Teacher education

Apologies for the lack of blogging these past two weeks. I was away in British Columbia for much of last week and these are the first two weeks of the semester. I do have things planned, hopefully that will roll out next week (as I have a busy weekend of catching up planned).

So, next week expect the slides and a partial podcast of my keynote at DEANZ (the first official installment of VHSM Podcasts), the semi-regular blogging about today’s student and virtual schooling (the latter may be broken up into multiple posts), an update from my British Columbia trip and a discussion of the state of virtual schooling out there, and anything else I can get into the queue.

In the meantime, let me leave you with something from the NACOL forums – which was posted sometime yesterday.

MONTEREY, Calif., September 8, 2008 ¬-Taking classes in cyberspace just got better for Georgia high school students. Since its inception in 2005, Georgia Virtual School (GAVS) has been improving its online offerings to serve a growing number of students each year. As part of this effort, GAVS has become a supporting member of the National Repository of Online Courses (NROC), making this library of top notch online courses available to students and educators across Georgia.

“It’s good, accurate and very rigorous,” said GAVS program coordinator Stephanie Dunbar about NROC’s course content.

Selected as the best of their kind, NROC courses utilize a vast array of digital media options to engage students in dozens of subjects, ranging from algebra to U.S. history. Interactive simulations, flash objects and iPod downloads are among the digital technologies forming the multimedia platform that bring online learning to a new level and gives educators flexibility in using all or part of the material as teaching tools.

“NROC content will allow us to expand the multimedia components of our online courses and provide alternative avenues for different learning styles. It will benefit both our students and the teachers who are using it,” said GAVS program coordinator for course development Jay Heap.

Through its NROC membership, GAVS can adapt NROC content to align with Georgia’s educational standards and meet the needs of individual schools throughout the state. Over 450,000 Georgia high school students can now surf over to the specially designed GAVS website at www.hippocampus.org/myHippo/?user=myGVS where they can access NROC course content tailored to work in conjunction with popular textbooks and the state’s curriculum.

“One of our goals is to support classroom teachers across Georgia, so we are very excited that we can offer the NROC materials as a resource for them,” said Dunbar.

Online classes serve a broad spectrum of students by providing increased access to core curriculum, elective and advanced placement coursework, as well as greater flexibility in scheduling.

Collaboration among NROC Network members adds a unique dimension to online course development. Educators, administrators, technologists and designers from around the globe use the NROC social authoring network to combine their skills and experience to develop and refine existing course materials and forge new content.

This collaboration method, within a non-profit structure, creates high quality courses for a very reasonable cost, according to Gary Lopez, executive director of the Monterey Institute for Technology and Education (MITE), the organization that launched NROC. He said this is valuable “because it frees up resources for other infrastructural needs in educational systems, and because it’s supported by a community of educators – scholarship is back in the hands of scholars.”

NROC is an open educational resource (OER) project of MITE, supported by a grant from The William and Flora Hewlett Foundation. The OER movement is fueled by the belief that everyone is entitled to an education no matter where they live or what their circumstances are. By joining NROC, educational institutions support OER and receive a variety of benefits including customizable content, specialized support and professional development resources. NROC’s content is also accessible to individual learners free of charge at www.hippocampus.org.

The Monterey Institute for Technology and Education is a non-profit educational organization committed to helping meet society’s need for access to effective, high-quality educational opportunities in an era of rapid economic, social and personal change. The Monterey Institute for Technology and Education was founded in 2003 as a 501©3 non-profit organization. Learn more at www.montereyinstitute.org/nroc.

Georgia Virtual School is part of the Georgia Department of Education’s office of technology services. GAVS is fully accredited and offers middle and high school level classes including a full high school curriculum with Advanced Placement© and college preparatory courses taught by certified teachers. Additionally, GAVS offers students a chance to retake classes they were not previously successful in as part of Georgia DOE’s credit recovery program. Learn more at
www.gavirtualschool.org/

Organization Contact
Gary Lopez, Ph.D., Executive Director
Monterey Institute for Technology & Education
(831) 642-9459
glopez@montereyinstitute.org
www.montereyinstitute.org
www.hippocampus.org

I enrolled my daughter in Crescent Prep Virtual High School school, paid in full over $5000.00 and the contract said that we would get a laptop, printer, plasma TV and $200.00. And her diploma.

