The Virtual Advantage Digest highligts our recent blogs, tweets, bookmarks, check ins, e-lerts, and social mentions. Read the Nov. 29 Digest here.

Latin Culture Cafe Session Nov. 18

Check out the Latin Culture Cafe Session at the NCVPS Culture Cafe. This archived session was live on November 18th. The event was hosted by NCVPS teachers Lisa Stanioch, Robin Farber, Frank Williams, and Tom Sears. Former and current students joined in the discussion.

Watch the archived session here:

Follow the link to SchoolTube here.

Curriculum and Instruction Celebrations

Congrats to the C+I team on their most recent success!

Culture Cafe

On November 16th our former Spanish student Brandon J. presented in Spanish and English "La Comida Típica de las Comunidades de España". 30 students participated actively in the session. Brandon took Spanish I through IV with NCVPS. He is actually studying Chinese I with NCVPS and teaching himself Italian! He is going to present another Culture Café session for his Chinese class. We are proud of Brandon!


National Boards

Congratulations to Andrea Stewart and Lorie Poff who got their National Boards renewal. Congratulations to health teacher Sonya Smith who passed her National Boards.

Karen Ragazzo (AP GOovt.), David Phillips (AP Euro), and Frank Felicelli (AP Euro) have met and passed all of the requirements for their National Board Certification.

District Recognition

Anthony Barton (African American Studies) was chosen as the Certified Employee of the Month for the Public Schools Of Robeson County.

History Department

Matt McLean (World History) paid a visit to his students at West Montgomery High School on November 4th. He got the chance to meet his students and they got the chance to meet their teacher face to face!


NC Science Teachers Association Conference

At the NC Science Teachers Association Conference, Carrie Jones won the election for Treasurer, and Sam Wheeler won the District Director election for Wake and its surrounding counties. Congratulations to both Carrie and Sam.


CTE Department

Congratulations to the Early Calendar Success 101 team who had 3 sections with a 100% and 2 sections with 97% Pass Rate.

Congratulations to the Early Calendar Health team. Their final grade for the 9 week course was 96%.


The Arts

The North Carolina Poet Laureate, Cathy Bowers was in Residency with the Advanced Placement Music Theory course. The Poet Laureate discussed the use of metaphor and the use of an abiding image. Tom Moncrief, AP Music Theory teacher, used the music of Beethoven to illustrate the use of the musical motif in relationship to the key components of the literary arts. This Virtual Residency was supported by the North Carolina Arts Council. Great example of using our Wimba Tools to bring this exciting opportunity to our courses.

The North Carolina Art Education Association recently held its annual Professional Development Conference in New Bern. Many of our teachers were selected to give presentations. These included Debra Pylypiw, Rebecca Stone-Danahy, Michelle Harrell, and Sara Gant.

Birth Announcement

Congratulations to our own Ann Spencer! Ann teaches CR Physical Science and her family has expanded by one. Asa Ray Spencer was born at 10:55 PM on November 20th. Asa was 8 pounds and 3 ounces, 20 inches long. Everyone is doing great!

Around the World in One Hour: A World Language Tour with NCVPS

NCVPS will be presenting a webinar to give parents and schools a primer on what NCVPS offers, why world languages are critical to 21st-century future-ready students, and why NCVPS is a leader in online world languages.

DATES:
 Tuesday, November 30 at 8:00 pm
 Thursday, December 9 at 8:00 pm

LOG ON INFO:
Access via the web at -
http://ncvpsclassroom.wimba.com/launcher.cgi?room=_ncvps_s__4100_1_883357

PIN number for conference – 15007821

Call In Access – (201) 549-7595
* Use same PIN number for phone access.

Modular Learning

The modular learning concept was born from this question: "Why should we wait until a students fail a course to offer them credit recovery help?" Now when students fall behind in a course, schools can now enroll them into any one of our 24 modules from English, math, digital communications, and science courses. Students will have the opportunity to master the module's concept (usually over a 1-2 week period) and catch back up with their peers in class.

Right now modular courses are open just to pilot districts, but they will be offered statewide in Spring 2011.

Watch the Flypaper presentation here: http://www.ncvps.org/preso/Modular%20Blended%20Learning/

Thanks to Jennifer Nobles, one of our modular learning specialists, for the great presentation.

Virtual Advantage Digest for Nov. 12, 2010

The Virtual Advantage Digest highligts our recent blogs, tweets, bookmarks, check ins, e-lerts, and social mentions. Click here to see the digest.

NCVPS OCS Courses: Blending Learning

Michelle Lourcey, our Director for Credit Recovery and Occupational Course of Study, discusses NCVPS OCS courses for Spring 11.

Please follow the two links below to view the archives for the Nov. 9 presentation. The third link takes you to our OCS page.

1) OCS Blended Learning Part 1: Michelle gives an overview of the program and gives numerous testimonials from the pilot districts.

http://www.schooltube.com/video/71262ea7f4aecc0552ad/OCS-Part-1

2) OCS Blended Learning Part 2: Michelle explains how to register for OCS courses and what training is involved for the classroom EC teacher.

http://www.schooltube.com/video/3e275d869bea24e5424f/OCS-Part-2

3) Here's the link to our OCS information page. Schools will need to complete the survey before they can register for OCS courses. The survey will be available on Nov. 15.

http://www.ncvps.org/courses/ocs/

Virtual Desktop on the Latest Tech Blog

Virtual Desktop is really a hot topic. Virtualization has been hot in Information Technologies for several years now, and that is moving into the education arena .... fast! Since my blog post in April of 2010, much discussion about virtual desktop solutions for students has gone on in the face to face and virtual school ecosystems. Race To The Top funding has only feed this fire. States such as North Carolina have been granted the resources to revolutionize their computer infrastructure to educate a new generation of students, and Virtual Desktop is seen as a cornerstone in the base foundation.

Continue reading here . . . .

Director's Blog: Stalker Apps or Immersive Intelligence?

I will probably lose my digerati card for this, but I’m embarrassed to say that I had not spent a lot of time with Foursquare until very recently. Immersed into trying to figure it all out and make connections to education, I also had the pleasure this past week of reading Rich Karlgaard’s, Ten Rules of A Cheap Revolution as well as hearing Chris Dede speak about his Virtual Assesment Project.

So as is the case with many of my blogs, I was looking for a common thread when I dropped my son Ben off for his first week at his immersion preschool, http://www.spanishforfun.com/. As it turns out, his preschool allows webcam access for parents at anytime. In addition, they blog about classroom events and experiences, and they have an RSS subscription feed for updates and tips.

Continue reading at edReformer!

LOCK Session - Oct. 19: Curriculum and Instruction Presentation

Dr. Tracy Weeks leads the Curriculum and Instruction Presentation at the Oct. 19 LOCK session.

Part 1

Part 2


Part 3

Creative Commons: What Every Educator Needs to Know

Are your students using multi media for projects and assignments? You'll want to see this!

From the K12 Online Conference 2010

For more on Creative Commons, follow this link.

Primary Digital Portfolios

Teaser for Primary Digital Portfolios at the K12 Online Conference 2010. Is your district ready for this? Are your teachers ready for this?