Planning for Virtual Schools
Norman Dodl, College of Education, Virginia Tech
Roger W. Ehrich, CS Department, Virginia Tech
Deborah Hix, CS Department, Virginia Tech
Andrea Kavanaugh, Blacksburg Electronic Village
The National Science Foundation, in cooperation with the
Blacksburg Electronic Village,
the Virginia Tech Departments of Education and Computer
Science, and the Montgomery County Public Schools, sponsored a project to
plan
the future of network-based education in the County schools.
This 1-year program, which began September 15, 1994, launched the cooperative
relationship between Virginia Tech and the county school system. Since
then, numerous joint projects have been initiated, and the
Computer Science Department has become increasingly involved in
research in educational technology.
The initial agenda resulted in a set of
educational objectives and a long-term implementation plan for reaching those
objectives. The project was co-sponsored by
Bell Atlantic,
Busch
Entertainment, and
Scholastic Network.
The principal activity was a series of project-based training sessions for
teachers who have become leaders within the school system in the application
of network-based activities. The project was directed by a
core group of educators
from the schools and from Virginia Tech who, in cooperation with these lead
teachers, planned for the future of networking in the schools. A paper titled
Managing the Evolution of a Virtual School in the Blacksburg Electronic
Village was prepared for the
HCIC workshop on
Human-Computer Interaction and described the state of the Blacksburg
Electronic Village and educational networking in early 1995.