Questions:
Pitfalls of student/course/other management integration-issues
What do we look for?
1. Look at what businesses are doing
2. Make a decision on a platform-if staff is trained on one kind, have to factor that in-don’t want to introduce too much additional stuff
3. Go standards base
4. Keep in confidentiality-keep student info inhouse
5. Look at Blackboard-can take our Sasi student info and upload to their management system
6. What is being shared?
7. Do we want more centralized or individualize instruction portals?
How do we feel about video and instructional methodology?
(video on demand, video webcasts, video conferencing) Is there power in integrating this into experience continuum?
Needs to include interaction and collaboration
Provide multi ways of learning
Enhances learning style opportunities
Must consider capabilities of students
Real time feedback is possible and valuable in virtual school
Video not used for lecture review but for illustrations/object lessons/ etc
Putting teacher lectures on line and calling it an online course is NOT what we are talking about!
Colleges are requesting AP classes have hands-on (ie science AP must be “wet lab”) –colleges backing off on this in order to give credit to virtual school courses
Monday, November 06, 2006
Roundatable Discussions by Deb
Roundtable I: Staff Recruitment (Kimbell)
Note: Look at Blackboard and they will train! Has all the classroom management stuff. Go on http://www.blackboard.com/
Negotiated contract to pay teachers-take an 18 week course and work it out for 12 weeks
Start a term every month
Teachers are now coming to them because of advertising-market, market, market for students, parents and teachers
Stamp a logo on everything-vendor at state conference
Started out of an alternative so teachers thought in a different way
Kids pop in and out (including expelled)
Own courses (c college hosts and trains-$5000 plus $60 for half credit-Kim does no tech support-e college does this)
Adjunct salaries-1200 for 12 months plus incentives ($90 for successful student completion
10-20 students limits in class
No provisions of laptops for staff or students
All content is canned-no prep needed for teachers
PE (aerobics using heart monitors for accountability) on line!!!
Requires a proxy test for each course-not mom/dad!
Students are granted credits and then they go back to Rapid City for diploma stuff
Some adults taking for graduation!
Teachers seeing the e-facilitator course as an a positive benefit for their future as educator
Teachers have to keep phone log of student contact weekly (buy phone cards)and students get to help evaluate
Roundtable 2: Special Education
Enroll fulltime students k-8 (only 500 students before going online-now up 800 in this program)
Reasons involved:
Competing in academic success
Competing beyond boundaries
How to follow through on IEP’s virtually-legal issues
How to select right students/parents-good communication on the frontend
Can’t reject, but can give good info and roles
Work with districts-teleconferences with IEP issues
Include communication issues in contract
Review current IEP and the role of virtual program is to enhance their success
Parents can go on line and experience sample lessons for the kids-include a grid as evaluation to help parent understand issues like least restrictive environment (home is often seen as least restrictive)
Part-time students are granted credits and work through own district
Can’t serve every special ed student in this program
Spend more time on frontend expectations-this is not an easy way out for students
Use “day in the life” of a student lesson to help parents understand what they are getting into-responsible adult has to be involved on daily basis-part of requirement
Do have face to face, group outings and testing
Groups-biggest=autistic, then younger speech and language and then behavioral
2 special ed teachers provide support in many ways and set up regular sessions with students to help parent be the best teacher for their own students
Provide computer but not connectivity
Writing is touch-online kids are doing as well as traditional school
Roundtable 3: Curriculum
Insight buys content from various vendors
Scenario based learning vs games
End-what do we want students to be experiencing?
How do we retain that student?
Have to have a pathway students can follow
Dual enrollment-look into seriously
Make sure content is portable (in xml)
Ask them what their business model-how do they maintain and adjust the curriculum content-can district adapt curriculum?
If looking at full-time students, find whole core content-if looking at part-time, the scope is different
Cheaper to buy the whole k-12 curriculum
Costs 100,000 to build a course unless instructional model is supplemented
Read clearly the contracts from the curriculum companies
Video content is helpful because of how kids are already learning
Look at models that include other modalities
Look at Branson Colorado
Lookk at student Portal opportunities
How to Start A Virtual School Session by Deb
Virtual School: How to Get Started
Session 1
Introduction:
Dave Glick- consults in starting online courses/schools
Keith:
Insight schools-build online public schools-fulltime with fulltime students-statewide operation-tuition free in state-bringing kids back into public schools in alternative way
Provide everything needed to start a virtual school (tech-staff, start-up dollars) -Their first school cost 2.5 million
Now working on creating a nationwide network
Talking about marketing:
Important because we will need to reach kids (who aren’t in school) and because of need to raise enrollments
It’s expensive and so we need to get numbers!
Talking about meeting student needs:
Fringe kids (gifted, need faster pace, teen parents, struggle in public schools, course access to AP, homeschool)
Think about mission and model of the school we are designing
Think about funding-tuition because of state funding
Reach through school officials-describing what we have to offer and asking them to identify kids OR reaching families individually/directly (how can people find us-need to be on web) Can buy lists to get access to names
Howard (school management and budgeting)
Not much help in people to help teach how to manage
Enrollment management is hardest challenging part because of being in a virtual environment
Set up an enrollment team and a separate management team (often size gets bogged down at 800 students)
THEN create an instruction team (need key subject area person-4- to make sure content is aligned, prepared, supplemented)
Student information system can help with core operations (how many kids with each teacher for ex)
Online teachers spend 75% on administrative function-getting academic data to determine what to do with students
Budget:
Look at daily items
Thinks we should lease curriculum-10%
65% of personnel costs
Recommend SREB (Southern Regional Educational Board cost guidelines report-look at this!
