What Is Distance Learning...
What Makes It Possible...
Organizing the Web Site
Summary

NetSchool of Maine:

A Resource Model for Local and Regional Home Education Groups

by Frank J. Heller, MPA

* * * * *

Welcome to the world of cyberlearning and Web (Internet) accessed educational resources. These Internet resources include nearly everything a professional educator, parent’s group, or community-learning-center-based teacher who is interested in developing an information-transaction-facilitated independent-studies program would need to create his or her own individualized resource web.

These resources include fundamental training (i.e., web design and course conversion technology for web delivery and management). Also available is a wide range of curricula from tried-and-true (i.e., Beka and Ed Hirsch) to unique (like Vermont-based “Stars Stories,” which uses astronomy) and progressive (like California’s UN-endorsed Laurel Springs School, and the homeschooling favorite, the Willoway School). Also included are the “nuts and bolts” of such a resource center—lists of mentors and distance-learning-enabled teachers, web-enabled tests and assessment programs, teaching resource data warehouses organized by subject, and even sources of teachers, students, and financial aid. Vocational, career, public sector, technical, and even military oriented schools are included.

All the community learning group has to do is organize these resources into a coherent body of knowledge usable by students and parents alike, based on the needs of their learners and instructors. This essay establishes a “skeleton” one can follow that is both user-friendly and allows one the opportunity of easily adding in components as part of the site maintenance. Interactive community chats can also be incorporated, as well as resource libraries that can be downloaded, and shopping baskets for creating learning communities that sell instructional materials, courses, and other educational items to members.

^
What is Distance Learning and Why Is It Such a Revolutionary Trend in Education?

Recent improvements in the reliability and accessibility of the Internet have made possible the delivery of educational and instructional content over vast distances. The average desktop computer in a mid-coast, Maine, household can now receive and originate interactive video conferencing over the Internet using phones, radio, and the new, two-way, satellite dishes.

Thousands of colleges, universities, corporations, training centers, public and private schools, and other educational centers have made their instructional programs available on the Internet. There are now tens of thousands of educational offerings for nearly every age learner. Geographic and age barriers have been shattered in the process, as hundreds of colleges and universities have “packaged” college and secondary classes for delivery to independent learners around the world.

Younger students may even take college classes for dual credit, enabling them to leave high school at the 10th or 11th grade, and enter college. The college course credits are applied towards both the high-school diploma and the college degree. Middle-school students have successively petitioned their school boards in Maine to give high-school algebra and have the credits applied to their diplomas. Stanford University, widely acclaimed as the world’s best science and engineering school, has created a “virtual student” and offers the first four-year degree available over the Internet. A bright student in rural Mascoma, New Hampshire, school district can now take AP calculus from Johns Hopkins University and earn herself a chance at entering their pre-med program. A student in Bethel, Maine, who missed her AP history classes because of her competitive snowboarding regime can make them up in the summer through a distance learning program. A student at a public high school in New Hampshire can take a class through Clonora’s (a well-known homeschooling resource) new cyber high school, with the credits accepted by her public high school.

Gould Academy has joined with Maine’s first charter school, the Maine School of Science and Mathematics, and Telstar High School (in Bethel, Maine) in creating a cyber school whose first classes will be available soon, along with the Virtual High School Consortium and other public and private cyber schools. Brigham Young University now markets a complete program to the independent learner of high-school age or younger, including scholarship opportunities.

Many other colleges are following in their footsteps in Iowa, Nebraska, California, and other progressive states. So far Maine has been lagging behind, being rooted in an earlier age with educational television networks linking the University of Maine system with the public schools. Now satellite dishes have been replaced by the fiber-based ATM (a large packet method of transmitting IP information) system, but still linking classroom to classroom, not desktop to desktop. Some rural districts however, like Lubec public schools will be using both systems—a global classroom on the Internet and an ATM link to other high schools in Maine.

Along with the revolution in computer-based CD-ROM interactive multimedia educational software and the Internet, homeschooling has never been easier or more in demand. Early reports from large states like Wisconsin and Texas indicate that hundreds of thousands of children will soon be homeschooled in a variety of ways. The Internet can provide tutors, mentors, teachers for individual subjects, lessons and lesson plans, approved courses from well-credentialed schools that range from the best prep and progressive schools to technical, craft, and trade schools.