Complaint Description: I enrolled my daughter in this school back in May of 2007. Paid the entire amount. Was promised the above items along with her education. It took until the end of August to get the laptop. We wanted to start the schooling right away. It couldnt happen because we needed the laptop. After “fighting” with Dana Williams I finally got the laptop. And still have not gotten anything else. My daughter tries to sign on to the “school” to do work and most of the time the website is down. The reason she is going to this school is so she can graduate early. She will never be able to do this when she cant get to her work. I have sent email after email and made many phone calls to the school. Spoke with Dana and was promised this and that and never any follow through on her end. I tried contacting someone else and Dana didnt like that and then my calls were not taken at all. My last email to her was that I wanted a full refund and she could have this laptop back. And once again I have not heard back from her at all. I told her in that email I would be contacting authorities. Apparently she doesnt care if I do. I have contacted BBB and she has never responded to them either. I also contacted State Government Personnel. Resolution Sought: At this point I want a full refund.

Date Problem Started: 05/23/2007

Basically I hope you all take a good look at what you are doing BEFORE you send them any money!!

Comment by Syble — December 16, 2007 @ 7:48 pm | Reply

This was sent to me via e-mail from the folks at Online Colleges .

I wonder what this might look like for the K-12 environment?

Blended Learning: Where Online And Face-To-Face Instruction Intersect For 21st Century Teaching And Learning – Full Report Released.

This looks rather decent. To bad it took a recession (at least in Florida) to get online schooling into public schools on a consistent basis. As best I can tell the online classes are given in the regular classrooms during the same school times as before. In our school we have used a combination of face to face and online for 12 years, but with a difference. Our students are allowed to progress through high school at their own speed, mostly about 3 years. Most of the face to face takes place at a community college where high school and college credits are earned for the same courses. Parents are very involved in our programs. Students are exposed to various age groups as they will be the rest of their lives. We have an e-book explaining how all that a state allows can be used to the student’s and parent’s advantage to get into college and shorten overall time in school and save a small fortune.

Comment by unclebuck941 — November 18, 2009 @ 6:30 am | Reply

Quality K-12 Distributed Learning.

This is a marvelous document. Thanks for alerting me to it. Such a thorough process for evaluating the appropriateness of a program/course/content. I had not previously heard of the Sussex Scheme upon which it is based, but have located a reference to that document: http://www.eric.ed.gov/ERICWebPortal/custom/portlets/recordDetails/detailmini.jsp?_nfpb=true&_&ERICExtSearch_SearchValue_0=ED114353&ERICExtSearch_SearchType_0=no&accno=ED114353

Comment by David Le Blanc — November 1, 2009 @ 8:07 pm | Reply

mrschili
June 14, 2007 at 6:01 am

I think I’ve covered “it’s and its” more than any other words I’ve investigated here; it’s a problem spot for Blue. I’ve been trying to get her to start thinking of the apostrophe as the dot for the missing “i,” but I don’t think she’s buyin’ it.

I’ve not done “witch and which” yet, but I know I’ve done “whether and weather”…

A hearse, huh? Well, it’d certainly be easy to spot in the parking lot!

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27 Comments.
Jangari
June 6, 2007 at 6:31 pm

When I was reading this I was thinking of that part of The Language Instinct that the Language Log post quotes, which is good, it means I don’t have to get my copy and re-type the section out. The crucial part is that the intonation of I could care less differs from I couldn’t care less . The stress in the former is on care while in the latter it is on couldn’t . If I could care less was to be taken literally, as opposed to sarcastically, it’d be I could care less .

As far as different than/from goes, I’d have to weigh in and say that different is one of those weird predicates that takes a complement inside a prepositional phrase just because otherwise the object would be too close to the predicate, rather than there being any real meaning conveyed by the preposition, like in true intransitives.

So, a true intransitive, like run (ignoring run a race ), differs in meaning depending on the preposition that heads the complement. Run to the house is therefore different from run from the house . But predicates like ‘different’, ‘dependent’, ‘consist’, ‘with regard’, do not rely on the preposition to convey the correct meaning, but they still require one. You can’t say that dog is different this dog . As a result of the mere token requirement of a preposition, it matters less which preposition you pick.

With regard for/to/?of

consisting in/of

If you’ve ever tried learning French, Italian, Spanish etc., you might recall the difficulty in memorising which prepositions go with which predicates. I had to remember that you say dependere da as opposed to dependere su which is what I would have expected if I’d translated straight from English.

I still sometimes have to ask is something comprised of or comprised by ?

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