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MasterMind Prep Introduces “Next-Generation” Live Online Tutoring

June 3, 2011 By Leave a Comment

MasterMind Prep Learning Solutions has introduced “next-generation” Live Online Tutoring to help students anywhere in the world improve reading, math and SAT prep skills in the comfort of their own home. Students and tutors see, hear and learn together in real time using webcams, headsets and digital writing pads in a virtual classroom on a computer, tablet or smartphone.

“We think personal attention and feedback from a live tutor is critical to the learning process, and students tell us they feel like they are in the same room with the online tutor,” said Doug Haynes, founder and president of MasterMind Prep. “With the rise in gas prices and busyness of life, live online tutoring at home is also very convenient for families.”

Tutors at MasterMind Prep teach in interactive virtual classrooms powered by Cisco® WebEx® so they can share documents or web-based curriculum from their screen, work problems on a digital whiteboard, write or ask students to write on the screen, and get feedback by polling or instant chat. Students can learn on any computer, tablet or smartphone including iPad®, iPhone®, Android® and Blackberry®.

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Big Ideas Offered To Cut School Budget

May 12, 2011 By Leave a Comment

That sort of cross-school system consolidation isn’t seen in North Carolina – but it has begun happening in other industries. The Charlotte Observer and the Raleigh News & Observer now share sports and legislative reporting teams.

Daniels suggested eliminating dues for professional organizations (an employee making $80,000 or $100,000 a year can afford them). He also suggested offering credit-recovery and summer school classes online, something that might work.

Daniels’ argument for combining departments with other school systems was his funniest. “I know that Greensboro and Guilford County have discussed a similar proposal from time to time.”

For the rest of the article, go to Big Ideas Offered To Cut School Budget

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Appalachian holds Russian language institute for high school students in July

May 3, 2011 By Leave a Comment

High school students who have been studying Russian online through the N.C. Virtual High School have an opportunity to attend a two-week institute at Appalachian State University focusing on the Russian language and culture.

Appalachian’s 2011 StarTalk North Carolina Student Summer Institute in Russian will be a two-week, residential immersion Russian language and culture program held on campus July 18-31. The residential immersion program will help students further develop their oral, reading and writing skills. In-class and out-of-class activities will center on the theme of Discover the World of Russian Fairy Tales and connect it with the art and music of Russian culture.

Directed by Assistant Professor Irina Barclay, the program is made possible by $83,554 in funding from the U.S. National Security Agency’s StarTalk program, which is part of the National Security Language Initiative (NSLI) begun in 2006. StarTalk is designed to increase the number of Americans learning, speaking and teaching critical need foreign languages that aren’t widely taught in the United States. Russian, Chinese and Arabic are among those the NSA considers critical need languages.

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Welcome to Virtual High

April 20, 2011 By Leave a Comment

The challenge, many say, is finding the right mix of technology and human contact, freedom and discipline.

In 2006, CMS launched the Performance Learning Center, where about 100 students take online classes at a north Charlotte school. It’s aimed at kids who struggle in traditional settings, and many students say the personal attention from teachers and small, family-like clusters of classmates is part of what motivates them.

Hawthorne, an alternative school in east Charlotte, already focuses on flexible scheduling and individualized coursework. The e-Learning Academy offers the greatest degree of individual freedom yet – which can be a plus or minus.

For the rest of the article, go to Welcome to Virtual High
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NC House panel approves charter school expansion

April 8, 2011 By Leave a Comment

Democrats complain that the plan would undercut public schools because the measure does not require the alternative schools to prevent segregation into majority white and minority schools. The House minority also says provisions allowing virtual charter schools have few guidelines.
Republicans have moderated an earlier stand by adding transportation and meal requirements for new charter schools.

For the rest of the article, go to NC House panel approves charter school expansion

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New Hanover school system chief points to strengths, areas that need work

April 6, 2011 By Leave a Comment

Markley mentioned four new initiatives coming to the district: increasing use of North Carolina Virtual Public High Schools, a business advisory council for the schools, a finalized district strategic plan and a site that will allow parents to track a child’s grades.

“We have a model of a four-year high school. Why is that the only model?” he asked. “We’re pushing more college courses into high school so kids can walk out with college credit hours. When you think about it, if a kid can graduate in three years, why stop him? If they need a fifth year, that’s OK too.”

For the rest of the article, go to New Hanover school system chief points to strengths, areas that need work

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Twilight School helps students get high school diplomas in Pender

March 29, 2011 By Leave a Comment

The program is designed to meet each child’s individual needs through the computer-based curriculum of N.C. Virtual Public High School. Three teachers from Trask and one from Topsail High School facilitate the sessions. Part of the program’s focus is helping these students reconnect to school.

“Part of the reason they dropped out was not feeling connected,” said Jeremiah Johnson, assistant principal at Cape Fear Elementary School and an alternative programs coordinator for the district. “It helps to form a relationship with someone in the school building, and that’s the counselor’s job.”

For the rest of the article, go to Twilight School helps students get high school diplomas in Pender

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Would lifting charter cap allow homeschools to become charter schools?

March 22, 2011 By Leave a Comment

During the recent Pender County Board of Education meeting, board members were concerned that if the charter cap of 100 schools was lifted in North Carolina, that all homeschools could then become charter schools and take money from the local school systems.

That sounded like a pretty worst-case scenario and a bit simplified to me. So I checked it out a little today.

There are virtual charter schools, just about 185 nationwide, that do attract homeschool students. But the Homeschool Legal Defense Association stresses on its web site the distinction between a homeschool and charter school and cautions parents from entering their children into virtual charter schools.

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Schools cutting foreign language programs

March 21, 2011 By Leave a Comment

MORGANTON –

Along with the possible consolidation of schools, Burke County Public Schools will more than likely see foreign language programs cut from middle and high schools.

Rexanna Lowman, the director of secondary education, said the high schools would revert to two foreign languages, Spanish and French, while the middle schools would lose all foreign language programs.

Freedom High School would retain one German class, Lowman said. But the remaining high schools would lose their German programs and East Burke and Draughn also will lose their Latin programs.

Lowman cited the schools’ $12 million budget deficit and smaller high school populations as reasons for the cuts.

“None of this is good. None of it is anything that the system wants to do but, because of our budget shortfalls we’ve got to do something,” Lowman said.

Lowman said students could still take foreign language classes, including in languages not offered in the county such as Mandarin Chinese, online through North Carolina Virtual Public High School.

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Live blogging the New Hanover County schools budget work session

March 16, 2011 By Leave a Comment

Holliday on cuts to Novanet: This summer we will do our summer school through Virtual Public High Schools at Hoggard High School. Novanet was good when we didn’t have anything else. But now we have a new model.

Markley on Virtual Public High School: “We can offer Mandarin Chinese classes through Virtual Public High School where we can’t offer that in our high schools right now. We’ve had a policy in this county that you can’t take an online class in high school. But my question is why?”

For the rest of the article, go to Live blogging the New Hanover County schools budget work session

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