Thanks Katrina, Diana (through Steve), Jennifer, Holly and others for
your accounts of out-of-school study options for your students! Please
keep these coming. It is great to hear what people are doing, and maybe
some of these ideas will be appropriate for the corrections people
looking for distance education options.

It seems like there is always a component of some human contact (as
there should be), and I'm curious how your programs have managed this in
terms of staffing and funding. For those without special grants for this
purpose, what is the most cost-effective way to build this in?

Julie

Julie McKinney
Discussion List Moderator
World Education/NCSALL
jmckinney at worlded.org


>>> Holly.Dilatush-Guthrie at ccs.k12.va.us 05/15/06 11:53 AM >>>

Yes * Charlottesville City Schools (Charlottesville VA) has been
piloting a very successful ESL at Home program since October 2005, via
an EL/Civics grant.   Although not yet cost-effective, student success
has been great!

We've modeled our program similar to one used by North Carolina (LEAD
program) and are using Crossroads Cafe video series as our curriculum. 
We have had our first two 'graduates' this month (finishing all 26
episodes, worktexts, and a review test after each episode)!  
We've had several learners show reportable gains, many many many
anecdotal success stories.   

We have an optional virtual classroom on the internet,
http://theHsmile.org (then ESL at Home with Crossroads Cafe] using
MOODLE.  http://www.moodle.org) as our Course Management System (CMS).

Enrollment for this class is ongoing (the only ongoing open enrollment
course in our Adult Learning Center's program); we began with 6 students
in October, have had a total of 46 to date, with approx. 30% dropping
out before sufficient hours completed to 'officially count' them.   31
of the 46 who have registered into our pilot group so far have
registered on our virtual website, over 20 are active on the site.  The
virtual classroom has many supplemental activities: discussion forums,
resources, quizzes, assignments, a chat function, more!   

I'm happy to share more details (off the discussion list) for anyone
interested.
Holly

"No matter what our attempts to inform, it is our ability to inspire
that will turn the tides."
Holly Dilatush
ESL distance learning, Dialogue Cafe, Volunteer coordinator
Charlottesville City Schools Adult Learning Center
1000 Preston Ave., Suite D
Charlottesville  VA  22903
(434) 245.2815 office
(434) 960.7177 cell/mobile
http://theHsmile.org  ['home' to several Moodle CMS (course management
systems/virtual classrooms)]
http://www.Charlottesville-ESL.org 
"Live with intention. Share inside~out smiles, inspire hope, seek awe
and nurture in nature."


>>> julie_mcKinney at worlded.org 05/12/06 12:25 PM >>>

Does anyone else out there do any kind of distance education or have
methods to keep students studying when have to drop class for a while?
Part of the NCSALL research Barb mentioned suggests that most students,
over the course of several years, are forced to move in and out of class
programs, due to changing life circumstances. This means that programs
will need to move toward offering support for students to keep learning
during their out-of-class phases. So it is interesting to hear about
Katrina's program and others that are working towards that. 



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