Hello fellow educators, welcome to podcast number 88. We've been talking about blended learning which has come to mean, in the online educational world, at least, blending technological solutions into the classroom. Two weeks ago I started the discussion in an interview with Stephen Harris, the founder for the Sydney Centre for Innovation in Learning and principal of North Beaches Christian School in New South Wales, Australia. As I have mentioned I had the opportunity to visit his school six weeks ago which was a great answer to prayer and our direction. Heritage Christian Schools is moving in this direction and over the next few years we hope to show the same type of leadership in our region of the world as our friend Stephen has in Australia. We will continue on today with the seven remain points from his nine Key Factors for Success in the Online Environment.  One of our staff commented that we have grown well past our Australian friends because our online numbers as more than ten times theirs. If we were just considering what it would take to build an online school then, perhaps, this observation might be correct. But keep in mind that we are not talking about how to build a good distance learning school apart from a campus program. He has built his school organically from the classroom out. We have built ours from the online world in. Our client base has been primarily home educated or distance learning students. His main emphasis has been building a dynamic blended program for their campus school first. I don't share this to argue the merits of either approach. Believe me, I really don't think it is valuable to always be focusing on which way of schooling is better. In fact Heritage is really involved in three different methods of education. We have our traditional model, our campus program, which I believe to be one of the best Church run schools in Western Canada. All we lack are fancy facilities. We have a truly Christian community that has come together for the purpose of discipleship through elementary and secondary education. We are using every opportunity to raise up a community of Godly young men and women to impact Canada and beyond. We also have our home education program through HCOS. I will go out on the limb here and say we are Western Canada's best option for home education if parents want their students to be discipled through elementary and secondary education. We have developed a method of education that allows considerable freedom to our parents and yet keeps the students on track with the BC education plan. I still love telling a parent, when asked about how much tuition is, that this program is free and we will pay for you student's curriculum, field trips and other expenses. It is here where we are truly "blending" education for our students, integrating an exceptional online system for communication, online courses in all subjects from grade 5 to 12 for those families that want a more teacher lead program and home school savvy teachers. We are in the best place on planet earth to home school and that is not hyperbole.  The third type of education is also considered blended but on a broader scale, this is BC Online School where we will cross enrol more than 2000 students this year from over 200 different schools around the Province. Students are able to fit courses into their schedules, retake courses they failed or want a better grade in, go part time to a campus school and part time online or, in some cases, use a superior instructional program to their present situation. If we are good at blended leaning it is in this program and in our home school programs.

I believe that, Stephen Harris has some very good insight into the directions we would eventually like to see how we can bring more blended solutions for our campus program. That being said, I don't want to give the impression that our campus school is in the dark ages. In fact it has been and continues to be a very innovative school. We have a ratio of 1 computer to every 4 students and that does not include the teacher's computers which is at a ratio of 1 to 1, although some  of them are a bit dated, or the admin staff computers which is also at 1 to 1. A good one third of the student computer are mobile. We have an open wireless VLAN which allows students with their own personal computers to access the internet in a filtered environment.   We have outfitted all of our secondary classrooms with video projectors connected to internet capable computers giving these classrooms portals to the world wide web. We have a top notch technical staff and our Elementary Principal is exceptional gifted with technology. We have teachers with experience in developing and teaching online courses. Many of our staff bring their own hardware, even their own apple computers, who prefer to use their own equipment. We have been using a state of the art student management system for posting homework assignments, attendance, grades and constant communication with students or parents. Our special ed department uses various hardware to work with specific students. Our library has a shared online system so that both our campus and online school students can share resources. We have one of the best school sites found on the web. I could go on and on about how technically advanced we are as a school. Yet we have used computer technology all around our programs but we haven't applied it as well, yet, in augmenting our curriculum and building an even more  dynamic program for our students. Let me visit Clayton Christensen, author of Disrupting Class, one more time on this, I quote:

"lf the goal is to educate every student--asking schools to ensure that all students have the skills and capabilities to escape the chains of poverty and have an all-American shot at realizing their dreams--we must find a way to move toward what, in this book, we call a "student-centric" model. We use the word toward intentionally here, because this is not, at least immediately, a binary choice. A monolithic batch process with all of its interdependencies is at one end of a spectrum, and a student-centric model that is completely modular is at the other. For a very long time there will be some issues, skills, and subjects that the traditional model will handle best. But one by one, the instructional jobs that teachers now shoulder are destined, as we will show, to migrate toward a student-centric model.

