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Notification of New Grant Award!
November 22, 2006
The United Northwest Minnesota INFOCON (a consortium of 3 Public School Districts and 8 private schools in Northwest Minnesota) has been awarded a $337,744.00 grant from the Minnesota Department of Education in the Round 1 of Enhancing Education Through Technology Grant Competition of Title II of No Child Left Behind.
The grant funds will be used to engage member schools in a process of ongoing educational reform through the use of technology. Each member school will install or enhance their student information gathering system and student management software to provide for data driven decision-making in their school improvement process.
The INFOCON will conduct 3 two-day workshops with ISTE (The International Society for Technology In Education). The first workshop will be an ?Introduction to the ISTE National Educational Standards for Administrators?, the second workshop will be ?An Introduction to the ISTE National Standards for Teachers and Students?, and the third workshop we will be hosting is the ISTE Institute: ?Leading with NETS for Teachers of Member Schools?. This workshop will be three days of interactive learning with skilled mentors and national leaders, more than four months of facilitated online learning activities, and a rich set of resources to keep.
All INFOCON Schools (11) will purchase $10,000.00 of additional hardware resources for their school to improve our educational resources to disadvantaged students in rural Northwestern Minnesota.
During the final phase of the grant the INFOCON will conduct a Data Retreat for all member schools where the information and data collected. Learning Point Associates a division of the North Central Regional Educational Laboratory will conduct this Data Retreat. The schools will engage in a process of data mining and the information will be analyzed to uncover patterns in four types of school data: student achievement, demographic, program, and perception. Hypotheses are discussed and goals for improvement are developed after review of the data. The leadership teams of each of the schools will then design specific strategies and define evaluation criteria to ensure that their improvement goals are met. The schools have made a commitment to implement this data driven decision making process into their school improvement plans and sustain the data-driven school improvement process in the future.
Dr. Scott McLeod and his associates at the University of Minnesota will be involved on the ongoing evaluation of this project to assess its effectiveness and the impact in the 11-member school consortium. Dr. McLeod is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Educational Policy and Administration and Project Director of the university?s School Technology Leadership Initiative. HE also recently served as coordinator of the Greater Minnesota Data Institutes for rural schools.
The INFOCON was established in 1998 to provide a forum for sharing information and developing human and financial resources to build and maximize the use of technology in member schools. Schools and the amounts of goods and services to be allocated to each school were determined on the students enrolled in each school. The member schools of INFOCON and the amount to be received from the grant are: St. Joseph School- Red Lake Falls, MN ($27,510.65), Red Lake Falls Public Schools- Red Lake Falls, MN ($35,397.83, St. Joseph School- Moorhead, MN ($28,625.30), St. Michael School- Mahnomen, MN ($27,510.65), St. Philip School- Bemidji, MN ($30,161.55), Cathedral School- Crookston, MN ($27,882.20), Sacred Heart School- East Grand Forks, MN ($34,233.13), Holy Rosary School- Detroit Lakes, MN ($28,253.75), St. Bernard School- Thief River Falls, MN ($27,882.20), Climax ?Shelly Public Schools, ($31,953.78), Stephen- Argyle Public Schools,($34,233.06).
The INFOCON recently hosted a ?Best Practices in the use of Technology in the Classroom? for area teachers and schools and was the first host in the state of Minnesota to conduct The Intel ? Teach to the Future Program? for its member schools teachers. The consortium conducts ongoing training and workshops in technology integration issues for schools and educators and received a planning grant from The Northwest Minnesota Foundation to develop a mission statement and plan that initiated this collaborative effort between public and non public schools in northwestern Minnesota. The Minnesota Department of Education also awarded the INFOCON a grant for $250,000.00 in 1999, which launched the ongoing education, and collaboration in technology information and integration in education and curriculum for schools in Northwestern Minnesota.
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