Bruce: (curriculum)
They will come back if doing a good job!
Good marketing, good technology, good curriculum being delivered
3 questions:
1. What will we offer?
May not be our choice-targeted group of students may dictate it
What does our customer base want? (Bruce can help answer this)
Do a needs assessment to determine the curriculum to offer-listen to Bruce’s session tomorrow on this
2. What will we look for when looking for the courses?
Range from textbook online and online video gaming and whole lot in between
Budget will be a factor in what we get for online content
Instruction model will be a factor (computer based or teacher based)
Consider the target audience (remediation or credit recovery, AP, etc)
3. How will we acquire the course? How to get it?
3 ways:
1. develop self
Do we have staff to do this? Not inexpensive and have to staff resources
2. purchase it-is content portable and can be used in a number of different tech systems and how can it be modified
3. lease it-how will upgrades be handled-look long term
Vito (Sysco System)
Think about –understand the business requirements!! How will it be used for the business? Staff and tech people have to talk from an instructional perspective to implement the infrastructure to meet the business outcomes
This is a huge lack to understand what the business outcomes are to be
Marriage of the instruction and technology
Have to understand the technology, the application with the business results
What he has learned:
Don’t build your own learning management system!
Can’t have one system to cover all-don’t try to build one! (CRM vs LMS requirements)
Scale the program and plan for growth-think of all the implications on video-end user will want grapics/video
Ex: Miss Education Initiative-have no plan but want to use telepresence (high definition conferencing) Have to make sure these can be balanced
Make sure that all stake holders have high level of awareness on what technology needs are required
Kay (staffing the virtual school and PD)
Need to grow both the teachers and students
Corner stone= “e-facilitator”online courses for teachers, best practices, tools for the courses so the teachers understand what the students will see-
PD is limited-Kay’s school wrote their own (NaCol is a good resource)
Have levels of PD (initial learning, best practices, creating courses)
Offer for college credit! This is incentive for teachers
Always changing even in the PD courses offered
Spend upfront time on training staff!!
Using course tools-driven by the platform used
If teacher is to be successful, they must use the tools well (threaded discussions, student participation, rubrics and evaluation
Teachers don’t understand and assume that students understand what they are saying-be very specific in teaching
Learn and grow is the pattern! This is how PD will be!
Attracting teachers-marketing is important for this
State lists all the schools/entities that provide online courses (what is asychrontist?)
George (k-12 with 37,000 students and growing) Policy stuff
Pitfalls: people like status quo and don’t like change
Online courses are the way world is going-we need to address it
Have a vision for what it looks like –postsecondary model
Do a field study (like a pilot program)-do research based student and see if it floats and define policy from that study results
Challenges for policy
Most teacher contracts aren’t ready for this
No option for noncontiguous hours
Who’s eligible?
Is training involved
Parent-student contact issues
Charter or not?
Administration issues
Can’t “see” how to evaluate and measure success
Testing? How is it going to be done?
Who is playing? How will kids know what is happening?
Technology plans
Extra curricular activities-how many classes on campus
If we don’t move on this, colleges will do this for us
Need to have supt as the champion of this!!
Changing K-12 (can’t think “this will pass!”)
Steering committee (need to have parent, student, union rep, dist office)
Must have teachers and administrators singing same song
Sunday Notes by Marcia
Marcia’s notes
How to Start a Virtual School
November 5, 2006 1:00-5:00 PM
Dave Glick—
Keith Oelrich--Founder/CEO Insight Schools
Howard Liebman--School mgmt and budgeting
Bruce Friend—North Carolina Virtual School, now NACOL
Vito Amato-ed tech consultant
Kay Anderson—virtual campus curriculum coordinator
George Williams policy development
Kim Ross—Houston, Minnesota special education
Todd Hitchcock—Florida Virtual school
Kimbell Kenner, virtual campus
Lisa McClure—School Dist. Of Waukesha student characteristics
Jim Barnes—Curriculum
Marketing for Online Schools
Keith Oelrich— Insight Schools
Insight Schools are online fulltime school w/fulltime students
Statewide, tuition free for students in the state
Bridling the online public high school
Insight Schools are a full time alternative for the students who are not thriving in regular school
When planning, fund the creation of the school, then collect FTE dollars.
Create nationwide network.
Marketing important
need a way to reach kids who are not currently in school (the Insight program is for kids who are not in school)
Raise enrollment
Expensive
This program is for kids who are around the “edges”—gifted, teen parents, drop out to work, kids with careers, those who struggled with traditional school, homeschool, retakes, course access to AP
What kind of model is yours?
Full time or supplemental?
State funded or locally funded? Private?
How do you reach families to recruit students?
School officials—email, direct mail, conferences, word-of-mouth
Direct market to families—web marketing, also same as above (email, etc.)
50% of students find the info on web
market to centers that provide youth services
School Management and Budgeting
Howard Liebman— U of Miami
Create an “Enrollment Management Team” and an “Instructional Team” and keep them separate
Enrollment Team can handle all leads, course analysis, and placement
Instructional Lead person for each core subject (Language Arts, Social Studies )
They prepare pace charts.
Student info system helps with administrative duties-- teachers are spending 75% of time on administrative data instead of curriculum
How do other budget?
10% lease online courses
Bruce Friend—Curriculum
“They will come back to you if you are good.”
Quality content is key.
3 Questions:
1. What will you offer?
Once you know what you will offer, what will you look for in an online course?
