Virtual High School Meanderings

We're Moving!!!

Well, it is official... I am moving my blog Virtual High School Meanderings from Blogger to Word Press. I have secured the domain:

http://virtualschooling.wordpress.com/

I made the decision to change hosting sites for a couple of reasons.

The domain http://virtualschooling.wordpress.com/ is better than http://mkbnl.blogspot.com
Word Press is a better blogging system than Blogger in my opinion, as it has:

Internal statistics
Ability to add pages in addition to entry
The calendar feature on the site
Both labels (which Blogger has) and internal tags to Technorati (which I had to do manually in Blogger)

So after almost three years, I'm moving.

It is one month shy of three years ago I began this blog with the entry Welcome to my Blog on Virtual High Schools. I selected Blogger at the time because I was new to blogging and with the help of Nathan Lowell I got started. I added Haloscan so that I could keep trackbacks (and used the Wizbang Standalone Trackback Pinger to send them). To increase traffic I registered with BlogShares, BlogInSpace, BlogExplosion, BlogsCanada, FeedBurner, and Technorati.

But now I'm moving and I hope that my readers will follow. So, if you are physically coming to this blog, please re-direct your browser to http://virtualschooling.wordpress.com/. If you're reading this in an RSS reader, please update your feed to http://virtualschooling.wordpress.com/.

Hope to see you at my new location:

http://virtualschooling.wordpress.com/

Labels: blog, blogging, blogs, cyber school, education, high school, virtual school

Blogging About The Next Generation

Yesterday we had a bunch of entries about virtual schooling, today some ideas about the next generation and their needs.

BTW, if you know of some blogs that I generally don't monitor (i.e., that I never include in these blogging about... entries), please post them as a comment to this entry so that I can add them to my Bloglines.

Tags: blog, blogging, blogs, digital natives, generational differences, virtual school, cyber school, high school, education

Labels: blog, blogging, blogs, cyber school, digital natives, education, generational differences, high school, virtual school

Blogging About Virtual Schooling

Well, it was prior to Christmas the last time I did this, so it is time to clean out the old Bloglines account again. Beginning with entries about virtual schooling.

Until next time...

Tags: blog, blogging, blogs, virtual school, cyber school, high school, education

Labels: blog, blogging, blogs, cyber school, education, high school, virtual school

Statistics for December 2007

As of 12:30pm on Tuesday, 1 January 2008 - Happy New Year - there were 20,079 hits on our standard counter. At the end of November there were 18796, so we've had essentially of 1,283 in the past 33 days. According to our StatCounter, we had 1,093 unique visitors in December (i.e., 960 first time visitors and 133 repeat offenders) or an average of 35 unique visitors a day.

Popular days over the month were December 14 and 17 and 10 with about 65 each of those days. The popular posts were:

These visitors came from United States (20 different states), Canada (3 different provinces), India, Republic Of Korea, Norway, the Philippines, Australia, Switzerland, Taiwan, Belgium, and Tunisia.

Until next month...

Tags: blog, blogging, blogs, virtual school, cyber school, high school, education

Labels: blog, blogging, blogs, cyber school, education, high school, virtual school

Blogging About Virtual Schooling

Still cleaning out that Bloglines acount... This time the topic is virtual schooling.

Until next time...

Tags: blog, blogging, blogs, virtual school, cyber school, high school, education

Labels: blog, blogging, blogs, cyber school, education, high school, virtual school

Blogging About The Next Generation

Cleaning out my Bloglines again, some items of tomorrow's students.

Until next time...

Tags: blog, blogging, blogs, digital natives, generational differences, virtual school, cyber school, high school, education

Labels: blog, blogging, blogs, cyber school, digital natives, education, generational differences, high school, virtual school

Statistics for November 2007

Sorry I didn't do this two or three days ago - at the end of November or at least the beginning of December. But here they are...

As of noon on Monday, 3 December there were 18796 hits on our standard counter. At the end of October there were 17019, so we've had essentially of 1,767 in the past 33 days. According to our StatCounter, we had 1,193 unique visitors in November (i.e., 1,033 first time visitors and 160 repeat offenders) or an average of 40 unique visitors a day.

Popular days over the month were November 5-7 and 10 with about a hundred hits each of those days. The popular posts were:

VSS2007 - Deepening Learner Understanding via Games and Simulations in Online Courses
Who Benefits From Virtual Schooling?
along with a number of the "Virtual Schooling in the News" entries

These visitors came from Jordan, Australia, the Philippines, along with American states of Michigan, Florida, California, South Carolina, Illinois, Nevada, Virginia, Georgia, Texas, New York, Pennsylvania, Indiana, Maine, Massachusetts, Tennessee, Kentucky, Maryland, Connecticut, Ohio, Wyoming, and Missouri; and the Canadian provinces of Saskatchewan (thanks Darren), Alberta, and British Columbia.

