Tag Archives: eLearning

eLearning Census Infographic: Districts Planning to eLearn

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Yesterday, CLRN published our second annual California eLearning Census report, a detailed look at how school districts and direct-funded charters are implementing online and blended learning in California. The report includes five, themed infographics and each day this week, we’re highlighting one on this blog. The entire report may be downloaded here.

While 46% of all districts and charters are implementing online and blended learning, we asked those that aren’t if they were currently discussing or planning to eLearn. While overall 26% said they were, the disaggregated data shows that 44% of unified (K-12) and high school (9-12) districts were actively engaged.

 

 

How eLearning will Save World Language Courses

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Much has been written about the value online and blended learning brings to rural schools. Given the small size of these schools, they’ll never have a critical mass of students to offer a variety of courses. Students will never have access to an assortment of Advanced Placement (AP) or world language courses, so eLearning provides an opportunity to enlarge course offerings for those students who need a rich and deep course catalog.

So, how does this play out where I live, Stanislaus County (pop. 514,000), which is in the heart of the central valley and just 90 miles from San Francisco?

Let’s start with our smallest town, Denair, CA 95316. Denair High School, with it’s 47% Hispanic and 38% white students fits the typical profile of a California high school. With a town population of just 4,000, Denair High School’s 361 students have few options when it comes to world language instruction.  They may take Spanish, Spanish, or Spanish. If they’re college bound, AP Spanish is on the menu too.  Would you like to take Japanese, Latin, or Arabic? Sorry, you live in the wrong district.

Just 10 miles to the north is Waterford, California, 95386. With a town population of 8,000, Waterford High School has just 613 students, including 47% Hispanic and 38% white. Students at WHS may take any world language course, as long as its Spanish 1-3 or AP Spanish. Want to take French, German, or Mandarin? Sorry, you live in the wrong Zip Code.

Ten miles north of Waterford is Oakdale, 95361. Founded in 1871, Oakdale sports a population of 21,000 and its high school’s 1613 students are 29% Hispanic and 65% white. While OHS has been a frequent winner of our county’s Academic Decathlon, their students have access to just two language selections: Spanish 1-3, AP Spanish, and French I & II.

How about Ceres, CA, our third largest city in Stanislaus County? Zip Code 95307 has 46,000 residents and two high schools. Ceres High has 1421 students who are 62% Hispanic and 27% white. Central Valley High has 1690 students who are 73% Hispanic and 16% white. Yet, CVHS students may only take Spanish 1-3 or AP Spanish. Ceres High students have those options plus German III and IV. Live in Ceres and like to take Mandarin. Sorry, your parents live in the wrong city.

It’s not much better in the county seat, Modesto. With our population of 201,000, we’re the 18th largest city in the state. Yet, students in Modesto’s seven high schools, which range from 1440 to 2500 pupils, don’t benefit from their larger district or school size.

Newly built Enochs High School, with its student population of nearly 2500, offers French I-IV, Spanish I-IV and AP Spanish.  Our newest high school, Gregori HS, with 1440 students, fares no better than Denair High, with Spanish I-IV and AP Spanish as world language options.

We could provide more examples of how small, rural schools will never have a critical mass of students to offer a diversity of world language courses, but, at least in Stanislaus County, your world language options are extremely limited whether you’re a student in a tiny town or if you live in an affluent part of the county seat.  The solution for all schools, though, is online learning. Whether a high school has 600 or 2000 students, all students should be able to choose the AP or world language course that meets their needs.  The Self Blend, where students augment a school’s course catalog with an online course that meets their needs, is the perfect solution.

Course publishers have long been on board. While CLRN’s new world language review site is first focusing on Spanish, French, German, Latin, and Mandarin courses (the CLRN Five), each publisher creates a variety of course options for their customers. K12,Inc offers the CLRN Five plus Japanese, AP Spanish, and AP French. Education 2020 and Plato/Edmentum also provide world language courses from the CLRN Five.

Online and blended learning have passed the tipping point and are here to stay. Now, it’s time to advocate both small, rural high schools as well as larger, urban high schools, to augment their course catalogs with online options.

Don’t Create a Lousy Online or Blended Course

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Online and blended learning, growing 20% to 30% yearly, have reached a tipping point. CLRN’s California eLearning Census, conducted between March and May this year, received responses from 30% of California’s school districts and direct-funded charters. While we found that 45% of all districts and charters are utilizing some form of online or blended learning, we were surprised that of those districts not currently eLearning, one-third were in the planning stages to create online or blended programs. Yes, online and blended learning are trending and many teachers and districts are jumping on the eLearning bandwagon.

