparison of Montmartre first and last discussion board entries:

A. First discussion board entry by Claude “Sahiba Monet” on February 7, 2010

B. Last discussion board entry by Claude “Sahiba” Monet on April 22, 2010:

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Appendix 5

Thoughtspace.org - Student Participation Rubric Assignment:

CriteriaAdvanced25 - 22 pts.

Proficient21 – 20 pts.

Emerging19 – 17 pts.

Unsatisfactory16 – 0 pts.

Participation: How timely did you participate online

Student creatively participated in the online network for more than was required.

Student participated in the online network for the appropriate time required.

Student participated in the online network for some of the appropriate time required.

Student participated in the online network for little or none of the appropriate time required.

Posts: How in depth were your media posts to our class project

Student posted creative responses using audio and/or visual media.

Student posted appropriate responses using audio and/or visual media.

Student posted adequate responses using audio and/or visual media.

Student posted less than adequate responses using audio and/or visual media.

Research: Does your online personality reflect good research?

Your online profile is clearly based on thorough and well-researched information and investigation.

Your online profile is based on thorough information and investigation.

Your online profile is somewhat based on solid information and investigation.

Little or none of your online profile demonstrates thoughtful and meaningful research.

Performance: How well did your online participation reflect your understanding of the person portrayed online?

Your online profile demonstrates a complex understanding based on the context of time and place of your online personality.

Your online profile demonstrates a deep understanding based on the context of time and place of your online personality.

Your online profile demonstrates a loose understanding based on the context of time and place of your online personality.

Your online profile demonstrates a little or no understanding based on the context of time and place of your online personality.

Total Points Earned:

Teacher

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Annotated Bibliography

Armstrong, T. (2000). Multiple intelligences in the classroom (2 ed.). Alexandria, VA: ASCD.

Thomas Armstrong is an educator and psychologist from Sonoma County, CA.

He has more than 27 years of teaching experience and has written two other books

on education. This book focuses on Howard Gardner’s theories of multiple

intelligences and offers different teaching approaches based on the various areas

of multiple intelligences.

Bernard, S. (2010, December 15). How should we use technology in schools? Ask students.

Retrieved December 23, 2010, from MIndshift: How we learn:

http://mindshift.kqed.org/2010/12/how-should-we-use-technology-in-schools-ask-

students/

Sara Bernard is the curator of Mindshift, a site devoted on exploring how

technology is changing the modern classroom, and was a former editor of

Edutopia, a site established by the George Lucas Foundation dedicated to

improving the K-12 learning process. In this article she is summarizing a meeting

with 15 students from Chicago's public schools and wants to know how they

would like to see technology used in their classrooms.

Edudemic.org. (2010, June 17). Every teacher’s must-have guide to facebook. Retrieved

December 20, 2010, from Educdemic.org: Connecting education and technology:

http://edudemic.com/2010/06/every-teachers-must-have-guide-to-facebook/

Edudemic.org is an ongoing blog site edited by a list of authors who are involved

in higher education and how it can be used with technology. This is an article on

xxxvii

Edudemic.org about how teachers should use Facebook. It also discusses how

teachers can avoid the pitfalls of Facebook.

Eisner, E. (2003). Preparing for today and tomorrow. Educational Leadership , 61 (4), 6-10.

Elliot Eisner is a professor of education at Stanford University. In this article, he

describes how educators need to rethink our current methods of teaching students

and cultivate a new method of teaching that will prepare our students for the real

world instead of preparing for a test. He asserts that education needs to provide

judgment, critical thinking, meaningful literacy, collaboration, and service.

Facebook. (n.d.). Facebook press room. Retrieved December 19, 2010, from Facebook:

http://www.facebook.com/press/info.php?statistics

Facebook publishes the most current statistics and facts about the users of their

social network. It is simple information, but the most up to date statistics available

on Facebook.

Fowler, C. (1994). Strong arts, strong schools. Educational Leadership , 52 (3), 4-9.

In this article, arts writer and consultant, Charles Fowler discusses how the arts

provide a more comprehensive and insightful education. His article supports that

learning through the arts is a more humanistic curriculum.

