English Language Learners gain deep understanding of science concepts with zSpace

zSpace announced that at Culverdale Elementary, a virtual reality technology is helping students break down language and learning barriers. In their first few months of learning with zSpace STEM Labs, a screen-based virtual reality solution, students are gaining a deeper understanding of science concepts.

The principal at the school reported that this was no small feat. Culverdale is a member of the Irvine Unified School District in Orange County, Calif. and is one of the top school districts in the country. According to the Orange County Register, Culverdale Elementary is the most diverse school in Orange County. Approximately 37 percent of students at Culverdale receive economic assistance, and 62 percent of students speak one of 39 different languages.

Students are learning how to manage social media, online behavior

Like many kids her age, Bloomingdale High senior Tranae Robinson has dozens of social media applications at her fingertips and routinely logs into at least seven of them on her smartphone–Twitter, Snapchat and Pinterest included.
She admits teens could be more mindful of Internet safety and how they present themselves online, especially now that she and her classmates are allowed bring their own devices to school.
“It’s very nonchalant, the way we handle it,” Robinson said. “We don’t try to filter ourselves. Not everything is as private as you think.”
This school year, Robinson, along with every other student who attends a Hillsborough County (Fla.) public school, will be trained in how to handle themselves safely and responsibly online. The initiative goes hand-in-hand with the new program that lets them bring their phones, tablets, and laptops to school.
They are learning about the dangers of cyberbullying, how to create secure passwords, how to avoid identity theft and how to leave a positive digital footprint on their devices.

“It’s very important,” Robinson said. “Students are going to have them regardless. If the school district educates us, it will be more of a positive than a negative.”
Sixty schools so far–including all 27 high schools and most middle schools–have been approved for the bring-your-own-device program. Instructional technology supervisor Troy Suarez expects all schools will be on board by the end of December. Students will use the once-forbidden devices during class, for learning.
“It’s no longer, ‘We see it, we take it,’” Suarez said. “As we are rolling this stuff out, it’s a responsibility for us to prepare our students to be safe while they’re using technology, and teachers as well.”
Throughout the school year, media specialists will use information from curriculum-providers Common Sense Media and Netsmartz to form their own lessons, said John Milburn, the district’s supervisor of elementary library media services. Some media specialists use school morning shows as a platform. They also visit classrooms and teach in school media centers.
“As a parent, we’ve always sent our kids into the world to develop, learn and grow,” Milburn said. “We taught them to be safe, who not to talk to, where to go if you get in trouble. This is just another world–it’s a digital world. But they still need to know how to be safe.”
At the middle and high school level, media specialists have to get a little more creative because students bounce from classroom to classroom throughout the day.
For them, topics like determining whether information on a website is valid is incorporated into school orientation and into the school day when possible, said Christine VanBrunt, the district’s supervisor of middle and high school library media services.
Nikki Rideout, a media specialist at Woodbridge Elementary School, said teaching students how to act online has become part of her job.
“The media specialist position has changed so much,” Rideout said. “We are no longer keepers of the books. It’s an instructional technology piece we’ve brought under our wing.”
So far this school year, Rideout has met with several classes each week and other teachers have requested that she work with their classes, too. She has the students practice their social media skills on Edsby, the district’s online gradebook and communication site.
“The students are so receptive,” Rideout said. “We need to capitalize on that. By the time they get into middle school, it’s almost too late to fix it.”
The rollout of digital citizenship lessons in September was followed by the launch of a new website that describes for parents the benefits and dangers of 17 social apps.
The site also includes resources for teachers and information about the digital citizenship curriculum, which was selected by a school district committee formed last spring.
Included in the list are Vault, which is designed to hide other apps, Kik Messenger, photo-sharing service Snapchat, and the Tinder dating app.
An example of a warning to parents on the site: “Tinder’s terms of use indicate that it can be used by anyone 13 and up, but the app’s widespread reputation as a hookup site, its use of location, and its lack of privacy settings make this a no-go for teens.”
Robinson, the Bloomingdale High student, is getting a little extra digital citizenship training this school year–she is taking Social Media 1, which is being taught for the second year by Heather Hanks. Hanks, who also teaches journalism and photography, became the first Florida teacher to offer the class last school year.
“If we’re putting devices in the hands of our students, they need to be equipped to deal with the consequences,” said Hanks, who served on the district’s digital citizenship committee. “The county has kind of shied away from dealing with it before. Now they’re embracing it.”
Last spring, Hanks’ students created videos to share with students across the district, spreading a message that they should not carry themselves differently in the online world than they do in the real world.
One video shows a teen standing in the middle of a crowded hallway at school, yelling everything she is thinking. In another, a student shares her keys with others, showing that passwords shouldn’t be shared.
This school year, a social media course is being offered at two additional high schools, Hillsborough and Robinson.
School board member Cindy Stuart said she would like to see more schools begin offering the course.
“The student message is very strong,” Stuart said during a recent school board meeting. “It’s stronger than my message when I speak to my 16-year-old.”