The best in educational software from companies such as Jostens Learning, which previously was only available to public schools, is now available to homeschoolers. Usually the curriculum is incorporated into a delivery shell and the “package” is called instructional software. For example, the American Educational Corporation has a K-12 curriculum that includes authoring modules so teachers can add their own lessons, an assessment module that measures the degree of attainment of educational objectives and then recommends lessons based on the level of mastery, content tests for each lesson sequence, and a way of linking both web resources and third-party software into the lesson sequence. Some school districts and Canadian provincial departments of education are now putting their curriculum on a web site and making it available to all. This is one of the more exciting aspects of working with web-based resources—the equivalent of a library of the best textbooks to choose from. The software is for sale, some can be rented, and yet more, like the Horizon’s curriculum, is available only by logging into a central web server. Universities and individual teachers will put bits and pieces up for free. A curriculum specialist can quickly integrate these courses and lesson sequences into a coherent, individualized learning plan for a student.

Parents who travel find distance-learning courses provide them the freedom and flexibility to take off and sail for a year. Area marinas are familiar with cruising families who homeschool—only now they use cell phones, radio telephones, and satellite dishes to stay in touch with home schooling resource groups and learning centers.

Perhaps the greatest benefit to students who master distance learning over the Internet is that corporate America and many government institutions such as the Army and the VA use web-based distance learning to train their employees. Lubec Schools are considering links with Norwegian and Chilean fisheries for their vocational students. Maine’s small colleges now realize that distant corporate recruiters may pass them up because of the time and cost considerations, but will schedule videoconference interviews for qualified prospects. Students shopping for colleges can do so over the Internet, right down to virtual tours and interviews; saving their parents much time and money. A student who can’t decide where to enroll may take distance-learning courses at different schools to see which is best.

Distance Learning over the Internet is revolutionizing educational opportunities at all levels, from kindergarten to senior learning centers.

^
What Makes It Possible for Local Learning Groups to Set Up Their Own “NetSchool” for Use by Community Members?

Setting up and maintaining high-quality Internet web sites is now far more inexpensive than organized mailings to member. Plus, they offer the prospect of direct interactivity and instant communication. You can even set up organizational meetings over the Internet using “chat” programs and, eventually, full videoconferencing. The introduction of Office 2000 and improvements to ICQ Chat and Real Audio and Video, as well as modems that support telephony (digital phone calls) are going to make real-time audio and video just a mouse-button click away. Computers are now designed to facilitate multi-tasking involving applications and on-line video conferencing.

Best of all, competition has driven costs down appreciably. I am now working with Great Works Internet to “bundle” a homeschooling computer system with their Internet service. They in turn will provide a “home” for a community-based learning center that wants to have its own learning resource site. Hardware vendors have been working with Internet providers to “bundle” in a free computer with several years of Internet service. Web design and maintenance is no longer the arcane science it once was. Many inexpensive programs offer web-page authoring as a feature, while Office 2000 features assume one can easily access something on the web all the time.

^
Organizing the Web Site

As something of a visionary and entrepreneur, I just designed my own site using Front Page 98. I knew what I wanted and am very well organized, so the site was able to accommodate the various categories of information I wanted on it, and I could expand and contract it as necessary. I also profited by joining a two-day charette (poster session) that developed the judging criteria for evaluating the first national contest for best school web site.

There are many “traps” out there for the first-time web-site developers. The worst are the “free” sites. They are really not so free, since your members will be collected for advertisers and marketing companies, or you will suddenly find bills for special services appearing. Nearly as bad are the sites delegated to a fifteen-year-old web programmer who doesn’t have a clue as to what you want but only wants to show off for his friends. Your needs are sacrificed to his agenda.

What I suggest is that you hold your own charette of interested members. Be sure to include those who may be barely computer literate, but have a strong knowledge of homeschooling. Here are the key areas to focus on:

  • What are the priorities of your members for resource information?

    What do they call or write to you for now? What do you have to put into letters and brochures and handouts? Whose books are you constantly referring to?

  • Who likes to chat with whom now?

    What kinds of interests are shared among members now? How can you include these interest areas into a chat window or chat area on your site? For example, some people will want to buy and sell educational materials—create a used book room for them. Some will want teacher training—so organize a training library and on-line workshops for them. The kids will want to chat with each other—create a chat service for them.

    Chat services can be rich and complex or fairly simple. For young kids, Microsoft COMIC chat is interesting. It offers comic strips with cartoon characters that participants “adopt,” balloons for the words, and even moods for each character. For adults, adopting ICQ ™ or even a public, yet secure chat service is preferred to get things started. Secure commercial chat services offer the greatest protection for activities like association board meetings in the winter. If you’d like more information on ICQ chats, go to www.icq.com.

    Eventually it will be commonplace to have videophone chats using the new H.323 telecommunication standards developed by Intel, Microsoft, and other major computer companies. I have them now and have reasonably good video transfers and audio. The problem is, when more than two people are involved, then a commercial multiplexing service or a secure server must be used to relay the calls back and forth. There are now small, underutilized servers available for small groups, and Microsoft has software that enables an association with a bit of computer savvy to dedicate a computer as a videoconferencing server.

