"you save the price of a stamp"

Treasurer Jim Dacey said residents will have the option to pay taxes, water and sewer bills, and permit, license, camp, recreation and school fees online in just a few weeks.

"This gives people another option for paying their bills," Dacey said. "We'd like to switch people from using their online banking, which for us is very inefficient."

 Read the full article in the Milford Daily News here


Franklin, MA

In the Globe - virtual high school

Milford is exploring use of online courses. Franklin does this with their use of Moodle. As I understand it, the Moodle classes are taught by Franklin teachers and can be open to student from around the world (maybe even down the road in Milford). This brief article in the Globe West seems to imply that the virtual courses would be taught by others around the world and access by Milford students with a teacher facilitating the overall process.

Virtual high school planning advances

from Boston Globe -- Globe West by Kathleen Moore, Globe Correspondent

In preparation for the launch of its Virtual High School initiative in the spring, the Milford School Department has hired former webmaster Karen Healey to serve as the program’s coordinator.

Live reporting - Moodle Facilitated Courses

2. Guests/Presentations
Moodle Facilitated Courses

Pandora Carlucci
Eileen Belastock
Adam Wawrow

10 courses now available online

Pandora witnessed the collaboration and learning between Adam and Eileen in working to bring the Moodle system to life for Franklin.

http://cms.franklin.k12.ma.us/

Moodle - "modular object oriented learning environment"
Open source software, 27 million users

Switched from Blackboard to Moodle to save money
only the in-house server and in-house expertise is required to support it

Eileen - did use Blackboard, wasn't very flexible, went to a conference and heard about it
a virtual high school accredited by the State of Florida is operational

Attended summit at Olin College, people were impressed with what Franklin has already accomplished with Moodle

Eileen did a training session with 8 teachers today
It takes a lot of work for teachers to do, all on their own time

Forensic science class being set up
provides the required text, uses blogs for communication back and forth

Internet sites are pre-cleared by the teacher before set up for the students to link out to within Moodle

Schedule posted in advance for Forensic science to provide some flexibility for the students to complete their work

Up to 30 expected to be able to handle the course with this teacher, did have 10 last year

Moodle does a lot of the work electronically
feedback to the students automated by the system

A couple of students did take a course from Las Vegas last year.
Only issue was with working the timing for when work is due to accommodate multiple time zones

Students need the opportunity to experience on-line learning before they go to college

Principal Light - course on transcript, no weighting for College or Honors scoring yet, on honors pre-calc course counts for the grade point average

"We may not have a Smartboard in every classroom but we are doing so much more" Eileen

Life Long Learning has been providing the start up costs, as the courses really get rolling, then it would come into the full and normal school program. Teachers in the future may divide their time between classroom face-time and classroom online-time.

Forensics uses "Forensics for Dummies" is used as the text, available for about $18 from various on-line booksellers. The course is built to extend the material prepared in the text.

Tim Raposa points out the collaboration on technology between the town and school.

"online coursework can be an excellent option"

When most people think about online learning, they think about adults taking online university classes. Or they might think about the online training that occurs in many workplaces. But online learning opportunities occur in the K-12 sector as well and are increasingly popular with students and their families.

The Sloan Consortium estimates that at least 1 million K-12 public school students took an online course last year. This represents approximately 2% of the national K-12 public school student population and is a 22–fold increase since 2000. About 20 states have statewide virtual high schools that deliver online courses to students across the state.

Dr. Scott McLeod writes on his blog, Dangerously Irrelevant, this post about online learning opportunities.

As you read the following, do a simple replacement exercise, substitute "Franklin, MA" in place of Iowa.

A robust online learning infrastructure for students makes a lot of sense for the state of Iowa (and I’m glad there’s a bill in the Iowa House to consider it). If we’re honest with ourselves, we will recognize that most of our school districts will NEVER be able to provide the curricular diversity that most of our graduates need to be effective digital, global workers and citizens. If we’re truly honest, we also will recognize that the Iowa Communications Network (ICN) is not a viable future option. The ICN is a closed, aging network and the course offerings (and monies) there, like everything else in the world, must move to the Web. Whether it’s a statewide virtual school or some other model, we must significantly increase the number of online courses available to Iowa students if we are to provide them access to the high-quality learning opportunities envisioned in the Iowa Core Curriculum.

You can click through to read the full article here.

Franklin has started exploring this option and should continue to do so. It is not a silver bullet to save money. There will likely be some contractual and procedural changes required to implement appropriately. It will be some work but it should be worthwhile to develop our children for life and learning in this new world.