 Flipped classrooms and the Khan Academy have received national attention as teachers place classroom lectures online and change classroom pedagogy to include project-based work. You may even be thinking of creating an online or blended course yourself. After all, you’ve taught for many years and you’re a master of your curriculum and teaching craft, so those skills should benefit you in creating an online course.

 Think again.

Remember how, during your first year of teaching, you spent countless nights creating lesson plans and units only to throw most of them away the following summer? Remember how difficult that first year was? Multiply that times 10 and you’ll have your first year of online or blended learning. I’m not saying, “Don’t do it.” I’m saying that you should go in with both eyes wide open, following the advice I’ve shared below.

We speak from experience. We know a lousy course when we see one. The California Learning Resource Network (CLRN), a state-funded technology service, reviews online and blended courses for their alignments to the Common Core standards, California’s original standards and to iNACOL’s Standards for Quality Online Courses, which we helped write. Under a new partnership with the University of California, online courses must be CLRN-Certified before U.C. will consider them for A-G approval. However, to date, only 25% of the courses we’ve reviewed have received our certification. So, if commercial publishers have so much difficulty creating a high-quality, engaging, and interactive course, what makes you so special?

By all means, dream large. Online and blended learning provide opportunities often unavailable in small and medium sized districts. Opportunities to take an AP course or any world language should be available to all students, not just those in large or affluent districts.  Begin with the end in mind, though.

Planning

Most successful projects begin with a thorough planning process that engages stakeholders, reviews research, and carves out a plan that solves a specific problem. Planning for online or blended learning is no different.

This year’s Keeping Pace , an annual census report and analysis of the online and blended landscape, includes a proposed 18th month planning process with specific tasks for each phase.  In the Systemic Planning stage, you bring together stakeholders and perform a needs analysis that asks: 1) What’s the problem you hope to solve? 2) What is your educational goal? 3) Who are the intended student groups? and 4) What are your district’s capabilities and desires?

That’s just the beginning, though, because before creating a solution, you also need to assess your technology infrastructure, your students’ and teachers’ technology skills, the availability of quality, standards-aligned resources, and teacher professional development.

But, assuming you’ve completed a planning process and targeted specific student groups or courses to affect, what’s next?

Normally, I’d suggest at this point a discussion about whether to build or to buy. Should you build courses from scratch (and do you have the capabilities to do so) or should you shop for quality courseware that you can pilot for a year or more?

But, you’ve already made the decision to create a lousy course, so let’s proceed.

Get Thee a Learning Management System

Whether you rent an existing course management system like BlackBoard or install an open source solution like Moodle or Course Builder, an LMS is a framework that contains your content, activities, and assessments, allowing you to track student progress and conduct online asynchronous and synchronous meetings. Whichever direction you choose, spend time mastering all the LMS’ components: installing curriculum, creating class rosters, embedding outside activities, and setting up discussion groups. Don’t start without an LMS, though.

Quality Content

Standards-aligned, engaging content can be purchased from a publisher, found in open source repositories, or created in-house.  With iNACOL standard A2 stating, “The course content and assignments are aligned with the state’s content standards..”, you want to make sure that the content you provide students not only teaches (demonstrates) a skill, but also provides students opportunities to practice and assess each skill or standard. CLRN’s reviews include these three components of each standard identified for a course.

Your textbook is not a course though. While textbooks are aligned with the standards and may include practice activities and assessments, placing your book online, be it commercial or open source, is amateurish, at best.

Quality courses will include text though, but not entire chapters printed screen after screen. The better courses CLRN have reviewed include portions of text mixed with video lecture clips, streaming video, simulations, games, and short formative assessments. Creating quality online lessons is a much more time-consuming task than creating face-to-face lessons. Provide ample lead-time to create online lessons.

Engaging Lessons

Online course standard B3 states that course instruction and activities must engage students in active learning, including authentic projects and activities that challenge students beyond knowledge and comprehension. Rather than focus primarily on multiple-choice tests for assessments, it’s best to provide students knowledge work where they create, evaluate, and analyze. Students should regularly participate in online discussion groups, be they synchronous or asynchronous.

Just What Part of the “Accessible” Memo Didn’t You Get?

All teaching and learning materials must be accessible to all students. Period. If you’re creating video lectures, streaming video clips, or providing narrated presentations, each must either have closed-captions or a transcript. Online standard D10, and the Department of Justice, expects it and your students deserve it. Sites like Universal Subtitles are easy to use and allow your captioned videos to play from their site, or you may download the time codes to upload to YouTube.

