Online Learning

Try a sample course or see a demonstration of how the materials are delivered to students through either VHS or VLACS. 

I was able to view an instructional video on the VLACS site.  The site seems more complicated then our black board site.  There seems to be many steps to do a simple assignment.  I definitely could see this as a source of enrichment for students especially since they offer course’s that earn college credits as well as High School and Middle School credits, but I can also see students struggling just to keep up with all of the steps they need to do.

Preview the course selections for your state and an adjoining state. 

The course catalog lists do not seem to differ for in state and out of state students.  The same subjects are offered for the same amount of time and are worth the same credits.  The same learning goals are used and for competency recovery the same GSE’s are used for in state and out of state students.

What are the policies for the virtual school regarding accepting students from other states? 

Eligibility

• Have not earned a high school diploma;
• Be able to pay non-resident tuition in full upon admission;
• Complete all coursework prior to his or her 21st birthday
• Not been expelled from a school or diploma granting program;

To complete the admissions process for a full time student, prospective students are required to: 

• Complete an admissions application;
• Participate in the student/parent interviews;
• Receive a recommendation for acceptance from the VLACS admissions team;
• Transfer academic records to VLACS
• Complete one or more half credit segments of a high school English, math, social studies or science course with a grade of 70% or better as a part-time student before becoming eligible for full-time status;

The only difference between in state and out of state is there is a tuition fee, and there is an interview and recommendation process for out of state students.

Do the virtual schools work with local schools? 

There was no specific schools listed on the site.  It just states that it is available to all NH Middle School and High School students.

Can students be part-time students? 

Students can register as part time.  As a matter of fact, VLACS states that they are required to enroll as part time for at least a half a high school credit segment in either English, Math, Science or Social Studies

How you could use these schools for supplemental education and for providing extended learning opportunities for students. Use specific examples to illustrate. 

As I stated above I could see this being used as enrichment for more advanced students or students looking to earn college credits.  I could also see a student who is behind in a subject using it as a way to get caught up.  I do not see it as a way to take the place of a brick and mortar school except under certain circumstances, like bullying or a type of disability that would cause the student to struggle in school.  Or if a child was severely sick and would have been out for an extended period of time.  This could also be a great tool for parents that want to home school but lack the education, knowledge and training to do the job properly.

References:

Welcome to the Virtual Learning Academy. (n.d.). Virtual Learning Academy Charter School. Retrieved from http://vlacs.org/

Virtual Schools:The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly

Virtual public schools are growing.  These are private companies taking tax money from taxpayers to preform worse than brick and mortar school on state tests and have higher drop out rates. (Brown and Layton, 2011)  I do believe despite these facts virtual or online education can have an effective place in public education.  We are facing a time of severe budget cuts and growing student population.  Our schools are comparable to hamsters running a wheel in a cage.  Something needs to be done.

I believe that virtual schools can be a benefit when used for the right purposes by the right students, and run by the right people.  Most of the students that attend full time online or virtual public schools are students that are in very real danger of not graduating.  These are the students that should not be going to school full time online.  This is usually the population that has no support at home.  These are students who only have and can only get support from teachers and specialist at school.  I just do not understand why we take these students away from the only support most of them have, and try to make them do it all on their on.  Many agree that students that do not have a learning guide at home are the ones that fail or drop out.  Students need that support in the home for online and virtual schools to be a potentially successful option for them.

I do not believe that online schools can replace what a child will receive in a brick and mortar school.  Maybe a hybrid model would be the best option.  Students could spend half the day doing work online and the other half in a school building interacting with peers, teachers, and any specialists they may need.  You could put the school day on a rotation, where half the population goes in the morning and half in the afternoon.  All teachers would have the same prep and lunch periods between these shifts which would allow for easy communication and collaboration among staff.  Think of the one on one time a teacher could give if there classes were to go from 30 to 15.

Another option is to have local or online colleges bid for an opportunity to provide accelerated classes for those students that move faster and need more challenge or simply want to earn some college credits.  For remedial students you could set up additional classes they could do from home to help catch them up to where the other students are.

