Micro-Internships: Just A Gig Or A Promising Gateway?

As I say each week…  From the neo-liberal, educational privatizers masquerading as an academic body – so the term research here is used VERY loosely (as none of this actually represents methodologically sound, reliable, valid, or empirical research in any real way).

Check out this week’s highlights from the Christensen Institute.

Christensen Institute · 92 Hayden Avenue · Lexington, MA 02421 · USA

NCVPS E-lert Sept 19, 2019

An item from another US-based K-12 online learning program.

Sept. 19, 2019 Greetings, everyone! We have nearly 25,000 students enrolled with us this fall, and we have a lot of built-in support features ready to help them. If students need help of any kind with their NCVPS classes, they can visit the homepage of their course or our website for assistance. Help is never more than 2-clicks away! See our Student Help page for details about how students can find assistance through our website, the Virtual Support Center, the Peer Tutoring Center, and their NCVPS teachers. We also have help for advisors, facilitators, parents, and mentors. Current Enrollment Options We can help schools with enrollments throughout the semester. Even after our regular enrollment period ended, we have these options available: Transfer Students – We begin accepting transfer students after our regular enrollment has ended. Transfer students must be enrolled in the class at the face-to-face school and have a grade to transfer in with. Transfers are not for students new to the course. We must also have an available seat in the course to accommodate the transfer request. Open a ticket with our Virtual Support Center to begin the transfer process. Be sure to include the following in your ticket: student’s name PowerSchool ID# school name transfer grade course needed any student details that can help the NCVPS teacher Transfer options will remain open through midterms each semester. OCS Enrollments – You can still enroll OCS students into your existing OCS sections. We can’t open new OCS sections for schools, though. The same is true for your NCVPS intervention courses. Flex Learning – We have Flex Learning options available throughout the semester. Flex is designed for students who need flexible calendar options due to their particular circumstances. Visit our Flex Learning page for details on how to enroll. Spring Enrollments – Registration is still wide open for Spring 2020! Funding – If you use all of your allotments and still need to enroll, contact us. You can request access to NCVPS reserve funds after you’ve exhausted your allotments. Virtual Innovators Conference Join us at the North Carolina Virtual Innovators Conference! The NCVPS VIC2019 will bring us together to connect, share, and learn about online and digital learning. The conference is October 19, 2019, at Moore Square Middle School, beginning at 8:00 am. Register now! News IEPs and 504s If you have students with IEPs or 504s, please communicate the modifications to the students’ NCVPS teachers. The modifications are a shared responsibility between NCVPS and student’s school. Semester Success with NCVPS Visit our Semester Success with NCVPS page for details on how to get the most out of your semester. The page includes registration, grade, and student support details. 2019-2020 Academic Year Visit our NCVPS Now page for full details on registration, grade reporting, and student supports. Click on the 2019-2020 Academic Year tab. Reminders Request for Sections If your school needs a yearlong or early start section that we do not currently offer, open a ticket with our Virtual Support Center. We will see if we can make it happen! NCVPS Now You no longer have to wait for the e-lert to see the latest NCVPS updates. Just visit our new NCVPS Now page where we bring you live updates on the state’s virtual school. Bookmark the page or find NCVPS Now under our HOME button. View as Webpage | Subscribe THANK YOU!  ‌  ‌

North Carolina Virtual Public School | 1017 Main Campus Drive, Partners I Bldg., SUITE 3900, Raleigh, NC 27606

 

This Is The Email You’ve Been Waiting For!

An update from this Texas-based conference that has traditionally been quite K-12 distance, online, and/or blended learning friendly.

Earlybird Registration and Call For Proposals are now Open! Earlybird registration and call for proposals are now open for the 2020 TxDLA Annual Conference: Through the Looking Glass, A Wonderland of Innovation. Come be a part of the premiere distance learning conference in the state of Texas this spring, March 22-25 in Fort Worth, Texas. In a world where students and faculty are excited about technology, we will travel down a path of discovering a whole new world of creative advancements in technology. Students are using technology in every aspect of their lives and faculty are developing new and innovative methods to engage their students, so we want to push the boundaries and explore new ways to engage students using technology. We will focus on viewing innovation through the lens of the student, faculty, and partnerships. We want to encourage faculty by demonstrating the possibilities of technological advancement. We want to partner with corporations, government, non-profits, and museums to give glimpses into what innovation they are discovering. And, we want to assist our K-12 partners with innovative technology resources as they are striving for excellence in supporting their constituents. We live in a wonderland where technology and innovation are key – they take our classrooms to a new level for students as they prepare for jobs that don’t even exist yet. Join us in exploring new technology and changing education for the better. Have an innovative idea or presentation to share? Call for Proposals is open now! Register for the Conference Submit a Proposal Learn More Join us in exploring new technology and changing education for the better.