How will you acquire that?
1. What will you offer?
This may not be a choice, depending on individual school parameters.
What does customer base want? NACOL can help with this.
Needs Assessment (seminar tomorrow) will help
2. Once you know what you will offer, what will you look for in an online course?
Currently there is everything from online textbooks to video-game styles-
Instructional model=--is teacher in control and based on teacher, or is it online controlled?
Consider target customer (remediation, credit recovery etc)
How will you acquire online content?
Develop it yourself
--do you have the bandwidth—the staff—to develop and maintain it?
Purchase it
--Is the content portable? Usable in a variety of tech systems
--what is necessary to change it?
Lease it
--How are upgrades handled?
--Long-term—is it sensible to lease or purchase?
Vito Amato CISCO
Pro bono consulting for customers prospective customers
Theme—Understand your business requirements
How will the technology be used?
Tech and staff need to get together and agree—Vito moderates this
Lack of understanding of IT people—do not understand what you are trying to accomplish instructionally
Articulate the business requirements clearly to all involved
Will you use vender specific or open tech stuff?
LCMS and LMS have research available to NACOL members
We have learned--
Don’t build your own Learning Management System.
Find out the difference CRM/LMS
Building vs. buying
Scaling program—make it a plan for growth
Think about it—end user wants interactive --video
The technology can be very expensive and require bigger bandwidth--telepresence, high definition video conferencing needs 10 mig pipe
Collect business requirements and balance needs and implementation
Determine what you actually need (may think you need one thing when actually you need something else or something less)
Kay Anderson—Staffing And Staff Development
Efacilitated course for teachers –training for teachers to teach online
Limited amount of staff development available
Her office creates materials for BEST Practices in online classroom, 2nd part of staff development
College credit for these courses for teachers
Course tools—successful teacher will be very skillful using the tools your system has
Threaded discussion: how do you get all to participate? Rubrics?
Directions for students must be very specific because instruction is not face-to-face
Staff development must be ongoing and constantly changing
George Williams--Avoiding Policy Hazards and Creating Online K12 Courses
Pressure to offer online courses
A myriad of online obstacles challenge traditional K12
--contracts for teachers don’t work hourwise
--what are the qualifications for teaching?
Parent/student contacts necessary—how will you do it?
Will you charter or not?
ADM
Looks like good classroom—how do you assess/measure success? How are tests administered?
What is your age/grade minimum
What will you do about orientation/passwords/expectations?
Tech problems on either end—what do you do?
What will you do about extracurricular activities?
Online schools—state run, private, college run?
Superintendent needs to be champion
Need a steering committee—teacher, parent etc
Charter—see $ from state?
Unions, teachers, administrators must get together
Students—how many?
Research based field study important—define policy from data
How to Start a Virtual School
November 5, 2006 1:00-5:00 PM
Dave Glick—
Keith Oelrich--Founder/CEO Insight Schools
Howard Liebman--School mgmt and budgeting
Bruce Friend—North Carolina Virtual School, now NACOL
Vito Amato-ed tech consultant
Kay Anderson—virtual campus curriculum coordinator
George Williams policy development
Kim Ross—Houston, Minnesota special education
Todd Hitchcock—Florida Virtual school
Kimbell Kenner, virtual campus
Lisa McClure—School Dist. Of Waukesha student characteristics
Jim Barnes—Curriculum
Marketing for Online Schools
Keith Oelrich— Insight Schools
Insight Schools are online fulltime school w/fulltime students
Statewide, tuition free for students in the state
Bridling the online public high school
Insight Schools are a full time alternative for the students who are not thriving in regular school
When planning, fund the creation of the school, then collect FTE dollars.
Create nationwide network.
Marketing important
need a way to reach kids who are not currently in school (the Insight program is for kids who are not in school)
Raise enrollment
Expensive
This program is for kids who are around the “edges”—gifted, teen parents, drop out to work, kids with careers, those who struggled with traditional school, homeschool, retakes, course access to AP
What kind of model is yours?
Full time or supplemental?
State funded or locally funded? Private?
How do you reach families to recruit students?
School officials—email, direct mail, conferences, word-of-mouth
Direct market to families—web marketing, also same as above (email, etc.)
50% of students find the info on web
market to centers that provide youth services
School Management and Budgeting
Howard Liebman— U of Miami
Create an “Enrollment Management Team” and an “Instructional Team” and keep them separate
Enrollment Team can handle all leads, course analysis, and placement
Instructional Lead person for each core subject (Language Arts, Social Studies )
They prepare pace charts.
Student info system helps with administrative duties-- teachers are spending 75% of time on administrative data instead of curriculum
How do other budget?
10% lease online courses
Bruce Friend—Curriculum
“They will come back to you if you are good.”
Quality content is key.
3 Questions:
1. What will you offer?
Once you know what you will offer, what will you look for in an online course?
How will you acquire that?
1. What will you offer?
This may not be a choice, depending on individual school parameters.
What does customer base want? NACOL can help with this.
Needs Assessment (seminar tomorrow) will help
2. Once you know what you will offer, what will you look for in an online course?
Currently there is everything from online textbooks to video-game styles-
Instructional model=--is teacher in control and based on teacher, or is it online controlled?
Consider target customer (remediation, credit recovery etc)
How will you acquire online content?
Develop it yourself
--do you have the bandwidth—the staff—to develop and maintain it?
Purchase it
--Is the content portable? Usable in a variety of tech systems
--what is necessary to change it?
