SITE 2013 – Networked Schools in New Zealand: Examples from the Virtual Learning Network

The twenty-sixth and final session that I am blogging from the Society for Information Technology & Teacher Education (SITE) International Conference is:

Networked Schools in New Zealand: Examples from the Virtual Learning Network

Michael Barbour, Wayne State University, Canada, Wayne State University, Canada
Niki Davis, University of Canterbury, New Zealand, University of Canterbury, New Zealand
Derek Wenmoth, CORE Education, New Zealand, CORE Education, New Zealand

Friday, March 29 2:10-2:30 PM in Bayside B
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This proposal describes a study into the development of virtual learning in New Zealand, specifically to identify examples of networked schools. Using a variety of data collection methods, the researchers identified four examples where e-learning clusters acted as a change agent to reform classroom instruction and how schools were organised. These included where teaching online changed teachers’ classroom pedagogy, allowing flexibility within the school timetable so students could enroll in courses regardless of when the course was being “taught,” a transformation of the role of the school-based teacher from a subject matter specialist to generalist responsible for facilitating students’ learning, and re-considering the physical space to accommodate student learning in a twenty-first century networked school.

As this is one of my own sessions, there are no notes from me. However, you can access our slides at:

http://www.slideshare.net/mkb/site-2013-networked-schools-in-new-zealand-examples-from-the-virtual-learning-network

SITE 2013 – CyberTruancy: Exploring Issues of Attendance in the Online Classroom

The twenty-fifth session that I am blogging from the Society for Information Technology & Teacher Education (SITE) International Conference is:

CyberTruancy: Exploring Issues of Attendance in the Online Classroom

Leanna Archambault, Arizona State University, United States, Arizona State University, United States
Stacy Bender, Minnesota Virtual High School, United States, Minnesota Virtual High School, United States
Kathryn Kennedy, International Association for K-12 Online Learning, United States, International Association for K-12 Online Learning, United States

Friday, March 29 1:50-2:10 PM in Bayside B
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Although mandatory attendance is easily determined in a traditional, brick-and-mortar school, monitoring and enforcing attendance and truancy in an online environment is perplexing. Despite the challenge, virtual schools have a duty to ensure that students who are enrolled are actually logging on, completing lessons, and “attending” classes in an online setting. This paper describes how attendance and truancy laws apply to online students and explores the notion of cyber-truancy using a policy analysis. Within the context of Minnesota Virtual High School, one of the first schools to develop online attendance policies, we explore the impact and significance of enforcing cybertruancy policy.

Kathryn introduced the session, and then – because she was mainly the methodologist on the paper – she played a recording of Stacy, who was the lead researcher.  CyberTruancy is essentially students who have unexcused absences from their online courses (i.e., not attending to their online course work – however that may be defined).  Each state, and in some cases each county, has different rules for what is truancy and what should happen if a student is truant.

In her recording, Stacy described why attendance was important – regardless of context or delivery model.  In the case of Minnesota Virtual High School, they use a “progress-based model” – essentially that students need to meet weekly progress expectations that is determined based or judged on a mathematical formula.  In the case of MVHS, progress in the online environment still needs to be translated into days to meet with the traditional statute requirements (based on the brick-and-mortar environment guidelines).  If students are not meeting expectations, specific and individual interventions are implemented.  Since implementing this process, MVHS has seen a positive impact on their course completion rate.

Stacy then provided examples of a specific student, using a pseudonyn to provide their stories and how this process helped those students.

They have developed a website to outline their policy and process (see http://mnonlinetruancy.weebly.com).

In terms of how to go about this…

1. Write an attendance policy that reflects progress-based attendance.
2. Create a tracking system
3. Implement interventions based on progress rather than time online
4. Get baseline data and compare as years go by
5. Education students and parents
6. Education other educators
7. Education county attorneys (and any others that get pulled in based on the statutes)

As for teacher education, Kathryn indicated that we need to education in-service and pre-service teachers about competency-based education (as opposed to seat-time models – a favourite item of iNACOL), the importance of tracking student progress and the ability to intervene when necessary, and attendance policies in each state and how these might be applied in an online environment.

SITE 2013 – An Exploration of Learner and Support Characteristics of Students Involved in Virtual Schooling

The twenty-fourth session that I am blogging from the Society for Information Technology & Teacher Education (SITE) International Conference is:

An exploration of learner and support characteristics of students involved in virtual schooling

Keryn Pratt, University of Otago, New Zealand, University of Otago, New Zealand

Friday, March 29 1:30-1:50 PM in Bayside B
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In New Zealand, students are increasingly taking subjects via virtual learning. Previous research has indicated that learner and support characteristics both play a role in determining the effectiveness of these forms of learning. This paper explores the experiences of two students who are involved in this form of learning. This exploration shows that students with a variety of characteristics can be successful at virtual learning, if they are provided with appropriate support.

Keryn began with an overview of New Zealand, the need and the development of rural distance education in the country, and the nature of the Virtual Learning Network clusters (like OtagoNet) – which is a one hour video-conferencing class each week and four hours of asynchronous instruction (and some clusters have a one day face-to-face meeting or eHui).

OtagoNet began in 2001, but the first courses weren’t offered until 2002 with 11 classes and 60 students.  In 2011, this had grown to 26 classes and 340 students.  Based on previous research in this setting, students wanted a quiet room with access to computers that had what they needed, and quick access to a teacher who knew the answers.

The study focused on two Year 11 boys.  Student F was a motivated, fairly independent, and was taking a course focus on what his future career goals were.  He saw learning in this environment as pretty much the same thing as being in a face-to-face environment, he had a friend in the course that was studying along with him; but he had to drop the course mid-semester because the school wasn’t able to provide access to the websites that were required for him to learn.

