District Administration - July/August 2012 - (Page 75)

Florida Virtual School recently held a photo contest through its Facebook page asking students to submit a photo showing “Where do you FLVS?” The three winning photos, left and above, were taken by Maddie Swainhart, Jay DeRosa and Jenny Dong respectively. The school allows students to go at double speed if they can handle it, or at half the speed if they need more time to finish a course. ing popularity of “flipped classrooms,” in which students go online for video lectures and demonstrations outside of class and spend class time working with their teachers individually or in groups. Also, the burgeoning “bring your own device” movement in many districts has brought online learning into the classroom, as students search Web sites for information, collaborate virtually, or work on interactive exercises under the direction of their classroom teachers. A crop of virtual high schools, meanwhile, also has taken root, offering a four-year online education and diplomas. The number of students enrolled in these full-time programs grew from 250,000 in 2010-2011, up 25 percent from 20092010, according to the Center for Education Reform, an advocacy organization. Offering an entire online high school education is becoming an increasingly attractive proposition to districts because the per-pupil expenditure can be a third lower than at brick-and-mortar high schools, according to a study released earlier this year by the Thomas Fordham Institute, an Ohio-based group promoting educational reform. But as district leaders charge ahead with implementing or expanding online programs, they might do well to heed the lessons learned by successful predecessors in critical areas, from course quality and teacher training to technology and administration, where the problems can be anything but virtual. oldest such endeavors in the country, was launched modestly in 1998. More than 10,000 of the district’s students now are taking at least one course online. While the program has won its share of recognition, including a bronze medal in U.S. News and World Report’s 2012 Education Awards, its administrators have also learned their share of lessons along the way, starting with how to build an online course. “We thought that because in a faceto-face classroom the teacher does the instruction and provides the information, that approach would be the same online,” Ebert admits. “The teacher would build the course, upload it and teach it. For us, it would be one-stop shopping.” Ebert and her staff quickly learned, however, that not all teachers make good online teachers. “There’s a different skill set involved, and we hired Web and instructional designers who understood online course design,” she says. At the Massachusetts-based non- Lessons From Year One “The biggest mistake we’ve seen in what virtual schools do is trying to take what they were doing face-to-face in a classroom and putting it online,” iNACOL’s Powell reports, explaining that online environments require different pedagogies, designs and expectations. Jhone Ebert, chief technology officer for the Clark County (Nev.) School District, couldn’t agree more. Clark County’s Virtual High School program, one of the www.DistrictAdministration.com July/August 2012 75 http://www.DistrictAdministration.com

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of District Administration - July/August 2012

District Administration - July/August 2012
Contents
From the Editor
Letters
News Update
District Profile
Administrator Profile
Research Center
Professional Opinion
Supervisor's Opinion
Crisis Response
Going Mobile
Gaming Gains Respect
A Running Start for ELLs
Paul Vallas for Sale
Unsung Heroes
CIO News
Avoiding the Pitfalls of Virtual Schooling
Noteworthy Books
New Products
Product Focus
Problem Solution

District Administration - July/August 2012