Student Blogs

This has been a topic of interest in Orange county. We have no official policy on this as of yet. I do know that our Apple X serve where we have teacher websites posted, has built-in blogging. Right now, only the owner can blog, but it is very cool. To see what it looks like, visit one of my resource teacher's blog at http://teachers.ocps.net/weblog/lienj/

Jessica Lundsford

How are you dealing with this fingerprint nightmare? In orange it looks like this http://www.georgep.ocps.net/Visio-fingerprint.pdf with the exception that we do not now have to double check the sexual offender/predator database.

Paying online moderators

Has anyone established a pay scale for online moderators or facilitators? Are you doing it by class? enrollment? Let us know!

iPods

One of the discussions was around the use of iPods for learning. Is anyone doing anything with them yet? I did locate some links for ideas from one of my teacher's weblog, so here they are: http://www.apple.com/education/ipod/lessons/ and http://cit.duke.edu/about/ipod_faculty_projects_spring05.do

Developing Learning Portals/Learning Objects

In the distance learning meeting, they discussed the Orange Grove project and the Harvest Road Software that they are planning on using to create learning objects. Last spring, Nancy Barba (Broward) came up to Tampa to share their work with a product called Learning Village. It is an instructional portal where you can build, create, link and maintain curriculum. Broward has been partnering with Palm Beach and Miami/Dade to work together to build this portal. They are putting in their assets (training, lesson plans, curriculum, etc) so they can be all linked to standards. Nancy’s message was that if we all worked on this together, it would be a powerful piece that would provide best practice resources to our teachers. Imagine a teacher that wants to teach a particular benchmark that would go to the portal and find lesson plans, web resources, textbook alignment, and even a training video clip with a master teacher teaching the lesson. Broward is planning on breaking up their training pieces into learning objects. They have a great start.

The districts that attended this sharing session were Hillsborough, Manatee, Sarasota, Pasco, Pinellas, and I think Polk. Several curriculum supervisors and assistant superintendents attended. All of us were really interested in the project and saw the potential of us working together. It is a winning idea. We could save money and time and end up with a fantastic resource. We all have those resources already, but no organized way to access them.

What do you think? Are you doing anything like this?

Florida Distance Learning Concortium

I attended the Florida Distance Learning Consortium (FDLC) meeting on Thursday and Friday. On Thursday morning Harvest Road provided information on their software that provides a way of storing learning objects. This group has received funding for a project called Orange Grove, a project where community colleges and universities can begin to share courses. Harvest Road is a product they are looking at to actually store the learning objects.

Nancy Barba from Broward came up to Tampa several months ago to share a similar project that they are doing with Palm Beach and Miami/Dade. They purchased Learning Village from Riverdeep and are building their resources in Learning Village to align with SSS. It was an amazing presentation and the several districts that were there were all interested in the idea. It sure makes sense that we work together to share resources on things that will help kids. We are not in competition and it would be wonderful to put this together across the state to share what works. FDLC would love for us to join in their project.

The group also shared the contracts they were working on such as Academic.com, ElementK, Macromedia, Turnitin and WebCT. We might be able to benefit from some of this pricing and they are willing to do this. Everyone wins when we can all get it cheaper.

They shared the SRAB Teacher center The Southern Regional Education Board has assembled resources to help meet your unique needs in the SREB State-Teacher Center. From searching for a program or course to understanding highly qualified standards in your SREB state, preparing for a test, or finding a job, they are your one-stop shop. They provided the group with information as to how to export all course information to the site. From that site you can learn about Florida reciprocity of states in regards to issuing professional certificates at http://www.fldoe.org/edcert/level1.as

Friday morning they worked on their Bylaws. They are a K-20 organization but struggled with how to involve K-12. This sounds like conversations that we have had. John Opper and his staff do a lot for this group and they are concerned that they wouldn't be able to also support K-12. I suggested that maybe they needed a K-12 person on staff.

W. Eugene Gandy, Jr, Senior Assistant Attorney General, who specializes in general civil litigation, talked with the group about a company that has patents that relate to distance learning and how it is delivered. He suggested that this company may challenge some of the components of how distance learning is delivered. He also suggested that we when we enter into contracts and services to assure that we have adequate language to provide indemnity in the event that any claims are made against our districts. Rather than getting into detail, you might want to have your attorney contact Eugene (850-414-3300).

The National Center for Academic Transformation provided information on their projects to transform academic practices, improve quality, and reduce costs. You can learn more at their website http://www.center.rpi.edu/. Tallahassee Community College has been involved in a project to improve writing skills and shared their progress on a writing project which substantially changed how teachers teach and students learn writing.

David Booker from the College Center for Library Automation presented “Cool Tools.” His presentation was really thought provoking.
RFID- Think about a barcoding on steroids. Zebra Technologies offers RFID capabilities to users in a variety of industries, including manufacturing, healthcare, hospitality, retail, security, and warehousing. Zebra was the first company to introduce an RFID printer/encoder that programs an RFID chip embedded in a smart label, then automatically prints text, graphics, and barcodes on the label surface. Only these can be not only identify a project, but a specific product. These little chips can communicate. WALL-MART is already requiring some of its products to be coded this way. Imagine getting a message that a product has been put down in the wrong place. WALL-MART tracks consumer spending based on what products are left in another part of the store. People pick them up and then decide not to purchase it. You could eventually walk into the store and it would check you out automatically (credit card information stored internally) with a thumbprint. You might want to read more about this new technology.

He talked about Blogger.com and how they are using it http://floridalearningconnections.blogspot.com/. He said it was great to use for sharing information and even for project development. This has great potential and is free.

This is a great group and it may be something that we could connect to locally on a project. Palm Beach is working on a project and I will be seeing if we can do the same in our area. We could certainly learn from each other.

Now FCITL has our own blog. What a great way to share! Comments anyone?