Tuesday, November 07, 2006

Tuesday Session 3 by Marcia

Supplementing Curriculum with Online Options
Sue Steiner, Program Director
Heidi Smith, Local Mentor/Teacher
Kiel eSchool

Info on Kiel eSchool

Kiel eSchool provides online options for students grades 7-12 on a fulltime or part-time basis, and half or full credit courses are available to meet graduation requirements.
Students apply through the guidance department
Content is mainly through Florida Virtual, but they use other vendors too, as well as some courses which were created by Kiel instructors.

Characteristics of Quality Online Courses
Good teachers
engaging content
present a highly interactive environment
aligned to standards
self paced
use of graphics and multimedia
tracking and remediation
allows resubmissions
incorporate real-life situations
builds community
timely and continuous feedback
Student/Teacher interaction
Good organization
Accommodate varied learning styles and intelligences
Learning pedagogy
Age appropriate content
Rubrics
Assessment and evaluation

How do you know students are doing their own work?
Authentic assessments
Oral quizzes
Proctored semester exams
Frequent communication
Threaded discussion
Highly qualified teachers

Course managements systems have many different features. Choose one that fits your needs http://www.edutools.com/

Another way to assess tools http://moodle.org/

OCEP—Online Course Evaluation Project identifies and evaluates existing online courses (through http://www.edutools.com/)


NROC—(National Repository of Online Courses) a library of online courses
www.montereyinstitute.org/nroc.html

Value of using Supplementary Content
Provides high quality diverse content which is beyond the means of the teacher
Addresses various learning styles
Provides multi-modal learning experiences
Saves teachers time in trying to develop it themselves—why reinvent the wheel?

Course Vendors
Kiel initially looked at approximately 75 different vendors
Received RFPs from 27
Piloted six of them the first year
Chose Florida Virtual School as primary content vendor http://www.flvs.net/
Also use several locally developed courses

Supplementary Vendors
United Streaming (licensed through FLVS)
BrainPOP (teacher access Package $150)
SAS inschool (50 users $250)
Get a Clue--for English classes (25 users $395)
Horizon Wimbda—voice boards used in Spanish course ($23 per license)
Geometer’s Sketchpad—now built into locally developed online geometry course

Web Conferencing (Online Meeting Space)
VOIP (Voice-over IP) consideration: does web conferencing use VOIP or do you neet the Internet and a separate phone?
Elluminate
WebEx
Horizon Wimbda
Skype (software that allows you to make free calls to anyone else on Skype, anywhere in the world)

Learning Objects—mini lessons
Learning objects are based on the premise that they must provide learner with succinct relevant information, guidance in relation to key points and an opportunity to interact with the content
They can be completed in 5-10 minutes—delivery can be online, on CD-ROM, or adapted to a print based form.
Example: Merlot www.merlot.org/Home.po

Fox Valley Technical College http://www.wisc-online.com/
WiscNet Digital Districts Online http://www.digitaldistricts.org/

Wikis and Blogs
Wiki is software that allows users to freely create and edit Web page content using any Web browser—a collection of works by many authors
Blog—a frequent, chronological publication of personal thoughts and Web links

Virtual Field Trips and Projects
A bibliography can be found at http://www.twice.cc/rbib.html

Advantages and Disadvantages
Price is high for high-quality content
CD/DVD supplement to textbooks
Media rich content varies significantly
Ability to customize
Additional Services
Support
Updates
Courses vs. modules
Upfront vs. ongoing costs
Cost per student, or one cost for course
Technology issues

Considerations
Philosophy and vision—Does the content and technology fit the design of your school/program?
Will the content fit on your course management system?
Does the content meet state standards?
Will your infrastructure support this?
Firewall issues
Java plug-ins
Software applications

· Who will host the course?
· Security issues
· Intellectual property rights
· Copyright issues
· ADA compliance
· Licensing agreements
o CMS and content
o per student, per class, per year

Teacher Training
· Orient to course management system
· Instructional design training
· Ongoing mentor (this is important!)
· Ongoing staff development
· Technical support/help desk

Learning Points Associates/NCREL
has online teacher facilitation course—6 week course with credit through Cardinal Stritch
has course for school administrators MOL I (3 weeks) and MOL II (3 weeks)

Student Considerations
Is orientation provided? (this is considered very important to student success)
Is there a teacher at the other end of the course? (essential!)
Quality directions
Technical support/help desk

Content
Does it fit in your existing course?
If it’s an entire course, how does it fit into your curriculum?
Will this contribute to student learning? (enrichment or remediation)
Use of video and audio
keeps students more engaged
bandwidth issues
Simulations
Drill and practice
Authentic assessments

START SMALL!
Start with just a few sources
Look for a resource that supports a large number of quality media-rich resources
Decide whether to buy, license, or build your own
Consider partnerships or consortia—better purchasing power

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