Regularly searching education-related Twitter hashtags can help educators expand their professional growth

Social media remains a game-changer in education. Through platforms such as Facebook and Twitter, students are able to collaborate on projects or discussions about assignments.
Educators connect with peers across their district, state, or, in many cases, across the world. This ability to stay connected has led to the development of professional learning networks, sometimes called professional learning communities, in which educators build networks of peers they admire, those they share common interests with, and those they hope to learn from.
Much of this connecting occurs on Twitter. Many states have regular Twitter chats focusing on general education or highlighting specific education topics.

Below, you’ll find five hashtags that offer engaging and thought-provoking tweets from educators across the planet.
To access the most recent tweets categorized under any of these hashtags, simply enter the hashtag in the Twitter search field, or click on it within any Tweet that contains it.
#edtech
The #edtech category contains, as you probably guessed, tweets about education technology, technology in schools, and reasons why classrooms and students benefit from teachers who correctly implement and use technology during instruction.
Recent tweets cover critical thinking and The Maker Movement.

Adults tackle question of how much social media is enough, but not too much

Twin Design / Shutterstock.com

With smartphones and tablet and laptop computers now as common as pencils and notebooks in many classrooms, schools and parents alike are having to figure out how to guide students’ use of technology.
Access to the internet for students can mean access to a world of information, but it can just as easily get them to social media sites and apps. That can enhance their learning experience, educators say, but it does come with risks.
Piedmont’s schools are in the fifth year of a program that issues laptop computers to all students in grades four through 12. Students in kindergarten to third grade also use mobile devices in the classroom.
“We allow the use of social media, especially at the high school” said Piedmont Schools Superintendent Matt Akin.

The school system’s position on social media and internet usage has changed over time, Akin said. Instead of blocking most sites, Piedmont’s policies shifted toward a middle ground.
“YouTube was one of the first things we unblocked, because we saw all of the educational videos our teachers could be using,” he said.
As Jacksonville City Schools Superintendent Jon Campbell pointed out, students’ use of social media is here to stay.
“Social media is something that’s going to be there, whether we advocate for or against it,” he said. “We have to deal with it.”
Jacksonville schools began distributing tablets to students in grades four through 12 in 2013. Campbell said that popular social media apps, like Facebook, Twitter and Snapchat, are blocked and cannot be installed on the devices.
But there’s no way for school administrators keep students from using the apps on smartphones, he said. Such devices are linked to the internet through connections independent of the school.
As Roy Bennett put it, “the genie is out of the bottle.” Bennett is student services coordinator for Oxford schools, and he said administrators feel they’re playing catch-up with a generation that grew up online.
“It’s a challenge to stay a step ahead,” he said. Oxford students in middle and high school are given Apple laptops that they can take home. During the school day, social media sites are blocked on those computers. Bennett acknowledged that there’s nothing to stop students from accessing the sites on their own devices.
Internet etiquette
Instead of giving devices to its students, the Calhoun County school system encourages them to bring their own. That approach allows students to bring personal laptops, tablets and smartphones into schools for use on collaborative assignments.
Jenel Travis, technology director for Calhoun County Schools, said students use a specially set-aside network that provides them with Internet filtered according to federal standards, but does not block social media sites.
Smartphones and some tablets may have access to a cellular service provider’s unfiltered wireless network. Use of that network is against Calhoun County Schools’ rules, and students can be punished for it–if they’re caught.
“If they want to do something that isn’t great and they get off our network, they can do that,” Travis said. “That’s the network parents provide, and it’s out of my control.”
Travis said schools’ technology initiatives could be hamstrung if internet access on their networks was locked down completely.
However, school administrators and educators can try to teach students how to use social networks responsibly.
“We have a responsibility to teach our students good digital citizenship,” Campbell said.
That phrase refers to acceptable online behavior, such as being aware of privacy protections or reporting cyberbullying, and it’s one school administrators are using more often.
Campbell said Jacksonville teachers teach digital citizenship through an internet course, where they emphasize that anything students put online could follow them around forever.
“We call it a ‘digital tattoo’–once it goes out there, it’s always there. You can’t just wash it off,” he said.
Piedmont Superintendent Akin agrees that educators have a responsibility to teach students what they should and shouldn’t post online.
“We’ve dealt with a few issues where kids say things online they shouldn’t say. We had that 10 years ago,” before social media became popular, he said. “We try to hold our students accountable.”
‘Lock it down’
School administrators say parents share some of that responsibility, and each of the schools with technology initiatives has hosted training sessions to familiarize parents with their children’s devices.
Jeremy Jones’ three kids attend Piedmont Elementary, where they use iPads, iPods and MacBook laptops in the classroom.
Jones, who works in information technology for a local institution, said he wants Piedmont’s initiative to work, but worries that administrators did not give enough thought to blocking sites students shouldn’t use.
Jones said that at home, he controls what sites his children can visit and when they can visit them. His son can spend unlimited time on school-related websites; only an hour on others, he said.
Jones acknowledged that lots of websites have legitimate educational uses, but said “it’s a fine line” between the useful and harmful. Schools will always be behind in getting technology to control students’ Internet use, he said.
“You’re either going to have to lock it down, or deal with the consequences,” Jones said. “One consequence is, I don’t like it.”
He’s not ready, he said, to let his kids roam the digital world on their own.
“My son’s already asking me about having a Facebook,” he said. “Absolutely not.”