Until next month (which will also be next year)...

Tags: blog, blogging, blogs, virtual school, cyber school, high school, education

Labels: blog, blogging, blogs, cyber school, education, high school, virtual school

Blogging About The Next Generation

Here are some things in my Bloglines that deal with this next generation of students

Here are also some items about this notion of "21st Century Skills" (if you want to see what I think of this, check out my post on VSS2007 - Virtual Schools and 21st Century Skills).

Until next time...

Tags: blog, blogging, blogs, digital natives, generational differences, virtual school, cyber school, high school, education

Labels: blog, blogging, blogs, cyber school, digital natives, education, generational differences, high school, virtual school

Blogging About Virtual Schooling

Some items from my Bloglines that deal with virtual or cyber schooling.

Until next time...

Tags: blog, blogging, blogs, virtual school, cyber school, high school, education

Labels: blog, blogging, blogs, cyber school, education, high school, virtual school

What Are Kids Learning in Virtual Worlds?

So, it will be tomorrow before I get to post my final thoughts on the Virtual School Symposium. In the meantime, I got this from the MacArthur E-newsletter that I get in my inbox.

What Are Kids Learning in Virtual Worlds?
You are invited to a panel discussion on the wonders and worries of virtual worlds for kids and parents on Wednesday, November 14, 2007 at 6:00 p.m. at the Davidson Conference Center at the University of Southern California. Participants include journalist Anastasia Goodstein, Global Kids Director Barry Joseph, UCLA Professor Yasmin Kafai, MacArthur Vice President Julia Stasch Common Sense Media CEO Jim Steyer, and USC Professor Doug Thomas. To attend, please register by November 10. MacArthurs $50 million digital media and learning initiative seeks to help determine how digital technologies are changing the way young people learn, play, socialize, and participate in civic life. View the invitation.

for more information

MacArthur's digital media and learning website

MacArthur digital media and learning grants

Video: "Are kids changing because of digital media?"

Should be interesting...

Tags: blog, blogging, blogs, digital natives, generational differences, virtual school, cyber school, high school, education

Labels: blog, blogging, blogs, cyber school, digital natives, education, generational differences, high school, virtual school

Blogging About Virtual Schooling

It's been a while since I've posted an entry covering all of the items in my Bloglines account dealing with virtual schooling, so here it is.

I told you there were a few... Okay, so most of them came from Ray and the guys over at Online Learning Update, but at least we have some frequent content this week.

Starting in the next day or so I'll begin to preview the 2007 Virtual School Symposium which is happening next week in Louisville, KY. So, I'll be blogging about that from Sunday to Tuesday while I am there (and hopefully for a few days after that). And I know I say this everytime, but this time I promise to come back with at least one podcast (hopefully more).

Also, next Wednesday is the first meeting of the K-12 Online Learning Research group that I have established with some of the doctoral students here are Wayne State. So hopefully I'll be able to get them involved in some of the discussions here. Another project that I am hoping to get them involved with is the creation of a virtual school wiki. Not sure what we'd have for content yet, but I have some ideas and I may put up a post here in the next week or so to get some ideas from you.

Until next time...

Tags: blog, blogging, blogs, virtual school, cyber school, high school, education

Labels: blog, blogging, blogs, cyber school, education, high school, virtual school

Statistics for October 2007

Since I didn't post statistics for September, over the past two months the straight counter has gone from 14, 121 back on September 1 to 17019 as of 9:58am today, October 31.

There have been 1138 unique visitors to Virtual High School Meanderings in the month of October. Of those, 123 have been first time visitors, while 1015 have been returning visitors. This has meant that there have been an average of 37 unique visitors per day.

These visitors have come from the United States, Canada, Germany, Poland, the United Kingdom, Australia, Japan and Malaysia.

The most popular entries have been:

And the most popular days appear to have been the first three days of the month, along with October 15, 18 and 29. Until next month, keep reading and commenting...

Tags: blog, blogging, blogs, virtual school, cyber school, high school, education

Labels: blog, blogging, blogs, cyber school, education, high school, virtual school

Blogging About Today's Students

Two days ago is was the entries from my Bloglines account about virtual schooling. Today it is the entries about today's student and other generational differences.

Until next time...

Tags: blog, blogging, blogs, digital natives, generational differences, virtual school, cyber school, high school, education

Labels: blog, blogging, blogs, cyber school, digital natives, education, generational differences, high school, virtual school

A Re-post for Darren -> Ok, blogosphere... I need your help. Maybe I have a job for someone.