How might schools start down this promising path? Computer-based learning, which is a step on the road toward student-centric technology offers a way. As we explain in subsequent chapters, computer-based learning is emerging as a disruptive force and a promising opportunity. The proper use of technology as a platform for learning offers a chance to modularize the system and thereby customize learning . Student-centric learning is the escape hatch from the temporal, lateral, physical, and hierarchical cells of standardization. The hardware exists. The software is emerging. Student-centric learning opens the door for students to learn in ways that match their intelligence types in the places and at the paces they prefer by combining content in customized sequences. As modularity and customization reach a tipping point, there will be another change: As we explain later, teachers can serve as professional learning coaches and content architects to help individual students progress and they can be a guide on the side, not a sage on the stage."

Again, we give a fuller treatment to Christensen's ideas in the first podcast of this school year, number 76.

Last week we talked about the first two of nine Key Factors for Success in the Online Environment, a paper written and presented by, Stephen Harris. Factor number one spoke about Visionary Leadership from the head, or heads of school. We are blessed at HCS to have very open-minded and distinctly visionary leaders. Factor number two spoke about considered approaches to online pedagogy. Again in this key factor we have and continue to have a great advantage because of our five and half years of experience developing and teaching online courses in HCOS. Many of our campus school teachers have worked on both sides of the online equation.

Factor #3 - The strength of the wider school teaching & learning environment:

"Once a teacher has understood the pedagogical framework associated with web-based learning, the targeted construction of the teaching and learning environment is a key consideration. The online teacher needs to replicate the dynamics and strength of the physical classroom in their virtual class environment. At its best, a web course is able to combine the advantages of independent learning and classroom teaching. The online teaching and learning environment should provide the possibility to learn, while at the same time allowing the students themselves to take responsibility for using the environment effectively. Given the availability of tracking tools within a Learning Management System, there is an obvious potential for a teacher to have a far greater immediate understanding of specific student progress during a course."

As our campus school begins to use our online course tools more and more our teachers will begin to work with students in a much more immediate and personal framework. It seems counter-intuitive but you can get to know your students better and customize their curriculum to a more individualized approach online. This is what Christensen calls student-centric computer based learning. The web based courses need to move in the direction that can add to the classroom dynamic. In our Principals of Math 11 and 12 courses students receive a classroom style of instruction using voice and video instruction. Flash animation, timed with the instruction, demonstrates or rather animates the same type of instruction a teacher would put up on the board in the classroom. If the student misses a point she only needs to reverse the animation to the point and play it again. This course allows for the student to move at their own pace. If a teacher is present in the room they become a "guide on the side" to those students who struggle with the concepts. The curriculum also possess the ability to go back and get any video in the Math Library. If a student is struggling with a concept in Grade 12 Math they can dip into Grade 11 math and reinforce or learn earlier concepts. The teacher now has the ability to customize a lesson for his student. In the blended classroom students work on their own computers with the teacher tutoring on the side, marking the work, teaching their favourite lessons, supplementing weaknesses in the classes understanding or potential weakness in the curriculum. Teachers are able to meet each student where they are at. The keener student can motor through the course quickly and not get bored with the slower students who will need more of the teacher's tutoring. But the teacher can tailor make advanced lessons for the keener student and will have the tools available to load it into that students individualize course modules or let them fly ahead to the next level. This gives students the ability to move at their own pace and teachers to stay connected to their entire class.