Lease it
--How are upgrades handled?
--Long-term—is it sensible to lease or purchase?
Vito Amato CISCO
Pro bono consulting for customers prospective customers
Theme—Understand your business requirements
How will the technology be used?
Tech and staff need to get together and agree—Vito moderates this
Lack of understanding of IT people—do not understand what you are trying to accomplish instructionally
Articulate the business requirements clearly to all involved
Will you use vender specific or open tech stuff?
LCMS and LMS have research available to NACOL members
We have learned--
Don’t build your own Learning Management System.
Find out the difference CRM/LMS
Building vs. buying
Scaling program—make it a plan for growth
Think about it—end user wants interactive --video
The technology can be very expensive and require bigger bandwidth--telepresence, high definition video conferencing needs 10 mig pipe
Collect business requirements and balance needs and implementation
Determine what you actually need (may think you need one thing when actually you need something else or something less)
Kay Anderson—Staffing And Staff Development
Efacilitated course for teachers –training for teachers to teach online
Limited amount of staff development available
Her office creates materials for BEST Practices in online classroom, 2nd part of staff development
College credit for these courses for teachers
Course tools—successful teacher will be very skillful using the tools your system has
Threaded discussion: how do you get all to participate? Rubrics?
Directions for students must be very specific because instruction is not face-to-face
Staff development must be ongoing and constantly changing
George Williams--Avoiding Policy Hazards and Creating Online K12 Courses
Pressure to offer online courses
A myriad of online obstacles challenge traditional K12
--contracts for teachers don’t work hourwise
--what are the qualifications for teaching?
Parent/student contacts necessary—how will you do it?
Will you charter or not?
ADM
Looks like good classroom—how do you assess/measure success? How are tests administered?
What is your age/grade minimum
What will you do about orientation/passwords/expectations?
Tech problems on either end—what do you do?
What will you do about extracurricular activities?
Online schools—state run, private, college run?
Superintendent needs to be champion
Need a steering committee—teacher, parent etc
Charter—see $ from state?
Unions, teachers, administrators must get together
Students—how many?
Research based field study important—define policy from data
Sunday Notes by Marcia
Marcia’s notes
How to Start a Virtual School
November 5, 2006 1:00-5:00 PM
Dave Glick—
Keith Oelrich--Founder/CEO Insight Schools
Howard Liebman--School mgmt and budgeting
Bruce Friend—North Carolina Virtual School, now NACOL
Vito Amato-ed tech consultant
Kay Anderson—virtual campus curriculum coordinator
George Williams policy development
Kim Ross—Houston, Minnesota special education
Todd Hitchcock—Florida Virtual school
Kimbell Kenner, virtual campus
Lisa McClure—School Dist. Of Waukesha student characteristics
Jim Barnes—Curriculum
Marketing for Online Schools
Keith Oelrich— Insight Schools
Insight Schools are online fulltime school w/fulltime students
Statewide, tuition free for students in the state
Bridling the online public high school
Insight Schools are a full time alternative for the students who are not thriving in regular school
When planning, fund the creation of the school, then collect FTE dollars.
Create nationwide network.
Marketing important
need a way to reach kids who are not currently in school (the Insight program is for kids who are not in school)
Raise enrollment
Expensive
This program is for kids who are around the “edges”—gifted, teen parents, drop out to work, kids with careers, those who struggled with traditional school, homeschool, retakes, course access to AP
What kind of model is yours?
Full time or supplemental?
State funded or locally funded? Private?
How do you reach families to recruit students?
School officials—email, direct mail, conferences, word-of-mouth
Direct market to families—web marketing, also same as above (email, etc.)
50% of students find the info on web
market to centers that provide youth services
School Management and Budgeting
Howard Liebman— U of Miami
Create an “Enrollment Management Team” and an “Instructional Team” and keep them separate
Enrollment Team can handle all leads, course analysis, and placement
Instructional Lead person for each core subject (Language Arts, Social Studies )
They prepare pace charts.
Student info system helps with administrative duties-- teachers are spending 75% of time on administrative data instead of curriculum
How do other budget?
10% lease online courses
Bruce Friend—Curriculum
“They will come back to you if you are good.”
Quality content is key.
3 Questions:
1. What will you offer?
Once you know what you will offer, what will you look for in an online course?
How will you acquire that?
1. What will you offer?
This may not be a choice, depending on individual school parameters.
What does customer base want? NACOL can help with this.
Needs Assessment (seminar tomorrow) will help
2. Once you know what you will offer, what will you look for in an online course?
Currently there is everything from online textbooks to video-game styles-
Instructional model=--is teacher in control and based on teacher, or is it online controlled?
Consider target customer (remediation, credit recovery etc)
How will you acquire online content?
Develop it yourself
--do you have the bandwidth—the staff—to develop and maintain it?
Purchase it
--Is the content portable? Usable in a variety of tech systems
--what is necessary to change it?
Lease it
--How are upgrades handled?
--Long-term—is it sensible to lease or purchase?
Vito Amato CISCO
Pro bono consulting for customers prospective customers
Theme—Understand your business requirements
How will the technology be used?
Tech and staff need to get together and agree—Vito moderates this
Lack of understanding of IT people—do not understand what you are trying to accomplish instructionally
Articulate the business requirements clearly to all involved
Will you use vender specific or open tech stuff?
LCMS and LMS have research available to NACOL members
We have learned--
Don’t build your own Learning Management System.
