The primary goal is to lay the groundwork for developing and documenting a virtual school, an unbounded educational environment with no walls, no halls, no bells, where (virtual) collaborative classrooms encompass the entire community and exploit connections among diverse educational resources -- schools, libraries, homes, businesses, local and global networks. This virtual school, to be implemented and evaluated over a three year development period following the planning grant, is enabled by the Blacksburg Electronic Village, or BEV, which -- by providing high- speed full connectivity throughout the entire town of Blacksburg -- offers a unique opportunity for us to create a virtual school.
In the one year planning period, we will undertake a series of planning meetings, workshops, and preliminary evaluations of basic equipment, network links, and network services for an emergent virtual school comprised of teachers and classes in one elementary school, one middle school, and one high school in Montgomery County, Virginia.
Also in the one year planning period, we will plan for study of the sociological, educative, methodological, economic, and political processes by which a replicable, sustainable virtual school model for educational (and community) networking can be constructed and maintained in a rural setting. We will also begin documentation of our development efforts, and will formulate and initiate studies to evaluate ensuing changes that occur, as well as begin documenting the processes by which these changes occur.
The primary output of this planning period will be a proposal to be submitted to NSF for a three year development effort to create and evaluate a virtual school.