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May 24, 2005 - Vol. 6, No. 21
TechLearning News
- Pennsylvania now has 11 cyber charter schools with more than 10,000 students enrolled statewide.
- The University of Maine College of Education and Human Development has announced plans to require students in the teacher preparation programs to have Apple iBooks.
- Students from two Ohio elementary schools got up close and personal with the exotic fish and sea life of Australia's Great Barrier Reef, thanks to interactive videoconferencing technology.
- The University of California is leveraging its success with online college prep programs to create three online charter schools.
Cyber Charters Thrive in Pennsylvania
In early May, the three-year old class action suit filed by 39 Pennsylvania school districts challenging Pennsylvania Cyber Charter School's right to sign up students without the permission of their home school district was quietly dropped. Pennsylvania Cyber Charter School is the oldest of Pennsylvania's cyber charters, started in 2000 in the Midland School District. Now the second-largest cyber charter school in the state, Pennsylvania Cyber opened with 500 students and has grown in five years to nearly 3,000 students. As the class action suit demonstrated, school districts found it hard to accept the concept of cyber charters, originally balking at paying for their students who attended the schools, even those chartered by another district. The median fee districts paid this school year was $6,874 for a regular student and $13,465 for a special education student. To help address concerns, the state passed a law in 2002 that requires any new cyber charter applications as well as any renewals to be decided by the state Department of Education. The department is reviewing the renewal application of the Pennsylvania Cyber Charter School, whose five-year charter expires next month. Pennsylvania Cyber met the state standards for making adequate yearly progress under the federal No Child Left Behind Act when measured last year. Pennsylvania now has 11 cyber charter schools — and a 12th has applied for a state charter — with more than 10,000 students enrolled statewide, an increase of 50% over the last school year.
Source: Pittsburgh Post-Gazette
Laptops for Maine's Future Teachers
The University of Maine College of Education and Human Development has announced plans to require students in the teacher preparation programs to have Apple iBooks and specific education software, beginning with the fall 2006 semester. The requirement ensures that future teachers will have satisfactory access to the technology that is already very familiar to their future students. Maine's Learning Technology Initiative provides all public school students and teachers in seventh and eighth grades with Apple iBooks and high schools are making the commitment to extend that opportunity. The College initiative also has a built-in professional development component to ensure that faculty integrate technology into their instruction and have the ability to assist students in using technology to improve teaching and learning. Students will use their laptops and Apple software in many methods classes - for conducting research, creating instructional plans and investigating curriculum, as well as for teacher candidacy portfolios and many other functions. The College has specified 12-inch iBooks equipped with 512MB RAM, 30GB hard disk drive and CD-RW/DVD-ROM drives. The systems will be equipped with Apple's standard suite of software including iLife, iChat AV, Safari and AppleWorks 6, World Book and Quicken. A software suite assembled by the College will also be provided, including concept mapping software Inspiration, NoteTaker, Web site and online presentation tool eZedia, Microsoft Office, First Class and GIMP, an open source imaging package.
Source: University of Maine
Swimming with the Sharks
Students from two Ohio elementary schools got up close and personal with the exotic fish and sea life of Australia's Great Barrier Reef, thanks to distance learning technology. Using interactive video distance learning equipment provided by the Columbiana County Educational Service Center, students were able to see, hear and talk to divers from Reef HQ in Townsville, Queensland, Australia. The divers were actually diving in world's largest living coral reef aquarium holding as much water as 10 Olympic-size swimming pools. There are 1,500 different species on the Great Barrier Reef, with 150 different species represented in the Reef HQ Aquarium. A diver, equipped with a camera and a mask set up with a microphone, introduced students to creatures of all types. She was able to tell students about what they were seeing, hear the questions they had and provide answers. Students saw endangered species, like Lucky the Green Sea Turtle, Reef HQ's mascot, swimming through the coral reef exhibit. They also saw sharks, one of which swam so close to the camera that viewers could only see the long body of the Black Tip Reef Shark in the frame of the camera. The aquarium's sharks are used to the divers. The aquarium's habitat is created to be just like the Great Barrier Reef, allowing students to see some of the 130 types of coral living in the reef. They got a chance to guess the names of the coral. Based on what the coral looked like and clues given by the diver, students correctly guessed the names of Brain Coral, Honey Comb Coral, Stag Coral and Plate Coral.
Source: Morning Journal
UC College Prep Online To Launch Charters
The University of California is leveraging its success with online college prep programs to create three online charter schools. UC College Prep Online (UCCP), based at the University of California, Santa Cruz, recently received a three-year $550,000 grant from the California Department of Education's Public Charter Schools Grant Program to develop online schools in Imperial, Mendocino, and Butte Counties. Slated to open in the fall of 2006, the UC Online Academy is designed to deliver a high-quality college preparation curriculum to students who need the flexibility of the online environment. The standards-based online curriculum will be aligned to the state framework for high schools and the admission requirements of the University of California. Most activities will be conducted online, supplemented by in-person physical education, academic research, and community service opportunities. UCCP will also continue its original mission of offering supplemental services and online college-prep courses to schools with high enrollments of low-income and minority students. Historically, UCCP has offered courses that fill in the gaps where academic resources do not exist. In addition to online courses, UCCP offers free online SAT/ACT test prep to all registered students. Test prep highlights include tutorials, practice sessions, diagnostics, and email reminders. AP Exam Prep sessions are provided by subject area experts via the Online Tutoring program. The UCCP Online Tutoring program provides online subject tutoring and workshops. Tutors are University of California upper-class students and subject experts.
Source: UC Santa Cruz Currents Online
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