Teacher education

I was checking the website for the new Georgia Virtual High School (see http://www.GAVirtualSchool.org/ ) A few weeks ago and in their virtual library that had a link to this article: Telling the story of Online Learning: What people do not understand, Dont support (see http://www.sreb.org/programs/EdTech/onlinestory/onlinestoryindex.asp ).on average 92 percent! I’m calling his parents to tell them soon, we finally found the key to the future of their children math. - Henry Chandler, a teacher, Virginia what does teaching online look like?

More directly, what does teaching in a virtual high school look like? What does the teacher do in a synchronous teaching environment in a virtual high school? What does the teacher do in an asynchronous teaching environment in a virtual high school? Looking forward to your thoughts

Tags: virtual school , cyber school , high school , education

Note: I started my comprehensive examinations this past Monday (04 July 2005) and will be engaged in that for most of the next six weeks. While I already have entries pre-written for this period of time to keep a regular flow of content coming, the frequency may decrease slightly (depending on how tired I am at the end of the day and how much I can actually think about something other than my comps questions. I will be posting information about my comprehensive exams at my other blogs, Breaking into the Academy , so you can visit there to see the nature of my questions and any public discussion I attempt as I try to talk out my ideas.

mrschili
March 15, 2007 at 6:03 am

Welcome, Saintseester! I love my readers, and new ones make me happy!

Just to update you all on this little situation; I’ve not heard a peep from our boy Dave. My suspicion is that I called his bluff; he wanted me to cave to his (oh so eloquent) argument without calling anyone else in on the party. I’m pretty sure he’s smart enough to know that his “excelent” and “factual” research paper would probably get a LOWER grade from another teacher, and he’s not willing to risk that.

What I didn’t point out to him when he complained about how little the extra credit changed his grade was that, while I was taking four zeroes off his average, he was adding two ON by not doing his homework. I’m a drooling moron when it comes to math, but even *I* can figure out the effects of that!

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9 Comments.
Organic Mama
March 7, 2007 at 2:56 pm

DEEEEEP Breath.

Hey, there HAS to be a starting point. You are their teacher and you must continue to show them examples of good writing regularly so they see (god I hope so) how it can be done. Why not ask them if they think THEY can write as well as one of your fave pieces of short writing and when they say no, insist that they produce a list of the issues they see standing in their way. Who knows what you’ll get?

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meg4meg
December 14, 2006 at 8:08 pm

Mrs. Chili,
I am honored you would want to print and share me with your class. Permission granted!
Meg @ The Anonymous Truth

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1 Comment.
jrh
December 10, 2006 at 8:56 am

This doesn’t belong here, but as a reply to “what should I have my students read?” post…
Songs: I love the imagery in I’ve Been Delivered by the Wallflowers and I love the analogies in Breathe by Anna Nalick (also like that she acknowledges how we analyze and interpret lyrics and writing to suit our own needs).
Articles/columns: Try Rick Reilly’s column at the back of SI for humor/pop-culture/sports writing.

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8 Comments.
feather
December 9, 2006 at 9:01 am

I was so eager to get to the bits about the books that I missed the part where you talked about me. I agree with your mom about history. I am perhaps over-preoccupied with it. I expand my reverence of it to all things in life — I just talk about the history of literature because words are what I think about the most — but context is terribly important to me. It makes it hard for me to have serious discussions with anyone — I qualify too much, and am too aware of what I do not know.

History in regards to peoples’ lives is trickier. I’ve studied enough psychology to have thought a lot about the lifelong influences that early childhood environment, experiences, and even, yes, genetics have in determining the life story of a person. I think — I hope — that these things can be changed, but I can’t discount their importance any less than I could ignore the role that the Bible has had in shaping western literature. It isn’t the same at all. But at the very least I think it’s vital for an individual to understand their personal history before it can be changed. I find myself wanting to fall back on Freudian terminology and say that it’s necessary to bring history to the conscious level to prevent it from festering in the shadowy subconscious and spawning one or many of his rather brilliant defense mechanisms.

Since I’m speaking Freudishly, I don’t mean to project or assume. It’s just that it’s hard for me to think about the history of literature without equating it to the much more immediate personal histories. This is because, in moods of grand idealism, I tend to think of literature as the most perfect reflection of human nature, a centuries-spanning illustration of the pains and joys we grapple with in our own relatively small lifetimes. So, for me, thinking about the importance of history to literature is almost the same as considering personal histories in human lifetimes. Same concepts, different scales…

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During informal conversations with some writer-friends, we have been encouraging each other to write stories for children — the kind that will be used in classrooms. The kind that will contain our culture and the values that we want to instill in our children. This is even before the MLE because we see the dearth in materials for classroom use.