Copyright © 2019 TxDLA, Inc., All rights reserved. You are receiving this email because you opted in at www.txdla.org with the Texas Distance Learning Association.Our mailing address is: TxDLA, Inc. 823 Congress Ave, Suite 230 Austin, TX 78701

Article Notice: A Systematic Approach To Improving E-Learning Implementations In High Schools

This isn’t a new article, but I only came across it late this past week (so I guess it was new to me).

TOJET: The Turkish Online Journal of Educational Technology – July 2014, volume 13 issue 3

A SYSTEMATIC APPROACH TO IMPROVING E-LEARNING IMPLEMENTATIONS IN HIGH SCHOOLS

Bens Pardamean and Teddy Suparyanto Graduate Program of Information Technology, Bina Nusantara University, Indonesia bpardamean@binus.edu

ABSTRACT This study was based on the current growing trend of implementing e-learning in high schools. Most endeavors have been inefficient, rendering an objective of determining the initial steps that could be taken to improve these efforts by assessing a student population’s computer skill levels and performances in an IT course. Demographic factors were also taken into account while formulating these recommendations. Basic computer skill levels were measured through the administration of the Technical Survival Skill Test (TSST) questionnaire, developed by the University of Toronto. Academic performances were evaluated through several assignments designed by the IT course instructors. The main result of this study indicated that computer skill levels did have a direct correlation with a student’s academic performance level. The database was further parsed based on demographical factors, resulting in a set of recommendations to enhance the effectiveness of e-learning.

Keywords: learning management system, LMS, technical survival skill test, TSST

Neo-Segregation: Communities That Divorce Their School Districts

An item from the National Education Policy Center.

Neo-Segregation: Communities That Divorce Their School Districts View this email in your browser Thursday, September 19, 2019 Newsletter SHARE THIS EMAIL: In 2014, six suburban towns seceded from Shelby County Schools, the school district that includes the city of Memphis, Tennessee. One year later, the rapidly growing, semirural suburb of Pike Road seceded from Alabama’s Montgomery Public Schools, building separation from the city that Martin Luther King, Jr. began calling home in 1954. Meanwhile, in East Baton Rouge Parish, Louisiana, three secessions occurred between 2000 and 2010, and a fourth is pending. The secessions are part of a trend of neo-segregation in which predominantly White and relatively affluent areas divorce themselves from school districts that are majority-minority and have greater poverty. In total, 47 occurred between 2000 and 2017 in 13 counties, seven of which are located in the South. In a study published this month in the peer-reviewed journal AERA Open, Kendra Taylor of Sanametrix, and National Education Policy Center Fellows Erica Frankenberg (Pennsylvania State University) and Genevieve Siegel-Hawley (Virginia Commonwealth University) examine how the secessions affected racial segregation in these seven counties. They find that, on average, the secessions increased the proportion of racial segregation attributed to school district boundaries (as opposed to segregation between schools). For instance, in 2000, an average of 60 percent of Black-White segregation was attributable to school district boundaries. By 2015, this figure had grown to 70 percent. During that same period, the school districts themselves grew less diverse than the counties in which they were located. This is notable in part because earlier desegregation efforts in the South had greatly benefitted from its large, countywide school districts. In contrast, desegregation efforts in the North—where district boundaries usually stopped at the city line and where designers of sprawl created White suburban enclaves—faced daunting legal barriers because court orders generally could not cross district lines. In their new study, Taylor, Frankenberg and Siegel-Hawley also find that systems in which secessions occur enroll smaller shares of White students (33 percent) than does the average school district in the South (43 percent). The separations led to increasing rates of residential segregation in the counties with the most extensive patterns of secession. Nationwide, more than 120 communities have attempted to secede from their school districts since 2000, as found in a 2017 report by the nonprofit EdBuild. “If this trend continues, students of color increasingly will be sorted into schools with fewer resources, segregation will become more ingrained, and all students will have fewer opportunities to experience the educational benefits of a diverse learning environment,” Frankenberg told CBS News. NEPC Resources on School Segregation -> This newsletter is made possible in part by support provided by the Great Lakes Center for Education Research and Practice: http://www.greatlakescenter.org The National Education Policy Center (NEPC), a university research center housed at the University of Colorado Boulder School of Education, produces and disseminates high-quality, peer-reviewed research to inform education policy discussions. Visit us at: http://nepc.colorado.edu Copyright 2019 National Education Policy Center. All rights reserved.

The National Education Policy Center
School of Education, University of Colorado
Boulder, CO 80309