Webinar

"Using Data to Improve Achievement" is scheduled for Tuesday, Dec. 1, 3 p.m. to 4 p.m. Eastern time. Partly because of the No Child Left Behind Act and partly because of advances in technology, a major push is under way to gather data about student achievement that can be used to inform a wide range of educational decisions. Through funding from the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act, states are now being encouraged to create statewide longitudinal data systems to help track student achievement. But is the increased collection of student data yielding commensurate improvements in achievement?

Presenters:
Martha Greenway, deputy superintendent of organizational advancement, Fulton County, Ga., schools
Baron Rodriguez, the director of state data systems, Data Quality Campaign

Please make sure to test your computer before the event. An on-demand version of the webinar and all PowerPoint presentations will be available within 24 hours of the presentation. No phone is required to participate in the webinar. The event is not closed captioned.

eLearning

RALEIGH – Gov. Bev Perdue today announced the launch of eLearningNC.gov, the entry point to all the eLearning resources North Carolina has to offer. The new web site will provide an easy one-stop-shop for any North Carolinian, from K-12 students to life-long learners, who wants to take advantage of online learning such as the NC Virtual Public School, online courses from community colleges or universities, and online career building. eLearningNC.gov was created by a partnership between the Office of the Governor, the North Carolina Education Cabinet, and the North Carolina eLearning Commission.

About K-20 online education in North Carolina:
• The NC Virtual Public School offers 106 online courses and has more than10,600 high school students enrolled in Fall 2009.
• The UNC System offers more than 200 online degree, certification or licensure programs across 17 institutions, while North Carolina Community Colleges offer more than 138 online degrees, certifications, programs and diplomas through their 58 campuses statewide.
• In 2008-2009 more than 74,000 students enrolled in eLearning courses in our 17 UNC System institutions and more than 131,600 students enrolled in eLearning online courses in our 58 community colleges, many students taking more than one online course per semester.

Saving Email

Beginning next month, Louisiana public schools will be required to document all electronic communication that occurs between teachers and students. The new law will even require tracking exchanges initiated by students to teachers via personal devices the schools don't own. This first-of-its-kind state law is intended to improve student safety by holding educators accountable for teacher-student communication, but many educators fear it will have a chilling effect on such communication outside of school. According to the law, Louisiana public schools must develop and implement policies that comply with the measure by Nov. 15. These policies must:

- Define electronic communication;

- Require that "all electronic communication by [a school] employee ... to a student" use only "a means provided by or otherwise made available by the school system for this purpose," and any other communication not school-approved must occur only with a member of that student's immediate family (and this must be authorized by the school board);

- Specify that any communication to a student from a school employee, or from a student to an employee using means outside of the ones provided by the school, must be reported by the teacher, and records must be kept of the communication for a period of at least one year;

- Specify the disciplinary action to be taken in case of a failure to comply;

- Provide a means for reporting and investigating any failure to comply, including reporting the case to the police;

- Provide a means to inform all employees of the new policies; and

- Inform the student's guardians that they may choose not to have their child contacted by a school employee unless the communication is directly related to the child's education services and is sent to more than one student in the school.

The measure also states that no local public school, city, parish board, or member of the board shall be "civilly liable for any electronic communication by an employee to a student that is prohibited" in the law.

In summation, the law states that school districts must monitor employee-student communication that occurs via eMail, text messaging, online social networks, cell phone, landline telephone, and even fax transmissions.

Teacher Websites

Lubbock, TX Independent School District parents probably never dreamed as high schoolers of how closely they would someday follow their own children's classwork.
But parents today can keep up with their children's grades, homework assignments, class projects and test dates online through teacher Web pages. They can even follow a few of the same lectures their children hear in class. Lubbock-Cooper teachers must keep Web pages and update them at least once a week. Parents receive e-mails at the first of the school year inviting them to join the Web pages of various classes. New e-mails arrive every time a teacher updates a Web page with what the students are doing in class or electronic copies of notes, handouts and reviews. Parents who register for parent accounts can attach all of their children, Henderson said. If they have three children on different campuses, they can follow all of their children on the same account.

Use of Weblogs: A computer attached to the board, which resembles a large flat-screen television screen, records lectures and what a teacher writes on the board with special colored styluses. The computer publishes the lectures to the teacher's Web page. If a student misses class or didn't understand a particular math concept, the lesson can be accessed through the Web page.

Class Assignment 10/21

For our October 21 face-to-face class your assignment is as follows:

In the role of principal of a school, you will make a presentation of no more than 5 minutes, (plus 3 minutes for Q&A) on your choice of a new technology (hardware, software or other) that you would like to have implemented at your school. You will prepare a one page handout for the class addressing the rationale for purchase, projected usage in your school, and strengths and weaknesses of the application. Your presentation should be developed as if you were presenting to senior district level administrators.

Virtual High Schools

Enrollment in North Carolina's virtual high school has surged from 8,800 last spring to more than 15,000 this fall. And administrators of the N.C. Virtual Public School, which allows students to take classes online, expect to enroll 20,000 students in spring classes. The idea behind online school is that students can learn anywhere they have a computer connection, including from home. Online courses have strengthened the offerings for students at small high schools, said Deborah Woodruff, Johnston County schools' executive director of innovation and school improvement. Advocates in the education world call distance learning the wave of the future, giving increasingly tech-savvy students the chance to take classes at their convenience.

But budget questions linger about this new wave -- specifically, how the state will pay for it. The courses are free for districts. "We have all we can handle," said Bryan Setser, executive director of N.C. Virtual Public School and Learn and Earn Online. "The key now is to think about the future, how we grow smartly." This year's budget of $5.7 million has not kept up with enrollment increases, and online teachers, who are paid per student, received less money this year. The school can also take up to $6 million out of a state fund for school technology. The legislature has asked the State Board of Education to suggest a way to pay for online instruction. The board has considered different proposals, including charging local districts tuition. The board hasn't given an answer. If it doesn't come up with a suggestion by a Dec. 15 deadline, the legislature has ordered the state controller to cut off the board's money.(THE NEWS & OBSERVER, 10/14/09).

Assignment #3

In order to prepare for our session on October 28 with Dr. Lane Mills about using test data and pivot tables, you need to visit the North Carolina Department of Public Instruction's website: http://www.ncpublicschools.org
and do the following:
Using the Toolbar:
Select: "Statistics/Data"
Select: "Reports of Supplemental Disaggregated State, School System and School Performance Data"
Select: "2008-09" (this will give you both 2007-8 and 2008-09 data)
Select: "LEA" (choose any school district of your choice by scrolling)
Select: "School" (choose a school of your choice that contains grade 3)
Select: "Reading"
Select: "3"
Select: "Type of Assessment and then choose "All"

A report will appear with the data you have chosen. Save the report to your Desktop and examine the data. Feel free to examine other schools and data for other subjects. This practice will enable you to better understand Dr. Mills presentation on the 28th. Email me if you have any questions.