LinkedIn to acquire lynda.com to better connect the global workforce, says company.

LinkedIn is acquiring lynda.com, an online learning company that offers courses on business, technology, and creative skills with the aim of helping people achieve their professional goals–a move that could have big impacts on the way students and others find jobs and leverage skill sets.
Through a subscription to lynda.com’s service, individual members and organizations have access to a collection of courses taught by what the company says are industry experts, offered in various languages. In addition to individual subscribers, lynda.com serves corporate, government and educational organizations.
Through the acquisition, LinkedIn has revealed some formidable ambitions. Eventually it hopes to “map the global workforce” by creating profiles for each company, and job within that company, as well as the skill sets required to obtain those jobs. LinkedIn then hopes to connect workers to educational institutions and platforms like lynda.com where they can master those skills. (More information about this approach is in the video below).

Student messages on social media sites such as Twitter and Facebook are now being monitored by the Orange County (Fla.) school district as part of a new program to curb cyberbullying, crime on campus and suicide.
Central Florida’s largest school district announced that it had acquired new software that would allow it to grab and then analyze social media messages posted from its campuses, whether from students or staff.
The software also would allow the district to search the thousands of messages posted on various sites for key words that might indicate trouble
The new program is one of several aimed at “prevention and early intervention” put in place by the district since the school shooting in Newtown, Conn., in 2012, said Michael Eugene, the district’s chief operations officer.
Orange officials acknowledged the online snooping might raise questions.
But Orange County School Board member Linda Kobert said that, although she worried about student privacy, as a parent of high school students she had also heard about “terrible” cases of cyberbullying.
“I think this is another way to prevent that or prevent harm,” she said, adding the district was taking advantage of “new tools to protect our children.
The messages — whether from Twitter, Instagram, YouTube or other sites — are “open-source information” publicly available to anyone with the right tools, said Doug Tripp, senior director of safety and security.
The district’s security staff will be looking for messages that relate to bullying, suicide and criminal activities, Tripp added.
Worrisome posts would be referred to school administrators or police, as appropriate, officials said.
Neither Lake nor Seminole county school district uses similar technology. But Seminole administrators have had discussions with Snaptrends, the Texas company Orange licensed the software from, and likely will talk more with the company during the summer, said Michael Lawrence, the district’s spokesman.
Before signing on, the district likely would try to gauge whether parents thought the “positives” from such a program outweigh what some might view as “Big Brother watching you,” he said.
“Would we step over boundaries? That would be an issue that would have to be navigated,” he added.
The Orange district began using the Snaptrends software several weeks ago and already found a student threatening “self-harm,” Eugene said. District staff contacted police, who helped the family get needed services, he added.
Snaptrends bills itself as “a pioneer in location-based social-media discovery,” with software that helps schools and colleges “gain insights into potential problems.”
The company declined to say how many school systems now use its program. But Eugene said other districts employ the system, as do Central Florida law-enforcement agencies.
Orange administrators announced the effort in an email to parents and staff sent late Wednesday and then in a news release early Thursday. They hoped the announcement would help head off end-of-the-year pranks and spark discussion during the summer between parents and students about appropriate social-media use, Eugene said.
The software, which costs about $14,000 a year, is in a “rollout phase” now and will be fully running at the start of the 2015-16 school year, Tripp added.
In an era of heightened concern about campus safety, Snaptrends’ tool allows the district to look at public information and “recognize content that appears to pose a concern to the safety and well being of students, teachers and staff,” said Jeff Croson, Snaptrends senior vice president, in a statement.
“Snaptrends is simply one more tool in the array of safety measures districts are taking to safeguard schools,” he added.

