Session Goals

Gain an understanding of traditional Interactive

Video Distance Learning (IVDL)

Learn about the history of the project

Experience the structure of the current program

Discuss and share goals and plans for the future

What is Video

Conferencing?Video conferencing, or Interactive Video Distance

Learning (IVDL) is the real time transmission of both

audio and video over a high speed network to remote

sites and locations.

It is rather like Skype, but much higher quality,

capable of whole room instruction, and secure for

school districts.

History of the Project

Tec-Link, the ECOESC video conference consortium, has been delivering high school courses through interactive video distance learning for 10 years.

One of our partner schools asked if Mandarin Chinese was a possibility as a foreign language.

Through a partnership with Ohio State University, we were able to offer Mandarin as a High School foreign Language during the school year, 2008-2009 to one class of students via interactive video distance learning.

During that first year, it was so successful, the

consortium agreed to share the cost of the teacher

among the group.

We secured six high school partners, and hired a teacher

for the project, all being delivered through IVDL, each

partner receiving one period of Mandarin Chinese

instruction per day.

During that time, we also wrote a FLAP grant – Foreign

Language Assistance Program – which we received on

Sept. 1, 2009. This grant paid for the teacher and

equipment cost of the original 6 partner sites.

During year two, our first year of the FLAP grant,

our model proved successful enough that we

decided to replicate it with paying school

districts.

Opening this concept to the districts through

IVDL brought an additional 13 sites, and with that,

the need to hire 2 more full time teachers, as well

as the use of Ohio State University Teacher

Assistants to meet the time constraints and

demand of the instructional schedule.

Curriculum

Because in the 1st year of the program, OSU Flagship staff provided our teacher, we chose to partner with OSU for the purpose of Curriculum in Mandarin Chinese instruction.

Our current curriculum is Chinese: Communicating Culture in the Classroom, an Ohio State University Project

We will continually supplement this, as we are finding that additional High School relevance is helpful.

Why offer courses over

IVDL?To increase access and exposure to foreign languages: Mandarin is deemed a critical language through the office of Homeland Security

To help fix teacher and school schedules

To increase the number of course offerings within a school district

To help mitigate the cost of instruction to a district

All are sharing the burden of salary and benefits

Where are we now?

Currently, we are completing year 2 of a 3 year FLAP grant.

We now have 9 grant partners, and 22 high schools overall in

the program. This is the 3rd year of the program, overall.

The FLAP schools, at the end of next year, will have received

3 years of Mandarin instruction, and will be ready to sustain

a part-time teacher at the current student numbers.

The 13 additional schools are in year 1 of instruction, and

have committed at this date to continue with level 2.

District Demographics

The districts we serve are mostly very rural, with little or no access to diverse culture or languages.

We reach a variety of schools, economically, demographically, and geographically.

This delivery concept enables all to share in the experience and knowledge of a native speaker, who has been University trained, at a fraction of the local cost.

School District County

Manchester Local Adams

Lima Senior Allen

Carrollton Ex. Village Carroll

Southern Local Columbiana

Lisbon Columbiana

Coshoston Coshocton

Riverview Local Coshocton

Sandusky City Erie

Hilliard (all 3 HS sites) Franklin

New Albany Franklin

Whitehall Franklin

Van Buren Hancock

Newark City Licking

Newark Digital Academy Licking

Southwest Licking Licking

Northridge Local Licking

Heath Licking

Lakewood Licking

Tri-Valley MS/HS Muskingum

West Muskingum MS/HS Muskingum

Tri-Valley Muskingum

Franklin Digital Muskingum

Franklin Local Perry

Coventry Local Summit

Dover City Tuscarawas

Strasburg Tuscarawas

Tuscarawas Valley Tuscarawas

Challenges

Student and building bell schedules at the start – we have much experience working with schedules, so we suggest ways to line up schedules best, and that works well.

Integration of the technology in districts where video has not been a priority. Video conferencing works VERY well, but requires a network support system designed to prioritize video traffic.

Sharing physical materials in a remote environment.

Capturing, rendering, transcoding and streaming daily recordings of the course instruction

In Ohio, we have many delay start school days (pep rallies, teacher work days, testing time, etc) and many snow days.

Our teachers are located in an Urban area, with few calamity days, while our served districts are rural, and call off or start late due to bad weather.

These schedule changes, on a daily basis, can slow instruction, and if not managed correctly, corrupt the entire instructional day. Each teacher may teach to 6 different districts.. And changing one class would mess up all other schedules.

Ohio gives a state wide test, and we lose a week of instruction in our class because of their changes.

Time for teacher professional development –we have 22 different school schedules so it is difficult to find shared planning time.

Future of Mandarin IVDL

The delivery model, which we have worked with for the

past 10 years, continues to prove successful.

We are currently working with partner districts and will

model the same teacher cost-sharing model for our next

cohort group.

Each time we reach 6 periods of purchased instruction,

we hire a new teacher to deliver this course to students,

always over IVDL.

Questions