Teacher education

I have often argued that the literature base on virtual schooling, and for that matter distance education at the K-12 level is weak. The research based for virtual schooling, and again distance education at the K-12 level, is even weaker.

If you look at the literature on virtual schooling, I argue that the literature for virtual schooling is relative new and is primarily being published in doctoral dissertations or by private research centers. Unfortunately the amount of published research evidence in this body of literature is limited, as the vast majority of it is based upon the personal experiences of those involved in the actual practice of virtual schooling. Outside of these quasi-action research attempts, the next largest group of virtual schooling literature is evaluations of specific virtual schooling contexts – most of which are paid research endeavours (not that there is anything wrong with paid research, but it does raise questions about objectivity).

There are some that disagree with me. I even had one individual suggest that if you search for virtual school in Google Scholar you come up with a wide range of entries – all of them part of the literature on virtual schooling. While this is probably true, let’s take a look at what Google Scholar turns up.

The first page of listing for “Virtual School”.

- The Development of Cooperation: Five Years of Participatory Design in the Virtual School – password protected

- The Virtual School: An integrated collaborative environment for the classroom – descriptive article based upon the author’s experience with their own project

- In Search of a Virtual School – a descriptive piece that speculates about the future and the role of virtual schooling in that future

- The Virtual School Library: Gateway to the Information Superhighway – a book that appears to be a collection opinions from those in the field

- Virtual Schools: Trends and Issues, A Study of Virtual Schools in the United States – a descriptive report of the state of virtual schooling in the United States

- Personally tailored teaching in WHURLE using conditional transclusion – password protected

- Using Virtual Environments in Special Education – a quantitative study with 23 participants

- Managing the evolution of a virtual school – a chapter in a book, appears to be the opinions of someone from the fieldThe first page of listing for “Virtual High School”.
-An evaluation of the Virtual High School after one year of operation – an evaluation of the Virtual High School from 1998

- Is Choice Important in Distance Learning? A Study of Student Motives for Taking Internet-Based … – a research study by Margaret Roblyer on both commuity college and virtual high school students

- Fostering Effective Instruction in a Virtual High School: A Netcourse for Teachers – an article reporting on the experiences of a individual from the Virtual High School

- The World’s the Limit in the Virtual High School – an article reporting on the experiences of two individuals from the Virtual High School

- The World Wide Web: A Technology to Enhance Teaching and Learning? – password protected

- The Virtual High School: teaching Generation V – book summarizing five years of evaluation of the Virtual High School

-An evaluation of the Virtual High School after two years of operation – an evaluation of the Virtual High School from 1999

- The online course experience: evaluation of the virtual high school’s third year of implementation … – an evaluation of the Virtual High School from 2000

- The Design, Development, and Implementation of LUDA Virtual High School – an article that details the experiences of the creation of a single district-wide virtual high school

- Online Learning in Virtual High School – password protectedSo, how much research do we have here? While this is only one example to test my theory, how do you think my argument holds up?Are these valid statements? Is the literature base on virtual schooling, and for that matter distance education at the K-12 level is weak? Is the research based for virtual schooling, and again distance education at the K-12 level, is even weaker?Tags: virtual school , cyber school , high school , education

Our close-knit community was dealt a severe blow by Hurricane Ike. Humble ISD campuses had mild to moderate damage and repair crews have been working from dawn until after dark to ready campuses for students as quickly as possible.

Humble ISD tentatively plans to re-open for students on Thursday, Sept. 25th. Support staff members in construction and maintenance should report to their supervisors beginning today, Thursday, Sept. 18. Child Nutrition personnel should report to their supervisors on Monday, Sept. 22nd. Campus and administrative personnel should report to work on Wednesday, Sept. 24th. Please share this information with your neighbors and co-workers – and be alert for updates and changes.

The annual Humble ISD Education Foundation Golf Tournament has been canceled. Reschedule information to be determined soon.

from the Humble ISD website .

Observer working overtime; Away game travel funding cut for football teams’ support systems in Humble ISD.

Looks like we are in an all out battle (notice I did not say war.) Only because this is just the beginning and it’s something that is not common knowledge, for the moment. I will be scratching about more on this later.

JENNIFER SUMMER from the Observer pens some hard core facts that I believe is just the beginning of just how deep the cuts will go, and how it will get the forces, the parent’s, panties in a bunch. It seems only when you hit them where it counts (Texas football) do we/they get involved, in an up roar, and down right nasty. Well, kids, we are well on our way. Maybe when we start cutting into Texas football will the masses come out and work on the lege, now! I’m posting the whole enchilada so everyone can see it in it’s full glory.

Away football games may have a different tune this season as Humble Independent School District had to cut funding for away games for the band and drill teams to ease the burden on an over-expended budget.

Facing a $17 million budget deficit and rising fuel costs, the district met with the fine arts director and band directors from all four high schools to make cuts that affect the students the least and continue with academic standards.

