NCVPS Community - E-lert for May 21

Be Empowered: Social Media Parenting: Raising the Digital Generation. If you're raising, educating, or counseling kids (or all three!), you should read Matt Silverman's article about our digital generation of young learners.

E-lert Subscription: Have you subscribed? If not, you can subscribe at the new e-lert site here. Look for the subscription service at the top of the sidebar. You will receive a confirmation email to activate your subscription. Each notice will have an unsubscribe option, too.

E-learning Success Stories: Submit your stories here: http://tiny.cc/d2oby Please tell us about student success stories and district success stories, such as increased virtual enrollment, fulltime DLA positions, teacher facilitators, and other virtual initiatives that have been started in your district. You may also forward to students and principals to complete!

Join NCVPS on Facebook: Are you into networking and social media? Come join over 500 other educators here: http://www.facebook.com/ncvps

Central Office DLC Training on May 25, 9 a.m. [E-lert May 21]

Central Office Distance Learning Coordinators:

A training sesssion for Distance Learning Coordinators "DLCs" (Central Office distance learning lead or appointed DLA to serve in this capacity) is scheduled for Tuesday, May 25 at 9:00am in the DLA Spa, "Virtual Office" classroom. Please make great effort to attend or designate one of your county school DLAs to represent your county. This session will cover year-end close out, summer semester guidelines, and any discussion about the role of the DLC. Instructions to access the Virtual Office classroom are also included in this e-lert. Please print the instructions so you will have them available in preparation to join the May 25th session.

You can follow this link directly to the classroom: http://ncvpsclassroom.wimba.com/launcher.cgi?room=_ncvps_s__4100_1_883357&X-Wimba-IntegrationType=classroom&X-Wimba-RoomId=_ncvps_s__4100_1_883357&X-Wimba-PlatformType=blackboard&X-Wimba-CourseId=DLA_Spa&X-Wimba-IntegrationVersion=4.0.0-7&X-Wimba-CoursePkId=_4100_1&X-Wimba-PlatformVersion=8.0.422.0

Course Previews [E-lert for May 21]

You can now preview NCVPS courses for each discipline of study. Here's how to access:

1. Go to our Blackboard login page: http://ncvps.blackboard.com/webapps/login/

2. Do not try logging in, though.

3. Click on the "Preview" button on the left of the screen.

4. Under "My Courses" on the top right, click on "MasterDemo."

5. Explore the course links on the left navigation bar.

Grade Reports [E-lert for May 21]

Here's a quick tutorial on how to access your grade reports.

Enrollment Reports [E-lert for May 21]

Here's a quick tutorial on how to access your enrollment report. You can now see students who have been waitlisted in your enrollment report.

Withdrawing Students [E-lert for May 21]

NCVPS is unable to withdraw students who have left your school in the last ten days of a course. The last day to withdraw was May 18th. The school principal must determine what to do with the grade that the instructor submits.

For more information on our drop and withdrawal process, please follow this link.

LOCK session June 1 - 11:00 am [E-lert for May 21]

LOCK sessions will be hosted each 1st and 3rd Tuesday of each month at 11:00 am. Mark your calendar for the next session June 1st. We will feature another guest DLC. Check next week for the resourceful topic. Thanks to the many who locked into the May 18 session. Excellent!!

Thanks also to the DLCs who presented that session, Joe Baisley (Currituck), Richard McFall (Durham), & Sharon Rhodes (Buncombe). Excellent material covered and can be reviewed at http://www.thevlc.org/2010/05/lock-session-for-may-18.html GREAT work, team!

Waitlists [E-lert for May 21]

NCVPS is still accepting enrollments for the Fall 2010 semester and our Summer 2010 Credit Recovery Courses. For the Summer 2010 semester, new student enrollments (not including Credit Recovery) will be placed on a waitlist. Wait lists are necessary in order for NCVPS to gain a more accurate budget picture and capacity to hire additional teachers for sections. Thank you for your patience and for your support of NCVPS.