As cyberbullying increases, new laws and measures are helping combat tech-based bullying

The face of a bully and the definition of bullying have changed over the years.
Technology has come to replace the glaring student who pushes others down on the playground or the mean girl who uses word-of-mouth to spread her gossip.
Smartphones and social media have opened an entirely new door for classroom bullies, who are no longer limited to the classroom.
“A lot of these social media issues are occurring when students are not at school,” said Southeastern School District (Pa.) Superintendent Rona Kaufmann. “And often times what happens through social media comes into the school in one way, shape or form, just because of the sheer amount of people who have access to it.”
Taking action: Pennsylvania’s Northern York School District recently implemented rules for online behavior–for students, athletes and staff–to combat cyberbullying.
Superintendent Eric Eshbach echoed Kaufmann’s concerns about cyberbullying.
“It is a daily effort because a large majority of it doesn’t go on in the school building; it goes on after school hours,” he said. “We are definitely having conversations and encouraging students to report on any issues.”
Those reports could end up being a criminal matter under a new state law, Act 26, which Gov. Tom Wolf signed on July 10 and which takes effect in September.
Cyber-harassment, as defined by Act 26, is making malicious statements about a child’s physical characteristics, sexuality, sexual activity or mental or physical health. Cyber-harassment could be made electronically, either directly to the child or through a social media site.
The law makes cyber-harassment of a child a third-degree misdemeanor, punishable by up to $2,500 in fines and possible jail time.
Prevention: More than half of the country’s young people have reported that they have been cyberbullied, and among those who reported incidents, one-third said their bullies issued online threats, according to 2014 bullying statistics published by the anti-bullying website nobullying.com.
“It’s a real problem that presents a real challenge,” Kaufmann said of cyberbullying. “I think the real key to prevention is early education.”
Kaufmann said Southeastern heavily focuses on lower-level students with its anti-bullying initiative.
“They have cell phones in elementary school now, and the earlier we can reach them, the better,” she said.
School officials have incorporated anti-bullying lessons into curriculum, including in high school communications and computer classes and some English classes in the lower grades.
There’s particular focus on intermediate students, because they all have laptops, “and we want them to be able to handle them responsibly,” she said.
The district has an incentive program that rewards moral behavior, “basically this fake money that they can use at the school store to get themselves prizes and things.”
Parents: School leaders in Northern enforce anti-bullying rules on a case-by-case basis, Eshbach said.
“The word ‘bullying’ is way too general for me,” he said. “I hear people claim their children are being bullied, so I ask them to tell me the specifics. What kind of harassment are you feeling? Is there a need to involve law enforcement? Should there be harsh penalties or is this something we can handle with classroom consequences?”
He said it’s best to be specific about what type of bullying is occurring and “then take each of those incidents and give it the appropriate amount of credibility and treat it appropriately.”
Eshbach said parents are key in preventing bullying.
Kaufmann agreed.
“Especially with anything online, parents need to keep an eye out,” she said. “It’s difficult to be constantly policing, but so many times parents are completely unaware of what their children are doing on the computer.”
It’s all about teamwork, Eshbach said.
“We need to come together and really keep an eye on what students are doing online,” he said.

Survey reveals that the majority of classroom educators shy away from social media integration

A new survey finds that just 13 percent of participating educators have used social media as part of their classroom learning.
The University of Phoenix College of Education survey of 1,002 U.S. K-12 teachers found that 87 percent of those surveyed said they have not embraced social media platforms. Sixty-two percent of those surveyed said they are reluctant to use social media in the classroom, compared to 55 percent of participating educators in a 2013 survey.
Fewer than half of teachers surveyed (44 percent) said they believe social media can enhance a student’s educational experiences.
“We are living in a rapidly evolving world of digital and social media, and many students are totally immersed and well-versed in these platforms,” said Kathy Cook, dean of educational technology for University of Phoenix College of Education and former K-12 educator. “For teachers to stay current, keep students engaged and promote learning, it is important for teachers to acknowledge the influence of social media and understand how to use it to the benefit of their students.”
Lack of training could be to blame. Although 95 percent of surveyed educators said they have had training related to classroom technology integration, 62 percent said they had either minimal or no training around how to interact with students and parents through social media.
Forty-eight perent of those surveyed said they would like to learn more about classroom technology integration.
K-12 teachers raise many concerns, with 82 percent of those surveyed reporting that they worry about conflicts that can occur from using social media with their students and/or parents.
More than half (59 percent) said the use of personal tech devices outside the classroom makes it more difficult for students to pay attention in a group setting in the classroom.
Twenty percent have also felt intimidated by students’ knowledge/use of technology devices.
“Social media is here to stay, so it is critical to invest in our educators through expanded training,” said Cook.
Training extends beyond providing educators tools to integrate social media into the classroom, she added. In addition to being prepared to use social media as a learning tool, teachers also need to be able to teach students to be responsible with their online behavior.
“Despite challenges, tremendous opportunities exist for teachers to play a leadership role in students’ digital lives, helping them learn how to use social media and understand its impact both in and outside the classroom,” Cook said. “It is essential to train teachers in digital citizenship so that they can educate students about preserving their online integrity.”
Cook offered tips to help K-12 teachers integrate social media into their classrooms:

