Virtual K 10 NCSC Kerry

Slide1: 

Moving at the speed of learning®

Session Agenda: 

Session Agenda Training Virtual Charter School Teachers: Walking the Online Walk! April 2007 7th National Charter Schools Conference Albuquerque, New Mexico Dr. Kerry Rice, Assistant Professor, Boise State University Dr. Jean Swenk, Principal, Capistrano Connections Academy Sarah Ault, Principal, Denver Connections Academy

Session Agenda: 

Session Agenda Background Virtual Schools -- Not What You Think A bit about Connections Academy A Training Model for Virtual Teachers Model Lesson Audience Participation Questions and Answers Session Agenda

Who is Connections Academy?: 

Who is Connections Academy? Founded by Sylvan Learning Systems® in 2001 Partners with state departments of education, school districts, and charter schools to operate virtual public schools Approximately 8,000 K-10 students in 2006-2007 in 10 states: AZ, CA, CO, FL, ID, MN,OH, OR, PA, WI Continuing expansion into other states (Nevada and Indiana in 2007-2008) The only K-10 program certified by CITA.

Slide5: 

Virtual Schools The Simple Definition “an educational organization that offers K-12 courses through Internet-based methods, with time and/or distance separating the teacher and learner” Gregg Vanourek September 2006, Issue Brief

What Is a Virtual School?May not be what you think!: 

What Is a Virtual School? May not be what you think! Education outside of a physical classroom Using all available technology to deliver learning Email Telephone LiveLesson® Fax U.S. Mail A partnership between parents, students and teachers Comprehensive program including curriculum, teacher, support, hardware and software and community activities Teacher Collaboration A personalized learning plan for each student Flexible scheduling and pacing

Significant and Growing…: 

Significant and Growing… Source: Center for Education Reform, 2006, reprinted in NACSA Issue Brief, August 2006

Slide8: 

Student Population 50% Free and Reduced Lunch 22% minority 11% special needs* 39% rural, 14% inner-city Distributed across each state – bridging geographic and socioeconomic boundaries * This is an average across all Connections Academy schools, some of which have upwards of 15% special needs students. Several of our schools have a lower percentage because of state imposed limitations.

Slide9: 

home of the Blue Turf and Fiesta Bowl Champions Department of Educational Technology Kerry Rice krice@boisestate.edu

A New Training Model for Virtual Teachers: 

A New Training Model for Virtual Teachers Project-Based Hands-on Distance Learning Community Building Engaging Instruction Technology Tools Teaching Online in the K-12 Environment

True or False?: 

True or False? Virtual educational environments provide few opportunities for students to socialize and collaborate with each other and with other people.

Building Community: 

Building Community Interaction Socialization Collaboration Threaded Discussions Chat, Video Conferencing, Phone

Threaded Discussions: 

Threaded Discussions Introduction and biographical information Self portraits

Self Portrait: 

Hello Everyone!  My name is Sarah Ault.  This is my second year as an elementary teacher with Connections Academy here in Denver, Colorado.  Before this I taught 4th and 5th grade in California.   I love technology and teaching so Connections Academy is the perfect job for me.  I have a Master's degree in Educational Technology.  Of course, since technology changes every day I still feel like I know nothing! I have been married for almost 7 years and just had a baby boy in December named Gavin.  He is already a one-boy comedy act, which is good since that's the only way to survive in our family! I like scrap booking, photography and web design, but I never actually have time to do any of them!!! Self Portrait

Threaded Discussions: 

Threaded Discussions Socializing Virtual Student Lounge Problem Solving Collective ThinkTank “Don’t be jealous…. Ok you can be jealous, Here is a picture of me fishing from 2 summers ago. I just had to brag about my huge fish. That is my cousin also in the picture holding the fish with the huge hook! We have a great one of 6 or 7 of us all holding fish that size. That was my workout for the day- it is a lot harder than it looks!”

Threaded Discussions: 

Content related discussions Whole class and small group What is online learning? Interview Tool Rules for Netiquette Threaded Discussions Sample Exchange

Netiquette: 

Netiquette I came in with the idea that ‘emoticons’ and ‘acronyms’ would not be acceptable in a learning environment. However, after reading, researching on my own, and discussing with my group I changed my mind. It is important to allow students to be able to express who they are and emoticons/acronyms provide a student with a sense of an ‘online’ personality. I think that these are okay to use during times of Synchronous Communication because this should be a time of ‘real time learning.’ Not to mention the fact that it is easier to keep up and participate in discussions with everyone else.