Find out the difference CRM/LMS
Building vs. buying
Scaling program—make it a plan for growth
Think about it—end user wants interactive --video
The technology can be very expensive and require bigger bandwidth--telepresence, high definition video conferencing needs 10 mig pipe
Collect business requirements and balance needs and implementation
Determine what you actually need (may think you need one thing when actually you need something else or something less)
Kay Anderson—Staffing And Staff Development
Efacilitated course for teachers –training for teachers to teach online
Limited amount of staff development available
Her office creates materials for BEST Practices in online classroom, 2nd part of staff development
College credit for these courses for teachers
Course tools—successful teacher will be very skillful using the tools your system has
Threaded discussion: how do you get all to participate? Rubrics?
Directions for students must be very specific because instruction is not face-to-face
Staff development must be ongoing and constantly changing
George Williams--Avoiding Policy Hazards and Creating Online K12 Courses
Pressure to offer online courses
A myriad of online obstacles challenge traditional K12
--contracts for teachers don’t work hourwise
--what are the qualifications for teaching?
Parent/student contacts necessary—how will you do it?
Will you charter or not?
ADM
Looks like good classroom—how do you assess/measure success? How are tests administered?
What is your age/grade minimum
What will you do about orientation/passwords/expectations?
Tech problems on either end—what do you do?
What will you do about extracurricular activities?
Online schools—state run, private, college run?
Superintendent needs to be champion
Need a steering committee—teacher, parent etc
Charter—see $ from state?
Unions, teachers, administrators must get together
Students—how many?
Research based field study important—define policy from data
How to Start a Virtual School
November 5, 2006 1:00-5:00 PM
Dave Glick—
Keith Oelrich--Founder/CEO Insight Schools
Howard Liebman--School mgmt and budgeting
Bruce Friend—North Carolina Virtual School, now NACOL
Vito Amato-ed tech consultant
Kay Anderson—virtual campus curriculum coordinator
George Williams policy development
Kim Ross—Houston, Minnesota special education
Todd Hitchcock—Florida Virtual school
Kimbell Kenner, virtual campus
Lisa McClure—School Dist. Of Waukesha student characteristics
Jim Barnes—Curriculum
Marketing for Online Schools
Keith Oelrich— Insight Schools
Insight Schools are online fulltime school w/fulltime students
Statewide, tuition free for students in the state
Bridling the online public high school
Insight Schools are a full time alternative for the students who are not thriving in regular school
When planning, fund the creation of the school, then collect FTE dollars.
Create nationwide network.
Marketing important
need a way to reach kids who are not currently in school (the Insight program is for kids who are not in school)
Raise enrollment
Expensive
This program is for kids who are around the “edges”—gifted, teen parents, drop out to work, kids with careers, those who struggled with traditional school, homeschool, retakes, course access to AP
What kind of model is yours?
Full time or supplemental?
State funded or locally funded? Private?
How do you reach families to recruit students?
School officials—email, direct mail, conferences, word-of-mouth
Direct market to families—web marketing, also same as above (email, etc.)
50% of students find the info on web
market to centers that provide youth services
School Management and Budgeting
Howard Liebman— U of Miami
Create an “Enrollment Management Team” and an “Instructional Team” and keep them separate
Enrollment Team can handle all leads, course analysis, and placement
Instructional Lead person for each core subject (Language Arts, Social Studies )
They prepare pace charts.
Student info system helps with administrative duties-- teachers are spending 75% of time on administrative data instead of curriculum
How do other budget?
10% lease online courses
Bruce Friend—Curriculum
“They will come back to you if you are good.”
Quality content is key.
3 Questions:
1. What will you offer?
Once you know what you will offer, what will you look for in an online course?
How will you acquire that?
1. What will you offer?
This may not be a choice, depending on individual school parameters.
What does customer base want? NACOL can help with this.
Needs Assessment (seminar tomorrow) will help
2. Once you know what you will offer, what will you look for in an online course?
Currently there is everything from online textbooks to video-game styles-
Instructional model=--is teacher in control and based on teacher, or is it online controlled?
Consider target customer (remediation, credit recovery etc)
How will you acquire online content?
Develop it yourself
--do you have the bandwidth—the staff—to develop and maintain it?
Purchase it
--Is the content portable? Usable in a variety of tech systems
--what is necessary to change it?
Lease it
--How are upgrades handled?
--Long-term—is it sensible to lease or purchase?
Vito Amato CISCO
Pro bono consulting for customers prospective customers
Theme—Understand your business requirements
How will the technology be used?
Tech and staff need to get together and agree—Vito moderates this
Lack of understanding of IT people—do not understand what you are trying to accomplish instructionally
Articulate the business requirements clearly to all involved
Will you use vender specific or open tech stuff?
LCMS and LMS have research available to NACOL members
We have learned--
Don’t build your own Learning Management System.
Find out the difference CRM/LMS
Building vs. buying
Scaling program—make it a plan for growth
Think about it—end user wants interactive --video
The technology can be very expensive and require bigger bandwidth--telepresence, high definition video conferencing needs 10 mig pipe
Collect business requirements and balance needs and implementation
Determine what you actually need (may think you need one thing when actually you need something else or something less)
Kay Anderson—Staffing And Staff Development
Efacilitated course for teachers –training for teachers to teach online
Limited amount of staff development available
Her office creates materials for BEST Practices in online classroom, 2nd part of staff development
College credit for these courses for teachers
Course tools—successful teacher will be very skillful using the tools your system has
Threaded discussion: how do you get all to participate? Rubrics?