As to retelling of folktales, I don’t recall any occasion discussing it with writer friends, but VF and I had talked about it sometime last year, before the launch of the Cabie-PINILI. We wondered about copyright issues should we start re-telling Ilocano folk lit. He calls it sarsarita di ugma — the kind that we heard from our grandparents. In fact, he tried to write two from memory, and one of them I have posted in Bilingual Pen. We both think his version needs some tweaks to make it more interesting for children.

I also have copies of the books by eugenio (borrowed from the NCCA library) and there really are so many interesting materials in there!

I would be interested to make projects such as this, not only because VF and I had talked about doing something like it, but because I really dream of writing (or rewriting) stories for children because frankly, I don’t want to read stories about weak women and other stereotypical western stories to my would-be children!

My observation among our writers is that they are able to produce good materials when there are contests (this includes me), because contests are good motivators, not because of the awards, but because they set deadlines and guidelines. There’s something about deadlines that fire at the writers’ creative juices. In fact, without contests and deadlines, I don’t think I could have written as much stories as I did last year. All of my stories were written three days before the deadlines some, even less.

If we can come up with programs, contests, activities etc, that could trigger our writers’ creative juices, it would really be good.

(Sorry manong no ti la napnapanan ti kunkunak. Diak suren no nasungbatak ti kunkunam dita ngato, basta nagtypeak lattan. Thanks. I hope I made sense. Hehe).

-

Day twenty-six in the 30 Days to Being a Better Blogger series was yesterday and asked us to look at Day 26: Tag, you’re it . Essentially, Steve discussed what tags were, the importance of tags and using effective tags.

This was an easy one for me. On the external front, I have always tagged each entry with “virtual school”, “cyber school”, “high school” and “education” – as those were the places I wanted to show up in the Technorati searches. Beyond that I tag based upon the specific topic of the entry – usually including geographic tags, descriptive tags, organizational tags, tags for major events (e.g., conferences), etc.. I also use the same terms I use in my tags in the categories field in WordPress as well.

So, even if Technorati is showing me no love whatsoever (see Day Fifteen and Day Seventeen ), I’m still tagging…

UPDATE: Educator Announcements – November 26, 2008.

Thanks! I should let you know that the updated version is out in 2009 and has many more schools. It’s a very different world in (almost) 2009 than it was in 2006 when I wrote the first edition.

Comment by Tom Nixon — November 27, 2008 @ 5:14 pm | Reply

Voting For The Canadian Blog Awards.

Well, a few weeks back I mentioned the Canadian Blog Awards (see Canadian Blog Awards ). Jokingly I reminder folks that I was Canadian (I say jokingly because there wasn’t an education category and because much of my blogging content is not Canada – and lately is simply re-posts of things that people send me or things I find).

Anyway, it appears the joke is now on me as someone nominated me (and thanks to whomever that was).

The voting is available at:

Canadian Blog Awards – Vote 2008

You can find me under the Best Professional/Career Blog in the Lifestyle category. Polls for Round 1 close around the middle of Saturday, 29 November 2008 to give the folks at the Canadian Blog Awards time to count the votes and set-up the final round of voting.

So, since I’m there take a look at the other folks and if you feel I’m worth the click, by all means vote for Virtual High School Meanderings. And thanks in advance for your consideration.

saintseester
May 7, 2008 at 7:58 am

I was reading a novel this week. The author kept using sentence fragments. In one paragraph I counted 5 of them. It drove me batty! I mentioned it to my mom; being the “expert” writer she said it was okay if it was for dramatic effect. I said, it is not okay if it drives the reader batty.

I struggle with my son every time he has to turn in a research paper. I will tell him to edit sentences that need work, and he’ll fuss because “his teacher didn’t tell him to do that.” Grrr. The prime issue this week was not starting a report of with the phrase “this report is about.”

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9 Comments.
Lanie
May 8, 2008 at 8:57 pm

I would reply on the bottom of the page saying “I hope you find some motivation because I really don’t FEEL like having you in the class again next semester!”