Netiquette: 

Netiquette I enjoyed doing these assignments. I think I will have my teachers create netiquette lessons before they do any message board/chats with their kids. I would not have thought about the importance of that until doing this activity. Someone in my group said that netiquette is the classroom management of online learning. That is so true! This is going to be a big part of my next staff development. Back

Chat, Web Conferencing, Phone: 

Chat, Web Conferencing, Phone Office hours with MSN chat and Adobe Connect Small group facilitated chat activity

Facilitated Chat: 

Facilitated Chat Typing during chat is full of errors. Conversation is slow and stilted and thinking processes were not that higher order. The conversation via chat was not at a deep level. I think a threaded discussion where people had time to share ideas and think about the topics would have led to more aha moments. Chat was useful for getting to know everyone and having fun interaction. My group could not stand for empty space, while we were waiting for people to type. We started to fill in the gaps, which led to side conversations. (Not a good thing.)

Facilitated Chat: 

Facilitated Chat I do have to admit, though, that I did enjoy having immediate responses to my comments. There is a unique energy that happens with live chat that does not exist with asynchronous communication. However, I still prefer to have the time to be able to put some thought into my responses and to be able to reflect on other’s posts as in message boards.

Facilitated Chat: 

Facilitated Chat The most difficult part of this task, having a small group task, was agreeing on an available time for everyone. It was especially difficult with people from across the country in varying time zones. Once we had a schedule set up, our discussion was great. We discussed interesting points from the readings, some that I had not even considered… We also didn’t have any difficulty creating a consensus for the netiquette rules. We all had the same ideas, concerns, and requests for our students in an online setting. Back

Making Connections: 

Making Connections Reflective journal Online Teaching Tools Active Participation Flexibility in course assignments Context is everything! Peer Review and Critique Small group Whole class Authentic Audience

Online Teaching Tools: 

Online Teaching Tools By far, I had more fun these past two weeks than any other. Like a kid, I really got excited exploring the tutorials and practicing with PowerPoint. I really took a lot of time to learn as much as I could before starting on the projects... Even from my own family, I am understanding the value of collaborative learning and the importance of using it either in the bricks and mortar classroom or the virtual classroom. Back

Online Teaching Tools: 

Online Teaching Tools I found the week frustrating because I was cruising along with the homework and then the whole Breeze deal did not work. It is funny. I assumed that I had done something wrong or screwed it up. So much so I did not want to contact the teacher to let her know that it was not working. (Finally I figured I had to do it!) Imagine how kids feel when their technology will not cooperate. I bet some of them give up and say they just cannot do it! Back

Online Teaching Tools: 

Online Teaching Tools This has been my favorite thing to do so far. When I began, I was overwhelmed. I had no idea where to start or what to do. The tutorials were very helpful, though. I was so relieved to get another week to do this, because my original presentation was too simple. I was able to take the time and find more useful information and to play around with the layout of the slides. I discovered something fun with just about every slide I created. Back

Active Participants: 

Active Participants I think that some students in today’s traditional schools just blend into the background. Some students can receive good grades even though they don’t actively participate. The quote from the online article “Using the World Wide Web to Build Learning Communities in K-12” states it well, “However, when students engage in school-based learning communities they must do more than be passive collectors of previously digested information.” In online learning environments student are forced to be more than observers. Back

Feedback: 

Feedback Guides for student performance Discussion Rubric Reflective Journal Rubric Presentation Rubric Informal and formal Personal Email Response to group discussion posts Whole group emails Grades Feedback from students

Online Teaching Tools: 

Online Teaching Tools Course Management Systems Presentation Tools PowerPoint, Adobe Connect Multimedia Software Snag It, Camtasia, Captivate, Flash Additional Tools Web applications (Google Docs, Rubistar) Concept Mapping Software Instructional Software Simulations

True or False?: 

True or False? Complex concepts cannot be taught when the teacher and the student are geographically separated.

