Flexible Credit and Educational Options
Ohio Department of Education
Gifted Department
Lauren Angelone
Cynthia Clingan 
What is flexible credit?
It all began with the Carnegie Unit
Then, a provision in SB311 (The Ohio Core) gave flexibility in how students meet new graduation requirements.  
So you see, this opens up options and the validity of those options for educators and students (especially of the gifted variety)
You may need some background...
What is the plan?
What types of options?
The Carnegie Unit
From wikipedia: Per its original definition, the Carnegie Unit is 120 hours of class or contact time with an instructor over the course of a year at the secondary (American high school) level. 
This idea is tied to individual learning theories of the "filling of the pail" variety
We now know that each student is unique and learning is a process of construction that does not necessitate a certain amount of "seat time" to achieve learning goals.  
Ohio's Credit Flexibility Plan
Credit no longer must be tied to seat time
Applies to all students and is reflected on transcripts like traditional credit (which will still be the primary means of delivery)
Districts have been given local control to adopt a policy for credit flexibility including flexible assessments and testing out by 2010-2011
Allows for customization of individual student needs


Options
Internships
Educational Travel
Independent study
Educational options (online)
Music/Art(s) classes
testing out
Completing coursework
(Our main focus today)
 
What are educational options?  
Educational options are individualized learning experiences as an alternative to traditional courses.  They are also a current provision for credit flexibility that is not widely used.
What are online educational options?
educational options available to students online
online educational options provide opportunities for isolated students or students with niche interests
current, collaborative (and free!) web 2.0 technologies lend themselves to faciliatating, sharing and developing online educational options for our gifted students
Open Educational Resources (OER)
resources that are freely available online to be used and remixed
OER can support online educational options
MIT is a good example of this http://ocw.mit.edu/OcwWeb/web/home/home/index.htm
Another resource:  http://www.ocwconsortium.org/
Online tools for development
blogs (wordpress, blogger)
wikis (pbworks, wikispaces)
social networks (facebook, myspace)
social bookmarking (delicious, diigo, twine)
LMS (moodle)
Example: http://moodle.auglaizeesc.org
What is the connection between flexible credit and online educational options?  
flexible credit opens up opportunities to experiment with educational options 
flexible credit gives validity to educational options by allowing students to earn credit 
with the resources and interactions available on the internet, online educational options can utilize credit flexibilty in creative ways that match current learning theory
Small group work:
Generate questions and ideas for implementation
Share out in 5 minutes
Join the conversation
http://onlineedops.pbworks.com
Why online?
Why nontraditional?
http://www.ted.com/talks/lang/eng/ken_robinson_says_schools_kill_creativity.html
The design team's guiding principles- 
found at http://ode.ohio.gov search term "credit flex" (more documents can be found here as well)
Online Educational Options are just one area under explorations, credit flex and educational options are not required to be online.  
The design team recommends that local school boards use technology platforms to develop a library of courses and a rating system. 
Online options fit the modality of the "millenials."  
Cost effective.  
a place to share information about best practices, assessments, models and research related to online educational options and similar programs, as recommended by the design team.  
another interesting video
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cL9Wu2kWwSY 

College
A possible example
http://artandenvironment.blogspot.com/
What else you can do?
Talk to key individuals in your district
Review the research provided (on ODE's website)
Consider the strengths of your district and community (e.g., business advisory, ESCs, foundations, Career-tech and Ed tech)
Begin to draft and vet policy language

Thank you for your time!