If online learning where to become an option I would highly recommend that the state or the district invest in creating it themselves.  These private companies are using our tax dollars to make millions.  One company even states in an article written by Lindsey Layton and Emma Brown that, “We understand the politics of education pretty well.” (Brown and Layton, 2011)  These private companies donate thousands of dollars to politicians and are contracted to provide online education to our students, and they do it unsuccessfully.  Why are they not held as accountable as schools?  Maybe if schools were able to make political contributions politicians would support failure and call it innovation as well.  

References:

Layton, L., & Brown, E. (2011, November 28). Virtual schools are multiplying, but some question their educational value. Washington Post. Retrieved from http://www.washingtonpost.com/local/education/virtual-schools-are-multiplying-but-some-question-their-educational-value/2011/11/22/gIQANUzkzN_story.html

Virtual Libraries

Please click here to view my presentation on the benefits of virtual libraries.

Technology Use

	Generation @: 0-16	Millennial’s: 17-31	Generation X: 32-48	Baby Boomers: 49-67	Silent Generation:68-88
Minutes per week texting	2779 min	1299 min	441 min	80 min	32 min
Percent that use email		97%	91%	77%	53%
Minutes per week talking on the phone	631 min	981 min	896 min	587 min	398 min
Main source of news		Internet	Internet	TV	TV
Seek news or come across it	I could not find exact numbers for this category, but from what I was able to find.  Generation @, Millennial’s, and Generation X typical come across news, while Baby Boomer, and Silent Generation are more likely to seek out news.
How many Internet-connected devices do they use?	1-3	3-5	3-5	2-3	1-2

References:

Millennials Defined By Technology Use. (n.d.). NationalJournal.com. Retrieved from http://www.nationaljournal.com/njonline/no_20100225_3691.php

New Generation of Communication: Texting versus Talking. (n.d.). The HireAHelper Blog.            Retrieved from http://blog.hireahelper.com/2009/06/11/new-generation-of-communication-texting-versus-talking/

Chart/table from: Majority of US Seniors Now Online. (n.d.). Chart/table From: Majority of US   Seniors Now Online. Retrieved from http://www.marketingcharts.com/direct/majority-of-us-seniors-now-online-22327/pew-internet-use-by-age-june2012png/

Comparing cell phone use by age. (n.d.). The DO Loop. Retrieved from http://blogs.sas.com/content/iml/2010/09/28/comparing-cell-phone-use-by-age/

Issues and Activities

One computer in the classroom
Potential Issue	Possible Activity
Only one student can use	Have students look up questions during a lesson
It may break leaving you with none	Use as a station during an activity
It may freeze while using	Skyping with another school in another country.
If doing a group activity not all students will be able to see.	Use during a scavenger hunt.
It may be very very slow	Skills drill tests/quizzes
It may crash during use.	Accommodations for students with special needs
It takes a long time to boot up	Books, stories, primary sources online
Student get jealous if only one kid is able to use it.	Research
Spam	Jeopardy review

Small cluster of computers in the classroom (assume 1 computer for every 10 students)
Potential Issue	Possible Activity
Students may be looking up things they should not be.	Have students look up questions during a lesson
One or some may break leaving you with fewer then planned for or none.	Use as a station during an activity
They may freeze while using	Skyping with another school in another country.
If doing a group activity not all students will be able to see.	Use during a scavenger hunt.
They may be very very slow	Skills drill tests/quizzes
They may crash during use	Accommodations for students with special needs
Student will argue about who get to be the computer person	Books, stories, primary sources online
They would take a long time to boot up	Research
Groups will distract each other	Jeopardy review
Spam	Webquest

A portable computer cart or COW
Potential Issue	Possible Activity
Students may be looking up things they should not be.	Skyping with another school in another country.
One or some may break leaving you with fewer then planned for or none.	Use during a scavenger hunt.
They may freeze while using	Skills drill tests/quizzes
If doing a group activity not all students will be able to see.	Accommodations for students with special needs
They may be very very slow	Books, stories, primary sources online
They may crash during use	Research
They would take a long time to boot up	Jeopardy review
Students will distract each other	Webquest
Spam	Writing papers