Directions for students must be very specific because instruction is not face-to-face
Staff development must be ongoing and constantly changing
George Williams--Avoiding Policy Hazards and Creating Online K12 Courses
Pressure to offer online courses
A myriad of online obstacles challenge traditional K12
--contracts for teachers don’t work hourwise
--what are the qualifications for teaching?
Parent/student contacts necessary—how will you do it?
Will you charter or not?
ADM
Looks like good classroom—how do you assess/measure success? How are tests administered?
What is your age/grade minimum
What will you do about orientation/passwords/expectations?
Tech problems on either end—what do you do?
What will you do about extracurricular activities?
Online schools—state run, private, college run?
Superintendent needs to be champion
Need a steering committee—teacher, parent etc
Charter—see $ from state?
Unions, teachers, administrators must get together
Students—how many?
Research based field study important—define policy from data
BreakOut#1- Virtual Veterans Top Ten by Janel
Florida Virtual School-
market to parents and students right away, publicize in relocation packages, eliminate waiting lists, online teacher training requirement, public relations a crucial part of teacher job descriptions, refer a freind program, outsourced more, methodical teacher oversight is key
Plano School District-
Streaming media issues in sending and receiving work, all teachers must take an online course, sell locally developed courses, use open source, collaborate for materials with other areas
Colorado Connections Academy-
This school is younger students. Working with families and family dynamics so different support is needed, close ties between teachers and families, evaluate written and oral communication sills of the teachers, testing is a challenge,
Colorado Online Learning-
policy makers don't all use email, concentrate on LEARNING not the medium, think BEYOND the book
Connections Academy-
don't spend too much time differentiatingbetween full time and supplemental time students, this is not a cost saver, shows just how important teachers are, let parents teachers and students tell the story adn successes when at all possible, embrace the power of data- data accountability is a unique strength, homeschool families have the idea that the online schools are a plot to get those kids back in public schooling-they picketed this academy in Wisconsin at their informational sessions, your ablest competitors are your best allies.
Open Questions
Integrity, honesty and acceptable use policies. Most people are concerned about who is doing the work. This can be addressed through specialized teacher training. Vary interaction with physical portfolios, webmail, phone calls and more and standardized tests, they put in external checks and measures. When push comes to shove, this is a very small problem. Some have an academic integrity committee that they form and make sure that there are tools in place. Turnitin.com will check items. The students have to load everything into turnitin.com to help check. High school is a much larger problem. Wikipedia is not in turnitin.com. There are cheating rings that they create so they built randomized test bank. Teachers must then call students and give an oral quiz every month based upon where the student is. Also talking to parents because then they will literally have to lie to you. Check email and papers are written at the same level.
market to parents and students right away, publicize in relocation packages, eliminate waiting lists, online teacher training requirement, public relations a crucial part of teacher job descriptions, refer a freind program, outsourced more, methodical teacher oversight is key
Plano School District-
Streaming media issues in sending and receiving work, all teachers must take an online course, sell locally developed courses, use open source, collaborate for materials with other areas
Colorado Connections Academy-
This school is younger students. Working with families and family dynamics so different support is needed, close ties between teachers and families, evaluate written and oral communication sills of the teachers, testing is a challenge,
Colorado Online Learning-
policy makers don't all use email, concentrate on LEARNING not the medium, think BEYOND the book
Connections Academy-
don't spend too much time differentiatingbetween full time and supplemental time students, this is not a cost saver, shows just how important teachers are, let parents teachers and students tell the story adn successes when at all possible, embrace the power of data- data accountability is a unique strength, homeschool families have the idea that the online schools are a plot to get those kids back in public schooling-they picketed this academy in Wisconsin at their informational sessions, your ablest competitors are your best allies.
Open Questions
Integrity, honesty and acceptable use policies. Most people are concerned about who is doing the work. This can be addressed through specialized teacher training. Vary interaction with physical portfolios, webmail, phone calls and more and standardized tests, they put in external checks and measures. When push comes to shove, this is a very small problem. Some have an academic integrity committee that they form and make sure that there are tools in place. Turnitin.com will check items. The students have to load everything into turnitin.com to help check. High school is a much larger problem. Wikipedia is not in turnitin.com. There are cheating rings that they create so they built randomized test bank. Teachers must then call students and give an oral quiz every month based upon where the student is. Also talking to parents because then they will literally have to lie to you. Check email and papers are written at the same level.
Tom Carroll Keynote Address by Janel
Responsible for starting many of the Ed Tech programs at the federal level. See no Dream Denied magazine collected from conference.
Teaching and America's Future
We have moved from individual to team mentality. Learning environments need to become increasingly collaborative. Teaching also needs to be collaborative.
Teachers are expert learners. They are learning leaders.
Edutopia
Designing for the future of learning
great schools by design
school works
www.nctaf.org- speakers affiliation
Teaching and America's Future
We have moved from individual to team mentality. Learning environments need to become increasingly collaborative. Teaching also needs to be collaborative.
Teachers are expert learners. They are learning leaders.
Edutopia
Designing for the future of learning
great schools by design
school works
www.nctaf.org- speakers affiliation
Opening Remarks-NACOL by Janel
World is Flat- Singapore, China, India further ahead than we are.
CQ+PQ is greater than IQ (Curiousity and Passion).
Online Learning: First impetus- providing equal access and providing opportunities for growth, its growing, its effective research and meta analysis shows that it is better than traditional learning, improves teaching.
CQ+PQ is greater than IQ (Curiousity and Passion).
