Why don't classes be video'd or livestreamed?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I think it is a great idea. I also think that it should be made free to students from low HHI families but that others should pay a fee for this convenience .

Problem is that if these are going to be videoed then the teachers can be made obsolete and schools can do away with hiring more teachers. However, they can certainly do something like Khan Academy or even Great Courses. As long as people can make money and it does not take jobs away from people, it will get traction.

I could see certain textbooks giving videos as part of their "online book". School however is more interactive and collaborative these days. You can't recreate that in a video.

[Anonymous]

I get it - there's a lot of push-back and nay-sayers and worry warts... people don't like change, perfectly understandable.

Just look at what Stanford Online High School has done (here: https://ohs.stanford.edu/)

If you don't see that this (along with Khan Academy and many other MOOCs, distance learning, tutoring etc, etc) is the future, you will be blindsided.

In a school system like FCPS with huge pressures on spending, transportation, diversity of capabilities/interests/effort/expectations - the only foreseeable way to address all this and remain competitive is to evolve - get more efficient, offer more opportunities, reduce costs (transportation is a huge cost in FCPS - hundreds of millions of dollars each year), and improve outcomes.

If you don't believe me, ask your neighbor in a wealthy neighborhood - who after all, pay a disproportionate share of the property taxes that fund schools - whether they would pay $21,000/yr for a first rate MS/HS education at Stanford for 4-6 years vs. pay that amount in property taxes for the next thirty years. They will move and enroll their kid in these online courses - that's the economic reality that is starting to happen now. Or in the next referendum on 'school choice', they will partner with the No Meals Tax folks and vote for vouchers.

Home schooled kids in FFX grew from 1.3% of the total school population in 2006-7 to 1.84% in 2016-17. In some ways, you could argue that's a good thing; it reduces students in classrooms and yet their parents still pay taxes. But it also deprives classrooms of motivated, ambitious peers and it shows a lack of confidence and commitment to public schools. We're looking for the increase in the number of students attending private/parochial schools - my guess is a much larger proportion of wealthier families are sending kids to private schools. All good you say, but these influential people then don't have a commitment to public schools.

Public schools must adapt, innovate, compete and change - or decline.

[Anonymous]

Yeah!
Why don't classes be video taped?
Fo shizzle.

[Anonymous]

Okay, online high school shill.

[Anonymous]

I don't think that live-streaming every class, every day is economically viable. Server space, troubleshooting networking issues (including the inevitable calls from moms or kids who can't get their home systems to work) will eat up a lot of budget. Not to mention the stifling affect. Teachers reluctant to move around the classroom because they might not be heard off-camera. Kids afraid to ask a question because they know it's being live-strreamed. Teachers worried more about acting like parents want them to act rather than what is effective (which are not always the same thing). No thanks.

But, I do think that a series of recorded lectures can - in some cases - help fill in the gaps when a class is missed. My kids are younger (late elementary), but Khan Academy has definitely helped when they were out sick for a couple of days. Something similar in the other subjects, tailored to the local curriculum, would be a welcome addition.

[Anonymous]

Do you want your child's every move and word broadcasted?

[Anonymous]

one example of how it might work -

a student wants to study advanced Chemistry but there isn't enough interest to warrant another class/teacher at her school that year - so, she gets on skype at 11 a.m. and video conferences with a classroom/teacher/students at a nearby school - materials/workbook/texts are on GoogleDrive and available in real time - a split screen allows everyone to see a whiteboard and the teacher. The session is archived with practice problems and links to other resources and the contacts for students willing to engage in study sessions/tutoring are available. All of this is within existing technology and is "private" and has allowed the original student to take a course that she might have had to wait a year to take or necessitated travel.

So we have a student who gets her course, in a safe, effective environment, at lower cost.

Bash away...