• Create student social media guidelines. If your school or district has guidelines for social media use, make sure you and your students understand them completely and are following the guidelines. If your school or district does not currently have guidelines for social media use, consider developing some.
• Try “closed” social media sites. Edmodo, TodaysMeet and other sites allow safe and secure social media experiences in a smaller school environment. You can also create private blogs or use sites such as Kidblogs or Edublogs, which limit access and comment abilities.
• Connect with other classrooms around the world. Projects such as Global Read Aloud and Skype in the Classroom allow you to connect students in your classroom with other students worldwide.
• Connect with experts worldwide. Social media tools can help you bring a variety of experts into your classroom so students can learn directly from people in the field they are studying. You can search and connect with experts on Twitter, Skype and other social media networks. Many authors and content experts may be willing to conduct a live tweet session with your students during which they can ask questions and get immediate responses.
• Involve your class in a social service project. Explore projects online that your students can get involved in to help make the world a better place. Choose2Matter is one global movement that may spark imagination about how social media can be used to help others.
• Learn more about social media use in the classroom. Join Twitter or use other social media tools to connect with other teachers and learn about their creative uses of social media. You can also take a class to hone your own social media skills.

The survey was conducted online by Harris Poll on behalf of University of Phoenix College of Education between April 14 and April 27, 2015, among 1,002 U.S. teachers aged 18 and older who work full time in education teaching grades K-12.

Provision would exclude virtual schools’ scores in certain cases

A little-known provision slipped into the Wisconsin budget signed by Gov. Scott Walker would keep low-performing virtual charter schools from dragging down the report cards of districts that host them.
The new law excludes the achievement scores of virtual charter schools from districts’ annual state report cards if more than half the students enrolled in the virtual school reside outside the district.
The provision was sought by the leaders of the only two virtual schools in the state to receive failing grades on their most recent school report cards: eAchieve Academy, hosted by the Waukesha School District, and iForward Academy, hosted by the Grantsburg School District. Both districts still met or exceeded the state’s expectations on their annual report cards.

But State Superintendent Tony Evers is critical of the change, saying it’s inconsistent with the idea of bringing all publicly funded schools into the same school accountability system. He sought unsuccessfully for Walker to veto the item.
Proponents say virtual charters should be treated differently because they’re serving many children not living in the district, who often have not been successful in other school settings and are coming to a virtual charter as a last resort — often bringing low achievement scores with them.
Rick Nettesheim, principal of Waukesha’s eAchieve Academy, said district report cards are meant to track the progress of students from elementary school through high school, and virtual school students often come from outside their resident district, which wouldn’t accurately reflect the achievement of the district.
“The truth is that virtual schools draw in by their very nature a fairly diverse population of students,” Nettesheim said. “Some of that diversity is a large group who are not successful in their resident school, and they look to virtual school as a last hope.”
Because they are online programs that allow teachers and students to work from home, virtual schools can enroll children all over the state through the state’s open enrollment program.
The Department of Public Instruction lists 32 virtual charter schools for the 2014-’15 school year, with three more proposed for the upcoming school year.
In 2013-’14, the most recent year report cards were issued, 27 of the 31 virtual schools that received state report cards “met expectations.” Two “exceeded expectations,” and two “failed to meet expectations.”
No schools or districts will receive report cards for the 2014-’15 school year. Separate legislation signed by Walker in May paused the system for a year while a new state test was implemented.
Report cards assess performance
In recent years, Wisconsin created a new system to judge public school and district performance. Annual report cards distributed to the public now rank schools and districts in one of five categories, from “significantly exceeds expectations” to “fails to meet expectations.”
The new state budget calls for those descriptions to be replaced with a five-star rating system.
The report card scores are based on measures such as achievement on the state test and academic growth over time, as well as school attendance and achievement gaps. Schools started receiving report cards in 2011-’12; districts started receiving them a year later.
The whole system went into place as part of a federally approved waiver from increasingly strict mandates of the No Child Left Behind law. Congress is in the process of rewriting that law.
Nettesheim said the report cards treat students as if they have been enrolled in the school year after year, which is often not the case for virtual schools, where kids from around the state may enroll and drop out more frequently.
He added that virtual schools are still being held accountable because each virtual charter school still will receive an individual school report card. Their scores would simply be excluded from the districtwide report card.
But many brick-and-mortar schools also see high student turnover, and their school scores still contribute to the districtwide report card.
For example, many Milwaukee city schools that serve vulnerable populations see up to a third of students turn over during the school year. Yet their scores still contribute to the Milwaukee Public Schools districtwide report card.
Request drove change
State Sen. Luther Olsen (R-Ripon) added the provision to the budget at the behest of Nettesheim and Joni Burgin, superintendent of the Grantsburg school district. Olsen said the provision will help encourage school districts to continue supporting virtual programs.
“The district is doing mission work (taking on virtual schools),” Olsen said. “I don’t think the system is reflected badly on the district; we don’t want these districts to not do this anymore because it’s bringing down the grade for the district.”
Olsen said the provision encourages more districts to host virtual schools because of the reduced risk.
Evers, the state superintendent, disagrees.
In a veto letter to Walker, Evers said the accountability data for all students attending a virtual school — not just the students who attended via open enrollment — would not be reflected on any district report card.
Still, Blake Peuse, superintendent of the Northern Ozaukee School District, said virtual school performance doesn’t accurately reflect the performance of the district.
“Virtual schools, for the most part, are a completely different entity,” Peuse said. “Having it directly equated to the sponsoring district does not always tell the whole story.”
Northern Ozaukee’s virtual school, Wisconsin Virtual Learning, received a “meets expectations” on the latest round of school report cards.
The district received the same marks.

