Hello fellow educators, this is podcast number 86. I am broadcasting this from Austin Texas where I have been a participant at the iNACOL Conference. iNACOL is the acronym for International Association for K - 12 Online Learning. I started in the Pre-Conference where I met with Faith Based educators who are doing similar forms of education as Heritage Christian Schools. I was able to speak to this group and hopefully bring a bit of inspiration as I talked about discipleship-based Christian education in the Digital World. The iNACOL organization is predominantly American based although there were participants from many different nations. Interestingly, I found we had the most in common with Australia. I will include an interview I did with Stephen Harris in this podcast. I think our similarities are a result of common values in Australia and Western Canada. Both regions fund independent schools, both regions have clear legislation and guidelines how this work and both countries don't have the US mentality of "separation of Church and State". One observation that I realized here, and one that is also being backed up with hard data, is the unique opportunities we have in British Columbia. BC is one of the most saturated educational jurisdictions in the world for online learning. Nearly 10% of our students are participating in some level of online learning whereas the largest jurisdiction in the US is Florida at about 3%.

What is always exciting in these types of conferences is the networking opportunities that open up. Surprisingly, I got to know two of our public school counterparts from BC here in Texas. I am grateful for the great work our school and teachers are doing because both gentleman and some of their staff were very aware of our DL School and spoke very highly of our staff. HCOS was also mentioned in several workshops. It is an honour to be involved with such a creative team of educators in all three of our environments. Most schools here have not made the connection with Home School Families in the way that we have. I still think back to our first couple of years when we were designing our programs and how Sarah Bennett and Janet Rainbow were so instrumental in helping build a Home School friendly community. Let me reiterate that we will continue to serve our home school families and cherish their participation and fellowship with us at Heritage. I look forward to seeing everyone at this year's BC Home Education Conference April 30th and May 1st. We are also incredibly blessed to have such a successful, vibrant and innovative Campus School program. This is our 24th year of Christian Education and I believe that the team of educators that God has given us there will define then next 25 years for Christian education far beyond our BC boarders. Of course the other area where we have become a major player is through our Online Courses. When I talk about where we are today I often say that we accidently made a whole bunch of good decisions. This is probably my weak attempt at humility. In fact, I attribute our good decisions and direction from the start to the leading and providence of the Holy Spirit guiding us as we began to build. Decisions like what Learning Management System to use, we chose Moodle, our how to develop courses. I have yet to hear of anyone anywhere that uses and hires their students to work with seasoned teachers to develop courses. Our optional approach to allow students as much freedom as possible to individualize their courses and programs. Our proprietary learning management system, ENCOM. The way we contract teachers and allow them to work from their homes. On and on I can highlight these decisions that has given us such success. One area that came up frequently at the conference was the need to develop quality ESL programs and of course we have been expending considerable energy, staff and resources this last year to begin ICOS. The International Christian Online School that opened its doors last week in Hong Kong teaching English as a Second Language. As you can tell I am gushing a bit here. But please understand that I am gushing about the incredible work our Heritage teams are bring forth all in the name of discipleship-based Christian Education.

I want to pick on our theme from the last seven podcasts. We have been talking about building a hybrid approach to education that will combine some of the best things about our campus school program of education with our online school's program of education. Again, interestingly, this has been the theme of most of the discussions here at iNACOL which grappled with the question of how do we bring broad educational reform using technology both for distance learning but also for the classroom. I thoroughly enjoyed our last few podcasts with Mark Daley and Eric Vanee from the online perspective and Steve Smith and Paul Kelly from the Campus perspective. I wish I could include you in the email discussion between these amazing men. There discussion is full of passion and some of the deepest thought I have heard about some of the most important ideas we are trying to bring together in a new blended model of education. Here were Steve's last comments to Mark:

"I think I’ve been a little more polarizing than I intended with this argument. I actually appreciate much about online education, such as the potential to individualize teaching according to student needs and styles. But if individualization is a strength of online education, it is also a weakness, as the incessant pursuit of increasingly refined personal agendas leads to a sense of social anomie. Just as community is a strength of campus education—where individuals lay down differences in deference to others, or use their differences to build a better corporate body, community living also requires standardized schedules and procedures the produce deleterious results. If you listen to the latest podcast (though it’s hard to hear, since we were just talking about stuff after the actual interview), you’ll see that I do not think this is a discussion that needs to be a “for or against” kind of format. It’s simply a question of how we can better produce disciples of Christ."

And here is Mark's response:

"What came forth was our enthusiasm and surprise for what we’ve unexpectedly witnessed through this medium. It was not spoken in binary opposition to the alternative format, not by any means, and so I think there is no burden of proof on either of us. In fact, that is the point here. God is doing a collective work between the different models you and I serve in.... I believe you and I are on the same team here. We proclaim the sub/verse of history, and we share a mission to disrupt the dominant text."

Thank you gentlemen for the depth to which you have communicated and it my hope and passion, for the sake of this wonderful community we serve and enormous mission we have been given that we succeed in bringing forth our three reforms: Christian Curriculum, Environments for Christ-like transformation and 21st Century methodology.

I am excited to bring to you an interview with Stephen Harris who is the founder of the Sydney Centre for Innovation in Learning and Principal of Northern Beaches Christian School just outside of Sydney Australia. I had the opportunity to visit his school last month and met up with him again here at iNACOL. Whereas we have developed our Online Program separately from our campus school, his school has started innovating by developing their blended approach and integration of technology from their campus program and then moved out into online education. This has to be one of the best blended schools in the world to date. He has traveled throughout the world where he has observed blended educational models and is bringing the best back to his program in Australia. Like us Stephen feels a responsibility as a Christian Educator to be ahead of the rest of the pack and perhaps lead the way for our faith based schools as well as our public counterparts. Here is my interview with him:

Audio Only

What a blessing to be able to talk with and learn from such a humble but wise educator. Next week I want to talk about some of the principles and ideas he is bringing forth as he leads the way for us. Please email us your comments and thoughts on today’s podcast. Also, if you would like us to mail you a free copy of my book or send you the download link for the audio version of, Discipling This Generation for a Digital World, simply send an email to This e-mail address is being protected from spam bots, you need JavaScript enabled to view it and let us know what type of an educator you are, home schooler, classroom teacher, school administrator, or interested parent. Please let us know how you heard about the podcast and, of course, please include your mailing address. Thank you for listening and thank you for your commitment to discipleship-based Christian education.