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:one example of how it might work -

a student wants to study advanced Chemistry but there isn't enough interest to warrant another class/teacher at her school that year - so, she gets on skype at 11 a.m. and video conferences with a classroom/teacher/students at a nearby school - materials/workbook/texts are on GoogleDrive and available in real time - a split screen allows everyone to see a whiteboard and the teacher. The session is archived with practice problems and links to other resources and the contacts for students willing to engage in study sessions/tutoring are available. All of this is within existing technology and is "private" and has allowed the original student to take a course that she might have had to wait a year to take or necessitated travel.

So we have a student who gets her course, in a safe, effective environment, at lower cost.

Bash away...

Who's paying for and administering the LMS (learning management system) that manages/archives this?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:it's a great idea. It could be expanded substantially to allow students to take classes for which there is insufficient interest at any one school but across the system there may be enough interest to create a 'virtual' class. It could allow leveraging the best teachers to create 'MOOCs' that all students could access. Imaging having access to TJ teachers while at your home school. It could result in substantial reductions in transportation expenses. It could address the problems with teacher absences that require substitutes - just live stream another teacher's lecture to the hall. It's not a technological challenge (unless you're a technology consultant looking for a fat contract to install a few cameras). I'll be dissed for that but just look at You Tube for how easy it is to live stream presentations.

I've found the Stanford Online High School that presents an interactive curriculum for 'home schoolers' - they get a great education with completely interactive involvement with teachers and 'classmates'. This is the wave of the future. Instead of scrambling to find teachers who can teach difficult subjects, Principals can leverage good teachers and video their lectures, with supplemental instruction locally. Students can construct curriculums at their own speed - advanced, remedial and everything in between, consistent wit their interests, ambitions and regardless of their age. The 8 yr old prodigy in math can attend his MS english class and take advanced calculus on line. He's with his 'social' peers and still able to be with his 'virtual' academic peers.

This has a lot of potential for increasing efficiencies in addressing ESOL, and SpecEd as well. Ed programs are including artificial intelligence so they can tailor their presentation ofthe material and their questions to the comprehension level of the student. This is a big step forward. Check out the offerings on the Khan academy website.

There's also great potential for tutors to provide individual support to students in the classroom and/or in the Learn periods/lunch and after school. Imaging when the teacher's presentation to the class is livestreamed and a virtual tutor can supplement by addressing questions that the student might raise.

My son is already doing this as he tutors his classmates in Chemistry - so they get a study packet online and share in GoogleDrive and he skypes a conference call with 2-4 fellow students while he works the problems on Google Drive. His peers can ask questions and watch the solution be worked in real time. He's not being paid enough (yet) but this will evolve.

This is going to be a big challenge to the established public school structure but it is clearly the way to improve learning outcomes and use resources more efficiently and FCPS had better be on the leading edge of this!

It's a great idea if teacher compensation is upwardly adjusted - very significantly. Implementation would be very challenging, too. Not seeing this happen across the board because of feasibility issues, but some selected schools - yes.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Okay, online high school shill.

Yeah, Besty is that you? I don't doubt for a minute that this pro-online HS person isn't hawking his/her own wares to the DOE.

At then end of the day, we're still humans, and we learn through meaningful, hands-on, collaborative effort. Can't do that online. That's why online college degrees are junk and nobody respects them. Do we really want to make our children's HS diplomas equally valueless? This is a clear push from DeVos to destroy the public school system and turn it into a money-making venture for her cronies. At the same time, it will drive out people of means from public schools and into the Christian academies (where they can learn about Creatioism) that she favors.

I see you.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:one example of how it might work -

a student wants to study advanced Chemistry but there isn't enough interest to warrant another class/teacher at her school that year - so, she gets on skype at 11 a.m. and video conferences with a classroom/teacher/students at a nearby school - materials/workbook/texts are on GoogleDrive and available in real time - a split screen allows everyone to see a whiteboard and the teacher. The session is archived with practice problems and links to other resources and the contacts for students willing to engage in study sessions/tutoring are available. All of this is within existing technology and is "private" and has allowed the original student to take a course that she might have had to wait a year to take or necessitated travel.

So we have a student who gets her course, in a safe, effective environment, at lower cost.

Bash away...

Who's paying for and administering the LMS (learning management system) that manages/archives this?

