Mandy Smidt

CET 749

Final Project

August 7, 2006

Introduction

Distance education (DE) is growing as an emerging factor in education throughout the nation, including South Dakota. Here in South Dakota, video conferencing and online classes, both components of DE, are an important way to increase productivity in classrooms. Many rural schools that are struggling with class sizes or other issues can use DE to help students have the opportunity to a quality education. They can be offered classes via distance that they would otherwise not be able to take with the resources available to them at their location. DE has not yet shown up in larger schools throughout the state, including Brookings. I feel that Brookings has a need for DE in their K12 curriculum.

For Brookings School District, there is currently no DE program set up. Through this paper, I will attempt to set up a program to get the school district started using technology through the DE approach. With budget cuts occurring and students taking alternative approaches for graduation requirements, DE courses may become essential for the success of many students. Open enrollment is in effect in the state of South Dakota, causing populations of classes to fluctuate year to year while in turn creating different demands for various courses.

DE courses are a tool that can help students expand their horizons, as well as take new approaches to learning. Through the use of DE courses, a policy needs to be made to make it all possible. Support is needed from students, teachers, staff, administration, as well as parents and guardians. A tech support team is needed to get the process underway. Included will be the tech coordinator, select teachers, administrators, as well as a much needed technology integration specialist.

Staff

In order for this distance education program to work, it requires a group of dedicated, motivated, and knowledgeable staff. A technology team should be created to get mandatory training with Internet applications and other technology tools used in the DE courses. The head of the department should be the Technology Integration Specialist. Other members of the group will consist of an administrator as well as instructors from various schools as well as content areas. The technology team would also need to evaluate classrooms and other sources for the DE courses to take place. Changes will need to be made to accommodate these requirements. A survey should be created to find out which teachers are interested in teaching DE courses.

Our technology team will consist of the technology integration specialist, technology coordinator, the curriculum director, the teachers that are part of the DE courses, the high school principal, and the financial director.

Equipment

The Brookings School District has two Tandberg DE units. One is located at the Brookings High School, with the second being located at Mickelson Middle School. These units include a widescreen television, with split screen capabilities, a microphone system, CPU, and universal remote control. We also have a T1 Internet connection to all of the schools and all machines in the district have Internet connection and network capabilities.

Research

Since this DE program is new to us, it is important that we get all the facts regarding DE courses. We will research other school districts around the area to see what methods and tactics they use with DE courses. This will involve communicating with technology coordinators, instructors, as well as administration of South Dakota school districts.

To see what we want to offer through DE courses, we will first need to see what we don’t offer. Foreign languages are sometimes a big issue as well as other elective courses. We will create a survey for students to take (shown later in the paper). Another factor is that sometimes the courses are offered, however, the student isn’t able to take it because they are required to take another course at that specific time. Researching other schools to see who offers specific courses on DE or in the traditional classroom may resolve some of these issues. Communicating with other school districts about DE course possibilities may give many new possibilities that we may not even know about.

Maturity of students is a major component when determining if students are ready to take on a higher responsibility in their learning. It is important to closely monitor students in distance education courses to see if they are “slipping” in their grades as well as to check out how they are going about this change in their education.

Teacher Survey:

Answer the following questions with 1 being the least or least comfortable and 5 being quite often or very comfortable.

1. Are you an avid user of technology? 1 2 3 4 5

2. Do you enjoy using technology in your curriculum? 1 2 3 4 5

3. Do you have any experience with DE courses? 1 2 3 4 5

**If so, please explain below:

4. Would you be interested in teaching a DE course? 1 2 3 4 5

5. Do you think your students would be interested 1 2 3 4 5

in taking a DE course?

A poll will be sent out to students to see what their interests are regarding course choices. Even if there are not any teachers really interested in teaching DE courses in our district, there may be DE courses offered by other schools that our students may like to take.

Student Poll:

Answer the following questions (except #1) with 1 being the least interested or least comfortable and 5 being very interested or very comfortable.

1. Are there any classes you are interested in that are not currently offered?

2. Do you enjoy using technology in your classes? 1 2 3 4 5

3. How important is it to you that you take the classes 1 2 3 4 5
you want to take for graduation requirements and
further ambitions.

4. Have you heard of Distance Education? 1 2 3 4 5

5. Would you be interested in a Distance Education 1 2 3 4 5
course?

Goals and Objectives

Goals and objectives are a very important aspect of all educational processes, whether it’s the “simplicity” of a lesson plan or the complexity of a district wide technology plan. There are different goals and objectives needed to make the DE courses successful. The following are a list of goals and objectives made for the Brookings School District’s DE program:

Ø Provide students with courses that they would otherwise not be available to them.

Ø Increase technology use in the district.

Ø Utilize the equipment and tools provided by the state.

Ø Create another educational strategy to reach students.

The objectives that we have for our program need to be specific to the courses that are offered. Each teacher needs to come up with these objectives. While including the concept objective (French, Algebra, etc.) the instructors also need to include a technology component. This is something that allows the students to use technology to enhance their learning in some way. This course not only needs to teach the students the content, but also get them ready for the future by integrating technology into their curriculum. These objectives will be written by the staff and will be evaluated by the technology integration specialist.

Policy Development
Some areas of policy development include academic accreditation, training, financial issues, labor issues, as well as legal issues. All are important aspects that much be thoroughly planned and researched to make the DE program viable and accredited.