Course Content: 

Course Content Designing and Developing Lessons Guidelines of Online Communication Making Things Move Paragraph Writing Reflective Journal Entry

Slide32: 

Student 1: Wow!  I wanted to go off and do the experiment :)     You really put together a nice, high quality lesson.    What grade is this for?  Is it geared for the classroom setting? As a cyber school learning coach, I can see this for elementary with quite a bit of adult supervision.  That's not a negative comment but some of the learning coaches might find the 'whole' lesson a bit overwhelming.  Perhaps breaking it into sections I, II, III... would  help.  Or stating in the beginning "this lesson will take 5? days to complete". That info would give the learning coach a better idea of how to manage the lesson.   Middle school would do well with this and most could do it independently.  One thing that would help both groups is if you had a chart at the end with all the 'due dates' summarized. I like how you explained the importance of having a 'group of 4' to have more data. I think that really gives the student the motivation to seek out another 3 people to do the experiment.  That's a plus for a schooled at home student! I appreciated that you read the choices for the answers in the quiz.  I didn't think to do that and I really like that idea. Can you share how you did slide 18 "Here's how" page with the floating cotton ball?

Slide33: 

Student 2: Kim, You had some great ideas and I really appreciate the input.  Since I've never taught online and don't know anyone besides myself taking online classes.....I especially felt your insight was helpful.  I don't have any idea what it's like being a "learning coach" and what the expectations are. I was planning this for K-5.  I actually do this activity in my K classroom, however, I enter their data into the excel document for them.  I was thinking if I had an online class, I could easily have a combined classroom of maybe K-2 or maybe 3-5.  I wanted to create the lesson so it could be used at any of those grade levels knowing that the younger the student was....the more help they would need from the learning coach. Maybe it would be helpful to have an attached document like you suggested that outlined the lesson in a chart format and would also have suggestions for the learning coach. Slide 18 was done through custom animation in PowerPoint.  I used the "More Auto Shapes" selection (under Auto Shapes) to find the cotton ball shape.  I changed the fill color to white to make it look like a cotton ball.  I used callouts for the start and finish line.  The cotton ball moves across the line by using a series of custom animation.  Under custom animation I used the effects of how it appears and disappears.  I used custom path animation to create the sequence of blows.  I attached an example for you to download for just this slide.  Go to the Slide Show menu and choose custom animation.  An area will appear on the right that will list all my effects and how they are working.

Slide34: 

Student 1: I did it!! I recreated your page 18;  not exactly of course, but with a little help from my 13 yr old son, and watching your page, we did it.  I'm amazed at what can be done with powerpoint.  I feel like I could use a course on powerpoint features! That's fantastic that you do this lesson in K - I bet they love it!  And, even though they need guidance, they are experiencing the whole scientific process from beginning to end  - very cool! I could see sharing your lesson with K-5 cyber families.  Even middle school, for them to do the whole lesson and then be able to explain the scientific process that they just experienced.  You really did a nice job explaining the steps.  I think that's what triggers the motivation to do it.  Kids (and learning coaches) are eager to follow along  and complete a lesson when they feel they understand each step.  For me, the only part in the lesson that I felt I got confused was trying to remember when each posting and e-mail etc.. was due, even that, as a learning coach, I could easily stop the frame and take notes.  This would be a nice lesson for cyber families who have several children in different grades.  It's designed so that all the ages could do the lesson together, and then share their experiences from different view points. Thus, they learn different perspectives from each other. Back

Teaching Online: 

Teaching Online I think one of the biggest challenges I am seeing (and beginning to put together in this class) is the various skill level these students have using technology. Some students feel extremely comfortable and are supported by the learning coach, while other students have no background experience and their learning coaches are basically technology illiterate. CA has met that challenge through orientation courses that allow them to at least navigate the LMS. BUT in this course, I am looking ahead to the types of lessons that I may introduce to my students and thinking…. “will this really be something that will be beneficial to them and how can I assure that it will be???”

Recorded Live Lesson: 

Recorded Live Lesson

How Different is it, Really?: 

How Different is it, Really? Commonalities and Differences? How might one inform the other?

Slide38: 

Questions & Answers Conference Website http://edtech.boisestate.edu/krice/conferences/NCSC/Walkingtheonlinewalk.htm