Virtual Schooling and 21f

My current frame of reference is Northern VA, so all of the Michigan regulations are making my head spin.  It's quite the alphabet soup of acronyms.  After reviewing all the regulatory documents provided, two major issues stand out for me:  money and staffing.  From my perspective, there are a lot of "what ifs" in here.  

Educational funding and staffing levels are based on enrollments, and this is serious business in my area.  If a school becomes aware that a student is outside the zone for a particular school, he/she is immediately sent packing.  If a particular department has to "destaff" somebody, due to an unforeseen drop in enrollments, it all comes down to a "last in, first out" system all dependent on when a particular candidate's initial signed contract was received at the district office--and these are time- and date-stamped in case more than one is received on a particular day.  Even after reading about the MI procedures for attendance/participation, I wonder how enrollments can be accurately determined and staffing decisions made in situations where sizable numbers of students are enrolled online.  If an online student's district has to cover costs of enrollment online (at least up to a given number of courses), how can each school really know what proportion of its budget to allocate for that versus toward face-to-face classroom instruction?  Do individual schools have to provide textbooks for online courses that have no local, physical equivalent?  I do not remember seeing that issue referenced in the docs I read, but it could get expensive considering that some AP textbooks can cost upwards of $200.  Could online enrollments have an adverse long-term impact on number of teachers employed?  If a student is expelled, and he/she opts to complete coursework online, is the student still considered enrolled in a physical school environment for budgetary purposes?  While each school has to provide every student with the same options in terms of technology, will having a computer lab at school really suffice--legally--for students who, for example, cannot physically do their online work on site?  The idea that every student must have a facilitator available at his/her school but that there is no limit on how many students can be assigned to any given facilitator seems really shortsighted.  I am trying to picture this in terms of "best case" and "worst case" scenarios.

I seriously doubt that most schools are ready for every available option to be implemented.  Virtual schooling offers the promise of tremendous opportunity, but undoubtedly there will be some growing pains.  Around here, that translates to "expensive" and "litigious."             

Online Schools: Hits, Myths, Other?

My understanding of online schooling has been built over the past several years of knowing my own (generally AP-caliber) students enrolling in such classes.  Mind --> blown after this week's readings.  That's not an exaggeration.

Going over the year-by-year reports showed me the tremendous growth of online schooling over the past several years.  I had no idea the exponential degree to which this has accelerated--the number of states offering online education, the policies involved, the numbers (and the diversity!) of students participating in online instruction, or the variety of ways in which online schooling is being used.  I found the scope of it to be staggering.  Here I am in a district that prides itself on the degree to which technology is integrated into instruction, and I had no idea that this was happening.

Myth #2:  Online courses are for gifted and talented students only.
D'oh.  I got this impression because those were the students I saw taking online courses.  They were the ones adding the "8th period" to their schedule or doing online coursework in the library instead of blowing off a free period as a teacher's aid (translation:  Starbucks go-fer).  It's good to know that this is atypical rather than the norm and that students of all kinds across the country are taking online courses.

Myth #3:  Online courses lack interaction.
This is another impression I got from students I knew.  Over the last several years, students taking AP Macro- or Microeconomics online have come to me with questions that their online instructors would not (or could not) answer.  They got frustrated with how many times they were laughingly told to "just Google it."  I'm encouraged to know that this problem is also atypical in the grand scheme of things.

Since I am currently completing an online degree, I think I can weigh in on this myth from my own experience.  All online courses are not created equal.  My tenured professors have generally been more interested in me, my work, and my progress than some adjunct professors who barely check in.  I can think of one particular professor who praised my work to the skies and then didn't remember me the very next term when I took another class with her.  I never had that happen in a face-to-face class.

Myth #10:  Online courses represent an “add-on” to already burdened school systems and teachers.
I got this idea from a couple of teachers I used to know who taught online classes in addition to their traditional courses.  It was the one more thing they had to deal with that was an additional source of stress and anxiety.  Administratively, online courses around here seem like a necessary evil rather than a positive good, and that is truly unfortunate for staff and students.  It sets the wrong tone.

