Elearning - June/July 2008 - (Page 27) LearnPort. Through Michigan LearnPort, school personnel were provided PD to help meet personal and district learning requirements. As a school superintendent, David Myers often would bring in an expert to address his staff for the purpose of PD. “Lots of people would get excited by the presentations,” says Myers, who is executive director of Michigan LearnPort. “But when teachers returned to their classes and the expert was gone, they had nowhere to go to build on what they learned.” Jamey Fitzpatrick, president and CEO of MVU, says its goal is to harness the Internet to consolidate highquality PD resources and create efficiencies never before realized in the K12 community. After months spent evaluating many vendors, MVU picked Chantilly, Virginia-based Meridian and its learning management system (LMS) for the project. “I was pleased with the process MVU used to select its next LMS and more pleased with the product,” says Bruce Umpstead, director of education technology and data coordination for the Michigan Department of Education. “Meridian’s LMS is a professional tool that can manage Michigan’s online PD needs.” With the new LMS in place, Michigan LearnPort would be able to keep a record of each teacher’s development plan. It would link PD to school goals and offer access to training. With Michigan LearnPort, teachers could create transcripts that showed they were complying with NCLB. And Michigan LearnPort could offer forums for teachers to join after completing PD. “The collaborative features of our LMS, which we call ‘community rooms,’ were ideal for helping us reinforce the PD that teachers undertake,” Myers notes. “Our Michigan LearnPort community rooms are built around discussion threads, a resident e-mail tool and calendaring functionality.” Since launching the new LMS in July 2007, users of the PD portal have built more than 134 community rooms. With the relaunch complete, more than 100 online courses are available free to all Michigan teachers via the Internet. And Michigan LearnPort makes it possible for people to create and use a community room as part of an online course. A bit more than six months after launch, Michigan LearnPort serves almost 30,000 users. “It’s amazing to see the proliferation of community rooms that educators have built in the six months since we relaunched Michigan LearnPort; we’ve gone from 0 to 134,” says Elizabeth Elliott, project manager at Michigan LearnPort. “Anyone who visits it can use our LMS to create a community room; the size of the rooms range from two people to an entire school district.” Going forward, Myers and his team hope to make online learning and collaboration a widely accepted alternative to the traditional models of PD, which Michigan educators rely on. Early success with Michigan LearnPort is helping Myers’ team make a case. —For more information on Meridian Knowledge Solutions, Inc., visit the Website www.meridianksi.com. Adventures in Crossing the Language Barrier A pen company introducing it’s latest ad in Mexico wanted to say: "It won't leak in your pocket and embarrass you." However, the company mistakenly thought the Spanish word "embarazar" meant embarrass. Unfortunately, the ad actually read : "It won't leak in your pocket and make you pregnant." Call in the experts! We speak your language! Blended language learning programs designed exclusively for the corporate world. 1-on-1 expert coaching, scheduled virtual classes, phone conversations, and interactive self-paced learning provides the best blended solution for your organizational language learning needs. Call today for a free demo! 888.388.3535 www.tellmemore.com/corporate english - spanish - french - german - italian - dutch - chinese - japanese - arabic Elearning! June/July 2008 27 http://www.meridianksi.com http://www.tellmemore.com/corporate http://www.tellmemore.com/corporate
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