Student C was a dependent learner, not a strong reader, had struggled with previous distance courses, but the course was still focused on his future career goals.  The class that he was in was an unusually large course (n=30, compared to an average n=12).  The school did as much as they could in terms of support, and the eTeacher was quite responsive.  This student felt that the distance course was more difficult than his face-to-face courses, but it made him more independent, responsible and motivated.  These distance courses were the reason he stayed in school.  The skills that he was gaining in the distance environment, was transferring into his face-to-face courses.

In these two cases, you had a strong student who dropped out of his online courses because of the technical difficulties and a weaker academic student that the distance environment was making him a better student.  These cases suggest that the informal gatekeeping that often occurs in the distance education environment should be re-considered – as all students can succeed under the right conditions.

SITE 2013 – Exploring the Usefulness of Frameworks for Virtual Schooling: A New Zealand Example

The twenty-third session that I am blogging from the Society for Information Technology & Teacher Education (SITE) International Conference is:

Exploring the usefulness of frameworks for virtual schooling: A New Zealand example

Keryn Pratt, University of Otago, New Zealand, University of Otago, New Zealand

Friday, March 29 12:10-12:30 PM in Bayside B
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In New Zealand, students are increasingly taking subjects via virtual learning. There are a number of frameworks, guidelines and matrices available to support those working in this area. This paper explores how these frameworks are and are not being used by those involved in virtual schooling in one area of New Zealand, and their perceptions about how they are and are not useful. Current frameworks will then be adapted based on the results.

Keryn began with an overview of New Zealand, the need and the development of rural distance education in the country, and the nature of the Virtual Learning Network clusters (like OtagoNet) – which is a one hour video-conferencing class each week and four hours of asynchronous instruction (and some clusters have a one day face-to-face meeting or eHui).

The study was based on a need from the ePrincipal to create a tool that would allow practitioners to understand whether students were receiving “deep support,” and how those practitioners and schools within the cluster could improve upon that support.  While there are a number of frameworks that are out there, Keryn focused on the Learning Communities Online Handbook – and provided some background to the handbook.  However, the previous research – and well as some of the data from this particular study – showed that few people actually even knew that the LCO Handbook existed (and most felt that it wasn’t specific enough when they were exposed to it – how do we do X?).

Things that they did want in a framework was some kind of exceptional designation, for it to be a reflective tool, for it to be general enough for a variety of contexts, and if it could tie into reviews that they are already doing (in terms of paperwork and systematic examinations).  In terms of the actual tool, they wanted it to cover more specific aspects and they wanted each of the criteria broken down into the things to look for.

At present, Keryn and her group are using the existing frameworks as a basis for their instrument or tool creation that they are hoping to begin employing soon.

SITE 2013 – On the Ground Perceptions of a Virtual School

The twenty-second session that I am blogging from the Society for Information Technology & Teacher Education (SITE) International Conference is:

On the Ground Perceptions of a Virtual School

Mona Ristovv-Reed, University of Louisiana, United States, University of Louisiana, United States

Friday, March 29 11:50 AM-12:10 PM in Bayside B
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Virtual learning is fast becoming a common means of public education (Allen & Seaman, 2007, 4). The U.S. Education Department (US DOE) released its first guide for evaluating online learning July, 2008. More recently, the US DOE (2012) urged K-12 education to adapt and adopt online education to increase it productivity. Many school districts are providing online summer school in lieu of traditional ground classes, allowing high school students to keep up, catch up, or get ahead in their courses. Currently, all 50 states have virtual learning at various levels of involvement. Louisiana’s own online school is known as the Louisiana Virtual School (LVS). LVS provides classes to students within their own schools allowing students to take many courses that were not available at their schools. These students are monitored by facilitators at their schools who are certified teachers, standing ready to assist. This study was conducted to determine if LVS courses were perceived as equivalent to traditional courses by those closest to the virtual program, the on-the-ground- facilitators.

Mona began by informing us that she was a doctoral student who was defending her dissertation next week (although this study was not her dissertation study, to the best of my knowledge).  This was followed by a brief overview of the state of the field and the literature – typical growth model, with some of the neo-liberal claims about the benefits or affordances (not that I think she was coming from this perspective, just her read of what she saw in the literature).  Much of this literature was government or think tank documents, not the names you’d expect to find from the researchers in the field.

Mona followed this introduction with an overview of the Louisiana Virtual School; which is your typical statewide, supplemental program that has tended to focus on the bimodal nature of student enrollment (e.g., credit recovery and advanced placement types courses).  The study itself focused on the role of the facilitator.

The data was presented in kind of an odd fashion.  The presenter would provide a perception, which was data from the survey, and then what the presenter referred to as the reality (and I have no idea where this came from beyond the researcher’s own perceptions of the LVS and the literature).   For example, the perception was that students needed to be highly academic in order to be successful in the online environment.  The reality was that the LVS students came from a range of ability levels.  No real reference as to which students were actually successful though.  Another example was that the facilitators had the perception that the online courses were not as strong as face-to-face courses.  The reality was that this was accurate in many instances, and the researcher used an example of foreign language classes where all of the instruction was video-based or some other form of asynchronous instruction – so students could be in an immersion environment, but never had to speak the language.  This isn’t exactly the reality of all of the instruction provided by the LVS – I would hope.

The entire presentation went in like this – with four or five themes from the quantitative data and another four themes from the qualitative data (and then skipped over some 30+ slides with more themes, so there was so much more she didn’t cover),  I won’t relate all of them – actually, I won’t relate anymore beyond the two examples above.