I definitely feel like I now have a more complete picture of what online schooling currently is.  I started this unit without having any sense that I didn't know what I didn't know.  Nothing like plumbing the depths of one's own ignorance to get a sense of perspective.  Perspective is good.        

Online/Virtual/Cyber Schooling

Many high school students in my county (Fairfax County, VA) take online classes although I do not know anybody who currently teaches them.  There has been talk of some teachers eventually being hired to work exclusively online without having to set foot on actual K-12 campuses, but this is still a pipe dream.  

What motivates students to take these courses?  These classes allow students to make up educational deficits (which can be a serious problem for transfer students!), to get ahead (particularly in math), to take AP classes not otherwise offered, or to bulk up their transcripts (making them more attractive to top-notch colleges).

Where is this done?  I have known some students to do 100% of the work at home, but others will get an open period in their schedule which they will spend on a library computer to make sure they budget time during the day to do their online coursework.

How is this done?  My understanding--from students who either love or hate online classes--is that the courses involve a combination of materials, including recorded lectures, traditional worksheets or other exercises, and online tests and quizzes.  Not every course has a textbook provided to students.  Not all online classes are created equal.    

Week 7: Building & Refining My PLN

Blogs Added to Feedly:

• A Media Specialist's Guide to the Internet:  http://mediaspecialistsguide.blogspot.com/  I found this on an Edublog list of Best Library/Librarian Blogs of 2013, and after reading through the recent content, I can see why it made the list.  Not only is this loaded with lesson plans, game ideas, and presentation materials, but it also has nice how-tos for computer programs like MS Word, which students use all the time.  I am really surprised I have not seen this before.  

• The True Adventures of a High School Librarian:  http://www.nikkidrobertson.com/  This was another find from the same Edublog list as the blog above.  The very first post is a step-by-step explanation of how to set up flipping a classroom.  This is brand new for me, but it sounds like exactly what I was going for with the AP classes I've taught over the last several years.  Clearly I have a lot to learn from this woman.  

• Annoyed Librarian:  http://lj.libraryjournal.com/blogs/annoyedlibrarian/  I added this blog because the writer is dealing with the kinds of everyday issues and problems that I fully expect to be facing as a librarian in addition to "big-picture" theory questions.  Everything from access and funding to misconceptions of the job (librarian as babysitter, for example) and library evolution over time are covered just in the past few weeks.  Many of the comments made on individual posts are valuable in giving a useful, even broader perspective, which I did not expect.    

Twitter Users Added:

• AASL (American Association of School Librarians):  I will be joining this organization soon, and I use their online resources on a regular basis now.  We always say in education, "Don't reinvent the wheel." The AASL has many wheels.
• School Library Journal:  I pillage their book reviews on a regular basis.  Content provided by SLJ is typically quite good.
• YALSA (Young Adult Library Services Association):  YALSA is a respected organization within the umbrella of the ALA, and I find myself on their site all the time for ideas on how to conceptualize policy. 
• Fairfax County Library:  This is the local library system where I live, and they are apparently tweeting about library events on a regular basis.  It can be difficult to find that information on the library homepage, so this has potential.
• Phil Bradley:  He focuses on Internet technologies relevant to library science, and he offers reviews of a variety of tools and resources.
• Gwyneth Jones (The Daring Librarian):  I found her being followed by a librarian I respect, and when I Googled her, she turned up all over the map.  Her blog posts are being referenced by respected news outlets, which is another strong endorsement.

Honestly, I have largely neglected these sites since setting them up.  I have tried to minimize my online presence over the last several years because the school district where I live (and in particular the school where I worked for the past 7 years) frowns on teachers being too "out there."  (Even my instructional YouTube videos make no mention of my name or where I am lest the school demand they be removed from Blackboard.)  I have limited myself to what I really needed to use and not much else.  Keeping blinders on in this way, however, has probably not been the most professional solution.  If I make checking these sites part of my routine, I will be much more likely to do so--and that could be very useful to my development as a competent librarian.   

