Oldwn consultants

OLDWN
Consultation
Team
Online Learning Program Design for K12
Schools

Meet the Team
The consultant team of OLDWN is ready to advise you in all your online
needs. With over 30 years combined experience, the team specializes in
getting your district running a successful online program in no time! Our
expert staff consists of
● Kyle Huffmann. Expert in Learning Management Systems. He will
pick the system right for you.
● Trisha Minahan. Knowledgeable in system requirements. She will
advise you on technical requirements to host your program.
● Justin Tanner. Content expert. He will guide you to developing
successful courses with successful students.
● Savneet Singh. Quality Assurance Leader. With her vast knowledge
in education, WASC requirements, and state/federal standards, she will
provide you with ways to assess your courses to ensure they are
rigorous.

The Method
The following presentation will guide you
through basic information relating to online
learning. Browse and familiarize yourself
with terms and concepts. This will allow
you to be better prepared to give our
consultants the information they need to
help your district succeed.
Next, our consultants will do a thorough and complete assessment of your
district's needs. Once we have outlined the scope of your potential, we will
map out a plan for success.

Learning Management System (LMS)
A Learning Management System (LMS) is an
application that allows organizations to track
learning within their organization.
Capterra (2012) identifies the top four LMS* as:
● Moodle with 60 million users
● SumTotal Systems with 32 million users
● Blackboard with 20 million users
● Edmodo with 10 million users
* The top 4 comparison is based on the total number of users.

Moodle
● Free and Open Source Technology
● Software based package download
● Third party plugins available (18 categories)
● Will most likely require the
purchase/allocation of a dedicated server
and IT staff support
● The recently (May, 2013) released 2.5
software package includes features like:
○ Badges
○ Twitter integration

SumTotal Systems
● SumTotal Systems began as an HR
software database company but now
provides SumTotal Learn.
● License based fee structure.
● SumTotal Learn integrates with SumTotal's
other software packages
Social Media Like Experience

Blackboard
● Fee based
● Company's mission is to provide "tomorrow's
education experience"
● Will most likely require the purchase/allocation of a
dedicated server and IT staff support
● Some cloud based offerings (all third party)
● Advertised core features:
○ Course Management
○ Grading and Assessment
○ Collaborative Tools
○ Engaging

Edmodo
● Cloud based service
○ The cloud based service will not require additional
hardware or IT support
● Basic service is free
● Third party application supported
○ Applications are fee based
● $40M dollars in capital raised from venture
capitalist firms between 2012 and 2013
"My students could communicate with me. It was awesome and it had the
appeal of a social networking site" - Teacher, Cinco Ranch HS

LMS Recommendations
Moodle Edmodo
Full IT infrastructure Limited IT infrastructure
Hardware based Cloud based
Free basic software Free basic hosting
Paid 3rd party apps Paid 3rd party apps
Traditional LMS UI Modern social media UI

Technology
Our team will
do a thorough
investigation of
your current
technology
situation and
needs through
this survey.
source: http://www.blackboard.
com/resources/k12/Bb_K12_Planning_for_Online_Learning.pdf

Technology -
hosting
Self-hosting
● Set up requires Initial purchase
of server (minimum $1500) but
no revolving monthly costs. Must
pay for power to system.
● Higher network speed from
school site to district office (or
wherever server is stored).
● no 24-hour server/site monitoring
● hardware maintenance, ongoing
software maintenance (backups,
updates, security patch updates.
All these require support from
onsite personnel.
Contract hosting
● Monthly hosting fee
● Possible 24-hour server/site
monitoring
● No maintenance
Source: http://www.code-crafters.com/

Technology -
Hosting
Self-hosting is
recommended to the
school district that has few
funds but technical
expertise. It is also
recommended for districts
that will support a variety of
learning environments,
from blended to online.
Source:
http://cgi.amazing.com/isp/index.html
Rob Johnson, personal interview
For districts with funding and little IT support, we recommend contract
hosting. Virtual schools will also find this situation best.

Technology -
Bandwidth
Proper bandwidth is critical to
accessing high quality content
quickly. Bandwidth is acquired for a
fee from a network. Bandwidth is
expensive and over-purchasing is an
easy way to waste money. To
illustrate the importance of
understanding your bandwidth
needs, please view two examples on
the next page.
Source:Tanenbaum, A (2003)

Technology -
Bandwidth
Compton Unified in
California, purchases 1
Gbps of bandwidth from its
internet provider but uses
less than 3% of it.
http://mrtg.lacoe.edu/
Torrance Unified in
California purchases only
150 Mbps from its internet
provider and uses 22% of it.

