STATE BOARD OF EDUCATION – TOPIC SUMMARY
Topic: OVSD Update
Date: 5/5/09
Staff/Office: Steve Nelson/ Superintendent’s Office
Action Requested: Information only Policy Adoption Policy Adoption/Consent Calendar
ISSUE BEFORE THE BOARD: (one sentence or phrase that explains the need for board attention)
Update on the Progress of the OVSD Program.
BACKGROUND: (Write this section as if explaining the issue for the first time to someone, giving background—history/context—on the issue. Include when it was last before the board, if appropriate)
· The Oregon Virtual School District in neither a district, nor a school, but rather a set of powerful applications and content provided to schools for the modernization of classroom instruction. OVSD does not employ teachers, teach courses, or award credit. OVSD is developed and hosted by Oregon State University and is offered to all schools by the Department of Education.
· The goal of OVSD is to provide every teacher and every student with on demand teaching and learning that is flexible enough to create an environment of customization that increases student achievement.
· The content in OVSD is aligned to Oregon Standards. The content includes 90 course templates for middle school and high school including AP level. The portal also has streaming education videos and interactive learning objects for all the core content areas.
· The applications allow for curricular and delivery personalization for teachers and students.
· Professional development is available through OVSD trainers and online courses.
· The Webex Webinar system is now the primary communication tool used for OVSD.
OVSD Teaching and Learning Systems hosted by OSU
· The ORVSD.org portal is designed for the individual teacher to easily create an account and begin teaching with the system. The teacher controls all the courses, content and how it is delivered to the student. 18,452 teachers and students currently use ORVSD in 262 locations.
· The Knowledge Community is a district-wide portal provided through the regional ESD that focuses on consistency in approach to providing instruction, utilizing student achievement data and communication between the teacher, the student and the parent. Knowledge Community is currently being deployed by three ESDs and has 103,200 users. While early in its deployment, KC offers a great potential for standardization of content delivery and encourages teachers to work in teams and share their own learning and best teaching strategies.
How are teachers and schools using OVSD?
· Ashland high school: 1,713 OVSD users. Comments submitted by Dana Rensi
“Kids learn this way (with technology) on their own already,” Max, our student test pilot, tells me. Max is training to help students with this new technology through our Student Tutor Center. “Interactive activities add spice and catch our attention,” he says. “Plus, it helps us communicate better with our teachers and get our homework done.” As Max and his peers so often remind me, kids are already using this kind of technology outside of the classroom, so bringing it inside the classroom doesn’t require much of a transition.
“It’s the new MySpace,” one of my students exclaimed when I first demonstrated how to post messages to the forum in our portal. But while students may be tech savvy in certain areas, they often do not know how to apply these skills to learning. Even so, within no time, my students were posing questions to their peers outside of class, creating cooperative wikis, viewing peer-created videos (over and over), even leaving me audio messages online – all in Spanish. The students are expanding their knowledge by applying what they learn in ways that are relevant to them, plus they’re able to supplement their studying at home, review lessons, and get extra help when they need it. Best of all, their Spanish is improving because of it. Not only are they learning the content, but students are also becoming more familiar with the technology that they are expected to know when they get to college. Even planning for college is easier, as students are able to see details about schools online and even check out campuses on Google Earth.
· Teachers in Wallowa County: 360 OVSD users. Quotes submitted by Josh Kesecker, Wallowa ESD
"I just did a unit with my genetics class, almost entirely on the OVSD Moodle. I have to say that students who are usually not very enthusiastic about anything seemed to really enjoy it – and I saw students who were unable to understand how to do Hardy-Weinberg equilibrium problems be able to do them on OVSD. Strange! It worked really well to have them post their lab results on there, as well. It saved me a LOT of time going through piles of lab notebooks, and they were able to discuss the results that they found on the forum."
"I just did a unit with my genetics class, almost entirely on the OVSD Moodle. I have to say that students who are usually not very enthusiastic about anything seemed to really enjoy it – and I saw students who were unable to understand how to do Hardy-Weinberg equilibrium problems be able to do them on Moodle. Strange! It worked really well to have them post their lab results on there, as well. It saved me a LOT of time going through piles of lab notebooks, and they were able to discuss the results that they found on the forum."
· Salem Keizer School District. OVSD hosts the Salem-Keizer District web portal and Crossler Middle School has 825 OVSD users.
“Salem-Keizer Public Schools learned in May 2008 about the opportunity to work with the OVSD to develop a new district Web site. Our old one was built using outdated 1990’s technology. The OVSD helped us develop a site using the 21st Century technologies, and worked seamlessly with our internal technology staff to switch over from our old site to the new one. The ORVSD has also provided important ongoing training and support.
We are the second-largest school district in Oregon. We have over 40,000 students, 70 schools, and 5,000 employees. In an organization this large, the Web site is crucial in communicating both internally and externally. The Web site is the first impression many get about our school district. The impact of having a first-rate Web site is important to our mission of providing high-quality service to our community. The ORVSD has provided outstanding support both before and after the launch of our district site. We could not ask for better service or a higher level of professionalism. “Salem-Keizer Public Schools is able to do things with our district Web site we wouldn’t be able to do, because of budget concerns, without the Oregon Virtual School District program. “If a public school district were to do what we have done through the services offered by the ORVSD, we estimate a cost of approximately $45,000 to launch a similar enterprise Web site, with ongoing annual expenses of around $10,000.“
· Willamette ESD: WESD is using the Knowledge Community to provide student data dashboards for teachers in 29 school districts and their 103,000 students and teachers.
OVSD Support and Training
· OVSD Teacher training is now being provided through a consortium of four ESDs through a new agreement with the High Desert ESD. Training covers how teachers use the available systems and content, integrate the tools into classroom teaching and align OVSD resources with their school improvement and Diploma implementation efforts.
· OVSD Help Desk services are being transitioned from OSU to the Willamette ESD. Help Desk services assist teachers with system changes and immediate “how to” help.
Leveraged Resources through Public Private Partnerships
2007-09 / Private Resources / Source / Public Dollars Legislative Appropriation / Measure: Target Ratio / Performance: Private/Public RatioFY 2007 / 1. $50,000
2. $10,000
3. $45,000
4. $180,000
5. $61,200
6. $5,000
7. $80,000 / 1. Qwest Teacher Grants
2. Boxpopuli-Podcasting Server
3. Open Academic Drupal Ed Software
4. Intel Professional Services
5. Laptops for Pilots
6. Google Staff (OSU)
7. 20 Smart Boards and Training / $900,000 / 1:1 / .47:1
FY 2008
To date / 1. $2,500,000
2. $350,000 / 1. KC Software
2. Intel Professional Services / $900,000 / 1:1 / 3.2:1
Biennial Totals / $3,281,200m / $1.8m / 1:1 / 3.6:1
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