Gross, D. (2010, June 10). Are your kids safe online? Facebook, PTA want to make sure.

Retrieved December 19, 2010, from CNN: http://articles.cnn.com/2010-06-

10/tech/facebook.pta_1_national-pta-facebook-social-media-sites?_s=PM:TECH

CNN reported on a meeting between Facebook and PTA representatives. They

discussed whether Facebook can be made safe for students and what is the

problem with teen usage of Facebook.

xxxviii

Hetland, L., Winner, E., Veenema, S., & Sheridan, K. M. (2007). Studio thinking: The real

benefits of visual arts education. New York, NY: Teachers College Press.

Lois Hetland is an associate professor of art education at the Massachusetts

College of Art and a research associate at Project Zero. Ellen Winner is a

professor of psychology at Boston College, and senior research associate at

Project Zero. Shirley Veenema is an art instructor and art department chair at

Phillips Academy in Andover. Kimberly Sheridan is an associate professor of

education at George Mason University. Together they wrote about the benefits of

a visual arts education breaking it down into eight habits of the mind.

Hurd, P. D. (2000). Science education for the 21st century. School and Science and Mathematics,

100 (6), 282-288.

Current reforms in science education do not take into account what needs to be

taught to our students, but rather dictates the content. By increasing the amount to

be taught in the sciences, we are not making our students life-learners who will be

able to succeed in a global market.

Kennedy Center. (n.d.). Standards for the performing and visual arts for grades 9-12: What high

school students should know and do in the arts. Retrieved December 26, 2010, from

ArtsEdge: Connect. Create.: http://artsedge.kennedy-center.org/educators/standards/full-

text/9-12%20Standards%20by%20Arts%20Subject.aspx#Dance

The Kennedy Center's site, ArtsEdge provides national standards in all

performing and visual arts. Many state curriculums are based on this collection of

national standards, including my own state, Georgia.

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Marcinek, A. (2010, December 16). Blogs - Andrew Marcinek: Help students use social media to

empower, not just connect. Retrieved December 23, 2010, from Edutopia.org:

http://www.edutopia.org/blog/social-media-empowers-students-andrew- marcinek?

utm_source=facebook&utm_medium=post&utm_content=blog&utm_campaig

n=socialmediaempower

Andrew Marcinek is an instructional technology specialist who blogs for

Edutopia. Edutopia is a site funded by the George Lucas Foundation that is

working to connect people who want to improve education. This blog entry

discusses how colleges have missed out on using Facebook to empower students.

He also talks about how students use it merely to connect to each other.

Marsak, D. (2003). No child left behind: A foolish race into the past. The Phi Delta Kappan , 85

(3), 229-231.

After teaching public school, David Marshak received his doctorate in education

from Harvard, and is now currently teaching at Seattle University. Mr. Marshak

offers his opinion on the NCLB act and how it reflects educational dogmas of the

industrial past instead of a technological future. The schools are still structured as

industrial schools of the past were structured and now there is more attention

given to testing than to preparing students for life beyond school.

National Council for the Social Studies. (n.d.). National curriculum standards for social studies:

Chapter 2 - the themes of social studies. Retrieved December 26, 2010, from National

curriculum standards for social studies: http://www.socialstudies.org/standards

The National Council for the Social Studies is the largest association in the US

devoted to social studies education. NCSS has compiled the national curriculum

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standard for teaching social studies.

National Storytelling Association. (1994). Tales as tools: The power of story in the classroom.

Jonesborough, TN: The National Storytelling Press.

Tales as tools is a compilation of different ways to teach through storytelling. The

book covers how use stories and storytelling in all subjects and through all ages.

Nielsen Company. (n.d.). How teens use media. Retrieved December 19, 2010, from How teens

use media: http://blog.nielsen.com/nielsenwire/reports/nielsen_howteensuse

media_june09.pdf

A report on the usage of media by teenagers in the US published in 2009. The

information provides insights to social media and gives actual numbers from an

accepted survey platform.

Page, N. (1995). Music: A way of knowing. Portland, ME: Stenhouse Publishers.

