Virtual Schooling and 21f

Do I think those scenarios could happen this year, yes, is Michigan prepared, from what I have seen, yes.  Are other states as prepared, no.  I live and teach in Tennessee, virtual schools are available, both as supplemental and full-time.  However it is not a requirement for graduation here, yet.  I have also check into Mississippi’s virtual school, they do have the start of one, compared to Michigan.  In Mississippi virtual schooling is only available for up to 2 courses when attached to a district. The courses are either for credit recovery or AP.  If a student wants to attend full time in a virtual school it is done through an Academy sanctioned by the State of Mississippi, but not paid for by the State.  My grandson is essentially being home schooled, through a virtual school that they must pay for, yet his school district is receiving credit for his ‘attendance’ and grades.  I have urged my step-daughter to look into it further, and so will I.

After listening to the screen-cast I was impressed by the detail involved and how much time, it is apparent, that has been put into organizing the Michigan Virtual School.  I am thinking that the time put into the organization and attention to detail is partially due to the money involved.  Public education, after all, is a business.   And I do not necessarily mean that in a bad way.  If other states would look at Michigan’s structure it could benefit them.

Addressing each scenario, should a student be able to take an online course rather than take it with a teacher the parent does not like?  That is a rough one, on one hand yes they should be able to take any course that is offered, particularly if it is part of the required curriculum.  Should parents be able to pull a student out of a class because they don’t like the teacher?  Yes and no, we all have people we don’t get along with, but must learn to tolerate, but should a student/child be force to work with a teacher that they won’t get along with?  This is probably a scenario that is best taken on a case by case basis, the parent did not like the teacher, why?   Expected a lot from their student, demanded high quality work, graded unfairly, chose favorites and picked on the other students?  Without enough information I could not reach a firm decision, other than to say, take it on a case by case basis.  This scenario could be both beneficial, to the student and family, and a pitfall, to the principal and teacher.

The scenario of a student transferring in, and their past learning counting against you, is nothing new, students transfer in from different schools, different states and even different grades.  A teacher has to bring that student up to their schools standards and expectations, the best they can, regardless of where they come from. 

The scenario of having to work extra without additional compensation to set up the virtual school would be hard.  On one hand to have that much confidence in you as a professional is great and the experience would go on your resume.  But is the budget is tight, and when is it not, then there should be some sort of recognition or other type of compensation.

The other two scenarios seem to be exactly why there is virtual learning.  The first one to help students reach out and learn new things that are not available in their school, and  the second to help a student continue with their learning despite an illness that prevents them from attending regular school.

Post 2 on Virtual Schooling

After doing the readings and looking at the myths, I was surprised, but I did not believe or post any of the myths, I just didn't realize how big virtual learning is.  And I do call it virtual learning not virtual school, I know adding one more term to the flood of terms, but learning through access to the internet or web can be more than just for "school".   

I was surprised at how long virtual learning has been available, since 1995, I don't think we had a PC until 1999.  We were a little slow to join the twentieth century.  I was accurate with some of my comments in the first post, but I didn't go far enough.  Virtual schooling can offer so much more than I realized.  I had not considered AP courses, or courses that just were not available at the students school, Mandarin Chinese or Electrical engineering.  
I have found out in this past week that one of my grandchildren is taking his classes as a virtual student for the rest of the school year.  He has had some behavioral issues and was skipping classes so this was the alternative for him.  I am interested as an educator and concerned as a grandparent.
I know that in my own classes online I have learned a lot.  I miss the personal interaction with other students, but in my situation, living in TN and going to a school in MI, it at least is possible.  Virtual learning is going to become even more important and bring diversity of education to so many people.  

      Virtual schooling involves learning online as opposed to learning in a classroom with other students and a teacher.  It can cover the same curriculum that is taught in person, but the learning is done either at home or wherever a student has computer access.  Virtual schooling can be for anyone, a student who has been expelled from the traditional school, temporarily or permanently.  It can be for students whose parents want to keep them out of traditional schools due to health reasons or behavior issues,  or just as an alternative to traditional schooling

wikipedia and you tube

        I haven’t yet had the opportunity to have my own class to say what they can and cannot use for a reference, but I would consider letting them use Wikipedia dependent on the age of the student and the extent of the assignment.  If it were a middle elementary class and they were researching animal habitats, yes Wikipedia would be all right.  I would probably let them know that it is a public site that anyone can publish on and to be careful of some info.  If it were upper elementary I might allow Wikipedia as one reference but another would be required as well.  Once students are in middle or high school Wikipedia could be a starting place, perhaps using some of the references sited to look further.  In high school definitely the students would have to have acknowledge references.  

          I think the same would apply to YouTube.  It could be used for a starting point but additional references should also be looked at.

Blogs and Twitter

I have been using RSS since it was assigned to create.  It fit my needs exactly.  There are lots of different types of things that I like to read about and I hated to spend the time finding the different sources.  Often on my way to look at National Geographic's Pics of the week I would get sidetrack by pics of stars, or other topics that caught my instant attention,  and I wasted time on without realizing it.  With RSS the stories/blogs are brought right to me, no more getting sidetracked.