Week 7: Wikipedia, Etc. As Trusted Sources?

As a classroom teacher, I fought the Wikipedia fight for years.

The biggest problem is not the comparative accuracy of Wikipedia as a resource.  If that is a valid measure, then when I play Powerball and get 1 correct number as compared to an Easy Pick where I have no correct numbers, does this mean I have done particularly well on my own playing the lottery?  I hope not because whatever the prevailing opinion, I am still out $2 if I bought 2 lines and won nothing.

Teaching students to discriminate among various pieces of information is incredibly difficult as the teenage brain is oftentimes focused on finding the path of least resistance.  They have the same 24 hours per day that everyone else has, but the sheer volume of what they try to pack into the average day means something has to give.  For example, a class of my world history students, freshmen, were supposed to be defining/explaining a set of terms from their textbook.  This was a unit on a variety of Mesopotamian civilizations, so when "Nebuchadnezzar" showed up with the definition "a really big bottle of wine," I had a serious "Huh?" moment.  Entering "define:  nebuchadnezzar" in Google pulled that up as the first option, which apparently looked good enough--not good, but good enough.  There again is the comparative problem.  I have many examples of this as an ongoing issue, and most are not nearly so ridiculous.

What constitutes validity?  We teach primary and secondary sources, not tertiary.  Every tertiary source is going to have problems.  I never met a textbook that didn't.  I have been saddled with many textbooks over the years, but the absolute worst was laden with political bias which drove me nuts.  Students of history learn a variety of techniques to judge whether a particular work is worth citing--beginning with questions like who wrote it, what authority does the creator have, how is the writer judged within the context of the academic community, when was it written, on what sources was it based, can it be confirmed, and so forth.  The anonymous nature of contributors to wikis like Wikipedia make them automatically suspect, but the bottom line is that any encyclopedia is a tertiary source, which is well beneath older students to use for anything but quick reference or background reading anyway.

Several years ago, I read an online article explaining how Wikipedia entries were actually generating their own references.  A story, fact, or anecdote lands in an entry without citation.  Then it is used by a reputable journalist or writer, at which point that use is added as a citation to the erroneous information on the Wikipedia page.  Anybody else running across said story now has what appears to be a perfectly valid reference for it, and he/she cites it as authoritative.  This is a really frightening chain of events made possible by the online environment and the way wikis work.  

YouTube videos pose some of the same problems.  Obviously the quality and content are all over the place in terms of consistency.  I am a pretty heavy user of YouTube, and I have dozens of videos which have for years been embedded in my Blackboard site for my students to play at home without having to search for them.  Now, I know the value of the content I teach and the validity of the information I post to YouTube.  It's there for my students, and if that benefits other people, then that's just a bonus.  Occasionally I get really good questions from people that are worth answering in that forum.  The comments, however, can be really horrible!  Our YouTube account is in my husband's name, and he automatically bans people critiquing my body or making other nasty, personal remarks.  Most account holders just ignore the nastiness, which then poses a problem when a teacher wants to share a video laden with irrelevant or disgusting comments no matter the quality of the video itself.  The high school I recently left adopted the policy last year of requiring any video, regardless of source, to be approved before it is shared with students during class, on Blackboard, or through email.  Teachers grumbled about that, but it was better than the outright ban on YouTube that many schools in my county have in place already.

There are no easy answers to questions like "Should students trust information from non-vetted sources?"  The answer for me is a resounding, "Maybe."                        

Week 4: SAMR Model of Tech Integration

This particular model (Substitution-Augmentation-Modification-Redefinition) is new for me, but I had a couple of light-bulb moments reading through the steps.  I am taking this year off from teaching, which in retrospect was not a bad move, all things considered, but I previously spent 11 years teaching high school social studies.  I am going to focus my post this week on AP Economics, which is a specialty of mine...and my first love.  Okay, that's not entirely true.  My first love was a raggedy teddy bear named Gus, but that's a different story entirely.