Factor #4 - Clarity of, and standardizing within, online course formats

"Teachers need to be able to bring the classroom into the computer."  Sigurlaug Kristmannsdottir, Verzlunarskoli Islands, Reykjavik. Good instructional design is a pre-requisite to success in the online environment. Students will flounder if any online content is just a list of tasks to be progressively completed. There is a need for material to engage the student, through the diverse use of interactive media elements. Consistent use of embedded video and audio components in particular can significantly enhance the interaction between teacher and student. Induction processes are also highly important in establishing an online community supporting a particular course. Additionally, the use of a common course interface, along with consistent templates and style guidelines within courses, will contribute to establishing familiarity for students in a virtual classroom. Students need to be proficient with the selected Learning Management System and any other course infrastructure supporting the delivery of an online course."

What is obvious here is that, to do a good job, we have to become curriculum designers. When I first came to education over twenty years ago I was surprised to find that most teachers spent very little time developing their own curriculum. We have relied upon text books, curriculum development agencies, provincial curriculum organizers and workbooks. What we are doing now will revolutionize this process. Learning Management Systems, we use Moodle, can give the teacher a new platform for curriculum development that reachs well beyond their classroom boarders. We have been developing our own curriculum now for the last six years. We were able to use curriculum from a school in Alberta, North Star Academy and this gave us a head start but since then we have been writing and re-writing our own curriculum. I will never forget when Pat Hayden looked at the science curriculum that we had acquired and strongly advised that it would not work in BC and he felt that it didn't reach quality standards. He volunteered to build our entire science curriculum from grade seven all the way to Grade 12. Thankfully we had been posting his curriculum on the web  a few years before so that he was able to draw from a very well developed and sequential science program. Needless to say, Pat Hayden has been teaching students all over British Columbia with his courses. Other teachers took over his courses and slowly we have been working on HCOS Science 2.0. The other developers in the process we use at Heritage was our young enhancer staff. When we started we hired two of our best web design students to take the courses and build them into HTML documents for the web. The courses we received were in Word Documents and had very little multimedia. Our young enhancers, at the guidance of teachers, began adding graphics, video and audio content. Every course developed its own look by using CSS technology. We are still hiring our best and brightest young adults from Heritage but now they are doing sophisticated flash animation, automated tests, complex graphics and some of our own video content. In our course rewrite towards HCOS 2.0 and 2.5 we are looking at ways we can eliminate the textbook altogether so that the online courses become the complete textbook. We still send out 1000s of textbooks every year to accompany our courses. This is beginning to change in our High School courses.

What we now need to begin to explore is how to construct our curriculum so that it fits in the classroom better so that campus teachers can use it as modules with multiple approaches to instruction. We can see an inkling of this in our Principles of Math courses developed by Richard and Chelsea Bitgood. It is being enhanced by two of our enhancers/animators who also happen to have the same last name Ken and Christabelle. Yes they are all my kids. One fellow suggested that it may look like nepotism but that is only true if they are not the best qualified to the job. Thankfully they are the best we have and are developing a world class Math Program. Richard and our tech team have develop a proprietary Flash player that will allow students to rate the animations and interact directly with the curriculum. They can choose their own animation and video playlist to study with and work with fellow students. Eventually we will be able to use this interface in other courses as well as rate and access the myriad of recourses on the web. We have some of the finest Christian educators in BC working with us both in our campus school and in our online school developing very creative courses and programs. Presently we have a team of educators teaching students all over BC in a collaborative Humanities 10 course. They use Ellumniate Live to bring all 30 of the students together for lectures then construct very creative assignments that lend themselves to each students learning styles. They are getting to know their students in ways they never thought possible through an online context. When I was in Australia, visiting Stephen Harris' school I observed multi-layered approaches that involved multiple classroom, multiple grades all working in a matrix of assignments matching Gardner's multiple intelligences taxonomy.  The ability to blend this with technology created some very exciting learning experiences for their students.  We are exploring gaming technologies that can lead a student through a narrative throughout the course adding tools as they master the content. HCOS Online courses 3.0, 4.0 and beyond will make us the go to place for Online Christian education ware.

Next week I hope to wrap up these Nine Factors for Success and I have an interview coming with Dr. Mark Beadle, the Head of School for Sevenstar Academy, a Christian Online school out of Cincinnati Ohio that is doing many similar things as Heritage.

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.