Online Learning: First impetus- providing equal access and providing opportunities for growth, its growing, its effective research and meta analysis shows that it is better than traditional learning, improves teaching.
Sunday, November 05, 2006
How To Create a Virtual School Session- by Janel
Expensive- need to reach students and increase student enrollments.
Types of students- wide range of student needs. Gifted students, move at a faster pace, teen parents, drop outs, family income job issues, athletics and entertainment careers, struggling kids for academics and social reasons, supplementing traditional students taking courses in a regular school (make-up work, course is not offered), homeschool families (record keeping, parents don't understand higher content),
Talking to parents- Has sessions about the virtual school
Reaching Families Through school officials to describe program offerings and pricing, helping to identify kids, OR reach and market to families directly (web marketing- found on web through search engines, buy lists to contact,)have a marketing budget. Purchased lists of homeschool kids, families that have purchased home school materials, PR- getting attention on the program and more through speakers, network outreach and networking with organizations like youth services and teen outreach centers. Educators are not trained in marketing and it is becoming more important in how schools are progressing and how they will be set up in the future.
Managing Virtual Schools School management and budget. See outline on second page of packet. Enrollment management is the biggest pain point. Entirely different ways of management. Separate enrollment and instructional. Orientation process. Instructional leadership team with a lead person from each of the core areas. Get the subject area people. Online teachers spend 75-80% of their time on administrative functions. Instructional Staff should not be more than 65% of budget. Cost Guidelines from the SREB. Click here for link.
Marketing NACOL has resources to find out what the customers actually want. Doing a needs assessment. Has some information on this activity to find out what the customers want and need as far as curriculum goes(parents, students, teachers, etc).
Types of courses- textbook online through to a highly interactive gaming environment. Budget is a huge factor in this. Instructional model will also have an impact here.
Communication between IT and educational processes Important to make sure that the communication is clear. Articulating the business requirements. Have to have a clear vision of what the technology infrastructure needs to do. Need to make sure that open source is considered. Moodle, Cyki, LCMS, LMS need to understand the business requirements. Have a lot of info and research available from Cisco. Don't build your own Learning Management System. Prepare for growth. Implications for future growth. Video capabilities on the network. Planning for growth is key.
Staff Development
e-Facilitator course. Has them go through to get professional development so that they are able to utilize their own teachers. South Dakota Virtual Schools has a lot of experience with staff development.
K12 Education
Online for K-12 schools, not just a high school thing anymore. Contracts are a bit of problematic because it is not based upon contiguous hours. Determining eligibility to teach (qualifications and prerequisites), parent and student contacts, how will you measure success, how are tests administered, who plays well in the virtual sandbox, how do you orient kids, technical problems and back up plans (student computer is down, what do you do), eligibility for sports, need a district office champion must step up, do a field study on the types of students, ELL
Policy Stuff Roundatable
Need to make sure there is enough money up front. The first year will be the most expensive right away. SREB has some great publication information. See link above. Important NOT to sell yourself short with timing. Many really good teachers are not able to effectively transition to online without training specifically for online teaching. Teacher supervision and training policies. Easy for teacher to kick back and walk away if there is no one looking. Many unions want to get involved with this. Certain policies affecting students who don't meet requirements or who drop out consistently. They have to be expelled through the legal process, you can't just drop them from your classes if you are taking state funding. You have to set our policies and let everyone know what it is right up front. Summer school is the most successful program because they are self paid. Students need to pass a student orientation course before they are able to complete an online course. It is a minicourse, 2 hours, all software and plug ins tha they could possibly need, walked them through all the steps, etc. Misunderstand that online courses are going to be easier and had unrealistic expectations and are not academically prepared. Need to have a self assessment available and determine academically readiness. They equate with correspondence courses and that is NOT the case. See if existing schools have existing policies in place. Check the ones that are presenting at the conference.
++NOTE++ The principal (Poemerring?) from New London is here because they are looking to create a hybrid virtual school.
Technology Outsourcing or Insourcing Roundatable Generally outsource the learning management system (blackboard, ecollege, D2L, Moodle, ucompass, WebCT) some provide hosting services for you- generally don't want to host your own- the focus should be on the education aspect NOT the technology side of it IT people should be managing relationships with the technology service providers instead of maintaining their own infrastructure, student information management system, and content, business process outsourcing. Skyward may not be able to handle SIS needs due to contact students (student log ins, pace measurement, teacher flags as far as when they are contacting, student questions, email settings, etc) Best question to ask any company is to build your exit strategy- if company goes out of business or is purchased. Need to know how you are going to get out. SCORM (sharable content object reference model) out of military standards that the providers should work to in order to provide the correct information and services that you need. Growth rate. Wait lists? Registration starts and endings. They outsource PR. They use sharepoint.
Student Recruitment Roundtable
KC Distance Learning. Waukesha iQ Academies. Training guidance counsellors on the online possibilities. the guidance counsellor should not have to be the gate keeper. They should be aware of these things to offer the students, but primarily the recruitment and information should be given to students and parents from a different method. Waukesha has most students full time from other schools in the state. Utilizing the guidance counsellor is not the way to go. Guidance counsellor services within the virtual school itself. A lot of it educating people on what the school can offer. Who the most appropriate students are. Independence with students is a big thing. Creative ways where they need to check in and be successful. Attracting students who can most benefit from your program so that they can have the most success. Formed virtual school think tank with TAG, ELL, Spec ed, administration, tech savvy, tech people, help to write the proposal. Data analysis project on students who are not on track for graduation and what class it is and what kind of kid it is and they create the program for that. Reading level is an important consideration.