Professional Development

While you may feel like you’ve mastered your craft when teaching face-to-face, teaching an online or blended course requires a different skill set and mastery of different tools. In an online poll we conducted, online teachers recommended that newly converted online teachers master the following tools before beginning to create an online or blended course: 1) SlideShare or a similar online presentation tool; 2) Collaborative meeting tools and related skills to set-up and conduct online discussions; 3) Portfolio creation tools for students to assemble examples of their authentic work; 4) Synchronous presentation skills because teaching “live” to online students offers completely different challenges and requires new solutions; and 5) Universal Subtitles for creating closed-captions.

One avenue of professional development is the Leading Edge Certification (LEC) for online teachers. The 45-hour LEC course includes units in online pedagogy, building an online community, accessibility, assessment, and preparation. Based on iNACOL’s Quality Standards for Online Teachers, LEC provides an opportunity to become a highly-qualified online educator.

Online and blended learning are growing quickly for a reason. These courses can help personalize learning, allowing schools to vastly expand their course catalogs, and providing students the opportunity to learn any time, any place, any path, or at any pace. We understand your eagerness to provide an online or blended option to your students. Before jumping into the water, though, we just ask that you learn to swim. Anyone can create a lousy course. It takes time, talent, and perseverance to create a great one.

 

 

eLearning Enters Puberty

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It takes a village to raise a child.

Children are cute. We spoil them, tell stories about how perfect they are, and ignore their imperfections. We’re amazed at each new skill they learn: rolling to crawling; speaking their first words; potty training; and learning to read. We just love that they are in our lives.

And then they become teenagers, and their flaws become all too apparent.

In real life, there are two types of parents: those to see their teen’s flaws and work to help their child become a responsible adult; and those who turn a blind side to their child’s imperfections, preferring instead to complain about others who bring their child’s flaws to light.

And so it is with online learning.

Online and blended learning is about to leave childhood, where it often looked cute and cuddly. People would stop and complement how nice it was that eLearning had entered our family, making it more complete and providing comfort to our non-consumer students.

But, eLearning was a child, growing a little more each year; learning new skills while expanding in size. We all thought it was so special, this child that came into our lives. Like all children, we often ignored eLearning’s flaws, focusing instead on its specialness. Some didn’t appreciate our child’s behavior, though, and felt we should discipline it more. Many of us, though, wanted to create the conditions where eLearning could grow and thrive.

Yes, eLearning is special. So were digital cameras in 1999, just before its tipping point, but I wouldn’t ever want a 1999 version of a digital camera. We knew digital photography was special, and recognized it would change our relationship with picture taking. Still, 1999 cameras were low resolution, expensive, clunky, and had few features. We loved them anyway, while acknowledging their flaws. We had great hopes that, over time, they would mature into the healthy adult they are today.

And so it is with eLearning.

Online learning is entering puberty. We dotted on it as a child and saw in it such potential as an adult. Too many of us, though, continue to ignore this child’s flaws, even to the point of criticizing those who dare to point them out.  But children, disruptive innovations in their own right, become established sustaining innovations, growing and changing each year, up to and through adulthood.

As a teenager, eLearning’s limitations are coming to light. Many courses tend to be text-centric; their assessments primarily multiple-choice; and their activities rarely going beyond knowledge and comprehension. That doesn’t mean I don’t love this child. I do and I see the incredible potential this child has. However, if I want eLearning to mature, it’s my job as a parent, it’s our job as a village, to help this child mature. We all have a stake in this child’s future. How, or if, online learning matures depends on the type of parent we choose to be. A parent that continues to spoil the child, discounting flaws and turning a blind side to facts; or one that loves the child but sets the conditions and creates an environment for the child to grow and mature.

As one of the village members watching eLearning transition into adolescence, I see its great potential to be an incredible adult. I believe formative assessments will actually determine a student’s path through the content, reteaching using different examples or pedagogies and providing multiple learning paths until a student becomes proficient. I believe courses will have challenging, authentic activities, requiring students to create, analyze, and evaluate. I believe courses will include a combination of text, short lectures, rich media, interactive simulations, and online discussions. I believe that multiple-choice tests will be just one type of assessment in future courses and that assessment types will be determined by the skill being assessed.

More importantly, I believe our eLearning adolescent won’t reach adulthood unless we create the conditions for its transition into adulthood.That includes being frank about both it’s strengths AND its problems.