1. Edutopia.org/blog- this is not just one blogger, but multiply people blogging on all different aspects of education, there is always a good one to read and follow.  the one this week that caught my attention was reading 2.0. I work with students everyday who are struggling with their reading comprehension so this was of interest to me.  And I had to agree with her after she brought up ideas for me to think about-where students do reading that we/teachers do not count as real reading, but it is.
2. Two Peas and a Dog is another collection of different blogs.  After much searching and reading the do all seem to be teachers, from primarily elementary and middle school.  What I like about the site is that it is separated into different categories, math, literacy, art, classroom management and more.  This seems to make it a one stop spot for finding any numbers of ideas you made need.  The blog also has links to  TeachersPayTeachers, haven’t looked into that too much but so far intrigued.
3. Evidence Based Living is the name of this site for blogs.  I came across it when doing research for another class and it came up with a blog on the topic of reading to infants and young children. http://evidencebasedliving.human.cornell.edu/2010/12/23/does-reading-aloud-to-young-children-make-a-difference/ As I looked further into the site I saw it covers many topics beyond education. One of the bloggers, Shari,  does cover education primarily.  The bolgs take scientific research and break it down into words and ideas that the common person can understand. The bogs do give links to the actually published research if you would want to read further for more understanding.  This seems like a good site for education and other parts of life as well.

Twitter-not a site that I have used before, and even now that I have an account set up I have not used it alot.  It seems to be for very short messages and/or links to somewhere else, RSS brings it to me.  I will make it a point to look at it and try to follow though because some students do and I have found some interesting people to follow.

1. @tweenteacher- A Middle School teacher who loves to talk ed policy and curriculum design- from what I have been able to see on her post they seem to be mostly links to other educational articles/websites/blogs, all sharing ideas.  This person will serve as another go to to find items on education in general that I will want to be update on.
2. @weareteachers-We offer ideas, inspiration & information for your best days & double that for your hard ones. Supporting kids means supporting educators, always-again a starting point to other items about education- today @weareteachers took me to @exittickets that took me to a blog http://exitticket.org/partial-byod/ about using byod in a high school, very interesting blog.
3. @goodreads- this is a link to a website that is a book review site.  I already use the site and have turned many friends who are readers onto it.  You get to list the books you have read and review them.  Then goodreads will make recommendations based on what you have read.  I think that this would be a good site for students to share what they have read and find other books that they would like.  You can see what your friends have read and check out their reviews too.

All in all I definitely will continue to use RSS and read the blogs.  I will make more of an attempt to follow twitter, but at times so much can be overwhelming.

Bit of trivia

I was reading an article from my RSS News Literacy: Critical-Thinking Skills for the 21st Century

30 Edutopia RSS by Peter Adams - 651071  /    and came upon a statement that made me stop and think, twice and thrice, and it seems to fit what we are learning.  I apologize if you've heard it before, and that it is not part of an assignment but here it is:

 

Students today face a greater challenge in evaluating information than their parents or grandparents did at their age. The cumulative amount of information that exists on the planet, from the beginning of recorded history to the present, is, by realistic estimates (5), doubling every two years.  

SAMR

I am a part-time reading interventionist at Tyner Middle Academy in Chattanooga, TN, this is full Title 1, urban school, this is my second year here.  I work with a group of 19 students that are between six years to six months below grade level in reading, and in the classroom helping all students with their writing.

I have to admit I am a little confused by SAMR, is substituting not considered  productive?  I kind of get the impression that if all we are doing is having them type a paper instead of writing it that is not considered genuine use of technology.  But for my students typing is a real challenge.  Next week we are facing the statewide writing assessment, in one hour they must read an article, then type an essay answering a prompt.  Some will have trouble finishing, not because of the difficulty but because of the typing.  Over the past few weeks we have practiced timed writing prompts, a lot, to help them improve their typing skills, so I will consider that my  substituting  part of SAMR.

I have been using the Augmentation part without even realizing it.  In my work as an interventionist I use a computer based reading program, Carbo Reading Styles, http://www.nrsi.com/.  With this program the students read short stories/articles, at their level, then have to answer questions based on comprehension skills.  They receive immediate feedback on their answers then we discussed what they could have done to better comprehend the story, emphasizing skills that they need to improve.  The program has been quite successful, moving up 1 to 2 and ½ grade levels in 4 months.

For Modification I am going to continue on my theme of using the reading program and the work I do with those students, by adding to the class a blog assignment.  Before we would discuss the different questions they missed and I would work one on one to help them improve those skills.  With a weekly blog addressing a different skill, their feedback and discussion among each other would give them another way to understand the skill.  Embedded in the blog would be the need to use the skill being addressed. http://kidblog.org/MsHinkleysClass/wp-admin/?signup=new#comment-1

For Redefinition I will have the students work on a video speech presentation for their Promotion Ceremony in May.  Each year the eighth grade students write speeches about their years at Tyner Middle to be read in front of their peers, teachers, and families.  This year I will continue with with their speech writing but add in a video to be shown that displays their work.  It can show their athletic accomplishments, academic, artistic  and more.  Using some of the Web 2.0 tools the video can include the band, and choir.  This video could then be loading into the schools web site and the students could have it as a video yearbook.