High School Counselors are our first line of contact with our students. Barbra and I sit down tomorrow, the day after the posted deadline for application to take one of the 1000 available half-credit courses, to set up for enrollment. All MNPS Counselors met yesterday for a day of professional development at Martin Center and Kecia and I had the opportunity to speak to some of them in our breakout session "What Can Virtual Learning Do for Your Students?"
Wednesday, September 15, 2010
Friday, September 3, 2010
The First Week of Classes
Friday is a favorite day of mine. Happy Friday! My days are filled with small planning or student monitoring meetings punctuated by training sessions on various management platforms, presentations at larger meetings, and an hour or two here or there in my cozy corner cubicle working on an urgent need for the program. We presented yesterday for the Principals of the MNPS Antioch cluster, Kecia opening our session with an overview of Instructional Technology for the school system, Barbra stepping in to provide details on our Virtual Learning program--its inception, its plans for the future--and me in a support role, adding a little icing to Barbra's well-baked cake. I believe we were well received. No one in the room, and there were around 50 hard working high school Principals, could fail to see the benefits of offering quality online educational opportunities to the children of our school district.
That said, there are some things we need to change. Tennessee, as you may or may not know, is bordered by more states than any other state in the union. Each one of the seven states surrounding Tennessee has a Virtual School. We do not. It is, in fact, against state law for there to be a "virtual school." Huh?
Until we can get that law changed we are a "Virtual Learning Program." And we cannot reclaim homeschooled students, or those who have chosen private schooling, into the public school system by providing them online learning opportunities because of a law that states a child cannot access online learning programs if they have not been enrolled in a public school the previous year. Huh?
My Friday half-day (I work longer days early in the week to allow myself household responsibility afternoons on Fridays) will be mostly consumed by training in A+ Learning, a system MNPS has in place in schools to provide a credit recovery means to students who have taken a class and failed it. This is elearning, but it is not virtual learning, mind you, but even though the distinction is clear to me it does provide an opportunity to students that would otherwise not exist, and I'm happy to make it part of my focus for that reason. I'm diving in, with Barbra, to know it inside and out in order to help bring more fidelity to its implementation throughout the school system. We'll do that, hopefully, with teacher training and by building some community amongst the teacher facilitators at each school. Stay tuned on that!
On with Friday!
That said, there are some things we need to change. Tennessee, as you may or may not know, is bordered by more states than any other state in the union. Each one of the seven states surrounding Tennessee has a Virtual School. We do not. It is, in fact, against state law for there to be a "virtual school." Huh?
Until we can get that law changed we are a "Virtual Learning Program." And we cannot reclaim homeschooled students, or those who have chosen private schooling, into the public school system by providing them online learning opportunities because of a law that states a child cannot access online learning programs if they have not been enrolled in a public school the previous year. Huh?
My Friday half-day (I work longer days early in the week to allow myself household responsibility afternoons on Fridays) will be mostly consumed by training in A+ Learning, a system MNPS has in place in schools to provide a credit recovery means to students who have taken a class and failed it. This is elearning, but it is not virtual learning, mind you, but even though the distinction is clear to me it does provide an opportunity to students that would otherwise not exist, and I'm happy to make it part of my focus for that reason. I'm diving in, with Barbra, to know it inside and out in order to help bring more fidelity to its implementation throughout the school system. We'll do that, hopefully, with teacher training and by building some community amongst the teacher facilitators at each school. Stay tuned on that!
On with Friday!
Tuesday, August 31, 2010
Laying out the "Campus"
Okay, I know it's real-life residue, buildings that look like buildings, but I'm beginning to work on the design for my kids' new virtual campus in ReactionGrid and I'm beginning with an OpenVCE .oar file from which I deleted some stuff, moved some around, and replicated some in ways that the makers likely did not intend for them to be replicated. I love the OpenVCE setup because it seems just the right mix of land and water and it features that wild water-filled volcanic pit mountain with the landing zone level cap. I wonder what we'll end up putting _in_ the mountain? A soda shop? Skateboard park! That's IT! Both!
Here's a first draft map after only about 3 hours total inworld design time:
and I'm sticking to it (at least for now). In the lower right hand corner, the "Dorms" are stacked 5 high (will be 7 high, and contain a ground level computer lab meeting place where kids can sit together and login and do their online class work while chatting. There's a big drawing board in one window, a Jeff Lowe Brainboard in another, and there will be sprawling stations with relaxing poses on the Persian rugs I laid out. I'm just beginning, you understand, and the idea for dorms, places each student can call home, just came to me yesterday morning. I may change those to more residential-looking OpenVCE domiciles, but I'm thinking the open floorplan will serve us better in the beginning.
