WCON Supplementing Curriculum with Online Options by Janel

Presented by Sue Steiner Keil eSchool

Keil
-application process is through the guidance office
-primarily purchase from Florida Virtual School

Why do students enroll?
health problems
-want a challenge
-scheduling conflicts
-drop outs
-alternative to expulsion
-expelled
-at risk
-flex schedules
-transfer students
-transient students
-ap
-low enrollment courses
-out of sequence courses
-homebound
-travelling
-gt

Quality Online courses
-QUALITY teacher is number one!!!!
-consistent organization from one class to the next important to consider this when setting protocols

How do you know students do their own work
-proctored exams
-frequent communication
-teacher discernment

Tools to use when developing online courses
- http://www.edutools.info/ allows you to compare course management systems and it will provide you details and comparisons for them. This is a VERY useful tool to use. Tons of great information here.
- Moodle http://moodle.org/
- Online Course Evaluation Project (also on edutools) this helps you to look at content providers AND most useful for the categories that are listed on what items are important to look at in curriculum and more. VERY NICE. Put in a rubric that you develop for evaluative purposes
- Ncrel and Research projects portion of edutools
- National Repository of Online Courses- high school and ap. Growing. Quality courses.

Supplementary Content
-adds diversity even in F2F classes
-high quality and content beyond the means of the teacher
-addresses various learning styles
-multimodal learning
-why reinvent the wheel

Course Vendors
-put an rfp together
-piloted a few vendors the first year
-developed some locally developed courses as well
-FVS http://www.flvs.net/ they have course demos so you can look at lessons from many of their courses

Supplementary Providers
-Can license all of these individuals as well
-United Streaming
-Brain Pop
-Get A Clue
-SAS inSchool
-Horizon Wimbda/Wimba (voice email sending)- foreign language, $25 a license
-Geometer's Sketchpad

Web Conferencing Software
-Elluminate (highest quality)- look into this!!!
-WebEx
-Wimba
-Skype
--question to ask- is it VoIP or the Internet AND a phone line. Not sure what she said here... investigate further

Learning Objects
-mini lessons that are out there
- www.merlot.org/Home.php
- Fox Valley Technical College Learning Objects are all together online http://www.wisc-online.com/
- WiscNet http://www.digitaldistricts.org/

Wikis and Blogs

Virtual Field Trips and Projects
-www.twice.cc/rbib.html

Advantages and Disadvantages
-pay for high quality content
-CD/DVD supplements to textbooks
-ABILITY to CUSTOMIZE (check this if you want to be able to add units or lessons)
-updating and support offered by vendors
-Are you purchasing courses or modules? This is important.
-upfront vs. ongoing costs
-cost per student or one cost for course
technology issues

Considerations
-who hosts it?
-security issues
-intellectual copyright issues (if teachers develop) can't copy and paste
-ada compliance
-licensing agreements
-infrastructure support
-content fit the management system?

Teacher training
-need an ongoing mentor
-monthly staff development
-tech support
-other trainings
-Learning Point Associates NCREL- great online 6 week course for online teacher facilitation courses, offered in January, 3 grad credits with Cardinal Stritch, contact Sue Steiner about enrolling in this course

Student Considerations
-orientation course for students
-is their a teacher at the other end of the course
-quality directions
-tech support

Content
-not all text based, needs multimedia
-bandwidth

Start Small
-just go with a few sources at first
-resource that supports a large number of media rich sources
-decide whether to buy, license or build your own
-consider consortia for purchasing power (NL has indicated an interest in partnering with us)
-need to establish buy-in, very important

As far as grants and sustaining go- perpetual licenses are the key!! May not want to consider the rent a course options because they require continual monetary support