Technology -
Bandwidth
Recommendation
Bandwidth needs depends on
district size and intent. Virtual
schools that contract a host
server have no need to purchase
bandwidth. Large, self-hosting
districts with mixed use (online
and blended) will require a
greater bandwidth. We
recommend adjusting bandwidth
to allow for flow of high definition
content with minimal waste.

Technology -
Support
Understanding the scope of your
online learning program will reveal
the amount of technical support
necessary.
● no support necessary - virtual schools
with contract hosting
● low level support - small districts with contract hosting, creating blended
courses with simple discussion boards and quizzes. Current IT personnel
are sufficient.
● medium level support - mid-sized districts, mixed use of online learning,
contract hosting, we recommend hiring one half-time additional IT personnel.
For self-hosting, we recommend one full-time addition.
● high level support - medium to large district with integrated online and
blended course, self-hosting, we recommend two full-time additions.
Source: Johnson, R.

Student Preparedness -
Demographics
Online learning can be successfully implemented at any grade level, and for
any subject.
Just take the case of elementary school student Jayden Carter into
consideration:
Since kindergarten, Jayden, who lives in Kamuela, HI, has been enrolled in the
Myron B. Thompson Academy in Honolulu, a public charter school that offers
instruction both online and in person. He attends a live lecture every Tuesday
that he views using a webcam and he speaks to the teacher using a
microphone. He can even see his classmates, located on other Hawaiian
islands, when they speak. The rest of the time, he completes schoolwork in his
family's garage or kitchen. He scans and submits work to his teacher via email.
(O'Hanlon, 2012)

Demographics
What are the Demographics of Online Learners?
● There are currently 5.6 million online learner (Classes and Careers.com)
● The average age of an online learner is 34 (Dabbagh, 2007)
● As of 2011, 250,000 students in Kindergarten through 12th grade are
enrolled in online classes, a huge jump from 40,000 K-12 online learners a
decade ago (O'Hanlon, 2012)
● 37.4% of online learners are between the ages of 15 and 23 (Classes and
Careers.com
● 53% of online learners are female, and 47% are male (Classes and
Careers.com

Demographics
The following infographic breaks down the demographics of online students
even further:
http://a7d8038cd2494ca0b1c0-768bb94786a28a73e19b09c05f15dc9e.r82.cf1.rackcdn.com/Student-demographics.jpg

Why take an online class?
There are various reasons why students enroll in online learning:
http://scm-l3.technorati.com/13/01/02/74227/reasons-for-online-learning-chart.jpg?t=20130102125942

Successful Online Learner
While it appears that online learning is certainly in demand, and it offers many
advantages for students of all grade levels, there are certain characteristics that
students must have to be successful in online learning. These characteristics
include:
● sharing many of the same characteristics as adult learners, like being self-
motivated, goal oriented, and practical
● being efficient in computer and internet literacy
● having good reading comprehension, writing skills, communication skills,
and organization (Daily-Herbert and Mandernach, 2006)
It's especially important to remember that, "while effective online courses do
incorporate multimedia and interactive pieces, the bulk of the instruction and
assessment is done via text (Daily-Herbert et. al, 2006). Therefore students
must have great written communication and reading skills to succeed.

More characteristics of successful online learners that should be taken into
consideration are:
● having a positive attitude toward the instructor and a high expectation for
grades and degree completion
● any style of learner can be successful in online learning, because online
learning is especially accommodating for a multitude of student needs and
learning styles.
● have essential collaborative skills (Dabbagh, 2007)
● have some degree of work and/or family support. The younger the student
is, the more family support he or she will need to succeed. (Daily-Herbert
et. al, 2006).

The following video offers 7 more tips for students to succeed in online
learning. This is an excellent video for students to watch if they're considering
enrolling in an online program:

Training Students
How can we determine if our students are ready to be successful in online
learning? The following are ideas that can be implemented in order to ready
students for online learning:
● schools can administer a pre-assessment of student readiness
● offer "boot camps" to help students configure their computers and software
for their courses
● offer a website with training modules so students can learn what to expect
from online courses.
● schedule an orientation for students and parents to meet their teachers
face-to-face (McLaren, 2011).