Substitution:  Having students take notes during my AP class turned out to be a HUGE waste of time, so I posted all my notes on Blackboard for them to study before we covered topics in class.  (The incomprehensible textbook spurred this along as well.)

Augmentation:  Realizing how difficult it is for students to review completed AP graphs and remember the process of constructing them, I started videotaping short graphing review segments, posting them on YouTube, and embedding those in Blackboard.  This turned out to be a real godsend to students too busy in the afternoon to stay for help.

Modification:  When Snowpocalypse hit the DC-Metro Area a few years ago, students had a group freak-out over all the school they were missing.  I set up specific time blocks to be available for collaborative group hang-out sessions using Blackboard for them to talk to me and each other.  This definitely helped me to address their immediate concerns and for them to cooperatively work through their questions, thereby making it a much smoother transition once we actually got back to school.  Having these conversations in real time was a brand-new thing for all of us, and I got very positive feedback from my students and their parents.  (A drawback was that not every student participated.)

Redefinition:  I'm going to change gears here to World History I, which covers prehistory and runs through the early Renaissance for high school freshmen.  A standards-driven add-on was developed at Blackboard for Fairfax County Schools which allows teachers to share materials.  Students are required to take quizzes for each course unit; these are computer scored and automatically pinpoint which standards must be remediated before end-of-course testing.  These quizzes can be set to give students immediate feedback on their own answers, which they prefer.

I am not yet sure how I will use these tools in my future role as school librarian, but the current unit's materials certainly have my brain percolating.              

Week 2: Generation Edge?

I find myself approaching generation-based assumptions with a great deal of skepticism, probably because I know so many people who just do not fit the labels ascribed to their cohorts.  With that having been said, however, I have recognized over the years some of these trends in my own high school students (who have all been Millennials).  Students today have lower tolerance for long processes and are much more demanding of why specific content is important to them.  We used to say that students would check out any day when the dog and pony show did not show up--today I suppose the dogs and ponies better come in HD and Dolby 5.1 with co-op online multiplayer.

I have not worked with any kids from Generation Edge in a classroom context, but all my nieces and nephews fall into this group.  I find sweeping assumptions about them to be premature, but it seems reasonable for some of the trends having affected Millennials to continue and perhaps to intensify.  Using Prensky’s terminology, Digital Natives will be at the forefront of early adoption and  assimilate new technologies into their everyday lives quickly and as seamlessly as possible.  What I just said marks me a Digital Immigrant--not exactly a Luddite, but my penchant for historical research in dusty tomes supersedes my “need” to replace anything technological before it actually dies.  My husband and I have smart phones as well as a painstakingly rewired rotary telephone (which still functions just fine on our fiber optic phone service).

Prensky lost me when he launched into the discussion of methodology and content.  Prensky’s “legacy” content versus “future” content struck a nerve.  One can neither teach nor learn any of the fields listed by Prensky--”ethics, politics, sociology, languages…”--without “legacy” content.    His distinction is specious.  If this is an issue of theory and application, that has nothing to do with a past/future divide.  Also, the term “edutainment” makes me cringe, as does the idea that everything could or should be a video game.  My local school district, Fairfax, VA, (mentioned in the Unit 1 Conclusion) uses digital textbooks, pays for Blackboard, and pretends that every family has enough online computers at home for every child to do his/her homework simultaneously.  All the online content, no matter how accessible or relevant, makes no difference as long as computers are toys and not tools.  Being “tech savvy” does not amount to much if it means that students can send record numbers of texts each day but cannot tell the difference between a browser and a website

Much of the content in the videos has almost become conventional wisdom here in the DC-Metro Area.  Our hands are tied by the dual realities of trying to prepare students for jobs that do not yet exist while pushing content instead of skills.  Meeting students on their own terms makes sense.  One of the most important principles I learned as a beginning teacher was that we teach students, not content-area subjects.