Types of students- wide range of student needs. Gifted students, move at a faster pace, teen parents, drop outs, family income job issues, athletics and entertainment careers, struggling kids for academics and social reasons, supplementing traditional students taking courses in a regular school (make-up work, course is not offered), homeschool families (record keeping, parents don't understand higher content),
Talking to parents- Has sessions about the virtual school
Reaching Families Through school officials to describe program offerings and pricing, helping to identify kids, OR reach and market to families directly (web marketing- found on web through search engines, buy lists to contact,)have a marketing budget. Purchased lists of homeschool kids, families that have purchased home school materials, PR- getting attention on the program and more through speakers, network outreach and networking with organizations like youth services and teen outreach centers. Educators are not trained in marketing and it is becoming more important in how schools are progressing and how they will be set up in the future.
Managing Virtual Schools School management and budget. See outline on second page of packet. Enrollment management is the biggest pain point. Entirely different ways of management. Separate enrollment and instructional. Orientation process. Instructional leadership team with a lead person from each of the core areas. Get the subject area people. Online teachers spend 75-80% of their time on administrative functions. Instructional Staff should not be more than 65% of budget. Cost Guidelines from the SREB. Click here for link.
Marketing NACOL has resources to find out what the customers actually want. Doing a needs assessment. Has some information on this activity to find out what the customers want and need as far as curriculum goes(parents, students, teachers, etc).
Types of courses- textbook online through to a highly interactive gaming environment. Budget is a huge factor in this. Instructional model will also have an impact here.
Communication between IT and educational processes Important to make sure that the communication is clear. Articulating the business requirements. Have to have a clear vision of what the technology infrastructure needs to do. Need to make sure that open source is considered. Moodle, Cyki, LCMS, LMS need to understand the business requirements. Have a lot of info and research available from Cisco. Don't build your own Learning Management System. Prepare for growth. Implications for future growth. Video capabilities on the network. Planning for growth is key.
Staff Development
e-Facilitator course. Has them go through to get professional development so that they are able to utilize their own teachers. South Dakota Virtual Schools has a lot of experience with staff development.
K12 Education
Online for K-12 schools, not just a high school thing anymore. Contracts are a bit of problematic because it is not based upon contiguous hours. Determining eligibility to teach (qualifications and prerequisites), parent and student contacts, how will you measure success, how are tests administered, who plays well in the virtual sandbox, how do you orient kids, technical problems and back up plans (student computer is down, what do you do), eligibility for sports, need a district office champion must step up, do a field study on the types of students, ELL
Policy Stuff Roundatable
Need to make sure there is enough money up front. The first year will be the most expensive right away. SREB has some great publication information. See link above. Important NOT to sell yourself short with timing. Many really good teachers are not able to effectively transition to online without training specifically for online teaching. Teacher supervision and training policies. Easy for teacher to kick back and walk away if there is no one looking. Many unions want to get involved with this. Certain policies affecting students who don't meet requirements or who drop out consistently. They have to be expelled through the legal process, you can't just drop them from your classes if you are taking state funding. You have to set our policies and let everyone know what it is right up front. Summer school is the most successful program because they are self paid. Students need to pass a student orientation course before they are able to complete an online course. It is a minicourse, 2 hours, all software and plug ins tha they could possibly need, walked them through all the steps, etc. Misunderstand that online courses are going to be easier and had unrealistic expectations and are not academically prepared. Need to have a self assessment available and determine academically readiness. They equate with correspondence courses and that is NOT the case. See if existing schools have existing policies in place. Check the ones that are presenting at the conference.
++NOTE++ The principal (Poemerring?) from New London is here because they are looking to create a hybrid virtual school.
Technology Outsourcing or Insourcing Roundatable Generally outsource the learning management system (blackboard, ecollege, D2L, Moodle, ucompass, WebCT) some provide hosting services for you- generally don't want to host your own- the focus should be on the education aspect NOT the technology side of it IT people should be managing relationships with the technology service providers instead of maintaining their own infrastructure, student information management system, and content, business process outsourcing. Skyward may not be able to handle SIS needs due to contact students (student log ins, pace measurement, teacher flags as far as when they are contacting, student questions, email settings, etc) Best question to ask any company is to build your exit strategy- if company goes out of business or is purchased. Need to know how you are going to get out. SCORM (sharable content object reference model) out of military standards that the providers should work to in order to provide the correct information and services that you need. Growth rate. Wait lists? Registration starts and endings. They outsource PR. They use sharepoint.
Student Recruitment Roundtable
KC Distance Learning. Waukesha iQ Academies. Training guidance counsellors on the online possibilities. the guidance counsellor should not have to be the gate keeper. They should be aware of these things to offer the students, but primarily the recruitment and information should be given to students and parents from a different method. Waukesha has most students full time from other schools in the state. Utilizing the guidance counsellor is not the way to go. Guidance counsellor services within the virtual school itself. A lot of it educating people on what the school can offer. Who the most appropriate students are. Independence with students is a big thing. Creative ways where they need to check in and be successful. Attracting students who can most benefit from your program so that they can have the most success. Formed virtual school think tank with TAG, ELL, Spec ed, administration, tech savvy, tech people, help to write the proposal. Data analysis project on students who are not on track for graduation and what class it is and what kind of kid it is and they create the program for that. Reading level is an important consideration.
Virtual School Conference
Deb Gerard, Marcia Bleck and Janel Bedor attend NACOL Virtual School Conference in Plan, TX. November 5th-7th.
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