District Administration - March 2007 - (Page 44)

Warning : session_start : The session id contains invalid characters, valid characters are only a-z, A-Z and 0-9 in /mnt/data/www.nxtbook.com/fx/config_1.3/global.php on line 9 Warning : session_start : Cannot send session cache limiter - headers already sent output started at /mnt/data/www.nxtbook.com/fx/config_1.3/global.php:9 in /mnt/data/www.nxtbook.com/fx/config_1.3/global.php on line 9 Warning : Cannot modify header information - headers already sent by output started at /mnt/data/www.nxtbook.com/fx/config_1.3/global.php:9 in /mnt/data/www.nxtbook.com/fx/config_1.3/global.php on line 10 DISTANCE EDUCATION is no virtual school, a regional or school-based virtual school could either develop a locally funded virtual school or try to obtain legislative funding from its state. Rules vary from state to state, says Liz Pape, CEO of the Virtual High School in Massachusetts. Course licenses range from $15,000 per semester for a district to $50,000 for a statewide license, which would be paid by the regional or schoolba sed virtual school. This is an improvement over the Wild West that Greg Morse, chairman of AMDG Inc., fi rst encountered a decade ago. Morse recalls that when early adopters didn’t have online courses to use, they launched Web sites that were essentially trading repositories that allowed administrators to take a course. Then they’d have to submit two of their own. The systems had no real oversight and featured a variety of writing methods, so styles could change in the middle of a lesson. Several companies now provide clear, concise lessons aligned to state standards and district curricula, depending on the state and district. “There was a rush just to put some stuff online, and it was welli ntended but wasn’t getting the job done,” Morse says. “Today it’s much more sophisticated.” Certainly that’s the world Tom Scullen, superintendent of the Appleton Area School District in Appleton, Wis., discovered when he ventured into virtual schools. Thanks to the curriculum quantities for sale now, administrators can run a high school program with very little preparation. “We’ve found CONNECTIONS ACADEMY HELP A Minneapolis mother helps her daughter with a lesson. that private companies are better prepared than we are to write curriculum,” he says. Districts starting from scratch would need to budget hundreds of hours to fi nd, for example, digital library resources online, and then check for broken links when sites go out of business or move their Web addresses. Indeed, the initial development of a course is just the tip of the iceberg, Young says. “All the big publishers that sell curriculum to districts have armies of people working to keep their digital library sources constant,” Morse says. Which Curriculum to Use W hen choosing curriculum, follow these guidelines: • Be sure the curriculum is accredited by a respected body, such as the Southern Association of Colleges and Schools SACS , the Commission on International and Trans-Regional Accreditation CITA , or the Global Accreditation Center GAC . • Be sure the curriculum meets state standards, or at least comes darn close. “I don’t know any [curriculum] that is 100 percent perfect,” as state guidelines can be extremely detailed, Morse warns. On the other hand, states demonstrate at least an 80 percent alignment in a given content area, so most courses need minute tweaking to meet standards, Patrick adds. • Follow the 11 guidelines in Southern Regional Education Board’s Standards for Quality Online Courses booklet published in November 2006. SREB collects, compiles and analyzes comparable data for key education issues. The guidelines include such advice as having the course include a complete overview and syllabus, and having it organized into units and lessons using multiple strategies and activities to assess student readiness for its content. • Provide a dedicated team of professionals to supervise continuity among courses. “They have to know how to create interactivity and discussion, because they can’t see who is squirming in their seat, who has their head down, who has their hand up.” — Gabe Pascarella, assistant director of coordinated studies, Chesterfield County Public Schools, Richmond, Va. 44 March 2007 District Administration virtual.inddJH.indd 4 2/13/07 11:34:04 AM Warning : Unknown : The session id contains invalid characters, valid characters are only a-z, A-Z and 0-9 in Unknown on line 0 Warning : Unknown : Failed to write session data files . Please verify that the current setting of session.save_path is correct /var/lib/php/session in Unknown on line 0

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of District Administration - March 2007

Contents
Editor's Letter
Update
Inside the Law
Curriculum Update
District Profile
Administrator Profile
Friday Night Fever
Creating an Effective Virtual School Program
Hunting for Talent
Multimedia Man
Do These Web Sites Work?
Finding Funds for Student Laptops
Curriculum Crassifieds
Gearing Up for Science Assessments
New Products
Computer Literature
Speaking Out
Principal Opinion
The Online Edge
Calendar of Events
Problem/Solution
Research Corner

District Administration - March 2007

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