For academic accreditation, instructors involved must provide documentations for all of the material they are presenting to the students. Lesson plans, various texts and other copyright materials, as well as software licenses are essential for the course they are providing for many students across the state to be successful. Teachers must also be willing to take different approaches to teaching these DE courses. Many types of assessments are needed to ensure students’ learning. Teachers can learn from other teachers involved in DE courses around the state. Training will be made available through the state for new DE instructors in order for them to access and use all of the tools that are provided to them through the state.

Another aspect would be training for both faculty and students. There needs to be an introductory “workshop” for everyone to complete before engaging in the course. Also, rules and regulations documentation needs to be signed for Internet Usage, etc. The technology integration specialist will be in charge of training the faculty how to use this after receiving training from the State. Students will be trained by trained staff.

Some labor issues may include the lack of interest by teachers. Teaching a DE course does require more time and work, however, we will be guaranteeing those teachers compensation for their extra time and dedication to courses outside of their traditional classes. Teachers committed to teaching DE courses will be paid for teaching the course and only teaching the course. It will not be in their job description to deal with hardware problems or other technical issues. They are there to teach and provide a successful learning environment for their students. The technology coordinator and/or technology integration specialist will be responsible for system failures and other technical problems. They will also be compensated for their extra efforts toward the DE courses provided by the Brookings School District.

Financial issues include ensuring that there are enough students enlisted in the courses being offered by the Brookings teaching staff. We don’t foresee having a problem in this area as the research (surveys) say that there is interest and desire by both faculty and students to engage in DE learning. Equipment and software costs will be handled through the state since the state provides us with the tools needed for the DE courses. Since Brookings is part of the K12 State Data System, we will use the WebCT software provided by the state, free of charge. In order to use this, all teachers must take a one-day training course over the use of WebCT. Teachers will then pass on their knowledge to the students during the training at the beginning of the course.

Copyright issues are a huge legal issue at hand. Sometimes a text book is not available for certain parts of a course or financially it just doesn’t make sense for the instructor to have all of their students purchase a $75 book for a small section pertaining to the course or perhaps there aren’t enough funds available. With that issue at hand, teachers need to make sure they understand all of the copyright laws in regards to using different kinds of materials in their classes. It is critical to get permission for other’s work as well as explain to the students how these copyright laws work.

With DE courses come technical issues with many different aspects of the setup. Roughly 90% of Brookings students have Internet access from their homes. Some have dial-up modems while others have a cable connection. With the use of DE courses, students can have access to fast Internet connection for free. If students have extra work outside of the classroom to do, there may need to be some night labs for students who do not have access to a computer or have a slow connection at home.

Other technical issues may include making sure that the Internet connection is always up for the students. This is done by the K-12 Data Center and also by the Technology Support Team. There are very few times that the Internet connection is down and when it does go down it is usually resolved within 15 to 20 minutes of it being reported.

Hardware could be another issue. If the videoconferencing unit goes down, the Technology Support Team is the first to attempt to fix the problem. If they cannot resolve the issue, it then moves to the K-12 Data Center to fix the problem. These pieces of equipment are very new and updated continuously so hardware failure is unlikely.

Budget

DE Tools	Faculty Involved	Description	Total
Funds Available			$25,000
Teacher’s fee	Content Instructor	Each teacher that teaches a course will receive $700/course taught **1 DE room available for a possibility of 5 teaching periods	$700-3,500
Tech Support	1 Coordinator, 1 Technician, 1 Technology Integrationist	24 hour tech support on-call with pagers/cell phones	$4,000
Lab Use	Tech Support Team	Includes all tools stationed in the DE room as well as online tools (WebCT, Internet access, etc.)	Room is open and available 24 hours. Equipment is provided by the state.
Marketing	Technology Support Team, Secretary	We will create paper products to display in the school, mail out to the student’s guardians, as well as to the teachers. Emails will be issued as well as advertisement on the school web site.	$500
DE courses taken off-site	Students	Each DE course a student takes outside of our district will cost approximately $300 per student. Depending on what course the student takes through specific institutions will determine the price.	$300/student
DE courses offered by Brookings	Students	Schools that have students in our DE courses will be required to pay $300/student per semester Example: 25 students	+ $7,500
Course Materials	Students	Fees for books, materials, etc.	$100/year Example: 80 students $8,000/year
Possible Total Budget for year		**Numbers will fluctuate based on students taking DE courses on or off campus.	$16,000

Conclusion

Technology in education is a permanent part of our society. Distance education is an option that is viable and essential because of the changes in education that are occurring yearly. Budget changes and funding are, unfortunately, decreasing more than they’re increasing, or so it seems. With No Child Left Behind, certified teachers are mandatory to teach today’s youth. DE courses allow certified teachers at single locations to teach many more students at different locations.

Distance education gives schools the option to help students expand their education in different ways than before. A variety of courses help them to take the direction they want for graduation requirements for specific high school diplomas. The DE courses also allow students to get a head start on their future secondary education by taking on new and advanced challenges that are not always apparent in traditional classrooms.

Change is an inevitable part of education. The teachers that constantly tweak or fine-tune what they do from year to year are the teachers that contribute to student’s education the most. Throughout the history of education, change has been a good thing, though at times it is not seen that way. DE is the next step in the evolution of education. It is important to have a DE policy in place to ensure the success and accreditation of the program. Brookings is a very successful school; however, with DE added to the mix, students have many more possibilities to earn the best education they can.