“We needed to cut $100,000 from the fine arts budget and left it up to the directors to decide what would be eliminated,” Karen Collier, Executive Director of Public Information, said.

The budget cuts included the band, drill team and cheerleaders and they are all still able to go to away games to support their teams but they will have to provide the funding themselves.

A few of the support organizations like the Booster clubs have stepped forward to make sure the audience is entertained and students are able to show off their talents.

“At Kingwood High School, we devised a plan where the $6,000 total will be split three ways between the All-Sports Boosters, The Fillies Boosters and our booster club, The Band Boosters,” said treasurer and parent, Jim Galegar.

“This year we feel we can commit $2,000 for this purpose. Next year, we will have to re-evaluate our funding to see if we can continue this. We are lucky enough to not have our students pay a band fee like other school districts to be a member of the band.”

The money these booster clubs are forking over will pay the bus drivers and buy the gas to get to the games.

The Booster clubs makes funds through the sale of concessions at the football game which will help fund some of the money needed for the away games.

While the Band Boosters does raise funds through their entertainment coupon book sales, a majority of that money is used to fund conventions, entry fees for contests, accompanists, clinicians, pre-UIL contest judges, local transportation, food for concessions and permits to name a few of the responsibilities of the club.

In the case of the Atascocita booster clubs, they are still new organizations and growing so they will be helping fund a few of the games, but if they take too much out of the budget they will not be able to afford other things that are budgeted for every year.

“We are planning to go to as many as we can. Currently, we have decided that we can only attend three out of the four of the away games. We are doing as much as we can right now,” Atascocita High School band director Larry Ward said.

“We are already asking the parents to pitch in and help us fund some activities and now we are asking again. Hopefully, there will be a resolution to this problem so we can all attend these away games.”

After the the budget cuts were announced, the directors met to make the decision of what could and what had to go under a directive by the administration.

Each school dealt with the budget cut independently, deciding what would work at their school and what would not.

“It was never about us not wanting to go to away games. We have thoroughly enjoyed traveling to these games in the past, we will just have to see what happens in the future,” Kingwood High School band director Destry Balch said.

Kingwood Park High School will also be receiving funds for travel for their organizations from several of their booster clubs and a couple of donators.

Kingwood Park High first opened in 2007, so a few of their booster clubs much like Atascocita High School are working on generating funds to support more programs which now include funds for traveling to away games.

Humble High School will be working out a program to see if they can attend any away games though since they are in a new district, their games will be located closer to home than the other high schools.

“While we do not know how our fundraising will go this year, we are hopeful that we can continue to bring in the kind of funds needed to keep our band program strong,” Jim Galegar.

“There seems to be a constant stream of kids wanting to be in band because of the excellent program we offer. Our booster club has always been thrifty with our budget and we are always looking for new income streams.”

With all budget concerns set aside, each band director are excited about the football season and performing at home games and the away games they are able to attend.

They are prepared to show off all of the hard work they did this summer to get incoming freshmen ready to march and learn new drills.

“It is amazing to watch a student learn how to be a band student,” Balch said.

“Watching and listening to them perform is what I love. Directing is an art form and all of the students’ success is a daily journey. We are excited about this band season and what is to come.”

For more information

Call Humble ISD at 281-641-1000.

SoftChalk Innovators in Online Learning Series

Hello Michael,

Innovators webinars highlight extraordinary work done by SoftChalk clients. They are aboutthe pedagogy, not the technology.

This Wednesday see how one school system is creatinglessons for the 21st Century Frameworkusing SoftChalk. Click here for details .

In January see the work of our youngest teacher, 10 year old Adora Svitak, who will show how sheteaches the importance of writing and integrating technology. Click here for details .

To learn more about why so many educators believe that SoftChalk is the ONLY choice for easy lesson content development…..

-register for one of our online live demonstrations at www.softchalk.com/webinar

-check out our newly updated Quick Tour Videos at www.softchalk.com/demo.html

-explore sample lessons at www.softchalk.com/lb_examples.html

Please feel free to forward this email to your colleagues who may have an interest in creating more engaging on-line lessons for their students.

Please contact us with questions or concerns.

Your SoftChalk Team
team@softchalk.com www.softchalk.com 877-638-2425 (toll free USA/Canada)

Guest Blogger: Eddie Reisch – New Zealand Virtual Learning Network.

Again, continuing the guest blogger feature… This third entry is from a recent colleague that I met this past August while I was in Wellington at the Distance Education Association of New Zealand’s conference.

The Virtual Learning Network is ending its 5 year at the end of 2008. Another successful year with our focus this year on supporting our year 1 to 13 students with a mixture of video Conference, Adobe Connect and Learner management System supported lessons. These are the stats as at Nov 2008:

Current Total Schools: 238
Current Total Teachers: 143
Current Total Courses: 184
Current Total Classes: 189
Current Total Enrolments: 1141

A number of new areas have been explored this year and we will be implementing a lot of them in 2009

If you follow this link it will give you a pretty comprehensive outline of what is going on a part from the info provided above.

