Naming an online school

Have you ever named a  school?  We are now in the process of naming the online charter school in the Clovis Unified School District in Central California.  The naming committee had their first meeting yesterday.  The naming guidance provided to the committee included the district Board policy for naming facilities which suggests that the name could be the name of a person, place or theme.  Additionally, the committee learned about naming ideas based on the book, Made to Stick and the website, Eat My Words.

Some of the ideas submitted as suggestions for naming the school are as follows:

• Clovis High Tech High
• Clovis Net
• Clovis ONliNe Educational CenTer (CONNECT)
• Teaching Academics Online (TAO)
• Wireless Teachers Teaching Students
• Clovis Charter
• Ansel Adams Charter School
• Clovis Learning Online Charter School (CLOCS)
• Technology Education Learning Online Charter of Clovis (TELOCC)
• CONTACT – Clovis Online Network, Teaching Alternative Curriculum Together
• Super Val e-High
• iCARE (Clovis Academy for Reaching Everyone)
• Pioneer Online High School

What do you think?  Any suggestions in how to select a name for an online charter school that will serve students throughout the region?

How to create your own online course

The people over at the Best Universities Blog have put together a list of 100 tools resources for developing your own online course.  Their list includes Learning Management Systems, resources for getting your class online, resources for designing an online course, online course tools, how to teach an online course, student resources and (my favorite), distance education blogs.   Well worth a look for anyone interested in or developing online courses!

Online charter school enrollments

Today I interviewed the first 10 students who live in Fresno County and are interested in attending the online charter school of Clovis Unified.  Based on research and other input, I decided that it is important to interview all students interested in enrolling in the online school.  The next step for the 10 students (and parents) I met today will be to complete some online lessons so they can decide if online learning will work for them.

Overall, this process worked well and I enjoyed chatting with the students and their parents.  I look forward to meeting the next 100 enrollees.  We hope to have 120 9th and 10th graders by August, 2009.

Nice meeting you at Big Hat Days!

Hope to see you next year.

iNacol VSS presentation submitted

The deadline for submitting presentation proposals for the iNACOL K-12 Virtual School Conference to be held in Austin, Texas Nov 15-17 is Monday, April 13.  It is a pretty extensive application and I’m happy to say that I got one submitted in partnership with David Wiley from the Open High School from Utah and our friends at Curriki.  The presentation will discuss the development of online high course content from open source content.  We had fun putting it together.   Our course development is moving forward here in Clovis in preparation for 9th and 10th grade students in August.

Hope to see you in Austin, Texas at VSS in November.   This conference is great for anyone who is interested in online learning or wants to share ideas with others.  It is always a fun and collaborative group of people who attend!