Conversations about Quality Content in Online / Blended Learning Contexts: 19 April 2012

By Wesley Fryer On April 20, 2012 · Tagged With: DLsummit2012 · Add Comment

These are my notes from the “Quality Content” breakout group at the April 19, 2012, Oklahoma Digital Learning Summit in Oklahoma City. MY THOUGHTS AND COMMENTS ARE IN ALL CAPS. THESE NOTES ARE PRETTY SCATTERED… I THINK OUR GROUP IS GOING TO PRODUCE / SHARE SOME MORE COGENT / ORGANIZED THOUGHTS ABOUT THESE ISSUES. SEE ALL MY POSTS TAGGED “DLsummit2012” AS WELL AS MY TWEETS TAGGED “DLsummit2012.”

'Sink Foil' photo (c) 2007, Mike Willis - license: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nd/2.0/

Tulsa Technology Center has eSchool learning network
– elearning for grades 6-12
– 13 districts partnering together

e2020 is LMS for Broken Arrow
– no connection to student management system currently

Mizuni (used by Durant and Edmond to port student data)
– using a dashboard to look at student data

Texas is has a great model for digital content
– Texas virtual school model
– Texas Project Share

When Connections Academy launched our school in Sperry, we didn’t feel we were pushed to demonstrate the quality of our courses (by the state)

How do we setup a structure for selecting high quality content that is well aligned?
– districts can purchase any curriculum materials not purchased with textbook money

4 kinds of virtual students in Broken Arrow
1- credit recovery
2- homebound or discipline students, not attending all
3- first time credit: want entire virtual experience
4- credit advancement (college bound / enrichment)

MY COMMENT: THERE’S 1 MORE CATEGORY HERE THAN JASON NEIFFER DISCUSSED IN HIS EXCELLENT K12ONLINE11 PRESENTATION LAST YEAR: “BUILDING A UNIQUELY MONTANA PROGRAM: THE MONTANA DIGITAL ACADEMY”

supplemental is defined in current Oklahoma law: to “round out your curriculum”
– can be 1 online, 5 at school
– can also can be 5 online, 1 at school

MY COMMENT: I DEFINITELY WANT TO LEARN MORE ABOUT THESE BILL / LAW REQUIREMENTS
– see “School Laws of Oklahoma: Subchapter 34. Supplemental Online Course Procedures” (PDF)

Some schools moving to a “Commissioners List” of approved curriculum materials
– have a litmus test for what content needs to be

The textbook has become very disaggregated
– components of the textbook
– environment now is much more granular

Comments from Quinton Romannose:

38 federally recognized tribes in Oklahoma
– some tribes have departments of education
– some tribes doing great with enhanced educational opportunities, some not

Only 1 person for Indian Education at the state level

Indian tribes are #1 employer in some Oklahoma counties

Comments from Dr. Berlin Fang
– for content to be shareable it has to be modular & granular, lessons need to be divided into learning events (Gagne)

3 terms that come to mind when we talk about digital content
– courses
– lessons
– learning objects

Needs to be time neutral

Need to think about how to make content fluid
– sometimes a professor creators a video in Windows Media
– format needs accommodate multiple devices

How do we enable kids to interact with content
– not just a replication of your page-based / paper-based data

From Connections Academy
– want to look at growth models and students improving

Example of E-Course Evalution Rubric from Oklahoam Christian University
– based on Sloan-C

If digital learning can’t do adaptive learning, there is a ceiling on it [on its potential]

We should form a buying consortium in Oklahoma, we can have so much more power

“those kids will be ours to test”

We need to be on a “search and rescue” mission instead of a “search and recover” mission in education

Need to evaluate and review very important
– need for a rubric
– definitions

Texas endorses iNACOL standards
– must or should statements in legislation are important

Phase 1 is a build or buy model

Phase 2 Sharing
– repository

Accessibility is important to remember

“the course is the new textbook”
– cogent aggregation of content
– rubric looks at how it is constructed
– efficacy comes at the course level

Total Cost of Ownership important

content metadata taxonomy

this is the opportunity to say you have to build this in: meta data, hooks to create data warehouses

Goal for this group: What should the Oklahoma SDE do to ensure quality digital educational content
– what should they recommend?
– what should the Oklahoma SDE not to which might impede high quality digital content

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