Supporting off hours learning is a problem you might not even know you have

Recently, I began dubbing the current generation of students the “Netflix Generation.” They learn when they want, and expect learning resources to be available when and where they need them.
This is similar to the way they consume media through streaming services such as Netflix (for movies and television series) and Spotify (for music); they binge watch TV series multiple episodes in a row, and they expect a wide range of music to be available when and where they want. If they listen to a song in the car, they expect to be able to pick it back up in the house or while waking down the street. Increasingly, they expect learning resources to be available in the same fashion.
Smart educational organizations have built rich online courses filled with learning resources to support this type of learning. The old paradigm where learning occurs only in a classroom or lecture hall during school hours is gone. But in off hours, when teachers are at home, what will take their place?
After a few years of building online courses with rich learning resources, my school now sees significant student use outside the traditional school hours.

Graph 1 (click for full size) – This graph shows the percentage of the Year 7 to 12 population that accessed the online learning environment. The graph showing the school day is an average figure derived from two weeks of data. The Sunday and outside school hours data is derived from recent individual days.
Anytime, anywhere teaching
However, this now produces other pressures. Learning outside of traditional school hours does not remove the need for teachers. If all that students needed in order to learn was information, schools would have closed once Google and high-speed broadband arrived on the scene. Students continue to need support, a human explanation, encouragement to work through a problem, and insight to take them through a mental barrier to get to the next stage of problem solving.
Yet if significant learning is happening outside traditional school hours, who is available to support it? Do we expect our teachers to be online and available at all hours of the day or night? Or do we expect our students to continue independently, even when they encounter difficulties? The ad hoc network of peers that some students have may not be able to provide the rapid, deep, expert insights that are needed.

Graph 2 (click for full size) – Student logons to the OLE after school. (Classes finish at 3.15pm). This is a snapshot of the number of students logging in to the system at a particular time. It is not the total number of students using the OLE at that time.

My organization has provided a solution to this problem. We have provided access to online tutors — accessible via a link in every course in our OLE (online learning environment).
This is an external service where students can get the support that they need; our teachers do not need to be available all night. There is no need to navigate to a separate web site, or to remember yet another user name and password. The external service has the student’s name, year level and the course they navigated from passed to them as part of the single sign on process (via LTI integration). It couldn’t be easier. (My school, which is in Australia, uses yourtutor, a local company that works with both secondary and higher education institutions. There are similar services for schools stateside, such as Tutor.com, although I personally cannot vouch for them).

The front page of the external support service showing the hours when it is available. This screen shot was taken on a Saturday afternoon; the service is open during the hours when many students study, rather than being available 24/7.
Usage of the system is consistent, has been growing in the past year, and has received good feedback from students.
Some comments from students include:

• “[xxxxx] was a great tutor and was very helpful. Described what he meant and made sure I understood.”
• “My tutor was very helpful and wasn’t hesitant to give examples.”
• “Patient with me and helped me find some information on what I was stuck with.”