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3 Comments.
Val
May 5, 2008 at 9:43 pm

You hit the nail right on the head-their ignorance is terrifying. I like using King’s Letter from Birmingham Jail to illustrate logos, pathos and ethos. It’s amazing when I tell student King had to logically prove segregation was wrong, less than 50 years ago!
Like you, I don’t feel like it’s very much, but we have to start somewhere

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2 Comments.
saintseester
April 23, 2008 at 8:18 am

It took me forever to see it. Must have more coffee. That is just sad.

This reminds me that I have an email from a company from whom I buy certain formaldehyde-free products. The email is riddled with grammar and spelling errors. I replied to them and said that if they could not do better than that then I wasn’t a customer any longer.

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organic mama
October 22, 2006 at 5:14 pm

What is also so galling is that this is a viable conversation topic AT ALL. Will they train the students on effective blocking and/or throwing techniques? What about the counseling for those students who worry about A. whether it will ever happen and B. what if they don’t do it right. Doesn’t this sound like satire? Why not body armor? How about we stop the GUNS in this flipping country!! Apologies for soapboxing, but this is INSANE!!

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More Musings About Current Events.
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The superintendent of our school district called my cell phone Monday morning and left a message inviting me to watch the school board meeting on public access cable on Monday night. The first thing I have to say is DAMN! School board meetings are BORING!

As promised, the superintendent spoke about school security, and rather early in the meeting (thank heaven!). While he talked a lot about locked doors and security cameras, crisis preparedness and how closely the school district works with the city’s police and fire departments, he didn’t mention anything about EDUCATION.

I really think many of our current school violence problems can be alleviated through education. We need to TEACH kids how to deal with their stress just like we teach them language, mathematics and how to avoid drug use. We need to show children that it’s not okay to cope with your problems with violence. As responsible adults in schools and other child-rich environments, we need to be aware of which of our students come from homes and family situations that may be prone to pass, shall we say, less-than-ideal social skills to the students. We need to know which students share their homes with guns.

Let me say that again: We need to know which children share their homes with guns.

Why do I want to invade the general privacy of some families by knowing whether the household owns a gun? The same superintendent who spoke about door locks and security cameras wrote to me last week in response to my email. He told me that, when he was principal of my daughters’ school about ten years ago, a fifth grader brought a .375 to school, and that the weapon had been discharged in a classroom by accident. Locks on school doors and security cameras would have done nothing to prevent this.

When I was strolling up and down our city’s main street during the annual autumn festival this past weekend, I saw that our police station had a tent set up along side the merchants and service companies. An officer stood in full uniform behind a bin of trigger locks. A bin of FREE trigger locks. A bin of free trigger locks standing behind a sign that essentially said “please take one – no questions asked.” While no one was hurt in the .357 incident, a trigger lock could have prevented the punchline of the whole story (though it could be argued that a nine year old having access to a gun in the first place should be a felony offense on the part of the parents).

It’s all about education. We need to teach parents to be responsible with the care and keeping of whatever weapons they feel they need to possess. We need to teach children to deal with their feelings in socially acceptable ways. We need to teach everyone to see themselves in others and to do no harm.

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This was an e-mail about the symposium and keynote videos, but I’ve tried to edit out the stuff about the evaluation while still publicizing the keynote videos.

Dear Symposium Attendee,

Thank you for participating in Michigan Virtual University’s® Fifth Annual Online Learning Symposium on Dec. 3. We hope that you found the event engaging, informative and thought-provoking.[stuff deleted] Videos of the symposium’s keynote addresses are also posted at the same site.Link to Symposium [stuff deleted] Keynote Videos: http://www.mivu.org/symposium/ More than 350 people like you attended this year’s symposium. We hope that you will be able to take the discussion about disruptive innovation and the future of online learning back to your schools and offices, recruiting more partners in the mission of promoting and improving online learning.Again, thank you for taking part in this year’s symposium. Because of people like you, we believe this year’s event was one of the best we’ve ever hosted.Sincerely,Jamey FitzpatrickPresident & CEOMichigan Virtual University

Why Copyright? Canadian Voices on Copyright Law (Annotated Edition).

While not exclusively about K-12 online learning, an important issue for all of those involved in K-12 online learning – particularly in Canada

Thanks to D’Arcy Norman dot net for pointing this out (see why copyright? ).

Friday Funnies.

Late in the day again, but at least I made it on Friday this week. As usual, these are courtesy of Darren over at Teaching and Developing Online .