Disclaimer: Before moving to the Stanislaus County Office of Education, I taught English, Drama, and Computers at a junior high for 20 years. Each of those 20 years brought many examples of children transitioning through childhood into puberty. Some children were better prepared for the transition; some were ready for adulthood; and some, I suspected, would take longer to “bloom.” Still, my job as a teacher was to help my students, my customers, mature into responsible adults. Yes, teenagers have flaws: they’re awkward; they’re trying out friends; and they’re shedding childhood. They’re not perfect, though. We, teachers and parents, do them great harm by not helping them prepare for adulthood.

And so it is with online learning.

It takes a village to raise a child.

Get with it.

Virtual and Blended School Growth (and how charts can be really deceptive)

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Here at CLRN, we’re beginning to review the California eLearning Census data in preparation for a white paper to be released late summer. To augment current census numbers, we’re beginning to inport virtual school attendance data from California’s annual school census taken each October and released in late spring. The California Basic Educational Data System results for all schools can be accessed through DataQuest, which is where we found virtual student populations for the 14 virtual schools that didn’t participate in the eLearning Census. Being a snapshot taken in early October, it doesn’t reflect growth during the school year. For example, the October count for California Virtual Academy @ Los Angeles was 4897 while the spring eLearning Census report was 5100. Still, CBEDS & DataQuest allow us to track student attendance over time, which is the focus for this brief post and a taste for what you can expect in the white paper.

Let’s start with how attendance has increased at the 10 California Virtual Academies, all independent direct-funded charter schools managed by K12, Inc. Attendance in 2009/10 was 10,379, which grew to 11,256 in 2010/11, an 8% increase. This year, the Academies report 13,125 students, representing a year-to-year growth of 17%. The chart below tracks their growth.

Compare the above chart with those below representing growth at the Rocketship schools, direct-funded charters emphasizing the Rocketship rotation method of blended learning. Of the five Rocketship schools, only two have been open three years. Their year-to-year growth was 10% in 2010/11 and 12% this year.

Three Rocketship schools have been operating at least two years, and the chart below represents their 17% year-to-year growth, which is identical to California Virtual Academy growth. Being a two-year chart, though, skews the growth line.

How Not to Select an Online Course (and How Best to Select a Course)

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During the past 18 months, after I’ve delivered conference presentations about online learning, I’ve enjoyed the pleasure of answering questions from attendees as well as the opportunity to ask teachers and administrators about their online learning programs. In too many instances, I’m finding that districts haven’t thoroughly worked through a planning process that involved all stakeholders. Nor are districts carefully vetting online resources before purchase. Before we get to today’s sermon, I recommend you view a recent VW commercial entitled “Is it Safe?”

Jetta Fast

In this ad, we first see a young boy who is shopping for a bicycle asking the sales person,, “Is it fast?” The salesperson replies, “It’s got 10 speeds, my friend.”

The boy is a bit older and is shopping for a scooter. He asks the salesperson, “Is it fast?” and receives the reply, “It’s got a lightning bolt on it, doesn’t it?” As an older teen, he’s now shopping for a car and asks, “Is it fast?” and learns from the sales person, “Fast? I don’ t even know if it’s street legal.” In each case the consumer, in their search for a new product, trusts the salesperson as their sole source of information about the product.  Is it fast? Is it safe? Sure. Ok, I’ll buy it.

This kid’s an idiot.

Sadly, too many school districts act just like him when they select online courses.

Yes, they do.

Do school and district administrators make their purchasing decisions based on a vendor ‘s presentation?

Absolutely.

For proof beyond my anecdotal experiences, I direct you to the Technology and Telecommunications Subcommittee (TTSC) survey of districts about how they selected credit recovery programs.  The actual survey results may be found here:

Asked to “Describe the selection process that was used by your agency to choose your Online Credit Recovery Program”, the most popular responses were: 1) vendor demonstrations; 2) webcast; 3) regional collaborative; 4) using iNACOL standards; and 5) open bid to vendors. Most of these selection criteria are no different from asking, “Is it fast?” Basing a teaching and learning solution on either cost or a vendor demonstration is as irresponsible as the teenager who buys the salesperson story that a scooter is fast because it has a lightning bolt on it.

So, how should you buy a car?  First, given the importance of purchasing a new car, no one should rely on a single information source or filter. Just listening to a friend’s recommendation, a magazine ad, an online review, or a sales person’s pitch is folly.  Some of these should be among the initial filters that determine whether the car might meet your needs. Your friend’s recommendation provides you personal experience and the online review tells you the car’s strengths and shortcomings.  Once a car passes your initial selection criteria, your next step is to take the car out for a test drive. Sitting behind the wheel, you’ll discover how the car handles and whether its features are accessible and easy to understand. Is the car comfortable, does your family like it, and does it meet your needs? Then, and only then, should you begin price negotiations.