Course Preparedness -
Time Consumption
Online courses can be more time consuming than it originally seems for
instructors to teach, due to the increased interactivity with students.
● Preparation time for online classes averages 35 hours vs. 3 hours for face-
to-face classes
● Time spent teaching online classes averages 73 hours vs. 27 hours for
face-to-face classes
● Time spent holding office hours for online classes averages 44 hours vs.
32 hours for face-to-face classes
** Note that the extra time spent teaching and holding office hours is
in relation to the amount of time spend e-mailing and calling individual
students (Cavanaugh, 2005)

Designing an Online Class
There are many best practices that must be implemented in designing the actual online class. Some of
these best practices include, creating a student-centered environment, and establishing clear
objectives. The following video is an excellent resource for teachers to view, as they start to think
about designing their own online course.

Teacher Training
Since the demand for online learning is growing every day, high quality online
instructors are also in demand. Therefore Online programs must implement
staff development, to prepare teachers for online instruction. The following are
best practices for teacher training for online learning programs:
● Teachers need to be comfortable with the LMS, because students can tell
if a teacher is ill prepared to run an online course. So schools must offer
training in the use of LMSs.
● Develop communities of practice for teachers to collaborate during the
transition to online learning
● Staff development should be chunked into technological bility levels of the
instructors. Training teachers in online learning is not "one size fits all"
(Reilly, Vandenhouten, and Gallagher-Lepak, n.d.)

Teacher Training
The following bar graph demonstrates the need for teacher training in online
instruction. The amount of teachers with no online teaching experience is
absolutely staggering, for an industry that is showing exponential growth.
http://net.educause.edu/eq/eqm06/eqm064_images/EQM0644_fig1.gif

Quality Assurance
Quality assurance is a term typically used in the
business or technology sector meaning “a
program for the systematic monitoring and
evaluation of the various aspects of a project,
service, or facility to ensure that standards of
quality are being met” (Merriam-Webster, n.d.).

Quality Assurance
According to McLoughlin and Visser (2003)
quality assurance of education is mandatory
because it is a matter of national interest. It is
required by accreditation agencies and at the
federal, state, and local levels. Parents and
students expect quality education whereas
faculty and administrative staff find it beneficial.

Quality Assurance
Our Quality assurance(QA) program assures that your
organization’s online course objectives, teaching strategies,
design, support staff requirement and faculty credentials-all
are aligned to accreditation standards and WASC
requirements.

Quality Assurance
Our quality assurance program includes periodic internal
and external assessment to demonstrate conformance with
the benchmarks of the National Education Association
(NEA).
The Institute for Higher Education Policy (IHEP) has
recognized seven categories including 24 benchmarks
(Wang, 2008).

Quality Assurance
The seven categories are:
1.Course development benchmarks
2.Institutional Support Benchmark
3.Course structure benchmarks
4.Teaching/Learning Benchmarks
5. Faculty Support Benchmarks
6. Student Support Benchmarks
7. Evaluation and Assessment Benchmarks

Quality Assurance
QA programs offered
QA1 QA and Online Education Basics Plus-1 week
QA2 QA and Online Education Essentials- 3 weeks
QA3 QA and Online Education Advanced- 5 weeks

Quality Assurance
Main features of our QA program
• Our program is flexible but still ensures quality of your
online program firmly.
• The QA program is rigorous and is self-correcting.
• The program measures the aim, objectives of an online
course with the core values of your organization and with
the students’ needs.
• This program aims to conform to the interests of all
stakeholders.
• The special feature of our QA is that it helps you meet
WASC requirements, and state/federal standards.

Quality Assurance:Procedures
Our QA program has four distinct quality
assurance procedures.
1. Training – This will enable instructors
to learn basics of quality assurance.
2. Consultancy– For the development of
future courses.

Quality Assurance:Procedures
3. Exclusive procedure – It involves the
development of learning objectives and
development of courses, faculty training in
congruence with the organization’s vision.
4. The whole project procedure – This
ensures quality in additional activities such as
technical support, faculty support, and planning
of courses, teaching and learning, feedback
and assessment mechanism.

Quality Assurance: How do we do it?
● Each step in our QA process consists of a flow chart
and set of steps, showing what each step needs to
achieve. All the steps are also show who is responsible
or involved at that step.
● In order to ensure quality key tasks have check boxes
next to them.
● There is an exclusive list of things to be done or
changed or aware of while we do analysis of your
online courses. This list is handed over with the expert
comments to the instructor.