The online tutors do not simply answer a question; they instead act as teachers to guide students to an answer. Students can now gain the help they need, when they need it, teachers can have the out-of-hours break that they need, and the school can be confident that they are supporting both their students and their staff.
Peter West is Director of eLearning at Saint Stephen’s College in Australia. He has over 15 years’ experience leading K12 schools in technology enhanced education, particularly blended learning using online learning environments. He can be contacted at

Economically disadvantaged district, facing recruiting difficulties, found online therapy resources

Although districts are required to provide students in need with special education and related services such as speech therapy, many face obstacles in doing so.
One such school district, Lone Pine Unified (LPUSD), an economically disadvantaged district near the California-Nevada border, found it hard to recruit and retain speech-language pathologists (SLPs) because of its location.
To overcome this challenge, LPUSD chose to use online speech therapy through PresenceLearning and is seeing great success.

“Research shows that socioeconomic status is the number one statistic in predicting overall student and school district underachievement, and approximately 70 percent of our students are socioeconomically disadvantaged,” said Dr. Sean A. Cianfarano, Superintendent of LPUSD. “However, with PresenceLearning and our pre-academic early intervention efforts spearheaded by our excellent educators and support staff, we are now beating the odds at LPUSD.”
After the 2013-2014 school year, LPUSD was one of 10 districts to receive PresenceLearning’s Award of Excellence. Of the nearly 1,000 schools PresenceLearning served that school year, the award was given to those districts with the highest percentage of students who improved one level or more in spoken language production and spoken language comprehension on the Functional Communication Measures (FCMs) scales during the school year.
Although he was skeptical of its effectiveness when he first moved to the school district in fall 2014, Superintendent Cianfarano was personally won over as he saw how PresenceLearning positively impacted his son Rocco.
While enrolled in Pre-K at his previous district, Rocco’s teacher told his family that he was leaving off the first letter and sound of his words, thus indicating that he may need speech therapy. Once enrolled in kindergarten at LPUSD, Rocco started with PresenceLearning and his family found he flourished both in therapy and in the classroom.
“I would not choose a service option for our school district that we, as a family, would not choose for our own child,” said Dr. Cianfarano. “Early literacy is so important for young learners, but if the student cannot speak, it is really hard for them to be literate because it is all tied together. PresenceLearning empowers students to speak, but it’s more than that. It empowers students to be successful.”
Material from a press release was used in this report.

Students attending an online private school are eligible for college credit

The for-profit DeVry University has partnered with Connections Education to offer college courses at no cost to high school students attending International Connections Academy (iNaCA), an accredited, online private school serving students in grades K-12 worldwide.
Through DeVry University’s Passport2College program, juniors and seniors attending iNaCA can earn college credit while still attending high school. Students can enroll in such courses as Computer Applications for Business with Lab, Introduction to Business and Psychology.
“Passport2College is a wonderful opportunity for high school students to learn first-hand the college learning experience,” said Donna Loraine, chief academic officer and provost of DeVry University. “iNaCA students will be able to participate in the same academic learning environment that all DeVry University undergraduates encounter and obtain knowledge of how they can transition from high school to the collegiate level.”
Hannah Rinehart, director of school for iNaCA, commented, “More and more students are interested in taking college courses in high school.” In fact, the numbers topped 1.3 million students in the 2010-11 school year according to the most recent survey on the subject by the National Center for Education Statistics (NCES). “We are excited to bring opportunities like this to our students.”
Passport2College will launch for iNaCA students in the 2015-2016 school year.

As learning becomes more accessible, credit recovery programs are evolving

Online learning is playing an increasingly important part in credit recovery for students with a variety of academic needs, according to a new report from the International Association for K-12 Online Learning (iNACOL).
Credit recovery solutions often lower the bar for student performance as a result of pressure on school administrators and policymakers to “fix” graduation rates, authors Allison Powell, Verena Roberts, and Susan Patrick note.
Many online credit recovery solutions tout low costs but require only low levels of teacher involvement and often don’t use much rigor when asking students to demonstrate proficiency, according to the report.
Here’s where competency-based education comes in. Strong CBE programs will help students focus on their skill gaps, catch up, and stay on track for graduation. This intervention occurs before a student has failed an entire course.
New Hampshire has what the authors call one of the boldest CBE efforts. The Virtual Learning Academy Charter School is a charter school that also serves as the state’s virtual school. Its supplemental online classes include 62 “competency recovery” courses let students take an entire course or allow them to focus just on the competencies they did not pass. Students work with their parents and teacher to determine their individual learning pace.
“Competency-based learning gives students the opportunity to complete lessons that demonstrate their mastery of content as well as the support they need if they are having difficulty with specific content,” the authors wrote. “A true competency-based approach requires the students to advance upon demonstrated mastery—often through a ‘performance’ of demonstrating
the competencies and creating evidence of the deeper knowledge, skills and dispositions acquired.”
“Research shows that more than 75 percent of school districts use blended and online learning for expanded course offerings and credit recovery,” said Allison Powell, iNACOL Vice President for New Learning Models. “The case studies in this paper provide guidance to educators in helping over-age, under-credited students to catch up and get back on track to graduate.”
Susan Patrick, President and CEO of iNACOL, said, “Millions of students are still not completing high school, causing them to face increasing challenges throughout life. When students have struggled, online learning is a tool that can open up new pathways to success—students can find alternative ways to learn and to graduate, while also developing new skills for success in life.”
To read the report in its entirety and for more details about the state of online learning for credit recovery, click here.

