Rich Lewis

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• Rich Lewis
• Carrollton-Farmers Branch ISD
• Virtual Campus Team
• 2008-2009

Building a Better Hybrid!
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What is the Virtual Campus?

• Mission Statement
• To promote student achievement at the highest
  levels through flexible, online learning
  opportunities that meet C-FBISD, Texas and
  national standards.

flexible
online
learning
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We love mission statements but really what is
the Virtual Campus?

• Online Tools for Teachers
• Podcasting- student and teacher produced
• WebEx- online professional development and
  collaboration tools
• Moodle (Modular Object-Oriented Dynamic Learning
  Environment) LMS
• Training teachers to implement Moodle in their
  classes
• Supporting online Staff Development
• Universal Technology Access Program (UTAP) No
  child left offline

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Virtual Campus okay, but what about the
students?

• Online Courses Tuition-Based Model
• Health, P.E. Foundations, BCIS, Comm. Apps.
• Other Courses based on Campus Request
• Foreign Languages, AP Courses
• 2007-2008- 550 enrollments
• Online Curriculum- Hybrid Model
• UT-ASKME / Moodle online Algebra I, Geometry
• Wireless Classroom Environments
• 160 middle and high school students
• THSP Exemplar Program

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Building a Better Hybrid or the present and
looking forward

• The fundamental reasons for implementing hybrid
  courses were and still are sound

but quality hybrid
courses rarely come out of the box!

• We discovered that simply putting content online
  was not the solution it was merely a first step.

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Taking the hybrid model beyond a strict content
focus

• From a content perspective, UT-ASKME is a great
  curriculum for mathematics. The way it is
  implemented it requires a very mature, self aware
  student who is highly invested in his/her own
  learning in order to be successful.
• (eh-hem, not the average public school secondary
  math student? Not in school 1.0 at least!).
• Our goal this year was to take the core
  curriculum and make it a more collaborative and
  dynamic experience

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Enter Moodle

• Moodle (Modular Object Oriented Dynamic Learning
  Environment).
• As defined on Wikipedia, Moodle is a free and
  open source e-learning software platform
  designed to help educators create online courses
  with opportunities for rich interaction.
• Suddenly the world of chats, blogs, discussion
  forums, wikis, journals, YouTube-like video
  publishing, instant feedback, and adaptive
  lessons was our within our grasp.

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We love Moodle!

• Feel free to profess your love for your choice of
  LMS, Wiki, Blog, or Web 2.0 tool dé jour it
  really doesnt matter
• What matters are the ideas, strategies, and best
  practices for which there are a multitude of ways
  to implement. Im not in the business of selling
  a product!
• But we do love Moodle, and thats what weve been
  working with, so.

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Improving Feedback

• Automating specific, meaningful feedback on
  student performance

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Improving Synchronous Collaboration

• Online Chat Sessions
• Used for bridging gap in video conferenced
  classes
• Virtual Tutorial sessions.
• Transcripts of sessions are saved and archived.

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Improving Synchronous Collaboration

• WebEx
• Used for content-rich collaborations
• Insta-Quizes
• DimDim
• Open source collaboration

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(No Transcript)
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Improving Asynchronous Collaboration

• Discussion Forums
• Used for general discussion.
• Q A Forums used for Group Guided Practice

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Improving Asynchronous Collaboration

• Wikis
• Used for group projects
• Class ownership of shared resources such as a
  Glossary

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Improving Students Sharing

• Journals
• Used as a Learning Log

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Improving the Sharing of Student Creativity

• Student created problems

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Improving the Sharing of Student Creativity

• VoiceThread - Students sharing solutions

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Improving the Sharing of Educational Apps

• Flash applications
• Virtual Algebra Tiles

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Built-in benefits to Moodle

• Review Exercise results (a.k.a. Leader Boards)
  to motivate students to perform well.

• Built in calendar to help pace students

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Virtual Campus Assessments

• Student Achievement Data
• District Benchmark Assessments
• Math TAKS results
• End of semester and final exam data
• Completion rates for online courses
• Students Survey Data- www.Surveymonkey.com
• Moodle and Webex- online quiz and survey
  responses

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2008 TAKS Performance District/Campus/Hybrid
Model

• Of 137 total students in Hybrid Model classes (HS
  and MS), we had a 97.1 completion rate.

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• Rich Lewis
• Carrollton-Farmers Branch ISD
• Virtual Campus Team
• lewisri_at_cfbisd.edu

Thank you!!!