A computer lab
Potential Issue	Possible Activity
Students may be looking up things they should not be.	Skyping with another school in another country.
One or some may break leaving you with fewer then planned for or none.	Use during a scavenger hunt.
They may freeze while using	Skills drill tests/quizzes
They may crash during use	Accommodations for students with special needs
They may be very very slow	Books, stories, primary sources online
They would take a long time to boot up	Research
Groups will distract each other	Jeopardy review
Spam	Webquest
	Writing papers

5.2 Assessment Spreadsheet

To create this spread sheet I used google docs.  I started by creating a form.  As a classroom teacher it would have been easier to have the students fill out the form as their assessment, but since I was given the results of the assessment after is was taken already I filled out a form for each students answers.  I set the form to automatically record the results onto an Assessment Spreadsheet .  I then colored red the cells that contained the wrong answers to better see any specific pattern.  I added under each question the concept the teacher was look for the students to have learned.  When you take the results and graph them you can easily see patterns.

According to the results of the assessment and seeing it on the spreadsheet it is easy to see that question six is a topic the teacher is going to need to go back to before moving on.  For the other concepts that students could revisit, you could use the results to place students into four groups of three.  I would place them in the following groups:

Group One:

Zoran B.

Zirii G.

Zon D.

Group Two:

Zyntar C.

Zuitar F.

Zancy D.

Group Three:

Zinvis E.

Zup C.

Zhield H.

Group Four:

Zucy S.

Zorelda I.

Zamsung K.

In each of these groups there is one student the understood the different concepts assessed. The teacher could easily provide a group activity to the groups that addressed all the concepts and each group would be able to work together to teach each other the concepts that they might have missed on the assessment. Another way to group would be to put all the students that missed the same concepts in the same group and give them an activity to clarify their understanding. But I feel that the better option would be the first. It allows students to teach each other and makes sure all the concepts are covered.

Building Relationships

I have only been in the classroom as a student teacher and when I original looked at the assignment for this week my concern instantly went to the fact that I was never put in the position to "Compare and contrast strategies that, as a co-creator and collaborator, could be used to build relationships with an individual or group who is already competent but may not be incorporating newer ideas or methodologies. Share at least one strategy that you believed worked and one that did not. Then, compare your experiences with those of your classmates."  (Tufts, 2013)  Then I started thinking about all the things I did as a student teacher.

I was responsible for taking over classes that were originally taught by my cooperating teachers.  The school that I was at had no curriculum mapping so when I asked what topics were covered in each class I was directed to the text books and the teachers' lesson binders.  Other than those sources I had a lot of freedom to create lessons that I felt would benefit my students.  The whole process of student teaching was an exercise in collaboration.  In the beginning I was required to run my lesson plans by my cooperating teachers for approval.  They would make suggestions or comments and I would make any needed changes or notes.  I did notice that I used the laptop station more than one of my cooperating teachers.  He felt that the students fooled around on them to much.  He did like the political cartoon activity that I had the students do for per WWII.  He never did anything like it because he did not want to alienate the students that could not draw.  He never thought to allow clip art, graphic design, and any combination of these to create it.  The other cooperating teacher liked my idea of doing an online scavenger hunt instead of doing it through out the school.  I learned a lot from them and I think they learned a trick or two from me as well.

While at this school I was able to take part in a professional development day.  They had decided to use the time to work in groups to rewrite some of the school wide rubrics for the common assessments.  It was a very interesting process.  They were having an issue with the language the rubrics used.  After reading a couple I understood the problem.  Students and parents were reading them and not understanding what they meant.  The language was very teacher and administration oriented and not very student/parent friendly.  The group I was working with took some of my suggestions, like combining some of the similar categories, but they felt the need to continue to use some language that would be difficult for some of the students to understand.  It was a practice in give and take, they saw the value in some of my opinions and I had to see the value in theirs.  We have to understand that we are all individuals with varying opinions and we need to respect each other.  It was a great experience for me.

Tufts, K. (2013). Discussion 4.1. Blackboard. Retrieved from 
                 https://blackboard.snhu.edu/webapps/portal/frameset.jsp?      tab_id=_2_1&url=%2fwebapps%2fblackboard%2fexecute%2flauncher%3ftype%3dCourse%26id%3d_86929_1%26url%3d