The same should be said for selecting online courses.

Perhaps your initial attraction to an online course or course publisher will take place in a magazine ad, through a friend’s recommendation, or in a conference exhibition hall.  We recommend that you that begin by examining how the course meets both the content and course standards. Is the math or English-language arts course aligned to the Common Core State Standards? Are courses from other subjects aligned to your state standards? Has an independent agency confirmed those alignments?  Online courses are more than just content, though. They also represent a learning platform with learning activities, lectures, formative assessments, and student-student engagement. To judge course quality, has the course been compared to iNACOL’s criteria for quality online courses? Doing so will tell you if the course content is rigorous, that activities are engaging and involve high order thinking skills, that students receive timely and frequent feedback, and that all materials are accessible to all students.

California, Texas and Washington all have online course review projects that review for content and course standards. The California Learning Resource Network (CLRN) reviews courses for their alignment to the Common Core State Standards. For each standard, CLRN evaluates whether the course demonstrates, practices, and assesses each skill. CLRN also compares courses to iNACOL’s 52 course criteria in the areas of content, instructional design, student assessment, technology, and course evaluation and support.

However, content standards and online course standards validation is just one filter you should consider when you select a course. Just as you would use Consumer Reports to narrow down your selections for your next car and CLRN to narrow down your course options, your next step is to visit the dealer to take a test drive. You don’t want to watch someone drive the car. Nor do you want the salesperson to drive. The best test drive is one where you take the car through a number of scenarios: turns, traffic, freeway, and parking. The same can be said of an online course test drive.

Ask your provider for both teacher and student accounts for the course. Most have demonstration sites where multiple test drivers are checking out a course, away from actual student data. Then, spend some time getting to know the course as a student. Select several units, complete all activities, and take the formative assessments. Now, be a gifted student who answers all the questions correctly. Do you find the course highly engaging? Are you challenged beyond knowledge and comprehension within the questions and activities?

Next, be a struggling student. Have trouble completing work. Fail the formative assessments. How does the course react? Does it provide alternative paths to proficiency or reteach using different examples or modalities?

Then, be a teacher, and check out the learning management system’s features.  Can you add content to the course? Is it easy to communicate with students, set up discussions, and find student grades? Are there a variety of assessments beyond multiple-choice tests and are those assessments matched to the content?

Yes, ask your friends what courses they use, check out CLRN’s content and course standards review, and listen to the publisher as they describe and demonstrate the course. However, you must conclude by thoroughly participating in the course as a student and as a teacher. Then, and only then, will you know if the course is suited for your students.

eLearning Strategies Symposium Call for Speakers

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Computer-Using Educators (CUE) and the California Learning Resource Network (CLRN) are pleased to announce our call for speakers for the inaugural, 2012 eLearning Strategies Symposium (eSS).  The symposium will be held at the Hilton Orange County/Costa Mesa on December 7th and 8th, 2012. Three-hour workshops will be offered on Thursday, December 6th. We invite you to share your eLearning expertise with K12 educators, administrators, policy makers, and industry representatives.

 Two session proposal windows are offered. During this Early Bird window, which closes April 27th, we’ll be filling two-thirds of the concurrent sessions. A shorter, Just in Time, proposal window opens mid-August and closes in mid-September for the final third. Speaker acceptances for the first round will be emailed May 9-11, 2012. All speakers will receive a complementary registration to the symposium. Industry-sponsored sessions must include a Corporate Partnership Application.

Symposium presentations should focus on one of eSS’ five strands:

  • Big Picture, which includes administration, management, evaluation, research, policy or advocacy;
  • Content (curriculum and online course development, best practices, accessibility, or instructional design);
  • Capacity Building (professional development);
  • Gear (tools, technologies, learning management systems, or application development); or
  • Pedagogy (engaging students, teaching and learning pedagogies, blended learning models, learning communities, or assessment).

Symposium presentations are one-hour in duration with one session each hour being live-streamed and recorded for future distribution. Speakers may opt-out of live-streaming.

With online and blended learning growing 20-25% each year and with more than 20,000 California students participating in virtual or blended learning, now is the time for a California conference focused on teaching and learning online. Please join us in Costa Mesa next December.

eLearning Strategies Symposium Call for Speakers

www.cue.tc/elearns

eSS Web Site

http://elearns.org

Twitter: elearns

Twitter Hashtags: #ess, #ess12