Featured Network: K-12 Schools/College Alliance for Distance Education
Feb 28, 2007
We have been providing distance education programs since: The KSCADE (K-12 Schools/College Alliance for Distance Education) consortium was formed in 1997 and began the first semester of programming in January of 1998. In 2001 KSCADE was bridged to BadgerNet via gateways, to allow for shared programming between KSCADE and any other site in Wisconsin.
Number of member sites: Building in membership phases, KSCADE grew from 15 initial sites, to eventually include 32 distance ed classrooms. Current membership, which includes both K-12 and higher ed partners, includes: Chilton, Fox Valley Technical College, Freedom, Gresham, Hortonville, Iola-Scandinavia, Kaukauna, Little Chute, Lourdes, Manawa, Menasha, Neenah, New London, Northeast Wisconsin Technical College, Omro, Oshkosh East, Oshkosh North, Oshkosh West, St. Mary Central, Seymour, Shiocton, Waupaca, Wautoma, Weyauwega-Fremont, Winneconne and Xavier.
Our membership includes (type of sites, eg, high schools, technical colleges, etc.): Our membership includes both public and private K-12 districts as well as two technical colleges.
Our member sites are located in these Wisconsin counties: KSCADE membership includes sites in Waupaca, Waushara, Outagamie, Winnebago, Shawano and Calumet counties.
An interesting program we recently provided was: A visit with Governor Doyle. In January, students from Oshkosh School district participated in an inauguration event with Governor and Mrs. Doyle. Prior to the event, students from Oshkosh, as well as three other cities across Wisconsin, discussed the inauguration process in class, learning about the history of the process, the significance of specific aspects of the inauguration and prepared questions to ask of Governor and Mrs. Doyle during their scheduled video connection. Students gained a much more personal understanding of the inaugural process in Wisconsin and were very excited to "meet" the governor.
A showcase program we are offering is: Career Planning programming for high school students interested in criminal justice. An Fox Valley Technical College (FVTC) grant project called CCTI (Career and College Transitions Initiative) allows high school students who take the Intro to Criminal Justice class to pursue other grant-funded opportunities to help decide whether the field of law enforcement is right for them. A new class, Careers in Criminal Justice was added to the KSCADE schedule and students in the project are provided with a resource guide that allows for personal contact with law enforcement professionals. A day-long capstone event called "A Day in the Life" also allows students to see what officers in the real world do each day on the job.
The number of programs we offer on a typical day is: A typical day includes over 35 high school to high school and Youth Options courses. KSCADE members also receive a variety of twilight and evening programming that includes meetings, K-12 Staff Development, Technical College and UW coursework for the community and WIAA connections.
Audiences attending our programs include: Anyone who finds out how easy it is to use the network! Each semester we get more and more requests from teachers, parents, administrators, coaches or community members who find out about this great resource in their community.
A typical day at our network involves: A lot of behind the scenes work to make the technology transparent to the teachers and students. KSCADE, like any other network, collaborates constantly with member sites, the NOC (Network Operations Center), other network staff and specific vendors to keep programming running smoothly. The KSCADE office includes Mary Hansen and Tess Woods, who work closely with ITV technicians at FVTC who provide technical support to the members of KSCADE.
Our most surprising success story was: As success stories go, programming that fulfills a need is definitely a success. Most surprising might be those courses that small schools offer but fulfill the needs of larger schools who can’t offer the same curriculum. Agriculture classes are a great example of this in KSCADE.
Our favorite tip for distance education teachers is: Plan ahead. ITV instructors need to be more organized and stay ahead of the game in terms of mailings and contact with their site facilitators and students. The teachers who master this skill early will find the experience of teaching a distance ed class much more rewarding.
A popular topic area for our courses this year is: As always, foreign languages are in demand. High school students of today find greater value in learning a foreign language than in the past. Within KSCADE foreign language sequencing is a priority, ensuring a student receives introductory and advanced classes if they wish. Depending on demand, members of KSCADE are also pursuing the addition of new languages, such as Chinese.
On average, the number of people attending our programs last year was: For day-to-day courses, the average class size for KSCADE is 20-25 students. Other programming can vary, from two people in a point-to-point meeting to many who are involved in a one-time event. In a semester, KSCADE can work with 500-600 daytime students.
Students taking our programs often comment on: How great it is to meet students from other districts and to have the opportunity to take classes otherwise not available to them.
A Virtual Field Trip we offered helped students learn about: Our Milwaukee Public Museum trips that connected all third graders in the Winneconne school district was very successful and still talked about by teachers and students.
An interesting thing about our network is: One of our veteran instructors on KSCADE was Wisconsin's Vocational Teacher of the Year in 2003...she's a great example of how a superior teacher can share her knowledge with students beyond her own school district via distance education.
At our network, we try our best to: We try to communicate well. A critical function of any network is communicating between teachers, students and administrators but also from network to network. We're all in this together!
For more information contact: Mary Hansen, Hansen@fvtc.edu, 920-735-2507.
Our Network's web site url is: www.kscade.k12.wi.us