FuelEd, Vidalia City Board of Education open full-time online school for Georgia students

The Vidalia City Board of Education (Ga.) has partnered with personalized learning provider Fuel Education (formerly Aventa Learning) to launch a new full-time online learning program for K-12.
The public, full-time online school, Vidalia Academy, offers students across the state of Georgia the opportunity to learn in a flexible educational model that is tailored to each student’s needs.
Accepting enrollments for the 2015-2016 school year through the end of this month, Vidalia Academy will be able to provide thousands of students with personalized learning through an extensive catalog of standards-based online curriculum, instructional services from highly qualified, state-certified online teachers, powerful course customization and other technology tools, and a host of support resources, all provided by FuelEd.
“Vidalia City Schools selected Fuel Education because of their proven ability to partner with schools to help them effectively launch, grow, manage, teach, and support successful online learning programs,” said Randy Rodgers, Director of Virtual Education for Vidalia Academy. “As a public school leveraging an innovative model, we believe that together with FuelEd the Vidalia Academy can offer more students across Georgia with the best education possible.”
For middle school and high school, Vidalia Academy will use FuelEd’s PEAK personalized learning platform, an open technology platform that provides a single, unified view of online and blended learning activities across multiple solutions for administrators, teachers, and students.
PEAK provides intelligent reporting and analytics to help districts reduce system complexity and simplify administration as they adopt more digital and online learning solutions. To differentiate instruction, teachers can use the PEAK Library to customize courses using FuelEd content, teacher-created content, open education resources, or other third-party content.
Fuel Ed’s full-time school solution also includes benchmark and formative assessments; an anti-plagiarism tool; a web-based counseling system; and a variety of live and online student and parent resources available through the Strong Start program. To learn more, watch this video or read this case study about FuelEd’s partnership with Miami-Dade Public Schools.
Gregg Levin, Fuel Education’s General Manager, said, “We are very excited to partner with the Vidalia City Board of Education as they make a new, innovative education option available to students across Georgia. With the experienced staff at Vidalia Academy, and Fuel Education’s experience providing online learning solutions to thousands of school districts, we look forward to helping Vidalia Academy personalize learning and improve outcomes for more students.”
Parents and students who live in Georgia and are interested in the new school can visit the Vidalia Academy website for more information. The school will be accepting enrollment applications through September 28, 2015.
In addition to full-time schools, FuelEd supports districts with a variety of online and blended programs, ranging from catalog expansion for low-enrollment or hard-to-staff courses, to hospital/homebound education, full-time school programs, language exposure and learning, alternative education, remediation and kindergarten readiness, among others.

New white paper explores effective instructional models and course customization benefits

A new research report from Arizona State University (ASU) focuses on various evidence-based instructional models and strategies integrated within courses from an online curriculum provider in order to determine if they lead to increased student achievement and engagement.
Research conducted by ASU’s Mary Lou Fulton Teachers College and Technology Based Learning and Research division examines whether the instructional strategies put into practice within Odysseyware courses consistently demonstrate the largest effect of success as a supplemental instructional strategy, especially when implemented within a blended learning model.
Odysseyware aims to provide a learning solution for schools seeking the flexibility and customization of online courses, as well as for those looking to offer students a virtual learning environment. On average, students taking partial or entire courses online outperform students taking the same course solely through face-to-face instruction.
Titled, “A Research Report: Odysseyware Instructional Design & Strategies,” this research report provides an overview of research conducted in these areas:
• Transforming the learning landscape with pedagogical flexible models
• Standards-based, personalized learning using customization
• Systems of assessment, instruction, intervention, and monitoring tools
• Use of frequent, meaningful interactions and embedded feedback
• Interactive content including visualizations, virtual labs, and simulations
“By 2016 a projected 5 million students will be enrolled in online courses. Many schools have a difficult time finding a standards-based, effective online solution that is easily customizable and adaptable to learning models such as blended learning,” said Odysseyware President Beth Te Grotenhuis. “We are extremely proud of the content we create and take great care in doing so. This research shows that with careful implementation planning, professional development, and adequate resource planning, student engagement and success with increase.”
Material from a press release was used in this report.