Edudemic » How To Become A Certified Virtual Classroom Teacher

This looks interesting. If I wasn’t so busy I’m cross-eyed half the time, I’d look into it. Actually, I won’t always be so busy, so maybe next year.

Edudemic » How To Become A Certified Virtual Classroom Teacher.

Wimba Workshop

This morning’s workshop was on Wimba which is a conferencing/teaching tool. This is more for individual sessions while Moodle was on setting up courses. 

I’m still struggling with exactly the best way to set up a moodle course when I know most of the students don’t have access to the internet away from school. I love that it keeps up with all their grades and they have ready access to those – if they can get to the net.

I was thinking as we were going through the Wimba course today that one of the ways it might be used is for absent students. That would mean I’d have to do every lesson an extra time to get it on there. I was also thinking it could be used on those days when you walk in and a good number of students are out. You could just do a Wimba class while you are doing class and archive it to be viewed later. Lots of possibilities at least.

Now that I have a Wimba classroom, if you’d like to participate in a class to see what it can do, I can set that up. Just let me know somehow, somewhere 😉

Advertisement

Since you can’t hack it here, take it online

A Texas school district said that to 17 seniors who couldn’t seem to pull it together enough to pass the TAKS. The request was to withdraw and finish their H.S. educations online. This was in an effort to get those students a diploma not apparently to penalize them.

Here’s the kicker though:

Canutillo Superintendent Damon Murphy said all 17 students agreed to enroll at Penn Foster, but none was admitted because its academic standards were more rigorous than those of Canutillo.

They do have other options – not many and not so terribly attractive, but the Community College out in El Paso will take them, but they’ve  still got to pass that TAKS to get an associates degree. They could get a GED without the test.

“That option, though, was not something my 17 kids could afford,” he said. “If we as a district don’t look for ways to try and get them moving toward graduation and into college, these kids would be lost.”

School districts in El Paso have strived to help their non-graduating seniors pass the TAKS during the summer.

In the El Paso Independent School District, all seniors who have completed coursework but need the TAKS to graduate are given the option of one-on-one tutoring during the weeks before the last administration of the exam.

Read the whole story from the El Paso Times. Canutillo students asked to withdraw. Strategy: to bypass failed TAKS for online diploma