Quality Assurance: How do we do it?
● Everything is electronically documented to track of
progress.
● The final step in the quality assurance procedure is
discussion and reflection on the overall procedure and
training(Scull et al.,2011)
● The reflection stage is given a great importance in our
QA program because we believe that self reflection is
the only way to improve.

Quality Assurance: Flow Chart
Source:http://www.sefi.be/wp-content/abstracts/1089.pdf

Quality Assurance: Special Features
● Help organizations evaluate their programs in areas
such as selecting a suitable LMS, technical support,
faculty support, development and planning of courses,
teaching and learning and feedback and assessment
mechanism.
● This QA program prepares instructor for the design,
development and implementation of courses.
● Continuous development of individuals and products by
involving individuals in problem-solving.
● Helping participants to measure reliability and
performance of the LMS.

References
Blackboard. (2013). Planning for online learning. Retrieved from http://www.blackboard.
com/resources/k12/Bb_K12_Planning_for_Online_Learning.pdf
Capterra. (24 October, 2013). The top 20 most popluar software solutions. Retrieved from http://www.capterra.com/top-20-lms-
software-solutions
Cavanaugh, J. (2005). Teaching online: a time comparison. Online Journal of Distance Learning Administration 3 (1).
Retrieved from http://www.westga.edu/~distance/ojdla/spring81/cavanaugh81.htm
Dabbagh, N. (2007). The online learner: Characteristics and pedagogical implications. Contemporary Issues in Technology and
Teacher Education [Online serial], 7(3). Retrieved from: http://www.citejournal.org/vol7/iss3/general/article1.cfm
Daily-Herbert, A. Donnelli, E. and Mandernach J. B. (2006) Learner attribute research juxtaposed with online instructor
experience: predictors of success in the accelerated, online classroom. The Journal of Educators Online 3 (2) Retrieved from:
http://www.thejeo.com/Volume3Number2/MandernachFinal.pdf
Institute for Higher Education Policy (IHEP). (2000). Quality on the line: Benchmarks for success in Internet-based
distance education. Retrieved June 5 2013, from http://www.ihep.org/Pubs/PDF/Quality.pdf.
Johnson, R. (2013, May 31). Personal Interview.
Los Angeles County, Office of Education. (2013). District bandwidth analysis. Retrieved from http://mrtg.lacoe.edu/
Mclaren, P. (2011) Ensuring student success in online learning. Inside CSUF. Retrieved from: http://calstate.fullerton.
edu/inside/2011fall/Powering-Up-for-Online-Class-Success.asp

References
McLoughlin, C., & Visser, T. (2003). Global perspectives on quality in online higher education. World Conference on
Educational Multimedia, Hypermedia and Telecommunications 2003(1), 253-2
New Internet Provide FAQ, The. Retrieved from http://cgi.amazing.com/isp/index.html
O'Hanlon, L. (2012). Virtual elementary school: should you enroll your kids? Parents. Retrieved from http://www.
parents.com/kids/education/elementary-school/virtual-elementary-school/?page=1
Reilly, J., Vandenhouten, C. and Gallagher-Lepak, S. (n.d.). Faculty development for e-learning: a multi-campus
community of practice approach. Journal of Asynchronous Learning Networks. 16(2), 100-110
Scull, W., Kendrick, D., Shearer, R., & Offerman, D. (2011). The Landscape of quality assurance in distance education.
Continuing Higher Education Review, 75138-149.
Software Solutions (2013). Code crafters. Retrieved from http://www.code-crafters.com/
Solbjørg, O. K., Søsveen, A., & Stokke, B. T. (2007). Quality assurance support system in engineering education:
Principles and activities. Retrieved from http://www.sefi.be/wp-content/abstracts/1089.pdf
Student Demographics. Classes and Careers. Retreived from http://a7d8038cd2494ca0b1c0-
768bb94786a28a73e19b09c05f15dc9e.r82.cf1.rackcdn.com/Student-demographics.jpg
Tanenbaum, A. (2003). Computer Networks. Pearson Education/Prentice Hall. San Francisco, CA
Wang, H. (2008). Benchmarks and quality assurance for online course development in higher education. Online
Submission,ERIC

Oldwn consultants

Recomendados

Recomendados

Más contenido relacionado

La actualidad más candente

La actualidad más candente (20)

Destacado

Destacado (6)

Similar a Oldwn consultants

Similar a Oldwn consultants (20)

Último

Último (20)

Oldwn consultants