Finding Funding for Online Learning

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Finding Funding for Online Learning

• Bert Ross

Baltimore City Public Schools
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Session Focus

• BCPSS Blackboard
• A customer since 1998
• Academic Suite serving 7,200 teachers, 1,500
  staff and 90,000 students in 172 schools
• Big Question
• How does a urban district plagued by fiscal woes
  afford to provide the Academic Suite to its staff
  and students?
• Key Ideas
• To spend money you need to be able to save even
  more money
• Have a huge demand for the service
• Be aware of the value of teacher time
• Create a sense of excitement about the product
• Create an dependency on the services that can be
  provided using Blackboard

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Where do we get the Money?

• Initially a grant was used to fund the purchase
  of Blackboard
• Grant funds run out
• Local funds are budgeted
• Prove the need for the services
• Demonstrate the savings to the system to cover
  the costs

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Is there Evidence of Increasing Use?
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How does Blackboard Help Save Money?

• Printing
• All District Circulars
• All Curriculum Guides and Course Outlines
• We average over 1200 teachers per week accessing
  the Curriculum Guides Community
• Forms are Standardized and available at all times
• Notices are visible to the entire district

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How does Blackboard Help Save Money?

• Travel Time and Costs
• Curriculum writers worked in a course structure
  to develop the guides
• Reviews took place on line
• Mentors create courses to work on-line with
  teachers.
• Teachers from the Philippines are hired to teach
  in BCPSS
• We use Blackboard to provide a meeting place for
  the new hires to learn about Baltimore and
  communicate with each other
• Professional Development can be offered to staff
  without the need to travel to a single meeting
  place

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How does Blackboard Help Save Money?

• Providing Resources online
• Money is saved by not having to transport the
  copies of the curriculum guides to teachers at
  the beginning of the school year
• A multitude of resources can be made available
  and changed to reflect new subscriptions or
  curriculum focus
• Time saved by teachers being able to access the
  resources from a single point of contact has a
  significant value

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Medium Sized District has 35,000 students 2,300
teachers 50 schools At .50 per minute of
teacher time over three years. (35,100/180/6.5/60
0.50) cost of PD (425,000)and cost of
uploading to the CMS( 20,000) cost of
Blackboard Long, Michael. Learning Management
Systems A Cost-Benefit Study. Calverton, MD
ORCMacro 2005
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Building up Demand

• We made Blackboard the single point of access
  Internet based resources provided to students and
  staff. (WorldBook, Encarta, UnitedStreaming,
  Marco Polo, ProQuest, SIRS among others)
• Each staff and student has a unique username
  created via the Snapshot.
• No roadblocks to accessing the site
• We do not print documents.
• Access to curriculum and district notices is
  limited to the Blackboard environment.

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Create a sense of Excitement

• Include information that reflects the needs and
  interests of the staff
• All Professional Development opportunities are
  listed on the Blackboard site
• Opportunities to earn stipends and credits from
  outside agencies are made available on the
  Blackboard site
• Provide opportunities to showcase the good works
  that the staff or students are doing at their
  schools.
• Work with the teachers to empower them to
  increase the usage of Blackboard in the school
  and district.

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Create Dependencies

• The curriculum guides provide Internet based
  resources embedded into the text.
• Printing the guides limits the guides usefulness
• Many resources and a single point of access
• Teachers learn to come to http//www.bcpss.org
  rather than learning all URLs
• Snapshot tool creates an on-line course for every
  class taught in the District
• Classroom instruction is enhanced via the use of
  Blackboard.

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Key Ideas

• To spend money you need to be able to save even
  more money
• Have a huge demand for the service.
• Do not ignore the cost of teacher time when
  looking at adding the Content System to
  Blackboard.
• Create a sense of excitement about the product
• Create a dependency on the services that are
  provided via Blackboard

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Thank You!

• Contact Information
• Bert Ross
• Baltimore City Public Schools System
• rross_at_bcps.k12.md.us