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The 4 Keys to a Successful Online School

January 28, 2012 By Leave a Comment

For Broward Virtual School’s Evelyn Weaver, building a successful virtual learning environment begins with four key components.

  1. The acquisition of mission-critical tools that foster collaboration and enable effective communication;
  2. The implementation of a flexible, focused curriculum that can be tailored to the individual student;
  3. The relevant, timely, and in-depth training of all stakeholders, including administrators, teachers, and parents; and,
  4. The development of an immediate, effective technical and academic support system.

Ultimately, Weaver told attendees at the FETC 2012 National Conference Wednesday, true success requires “a partnership between the curriculum provider and the local virtual school,” focused on delivering high-quality, individualized learning.

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Some lessons for virtual learning

December 10, 2011 By Leave a Comment

We are just at the start of the virtual learning movement, and there is so much promise in the short term regarding access to high-quality content, targeted instruction, peer tutoring and resulting stronger socialization around academics (rather than who’s cool and who’s not). Long term, virtual learning has more muscle to grow organically than other reforms in the past, given that a large group of virtual learning vendors are aiming to meet the needs of the individual market. As a result, VL is not subject to the whims of policymaking (and the politics behind it).

But policy will rear its head. The fault lines around how best to teach kids how to read, conceptual understanding, and what should be in the standards and curriculum are all important topic well into a virtual future.

And politics will come. It is unavoidable. The NY Times was to run an expose by Stephanie Saul, the Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist who has spent much of her career at the Times on the pharmaceutical industry and fertility treatments, on the well-known digital learning company K12. Many in the school choice movement saw the article as a likely hatchet job.

All I can say to school reformers who support digital learning is: Such articles and such scrutiny are going to come. It is inevitable and ultimately it is good.

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Neighborhood elementary schools must drive district’s future

July 16, 2011 By Leave a Comment

Neighborhood elementary school buildings should become year-around virtual learning centers. By keeping the library/computer areas open, students below grade level could continue to make progress and high achievers could be pushed even further. Through the use of existing programs elementary students could teach their parents English. It’s a win-win situation.

Best of all, these changes can be made within existing resources. There’s NO NEED to increase taxes! It requires a 3 percent reallocation of existing funds. That’s something most organizations could accomplish without a blink of an eye.

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Bill would expand virtual schools in Florida; educators ask if it lowers standards

April 6, 2011 By Leave a Comment

TALLAHASSEE — Florida children could spend more time interacting with a computer screen than a real live teacher as lawmakers seek a vast expansion of virtual learning in public schools.

A Senate committee unanimously approved a measure Tuesday afternoon that would create virtual charter schools, let students sign up for the online courses with or without the school districts’ permission and allow companies anywhere in the world provide online courses to children in kindergarten through high school.

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Race to Top Winners Work to Balance Promises, Capacity

March 31, 2011 By Leave a Comment

In Florida, district and state officials are working furiously toward a June 1 deadline to finish teacher-evaluation plans that will be based in part on students’ growth in achievement. The state also is negotiating a $20 million contract to pay for new charter schools in the feeder networks of the state’s persistently low-performing schools.

Also in the works for Florida are contracts to align a student-tutorial tool with academic standards under the Common Core State Standards Initiative, and another contract to bring virtual learning to gifted and talented students in the STEM subjects: science, technology, engineering, and math. In all, the state will manage 48 contracts related to the Race to the Top, budgeted to be worth $350 million.

In this first year, Rhode Island is working on its teacher-evaluation model, which is being field-tested in two districts and one charter school. The state is also developing training programs for teachers and administrators that will accompany the common-core standards.

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Pearson and Florida Virtual School Announce Agreement

November 18, 2010 By Leave a Comment

A private/public alliance between Pearson and Florida Virtual School (FLVS) will accelerate virtual learning opportunities around the world for millions of school students who have grown up smack in the middle of the technology revolution.

The new Pearson Virtual Learning powered by Florida Virtual School will offer schools throughout the US and across the globe more than 100 FLVS courses in all subject areas for grades 6-12, including advanced placement and career and technology courses. The virtual courses will be aligned to the new Common Core state standards.

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Harvard professor talks education reform in Steamboat

August 6, 2010 By Leave a Comment

Peterson said a new “virtual learning” system would become more prevalent in the U.S. in the future as the costs associated with higher education continue to increase.

“Education is a very labor-intensive industry,” he said. “It has become an increasingly significant economic burden on the taxpayer to provide a system of education where we depend so heavily on paid labor.”

Peterson said online courses and new technologies could help alleviate that burden. He pointed to institutions such as the Florida Virtual School, which is projected to have had more than 200,000 course enrollments this year, as an example of the U.S. school system’s transition toward virtual learning. While he praised the ability to customize education, he said online education is still evolving.

“There are tremendous opportunities with online learning,” he said. “The courses that are online today come nowhere near the Hollywood movie level of technology that is conceivable if you put tremendous resources into the process.”

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