It looks like I may be involved with several very talented teachers and support staff in producing an Online  Parent Academy.  The project is just taking shape, but we plan to use the latest in web technology to produce an interactive training system for parents.  The project will focus on best practices and reading techniques that parents will be able to use at home with their children.

Goals

• Increase reading efficiency at an early age by training parents with reading strategies that focus on comprehension, retention, and skills.
• Involve students and parents in the process.
• The program can be replicated and shared.
• It will be based on best practices and proven instructional and assessment tools consistent with research data.
• Parents will be exposed to reading assessments and what is expected of their students.
• The program will increase technology and internet literacy through interactive web activities related to the various reading strategies.
• Multimedia and videos will be incorporated to show proper reading strategies and showcase desired skills parents will acquire.
• Interactive Reading and Writing activities will be created by the parent and child as they work through the project.  Using the digital technology will engage and sharpen the child’s skill-set.
• Program will be accessible to all in the community.

These are just some goals I came up with and since we are just beginning they may change.  We plan to build this Academy with Moodle.  There seems to be some interest from several teachers and a principal, so hopefully over the summer or before the end of the year we can get this started.

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Introducing uTV! We pick several videos of interest from D-Tube and play them back on cable TV. Now creative students can have a media outlet to express their educational knowledge. Check Out D-Tube Today… You never know what video will appear on TV!

DTube Video Website

Watch Our Cable Channel Live Video Stream 

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Learn how to create a cheap interactive Smart board using a Nintendo Wii controller and some special software. Check out the video…

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Many teachers are interested in setting up an online classroom, but do not have the time or patience to invest in setting it up. Well, I just eliminated that barrier. I have created an online classroom template that can be replicated over and over. Once I duplicate it, I assign the new teacher the online classroom and they have access to modify it and begin using it!

Here are the features…

• Homework Help Forum – Let the students help each other out and reward good answers to questions with extra credit points in your class.
• Classroom discussion forum – As homework, extend the classroom discussions into the home using this feature.
• Class Chat room – Let the students communicate instantly from home. Each chat session is recorded and can be reviewed by you. Useful for instant help before a major test or quiz.
• Classroom News and Announcements – A good place to post your news for all to see.
• Classroom Documents — Display any number of PowerPoints, word docs, images, PDF’s, etc Let the students review what was presented during class 24/7.
• A section to add homework assignments by either daily or weekly formats or link to you blog if you already use that!
• Expectations/Rules/Suggested class supplies – Using a “Book” component, you can lay out your rules, expectations, and syllabus.
• Personal Student Notebook — This is actually just a wiki given a specific purpose. Useful for the student to gather notes, links, etc when working on a project and store them in one place via Copy & Paste into the notebook.
  (student and teacher access only, private between students)
• Personal Student Journal – No more workouts carrying home 100 journal binders. Just check their online journal. (student and teacher access only, private between students)
• Media and Websites – Use this section to add relevant websites and videos used in class. I included an example of how to embed a D-Tube video.

This is version 1.0 of the Online Classroom Template. It focuses mainly on communication and sharing of learning resources. This is an easy format for teachers to begin with. Once they feel comfortable, they can really move forward quickly. I plan to take suggestions and maybe make variations of this for specific uses or skill levels of teachers. I sent out an email to staff last night at 4pm and within 24 hours we have about 30 new teachers exploring online learning. Many of these teachers reported that a template was exactly what they were looking for. Starting from scratch was difficult because there are so many options and steps to setting up a good online classroom. This new template probably saved them several weeks of work.

Next year I will be focusing on training and use of online learning tools. Ideally, I would like to see every teacher in the district have their own classroom. These are the tools students use. They are digital learners and are used to exploring new information in a “media rich” environment that only digital can deliver.

Please note:  The online classroom is for use with Moodle. 

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I found a really nice free Video Converter Here. It allows me to convert the videos from D-Tube into a format that can be played on our Cable TV Station on Comcast and Wide Open West. Basically we can download the Flash Video File from D-Tube and then run it through the video converter and then I upload the converted video into our cable playback system. Everything is web-based, so adding videos to cable tv is a snap!!

We can now announce video contests where the winner is put on Cable TV via D-Tube. Students now have a very viable media outlet to share ideas, projects, and knowledge… and if their video is creative they can gain a little notoriety by being on TV!!!

UPDATE:  By using the district cable TV  scheduling, we will be setting up specific times that D-Tube Videos will air on TV.   There will be a specific time they play throughout the week.  This will be really nice because we can let students and staff know when their videos will air.

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