Darren, over at Teaching and Developing Online, has posted an entry entitled Ok, blogosphere...I need your help. Maybe I have a job for someone. I don't have an answer to his question, but I will re-post it here in case any of my readers can help him.

If you have not been to the YouAreDamned.com you will not understand what I am talking about in this posting. I would like to find out who has created this site...now before everyone gets excited I am not going to rant on the person or anything. What I want to do create is the exact opposite of what this site is all about. Here at the Saskatoon Catholic Cyber School we have a chapel where the students on a daily basis post messages stating who they would like the population of the cyber school to pray for. This activity would be greatly enhanced if we could have a flash application like the one that is used to damn people, which instead of damning would post why a person should pray for...

For example today a student posted that they would like the population to pray for their grandmother who is sick and in the hospital with cancer. By posting this on the wall each day the students could view the wall and say a prayer. We would need to change the view of the site to clouds and brighter images etc.

We would be willing to try to reverse engineer this application if we could have access to the FLA file for youaredamned.com.

I understand why the creator of said site is a little concerned about someone knowing who built the site because of the flak they would get from a portion of the internet population. I am not one such person, I would like to create the opposite of the site to use for an educational spiritual component of the cyber school. I would be willing to sign an agreement to keep the authors name secret. We could meet in a dark place on the internet and exchange fla's.

Any help from the blogosphere to assist in achieving this goal would be greatly appreciated.

Can the power of the sphere do this?

Any bloggers out there that would be willing to post this on their blog spreading the word might help us solve this mystery.

If there is any flash expert person out there that is up for a challenge and would like to work on a partnership project and help develop such a site, lets talk.

So, can anyone help Darren?

Tags: blog, blogging, blogs, virtual school, cyber school, high school, education

Labels: blog, blogging, blogs, cyber school, education, high school, virtual school

Blogging About Virtual Schooling

Well, it has been almost a month of solid content so it is about time for me to clean out my Bloglines account once again. Here are some of the blog entries over the past month that have had to do with virtual schooling or distance education at the K-12 level.

Until next time...

Tags: blog, blogging, blogs, virtual school, cyber school, high school, education

Labels: blog, blogging, blogs, cyber school, education, high school, virtual school

Blogging About Virtual Schooling

Here are some entries from my Bloglines account over the past few weeks about virtual and cyber schooling.

It's a VIRTUAL CERTAINTY Thing! from DeedsDoings2006

Florida leads growth in virtual schooling from Distance Learning

SLPS LAUNCHES VIRTUAL LEARNING from Distance Learning

South Dakota Launches Virtual High School from Distance Learning

Virtual High School to "Open" in August from Distance Learning

Online Education Slow to Load from Distance Learning

Missouri readies virtual school for classes in August from Distance Learning

Tennessee developing eLearning model from Distance Learning

Missouri NEA Daily Legislative Update from Distance Learning

Rafi.ki - International Collaboration for High Schools from E-Learning & Online Teaching

Looking for E-learning work? from E-Learning & Online Teaching

OECD Schooling from elearnspace

Rural education 2.0 - Samuel Western, Colorado Springs Independent News from Online Learning Update

Online classes work for some students: Sioux Falls plans to expand program this fall - Jon Walker, Argus-Leader from Online Learning Update

Cyber school controversy resurfaces - STEVE MARRONI, Evening Sun Reporter from Online Learning Update

State to fund online “early college” courses for high school juniors and seniors - Asheville Citizen-Times from Online Learning Update

DepEd: Give Cyber Ed a chance - Philippine Information Agency from Online Learning Update

A class of cyber-grads - Will Klusener, Mercury from Online Learning Update

State paying for Web courses - Morgan Josey Glover, Greensboro News Record from Online Learning Update

Virtual school available for some Kansas families - EMILY BEHLMANN, Garden City Telegram from Online Learning Update

By the way, if there is a blog that you know of that writes about (even from time to time) about virtual schooling or distance education at the K-12 level that I don't list above, please let me know about it in a comment to this post.

Tags: blog, blogging, blogs, virtual school, cyber school, high school, education

Labels: blog, blogging, blogs, cyber school, education, high school, virtual school

Blogging About Virtual Schools

Time once again to clean out the Bloglines...

I imagine this will be the pattern for most of the summer, given the few trips that I have to take (i.e., AP European History exam reading and IVHS summer meetings) and then my impending move to Windsor, Ontario - if it doesn't show up in my e-mail inbox or doesn't appear in my Bloglines, it probably won't be posted. Hopefully mid-August will see a return to a regular schedule with some more content.