Going with the chemistry example -- how are they doing labs? Chemistry should not just be learned just by reading and lectures.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I think it is a great idea. I also think that it should be made free to students from low HHI families but that others should pay a fee for this convenience .

Problem is that if these are going to be videoed then the teachers can be made obsolete and schools can do away with hiring more teachers. However, they can certainly do something like Khan Academy or even Great Courses. As long as people can make money and it does not take jobs away from people, it will get traction.

I could see certain textbooks giving videos as part of their "online book". School however is more interactive and collaborative these days. You can't recreate that in a video.

My DS has been in a 'flipped classroom' for math -- the teachers make their own videos that introduces the concept (that how ours did it but some schools use Khan Academy or other videos). The kids watch that for homework and then during class time the kids are working through the problems and getting help from the teacher. That seemed to work well vs. lecture and a little practice plus more practice at home which the kid can't do because they didn't understand something introduced in class.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Okay, online high school shill.

Yeah, Besty is that you? I don't doubt for a minute that this pro-online HS person isn't hawking his/her own wares to the DOE.

At then end of the day, we're still humans, and we learn through meaningful, hands-on, collaborative effort. Can't do that online. That's why online college degrees are junk and nobody respects them. Do we really want to make our children's HS diplomas equally valueless? This is a clear push from DeVos to destroy the public school system and turn it into a money-making venture for her cronies. At the same time, it will drive out people of means from public schools and into the Christian academies (where they can learn about Creatioism) that she favors.

I see you.

'Betsy' here. "I don't doubt for a minute..." - dogmatic assertions by ignorant trolls are ridiculous.

I'm a parent of two students in FCPS. I don't sell anything to FCPS nor take anything from FCPS. I pay significant taxes to support FCPS and have for more than 20 years. I'm invested in Fairfax County and interested to see it succeed. Improving FCPS is one element of improving our community.

"on-line degrees are junk" but my daughter's roommate at a top 10 university 'attended' the Stanford On Line HS - it clearly wasn't "junk" for her. But evidently you know all about this new innovation and why "nobody" respects them. "Nobody" respects emotional, baseless, dis-respectful, assertions and ad-hominem attacks.

What have you contributed to making FCPS better?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Okay, online high school shill.

Yeah, Besty is that you? I don't doubt for a minute that this pro-online HS person isn't hawking his/her own wares to the DOE.

At then end of the day, we're still humans, and we learn through meaningful, hands-on, collaborative effort. Can't do that online. That's why online college degrees are junk and nobody respects them. Do we really want to make our children's HS diplomas equally valueless? This is a clear push from DeVos to destroy the public school system and turn it into a money-making venture for her cronies. At the same time, it will drive out people of means from public schools and into the Christian academies (where they can learn about Creatioism) that she favors.

I see you.

'Betsy' here. "I don't doubt for a minute..." - dogmatic assertions by ignorant trolls are ridiculous.

I'm a parent of two students in FCPS. I don't sell anything to FCPS nor take anything from FCPS. I pay significant taxes to support FCPS and have for more than 20 years. I'm invested in Fairfax County and interested to see it succeed. Improving FCPS is one element of improving our community.

"on-line degrees are junk" but my daughter's roommate at a top 10 university 'attended' the Stanford On Line HS - it clearly wasn't "junk" for her. But evidently you know all about this new innovation and why "nobody" respects them. "Nobody" respects emotional, baseless, dis-respectful, assertions and ad-hominem attacks.

What have you contributed to making FCPS better?

Online high schools are a fine solution for a student who is home-schooled for whatever reason, but I don't think it's a realistic replacement for our current public school system.

Additionally, this doesn't address op's original request, which is more of an ad hoc system for dealing with routine absences and missed classes.

[Anonymous]

Sounds like a great way for nosey parents to spy on their kids' classrooms so they can offer unwelcome feedback.

You know, things like "I didn't like how you explained this concept," "You might want to reprimand that kid sitting in the left-hand corner of the room," "I have a suggestion for how to teach your class better," etc.

Nope. Nope. Nope.