SEMNET Educational priorities for the next 3 years

[Wendy Shannon]

Please share with me your ideas for how we can expand our educational priorities as a SEMNET organization.
Train teachers to use hybrid models in their classrooms?
Train teachers in OLL?

[Suzanne Riley]

I'm going to throw out a few things that come to mind - whether they're high quality ideas may be in question!

Search for grant funding to for mini-grants to teachers to co-develop online classes.

Set up collaboration rooms/spaces in Moodle for developing classes.

Set up collaboration rooms/spaces in Moodle to support existing and new professional learning communities.

I think that involving teachers in the discussion will be critical to our success in answering unknowns, such as questions about compensation and contract language, for both online learning and shared class videoconferencing.

Involving students in the discussion will help us assess the interest/need for certain classes.

Should we take an inventory of existing instructional resources among area schools - online teachers, online and VC classes that already exist or are in development, and professional development resources?

[Bryan Berg]

I think Suzanne did very well at throwing out some good quality ideas!

I think the issue of online learning streatches beyond the ITV realm. Having ITV definitely presents a great option as an additional tool for distance education, but it isn't where it necessarily begins. With that in mind, I think all schools should be involved in the Moodle use discussion. I think if all the area schools can be brought on board to begin using Moodle (whether they host a Moodle server, or if SSC provides a centralized one) - even to begin creating hybrid classes rather than 100% online offerings - then during the next three years, we may see schools see more merits in using ITV as an additional tool The wonderful thing about Moodle is that there isn't a licensing cost. Someone (or several someones) may be needed to administrate the server(s), but other than that, there isn't the costs associated with ITV. Schools without ITV can start using Moodle as an option almost immediately.

So, I think using Moodle should be a place to start.

So from there, it will have to be figured out and decided how much Moodle space would be needed, what scaleability for growth needs to be planned for and who would be willing to host Moodle servers (Cannon Falls and LaCrescent already has them in place, and Stewartville and Dover-Eyota will begin experimenting with it very soon). Maybe it can be an option for a school to host themselves, and figure out how schools that wish to have someone else host can work out a collaboration or fee schedule with SSC or another school?

Find a way to begin involving teachers to develop their courses - both for blended and 100% online offerings. Like Suzy mentions, grants and mini-grants (usually those are at the local level) could be utilized for that.

Moodle or some other free web-based collaboritive tool (ning comes to mind! But there are a bunch of others) could be used to start bringing in discussion between teachers, Tech Leaders and admin from around SE MN - maybe even beyond those borders. Coupled with some face-to-face brainstorming groups (that maybe incorporate web-based ways of attending remotely - there are some great options out there that wouldn't even require ITV equipment to pull folks in) I think we could get the ball rolling fairly soon, and get a level of excitement built for using Moodle, and then video and ITV.

Make SURE the Technology Leaders (particularly the Coordinators and the Directors) are involved to a great degree. They'll know what can work, or figure out what can work realistically and within limited budgets. The teachers are a critical factor, but the Tech Leaders involvement will go a long way to making things work smoothly and successfully. Communication with them is very important.

Schools will likely be the best resource for determining class offering needs. The Administrative leaders will be the group that has the information to know what classes schools are looking to offer, but don't have the resources to do so.

Collaboration has to be stressed. We'll need to be very careful about how this is done. Present rules covering online class offerings takes money away from one district and gives it to another. That may not be avoidable. However, I'm getting the feeling that there is growing concern among SE MN schools that the "Big Schools" are taking advantage of the "Little Schools". Anything that can be done to prevent such a thing from actually happening needs to be done. I can already tell you from experience that the recent results of the RUS Grant process were not met with very happy faces. I feel like D-E got left out to flap in the wind in that process, and if future efforts create similar situations for other schools, there won't be very many schools left to collaborate with!

[Jen Hegna]

I think it is important for all of the Members of SEMNET to be engaged in our organization's mission - "To Build and Maintain a World-Class Regional Telecommunications Collaborative in Southeastern Minnesota". Is what we have right now - "world class"? I am going to say we are at the very beginning and may not even know what it is we really want. What are other consortium s doing that we can NOT do because of the lack of telecommunications capacity? As we look at education I feel it is important think outside the box and really stretch our imagination to vision...

1. How will we learn? (organization, teachers, students, parents)
2. How will we teach? (collaboratively, online, hybrid)
3. How will we run our school business? (data, security, interoperability,ect)
4. How do we support all of the above?

I also think it is important that we look at our goals and benefits and target them!

1. How can we collaboratively provide services while lower costs for SEMNET members?
2. How can we improve our learning organizations by collaborating with other districts?
3. How will Internet 2 and Video conferencing change education and how do we start incorporating it into our schools?
4. What does the infrastructure look like to support all of the above?

I look forward to the conversation!
Jen