- A thought

- I never want to hear

- Profanity

- High School Training

Until next week…

Petit Posted August 31, 2006 at 7:26 pm | Permalink

Using new windows to open off site links can be frustrating or not.

If I want to make sure, my readers finds their way back from a visit somewhere else, I may open them a new window, but a named one. This means that clicking many window opening links on my site, will paint all the off site stuff in the same window.

I’m not using this technique often though, just when I invite my visitors to take a short excursion in the middle of my text.

Lorelle, don’t you contradict yourself a bit here?

In your excellent tutorial “A Tagging Bookmarklet for WordPress and WordPress.com Users”, under “Changing the Tagging Bookmarklet Tag Links” you say about bookmarklet links:

“They can be off-site or on-site (intrasite) links. I personally prefer to keep my visitors on my blog, so I use intrasite links.”

Yes, you do for some strange reason.
Your writing is good enough, that I’m coming back time and again, despite the fact, that I’m visiting others as well

Behind the Scenes of Blogging: How I Blog Series by Blogging Herald.

The Blogging Herald has started a “How I Blog” series featuring interviews and posts by a variety of bloggers on how they blog.

The bloggers share their methodology and practices about how they blog, including why they blog. The range of tips, advice, and techniques is educational for all bloggers, but the overriding theme is passion. These people really care about what they write and what they have to say and it guides their work. And they come up with some amazing ways of incorporating blogging into their lives.

A good number of these have a substantial income from their blogging, so it’s also a look into the business side of blogging.

Check it out.

Site Search Tags: blogging , blog , blogger , write , writer , tips , advice , techniques , writing , life , lives , work , business , company , professional , interview , series , corporate Copyright Lorelle VanFossen , member of the 9Rules Network

I think I mentioned this before, but since I have come to Wayne State University I have formed two research groups with some of the graduate students. One of these groups was focused on gaming in education, the other was focused on K-12 online learning. Basically the group meets once a month to discuss some reading that we have selected, and we also undertake a variety of project (or they become involved in different projects that I am currently involved with).

This past semester the group of graduate students that form the K-12 online learning research group and I have been working on a glossary of virtual schooling. Basically, it’s purpose is to collect all of the terms that we can think of related to virtual school and to define them (based upon existing definitions in the literature or by creating our own definitions).

At this stage, we are ready to announce the glossary:

http://virtualschool.wikispaces.com/glossary

In addition to announcing the results of our efforts, we would also like to encourage feedback from the virtual school community. So, if you have comments about any terms that we may be missing or any definitions that you’d like to suggest revisions to, please e-mail me at mkbarbour-at-gmail-dot-com or post a comment to this blog.

Virtual Schooling in the News.

Beginning with the Yahoo News! Alert for virtual school.

I-SS tests virtual school program
Mooresville TribuneMon, 07 Apr 2008 7:11 AM PDT
Iredell-Statesville Schools is one of nine school districts statewide implementing the N.C. Virtual Public School pilot program. The school district began offering the online courses during last year’s summer school sessions.
I-SS testing virtual school program

Statesville Record & LandmarkMon, 07 Apr 2008 2:17 AM PDT
Iredell-Statesville Schools is one of nine school districts statewide implementing the N.C. Virtual Public School pilot program. The school district began offering the online courses during last yearaˆ™s summer school sessions. Students throughout I-SS have completed 837 courses, with Collaborative College for Technology and Leadership (CCTL) students leading the way. NCVPS Executive …

Brooklyn’s Edward R. Murrow High School Wins First Place in Fourth Annual US Network of Virtual Enterprises and …
Business Wire via Yahoo! FinanceTue, 08 Apr 2008 12:50 PM PDT
NEW YORK—-Two New York City high schools and one California high school won the top three awards in the fourth annual US Network of Virtual Enterprises & Merrill Lynch National Business Plan Competition of aspiring young business managers from public high schools across the country.

