Case Study: How Can a Small School District Finance an Online High School - Live Blog

Really quickly, here some notes on the session (live blog is available in replay).

The big finance issue that came out here is that ADM formulas for per pupil funding don't handle the flexibility of online programs. Since students can (and do) enroll in more than just 4 classes (which is what ADM is typically calculated on), it is hard to identify how to fund those extra classes. Part-time programs are harder to fund, largely because they are dependent on special appropriations, grant money, or simply excess budget funds (and who has those these days!).

Another deterrent seems to be the reluctance of traditional high schools to lose their ADM (makes sense) and so they are resistance to letting students take online courses if it is going to siphon off a part of their ADM to pay for those courses.

Live blog replay/notes are below the jump. (See the read more link)

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VSS 2008 - Working with Legislators: 5 Things You Must Do

Legislative work is all about relationships, relationships, relationships - in the summer especially when they are off-session. The quality of those relationships will determine if they call on you for info when a vote is up in the legislature. Term limited legislators rely more heavily on lobbyists and staff - so you should target those people in term limit states.

Next Question: What should you never do in working with legislators? Don't go in just with you handout - you need a compelling elevator speech to explain simply, quickly, and powerfully. If you don't know something, don't BS - tell them I don't know, but I will find out and get back to them quickly.

3rd Question: How do you go about creating your value proposition for your initiative?

Quantify, Quantify, Quantify - if you don't have something similar - use data from like populations that do have data as a basis.

No one wants to be a backwater - you can trot out comparisons with other states if you need some firepower

Keep your value proposition simple and succinct.

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VSS 2008 - Utah Electronic High School

(cross posted to Virtual Schools Symposium wiki at http://vss2008.wikispaces.com)

Utah Electronic High School

It is a credit-granting organization (different from many other states. It is open-entry/open-exit school and they finid that 50% of their enrollments are credit acceleration.

They are implementing proctoring - not many of the individuals raised their hand when asked if their virtual schools had implemented proctoring. Kathy Webb, the principal of UEH, said she thought we all will be doing that in order to be accredited.

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MediaCoder and Mpeg Streamclip - THE Windows video converters

Inevitably I seem to run into situations where I have a video in one format and need to get it into another. Windows Media Video file (WMV) into Flash or Quicktime, back the other way, or to simply squeeze the size down a bit.

This has happened twice to me in the last day - once with a video clip (1.2 gb) from my mythtv box and another with a Windows Movie Maker generated WMV file. In the first case Mpeg Streamclip helped me take that 1.2 gb tv recording and shrink it to around a 20mb Quicktime file that could be viewed via the web. In the second case, I used MediaCoder to take a 5mb WMV file of a family "commercial" we created (you can see that one at http://family.hintonweb.com) into a 3.5 mb FLV file to embed in our family blog.

These two programs are like my video (and audio) converter swiss army knifes and are well worth their install. I have tried the whole range of video converters (both paid and free) and I haven't seen any that do things quite as well as these two. They just seem to come in handy!

P.S. I also use Handbrake occasionally when I might need to grab a clip from a DVD.

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Deceptive Descriptions - What a Bummer! Just Be Real

"This above all: to thine own self be true". - (Hamlet Act I, Scene III)

I attended a session that I was really disappointed in yesterday and I think there is an important lesson to learn here from the experience. Sometimes sessions don't connect with us, that's a reality and okay. The problem I ran into yesterday was I attended a session that said it was going to cover a particular topic and covered something completely different.

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