Nick Page, a music educator provides great information about how music is

created. He also provides different ideas on how music can be incorporated into

studies involving other subjects like math, science, and social studies.

Pink, D. (Interviewer) & Friedman, T. (Interviewee). (2008). Tom Friedman on education in the

‘Flat World’. [Interview transcript]. Retrieved from American Association of School

Administrators Web site: http://www.aasa.org/publications/saarticledetail.cfm?

ItemNumber=9736

Daniel Pink is the author of A whole new mind and Drive. His books are devoted

to changing the way people think and work. Tom Friedman is a Pulitzer Prize

winning journalist who wrote The world is flat exploring how globalization has

changed the world from manufactured goods and large corporations to education.

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In this interview, Daniel Pink interviews Tom Friedman on the subject of how the

“flat world” has changed public education. Both offer opinions on the U.S.

education system.

Ray, B. (2010, March 3). Edutopia. Retrieved December 23, 2010, from Blogs - Betty Ray:

Guest blogs, making the case for social media in education:

http://www.edutopia.org/social-media-case-education-edchat-steve-johnson

Betty Ray is a community manager for Edutopia, a site established by the George

Lucas Foundation dedicated to improving the K-12 learning process. Her blog

features guest blogger and teacher/technology specialist, Steve Johnson. He states

the case that social media is what is current and it is not going away. Teachers

need to learn how to adapt to the environment that is reality for our students

today.

Reimer, B. (Ed.). (2002). World musics and music education: Facing the issues. Lanham, MD:

Rowman & Littlefield Publishers.

This book edited by Bennett Raimer contains a compilation of ideas and teaching

strategies presented at the 1998 Northwestern University Music Education

Leadership Seminar. Many of the essays deal with how to teach multiculturalism

through music.

Schneider, J. J., Crumpler, T. P., & Rogers, t. (Eds.). (2006). Process drama and multiple

literacies: Addressing social, cultural, and ethical issues. Portsmouth, NH: Heinemann.

This book is edited by associate professors of childhood literacy at the University

of Southern Florida, Illinois State University, and the University of British

xlii

Columbia, respectively. Their book deals with how drama can be used to integrate

content across curriculum and develops a student’s social and critical awareness.

Smith, M., & McLaren, P. (2010). Critical pedagogy: An overview. Childhood Edcuation , 86

(5), 332-334.

Matthew Smith is a graduate student from the school of education at the

University of California, while Peter McLaren is currently a professor of

education at the same university. This article deals with how the current education

system is more concerned with standardized testing and not on developing

creativity in the US student. Both authors are proponents of teaching so that

students have a voice in their own education.

U.S. Department of Education. (2010). Transforming American education: Learning powered by

technology. Alexandria: Education Publications Center.

The U.S. Department of Education published its plan for using technology in the

classrooms of the US. It outlines not only how students use technology today, but

also how teachers need to adapt the ever-changing world of technology in order to

prepare the US students for life-learning.

Unsworth, J. M. (1999). Connecting arts and learning. School Arts , 56 (1), 8.

Loyola professor, J. M. Unsworth offers great examples of how artist have

influenced all areas of study throughout history. Unsworth offers evidence of how

students learn from their mistakes through the visual arts.

Wilhelm, J. D., & Edmiston, B. (1998). Imagining to learn: Inquiry, ethics, and integration

through drama. Portsmouth, NH: Heiniman.

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Jeffrey Wilhelm currently directs the Boise State Writing Project and Brian

Edmiston teaches drama at Ohio State University. Together they wrote how

drama taps into the imagination and creates powerful learning contexts. They

offer different ways to use drama in the modern classroom.

Wraga, W. G. (2009). Toward a connected core curriculum. Educational Horizons , 87 (2), 88-

96.

William Wraga is a professor of education at the University of Georgia. Wraga

offers statistical evidence over twenty years of how a segregated core curriculum

segments a student’s education makes him or her less interested in learning. He

offers three different curriculum alternatives to the regular segmented high school

curriculum: correlated, fused, and integrative. He proposes that horizontal

teaching is more effective in making students productive citizens later in life –

helping them to make connections between subjects and their daily lives.

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