Moving at the Speed of Creativity by Wesley Fryer

K12 Panel at the 2012 Heartland eLearning Conference

These are my notes from the “K12 Panel” at the 2012 Heartland eLearning Conference. MY THOUGHTS AND COMMENTS ARE IN ALL CAPS. The official conference session abstract was:

This interactive panel discussion will explore the trends, challenges, and opportunities for eLearning in K-12 education. Panelists will share their lessons learned and best advice for bringing eLearning into classrooms, both traditional and virtual. The panelists include: Alicia Dodd, Kindergarten Teacher at Orvis Risner Elementary in Edmond Public Schools, Deji Dugger, Fifth Grade Teacher at Fairview Elementary in Moore Public Schools, Lance Ford, Cisco Educational Technology Advocate, and Richard Mansheim, Head of School for the Oklahoma Virtual Academy.

Peter Kay, headmaster of Medbury School in New Zealand in Christchurch, also joined the panel

Oklahoma Virtual Academy was a program the past 2 years, this is the first year we’re a charter school

2/3 of the largest university in Christchurch was destroyed in recent years

Texas State Aquarium
– has virtual field trip opportunities!

course materials for Oklahoma Virtual Academy are flash-based so they are not accessible on an iPad or other iOS device

Students in Edmond just allowed to be on the computer 1 hour per week at school in the lab
– kindergartens

In K-4 classrooms in Moore Public Schools, students are never allowed to search online at school (they are just using canned software programs in the labs)

Can’t Google “vikings” in Moore Public Schools today because this search term is classified as “military” (not permitted)

Next year in Edmond Public Schools, we’re going to offer a “parent night” to show how to play math games online

In Medbury School, we discourage teachers ‘friending’ their students on Facebook
– have a digital citizenship curriculum for teachers to lead, not an “ICT expert”

Oklahoma Virtual Academy is developing a parent training program for digital citizenship / Internet safety

“a technology owned by no one, shared by everyone, can easily become a doorstop no one cares for” – Lance Ford

Last year videos on eagle habitats were blocked in Edmond Public Schools, teachers were not allowed to show them to students

Edmond Public Schools uses Two Trees for Internet content filtering, teachers are NOT given ability to bypass filter for appropriate websites

Balanced filtering

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