Credit Recovery Update [E-lert for May 21]

Important Info Regarding Last Day to Submit Work and Final Grade Reports

1) Mastery Charts and Status Reports
The mastery charts were messaged to the students within Blackboard and emailed to parents and DLAs by 5pm on Monday, May 17th. The Status Report was made available in the registration system on Tuesday, May 18th. Mastery Charts and Status Reports will be provided bi-weekly during the spring semester. For the Mastery Chart schedule, click the following link: http://www.scribd.com/doc/18170808/Mastery-Chart-Schedule

2) Last Day To Submit Work and Final Grade Reports
The end of the semester is less than two weeks away. The last day for students to submit work in Credit Recovery courses is Friday, May 28th. May 31st is a holiday and June 1st is the final day of class for NCVPS. Those students who are close to finishing on May 28th will be extended until June 1st. Final grades for those who finish will be sent to schools on June 2nd. A Non-Mastery or NM will be reported for those students that do not finish the course. Please encourage students to work with their teacher on a plan for completing the course by the final date.

3) Teacher Contact
As we are approaching the end of the semester, teacher contact with parents is extremely important. Our teachers want to make sure that parents are aware of their child's status and what they need to do to finish the course by May 28th. If the teachers are having trouble contacting a student and/or parent they may reach out to you for assistance and/or advice. We greatly appreciate any assistance you can provide and all that you do to encourage the Credit Recovery students. Please let us know how we can help!

4) Students unable to move forward in course
Also as the end of the semester is approaching, we want to make sure that all students are moving forward. If you have a Credit Recovery student that states he or she is unable to move forward in a course for any reason, please contact Jeff Page at jeffrey.page@ncpublicschools.gov. Jeff can help the DLA and/or lab facilitator to determine where or what the student can do next. Students should never be sitting with nothing to work on at any time!

5) Summer Registration
Just a reminder that we are offering two brand new Credit Recovery courses this summer, Credit Recovery Biology and Credit Recovery World History.

6) Credit Recovery Podcast Series
If you have not listened to the second podcast in our Credit Recovery Podcast Series, please be sure to check it out. This podcast focuses on what you can do if students master the course before the end of the semester based on one lab facilitator's experience at Enloe High School. The podcast can be found at this link:http://www.thevlc.org/2010/04/credit-recovery-podcast-at-your-own.html. Our hope is that you will find the information shared through these interviews valuable to your program at your school.

NCVPS Community [E-lert for April 28]

Welcome to the NCVPS Community! Below you will find the posts for this week's e-lert.

Be Empowered: Edmodo is a blogging system designed for teachers and students. Edmodo allows teachers to create a group specifically for their students and exclude those not invited to the group. Edmodo provides teachers with a place to post assignment reminders, build an event calendar, and post messages to the group. Just as with any good microblogging service users can share links, videos, and images.

E-lert Subscription: Have you subscribed? If not, you can subscribe at the new e-lert site here. Look for the subscription service at the top of the sidebar. You will receive a confirmation email to activate your subscription. Each notice will have an unsubscribe option, too.

E-learning Success Stories: Submit your stories here: http://tiny.cc/d2oby Please tell us about student success stories and district success stories, such as increased virtual enrollment, fulltime DLA positions, teacher facilitators, and other virtual initiatives that have been started in your district. You may also forward to students and principals to complete!

Join NCVPS on Facebook: Are you into networking and social media? Come join over 500 other educators here: http://www.facebook.com/ncvps

New Passwords Starting this Summer for All Students [E-lert for April 28]

Starting in summer, all students will begin using their NCWise numbers for their usernames. Old usernames and passwords from previous semesters will no longer work.

Please remember that you will have to issue usernames and passwords. Many students will already know there NCWise numbers, so that's a plus.

Here are two ways to find a student's username and password in the registration system.

Run Your Enrollment Report
1) Click on the Enrollment button.
2) Look for the "export enrollments to excel" link. It is at the top of the screen above the course titles.
3) Select the semester for the report that you want to run. Your options are Summer 2010, Academic Year 2010 - 2011 (yearlong courses), and Fall 2010.
4) Click the "export" button.
5) An excel spreadsheet will open. You will see on the spreadsheet that there are columns for username and password.

Print Individual Student Information
1) Click the Students button. (Do not click "Export to Excel" from the Students button. This will open a spreadsheet with all information for all students at the school.)
2) Click on the student's NCWise number next to the student's name.
3) You can print this sheet for your student. It has the student's username and password on it.