    For more information on videoconferencing go to PACBELL at www.kn.pacbell/wired/vidconf, or read the Video Conferencing “cookbook” at sunsite.utk.edu/video_cookbook/

  • Are members looking for tutors? Mentors? Study Groups? Certified Teachers?

    Great, because there are now cyber mentors and teachers looking for jobs over the Internet. You can develop a “yellow pages” for ones close to home or who have unique teaching experience for the state you live in. You can also screen other services available nationally and recommend them to your members. People love expert opinion, but because there is so much available over the Internet your guidance is even more appreciated. No one wants to search for something and find two million answers!

    You will need to set up standards and criteria, however, to screen people who are listed. Your ability to discriminate among all the people who will show up will be greatly appreciated.

  • What about your version of the state’s homeschool certification process, requirements, etc.?

    Here is a great source of interest from those many fence-sitting families who have a lot of questions about the government’s many interests in regulating home schools. Most states have a .pdf or .doc version of the application form and the guidelines to filling it out on-line. What you can do is have several sample versions of a filled-in form, and then link in explanations to puzzling portions. Parents will write to you with their questions, and you can also have an interactive chat linked to this resource.

  • Do you want to post lessons or curriculum on the site for parents to use?

    This poses many questions and elevates your site to higher levels of complexity. First are the legal and licensing issues behind distributing lesson plans. Some are clearly in the public domain, and others originate from who knows where. Ditto for other instructional materials and resources. For example, I am familiar with one math lesson-plan author who’d like to link into your site, but she is reluctant to have your site “offer” her lessons. This is the common problem—they want you to come to “their house,” but not the other way around.

    Putting software up also means compatibility problems with the authors’ HTML program, JAVA scripts, and other elements of professional web pages. It may mean specialized programming for downloading the latest version of viewers, and commercials for doing so, e.g., Real Audio and Video, Adobe, etc. People are getting the latest “bells and whistles” and automatically expect your site to have the same. Often the materials you would want to post were developed with software that incorporates these cutting-edge features. Streaming audio and video, interactive chat, and special programmed scripts linked to data warehouses are all common features on large sites.

    If you do plan on posting lessons and other resource materials for your group members, you may want to set some minimal standards on size, virus protection, and potential copyright violations.

  • Paying for your site.

    There is a strong temptation to put advertising frames and banners on your site. Internet marketers make these deals very attractive, especially with free server space. The downside is they control the content, look and feel, and other aspects of your site, including the all-important headers. Their intent is to use your site to make them money via advertising money and session logins, which identify the caller to them. Search terms are what bring people to the site and free servers frequently reserve the right to change them. If you are an association, your members who use the “free” site may find themselves the targets of advertisers, and their email addresses sold to the highest bidders.

    But then there are the costs: site design, web-site “gardening” or maintenance, server space costs, and software upgrades. I would suggest that you include in your site a small “shopping mall” or area that features the goods and services of members for a small fee of $25 per year. Twenty such advertisements will probably cover a year’s worth of expenses for a conventional site. Another possibility is to offer one-time “specials” by the larger home-education advertisers. Conferences, workshops, sales, etc., can be relegated to a visible place on your homepage and promoted. You should receive revenue for them. The hardest part is asking for money. All of these enterprises advertise, and you might as well get a small portion.

    Other sources of income are:

    • Commissions on referrals to distance-learning correspondence schools.

    • Commissions on referrals to tutors, mentors, and teachers.

    • Sales of homeschooling magazines and books.

    • Banners for the businesses of members.

^
Summary

Getting started and converting from a conventional library or computer word-processing files into a web site is a daunting undertaking for even an experienced computer user. The hardest part is designing the site, because unless it meets your specific needs, taking it apart is very difficult. A simple design facilitates the perpetual task of weeding and gardening—a tedious task since it involves everything in the site and the links between them that form the “web.” Agreement on organization and a common understanding of the elements and components of this organization among all members of your creative learning community is more important than buying HTML books and application generators.

Think of it as an organic growth process, starting with how you want the site to function, and then adding the skeleton, face, and other elements. Don’t get carried away with the features in commercial and professional sites—those were done by professionals using software and utilities that can cost tens of thousands of dollars. If you want a slick piece of programming, i.e., a market basket and a credit referral, define it and contract for it with one of the thousands of web design shops that have sprung up. What is most important is how the site functions for the learners in your community, not whether it has a shimmering water JAVA applet to impress visitors.
Frank J. Heller, MPA
NetSchool of Maine
12 Belmont Street
Brunswick, ME 04011
E-mail: global@gwi.net
www.netschoolofmaine.com

* * * * *

^
Table of Contents

© Copyright 2000. Frank J. Heller - All Rights Reserved.
global@gwi.net
www.netschoolofmaine.com