I haven't locked down anything yet to building , and I'm sure that I'll need to at some point, so the mountain feature sports a big sandbox with a filled texture giver for building. Offices for the admin team will be in the center right building, and the open roofs will give some flexibility for take-off and landing. Campfire stations in the open green, a dance area which will have music, and an ampitheatre round out the place for now.
I haven't heard any complaints from neighbors, but the two-megaprims each walls around the region's perimeter are intended as much to save my neighbors from the sprawl I hope to maintain in my region as it is to tidy up the horizon for my students. They are coded phantom, so fly right through and visit anytime!
Wednesday, August 25, 2010
The (closed) wiki post about what's going on
Here's the first post at my personal page at our new (private) wiki:
I'm Scott Merrick, and I have a long job title, "Virtual Learning Curriculum Specialist." I was brought into the Virtual Learning Program as the second hire, right after my colleague Barbra Thoeming, who leads us as "Virtual Learning Coordinator." As Coordinator, Barbra "gets" to go to many more meetings than I do, and she has intricate mastery of the big picture for us. We worked together with Jack and Sherry the first week of employment, which began August 2nd, to create the foundations for what we envision will be a gigantic leap forward for Tennessee schools. Out of "virtually" nothing came our website, MNPS Virtual Learning, our beginning course offerings, and our procedures for enrolling our first students, both full-time and part-time.One of the first things I did was to customize the lighting in my little Dilbert cubicle.
It's great to be here, and I look forward to serving and working and enjoying the service and the work! Here's my space, which a colleague has dubbed my "Cozy Corner." Nothing like unscrewing a few fluorescent light bulbs to make a place comfortable!
More Students Need Laptops--USA Today
In my email inbox from Keith Bennett, Litton Middle School Technology Educator, with the little message, "Thought this might interest you," was a link to a USA Today article about a laptop program in Walled Lake, Michigan's Consolidated School District that points to the future, driven by perceptive administrators and educators, and is well worth the read. Staff writer Stephanie Steinberg gets to the point with a quote from a participating school principal:
In other news, we now have 9 of our first 13 MNPS Virtual Learning students enrolled in their courses. Barbra and Sherry have worked tirelessly with Theresa at Middle College High School to understand each student's needs and to craft a schedule for them that will challenge them but not discourage their completion of coursework. We will watch closely and offer every bit of support we can muster, as we continue to build this program, toward building this school, underneath them. Please, dear Powers-That-Be, let our Blackboard P.O. burst out of the procedural entanglements and into the hands of Blackboard so that we can get going on our Learning Management System!!!
My mantra for the day: Let me know the next right thing, then do it, and do it well for...
""We would never send our own kids to pediatricians that were practicing medicine from the '70s or '80s," says Mark Hess, principal of Sarah Banks Middle School in Wixom, Mich. "Why would we send our kids to schools that are practicing instructional techniques that are decades old? If we did that, it'd be educational malpractice."Indeed, although hundreds of thousands of parents are in that unenviable position not out of their own choice, but because they are beholden to the policies of schools and school districts that are not so forward (or even present) thinking. Enjoy the read at More Students Need a Laptop...
In other news, we now have 9 of our first 13 MNPS Virtual Learning students enrolled in their courses. Barbra and Sherry have worked tirelessly with Theresa at Middle College High School to understand each student's needs and to craft a schedule for them that will challenge them but not discourage their completion of coursework. We will watch closely and offer every bit of support we can muster, as we continue to build this program, toward building this school, underneath them. Please, dear Powers-That-Be, let our Blackboard P.O. burst out of the procedural entanglements and into the hands of Blackboard so that we can get going on our Learning Management System!!!
My mantra for the day: Let me know the next right thing, then do it, and do it well for...
Monday, August 2, 2010
First Day on the Job
This is going to be interesting and challenging. I've already issued a blocked site override request for Second Life, which I consider an essential tool in my mission to create and implement a virtual school. Hippo stalled in efforts to get to ReactionGrid and Science Sim, so I'm imagining we need to get some firewall port action working as well. Use of virtual worlds in this school is likely a year off, at best, but that doesn't mean exploration and investigation doesn't need to be happening. I'm on it.
I'm spending the day with Blackboard and course vendor introductions and getting settled into my little cubicle. Nice people, helpful people, and my little USB fan is buzzing away. Not wonderfully happy about the lighting, but I can learn to live with it. I'm rambling. Back to work!
I'm spending the day with Blackboard and course vendor introductions and getting settled into my little cubicle. Nice people, helpful people, and my little USB fan is buzzing away. Not wonderfully happy about the lighting, but I can learn to live with it. I'm rambling. Back to work!
Friday, July 30, 2010
From my Facebook announcement of the new position:
Scott Merrick That's done. Resigned from USN, accepted the new MNPS "Virtual Learning Curriculum Specialist" position, paperwork at Metro tomorrow. Change is in the air. I largely owe my PLN and all my colleagues for this exciting new opportunity to build a virtual school like no other. On we go.
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