Kia Ora
Eddie Reisch
Virtual Learning Network
Web Site: http://www.virtuallearning.school.nz

Filed under: ARRA , American Recovery and Reinvestment Act , NACOL , cyber school , education , high school , virtual school , webinar — mkbnl @ 8:22 pm Tags: American Recovery and Reinvestment Act , ARRA , cyber school , education , high school , iNACOL , NACOL , virtual school , webinar

Humanizing The Online Experience.

An event tomorrow morning that may be of interest to you that I found in my Facebook …

As the image doesn’t translate the links, here they are:

Access the accompanying SCoPE discussion: http://scope.bccampus.ca/mod/forum/view.php?id=1751

Access the Adobe Connect session: https://present.bccampus.ca/humanizing

Resource Allocation, Reinvestment, and Education Reform.

I saw this item stream through my Facebook news feed last night from Cathy Cavanaugh .

If you follow the link in Facebook it takes you to a page with information for a 18 May 2009 event .

Resource Allocation, Reinvestment, and Education Reform
May 18, 2009, 9:00am – 3:00pm
About This Event
Amid strapped state and local budgets and a weak national economy, some states and districts have responded to their budget woes by shortening the school week, laying off teachers, and withholding resources from innovative education reforms. Often, these decisions have been made with little regard to their impact on student achievement. Instead, the scarcity of resources should provide an opportunity to prioritize and make investments in strategies and reforms that are likely to yield positive academic outcomes in the long-term.

The American Recovery and Reinvestment Act offers an unprecedented opportunity to encourage bold, innovative education reforms that will bolster and strengthen America’s economic future. Strategic investments include initiatives that will support high quality instruction in the classroom and the hiring and retaining of effective teachers; school improvement strategies, such as expanded learning time, to help turn around struggling schools; and promising new models, such as early college high schools, to redesign American high schools and better prepare students for college and the workforce.

Join the Center for American Progress in an event to take stock of the current opportunities in education reform and discuss how strategic allocations of resources can lead to long-term education and economic growth. Speakers will discuss viable ways to use stimulus funds for reform, strategies to improve our schools, and how we can make sure highly effective teachers are in the places we need them most. In addition, several new reports related to expanded learning time and performance-based compensation for teachers will be released.

8:30 a.m. Registration

Light refreshments

9:00 a.m. Opening Plenary Session

Introduction of U.S. Secretary of Education, Arne Duncan
John Podesta , President and CEO, Center for American Progress

Opening Keynote
Arne Duncan , U.S. Secretary of Education

An overview of the day
Cynthia Brown , Vice President for Education Policy, Center for American Progress

9:45 a.m. Morning Plenary Session

Effective and Efficient Use of Resources and Opportunities for ARRA
Moderated by Raegen Miller , Associate Director for Education Research, Center for American Progress
Andres A. Alonso , Chief Executive Officer, Baltimore City Public Schools
Peter C. Gorman , Superintendent, Charlotte-Mecklenburg Schools
Karen Hawley Miles , Executive Director, Education Resource Strategies

11:15 a.m. Morning Panel Discussions (Concurrent Sessions)

Panel I: School Improvement Strategies: Investing in Expanded Learning Time
Moderated by Cynthia Brown , Vice President for Education Policy, Center for American Progress
Cathy Cavanaugh , Associate Professor of Education Technology, University of Florida
Jennifer Davis , Co-Founder, Massachusetts 2020, and President, National Center on Time & Learning
Jose Salgado , Principal, The Umana Middle School Academy, East Boston, Massachusetts
Claire White , Program Director, Word Generation

Panel II: School Improvement Strategies: Strategic Investments in High Poverty Schools
Moderated by Melissa Lazarin , Associate Director of Education Policy, Center for American Progress
Joseph Johnson , Executive Director, National Center for Urban School Transformation
Bethany Little , Chief Education Counsel, Senate Committee on Health, Labor, Education, and Pensions
Adria Steinberg , Vice President, Jobs for the Future

12:45 p.m. Networking Lunch

1:30 p.m. Afternoon Plenary Session

Attracting and Retaining Effective Teachers in High Poverty Schools
Moderated by Robin Chait , Associate Director for Teacher Quality, Center for American Progress
Russlynn Ali , Assistant Secretary for Civil Rights, U.S. Department of Education
Segun Eubanks , Director of Teacher Quality, National Education Association
Wesley Williams , Director of the Office of Educator Equity, Ohio Department of Education
Victoria Van Cleef , Vice President of Staffing Initiatives, New Teacher Project

3:00 p.m. Closing Remarks and Adjournment
RSVP
Click here to RSVP for this event
For more information, call 202-682-1611<!– RSVP_NAME –>
Location
Grand Hyatt
1000 H Street NW
Washington, DC 20001

It appears that Cathy is the only K-12 online learning person on the agenda. Also note that I’ll post a copy of her report on Monday or Tuesday, after it is released.