Kaplan Virtual Education Renames Private Online High School Kaplan College Preparatory School
Business Wire via Yahoo! FinanceTue, 08 Apr 2008 5:30 AM PDT
HOLLYWOOD, Fla.—-Kaplan Virtual Education today announced that it has changed the name of its private online high school to Kaplan College Preparatory School. Previously called the University of Miami Online High School, the renaming serves to align the college preparatory high school with the Kaplan family of companies.
Doyle signs virtual school agreement into law
Stevens Point JournalMon, 07 Apr 2008 3:41 PM PDT
MADISON, Wis. (AP) Gov. Jim Doyle has signed into law a bill that will keep online public charter schools open. The deal was reached by the Legislature and passed last month. Changes were required after an appeals court ruled last year that the virtual schools were violating state laws on charter schools, teacher licensing and open enrollment. The ruling threatened to close 12 schools that …
Kaplan renames online high school
South Florida Business JournalTue, 08 Apr 2008 9:43 AM PDT
Kaplan Virtual Education said it has changed the name of University of Miami Online High School to Kaplan College Preparatory School to align the college preparatory institution with the Kaplan family of companies.
Doyle signs virtual school agreement
The Appleton Post-CrescentTue, 08 Apr 2008 2:24 AM PDT
MADISON Gov. Jim Doyle signed into law Monday a bill that will keep online public charter schools open.

Doyle signs virtual school agreement into law
WKBT La CrosseMon, 07 Apr 2008 2:42 PM PDT
MADISON, Wis. (AP) – Gov. Jim Doyle has signed into law a bill that will keep online public charter schools open. The deal was reached by the Legislature and passed last month.

No more private tuitions for school kids… enter the virtual classroom
Express IndiaTue, 08 Apr 2008 11:14 PM PDT
With the new academic session for school students beginning in April, E-learning is vying for its space in the education…

Kaplan renames UM online high school
Sun-SentinelWed, 09 Apr 2008 0:29 AM PDT
The University of Miami Online High School, run by Hollywood-based Kaplan Virtual Education , has been renamed the Kaplan College Preparatory School to better align it with the Kaplan companies. The school, which counts about 3,000 enrollments in its grade 8 through 12 online curriculum, has been offering secondary education courses since 2001.

Virtual school to hold information session
The Times-NewsFri, 11 Apr 2008 11:36 PM PDT
Staff report The Idaho Distance Education Academy will hold an information session about the school and enrollment from 3:30 p.m. to 5 p.m. on Thursday in Burley.

Next the Yahoo! News Alert for cyber school.

No cliques, lots of clicks
The Daily ItemSat, 05 Apr 2008 9:13 PM PDT
LAIRDSVILLE — Tasha Snyder sums up the best thing about cyber school in two words: “No drama.” She opted for online high school because there was entirely too much social angst at her former high school.

PA Cyber Charter School Honors Online Teachers
PR Newswire via Yahoo! FinanceThu, 10 Apr 2008 1:50 PM PDT
The Pennsylvania Cyber Charter School has recognized 15 of its online teachers in an ongoing Teacher of the Month program.

Chambersburg Academy funding partially at risk
The Herald-MailSat, 12 Apr 2008 5:14 AM PDT
CHAMBERSBURG, PA. – Chambersburg Academy, an online educational program started last year by the Chambersburg Area School District, could be among the programs facing a cut in the district’s 2008-09 budget. Begun as a pilot program for homebound and alternative education students, as well as a way to lure district students back from cyber charter schools, Chambersburg Academy has 24 slots at a …

Moving on to the Google News Alert for virtual school.

-SS testing virtual school program
Statesville Record & Landmark – NC, USA
By Chyna Broadnax Iredell-Statesville Schools is one of nine school districts statewide implementing the NC Virtual Public School pilot program. …
See all stories on this topic

Linking with NASA
Bucks Free Press – London,UK
The transatlantic conversation with pupils from the Florida Virtual School in America was arranged after Holy Trinity won an award. …
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Virtually independent
Twin Falls Times-News – Twin Falls,ID,USA
On the other hand, there are key questions about the use of public money in virtual school settings and how that money is utilized. …
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Case study: Emerson Park school ’shosted software service to …
PublicTechnology.net – UK
“Emerson Park School is being transformed into a fully fledged ‘virtual school’. Two weeks after the portal went live in June 2007, 75% of students opened …
See all stories on this topic

Police investigate charter school “hit list”
The Plain Dealer – cleveland.com – Cleveland,OH,USA
While police were at The Virtual School, in the 700 block of Lakeview Avenue, security officers there told police they saw a student hide a gun near the …
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New Web site a place to discuss school issues
Concord Journal – MA, USA
… COO Preston Carey, who said the site uses existing technology to create a virtual school community modeled on existing offline school communities. …
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Finally, the Google News Alert for cyber school.

California senior aims for career in academia
Pittsburgh Tribune-Review – Pittsburgh,PA,USA
When Wohar finishes high school, she said, she will miss the good friends both here and at her cyber school. “Educationally and individually, they both have …
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