The NCVPS Spring Open House schedule is now available. The Open House gives students and schools an opportunity to meet with NCVPS teachers and instructional leaders to learn more about the online teaching and learning experience.
For specific schedule, please visit Spring 2012 Open House.
CONGRATULATIONS to Leslie Fetzer! 
Leslie has been chosen as one of the 2012 National Online Teacher of the Year finalists! The announcement of the 2012 National Online Teacher of the Year will be made March 1, 2012 at the Excellence Awards Gala during the SREB Symposium on Virtual Teaching and Learning. Thank you Leslie for all that you do for the students of North Carolina!
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
December 9, 2011
Contact:
Michelle Harrell, (919) 664-6853
NC Museum of Art Partnership Reaches Statewide Teen Audience through Online Courses
Together with the North Carolina Virtual Public School (NCVPS), the North Carolina Museum of Art (NCMA) is pioneering new ways of offering creative arts education classes to students in every public high school in the state. This collaboration benefits schools by giving students an opportunity to engage with works of art at the Museum on a daily basis, regardless of geographic location or budgetary constraints.
“Many public schools don’t have the funding to staff and offer specialized art classes like the ones developed by the NCMA/NCVPS project,” explained Cathy Cindrich, NCVPS video editing instructor. “These courses are reaching students where they spend most of their free time—online.”
NCVPS, the second-largest virtual school in the nation, partners with schools throughout North Carolina to give students access to a 21st-century learning environment and help them prepare for college and beyond. As of September 2011, more than 18,000 students were enrolled in NCVPS semester courses and nearly 5,000 enrolled in yearlong courses.
“Through our partnership with NCVPS, we can reach thousands of students throughout the state, many of whom have never visited the Museum,” said Michelle Harrell, coordinator of teen and college programs at the NCMA. She added, “These collaborative courses are unique in that they use works of art at the Museum as catalysts for learning.”
“We work together to combine our best resources,” NCVPS Art Department Chair Deb Pylypiw added. “To ensure we are meeting our course objectives, the curriculum we develop undergoes an extensive evaluation process.”
The NCMA currently offers two NCVPS courses, Video Editing with a Renaissance Twist and Art of Game Design. Both courses incorporate object-based learning and high-tech, project-based online learning. As students make connections to works of art in the Museum’s collection, they develop creative thinking and problem-solving skills, and the projects they create—both individually and in collaboration with other students—allow them to experiment with new technology.
Students are supported in their coursework through NCMA lending libraries that provide them with cameras and other equipment, guest visits from Museum staff in online meetings with classes, and course-related special events at the Museum.
“I borrowed one of the Museum’s cameras over the summer to use in my online class, and it made my work so much easier to complete—and fun!” said Brendaly V., a student in the summer 2011 video editing course. “I appreciate that the NCMA loaned me a camera. I hope to buy one of my own someday, now that I know how cool it is and how great it works.”
Last spring, the NCMA celebrated the success of its first course in the collaboration, Video Editing with a Renaissance Twist, with a Renaissance-themed teen event at the Museum. The evening’s festivities included a blue-screen photo booth and a video competition featuring films created by students in the course.
Harrell said these end-of-course celebrations “recognize the students’ accomplishments and give them validation from their friends and family.” The on-site events also give students an opportunity to meet their classmates and instructors in person.
“Although the collaboration project is still in its early stages, we can already see the impact these courses have made on students who live hours away from the Museum,” Harrell said. One student’s family made a four-hour drive from the Outer Banks to Raleigh to attend the screening of the film she had made in the video editing class.
The most recent course in the NCMA/NCVPS collaboration, Art of Game Design, is now in progress. This multimedia course teaches the basic elements and thought processes of designing games, both digital (video games) and nondigital (board games, card games, etc.). Students explore works of art from the NCMA’s collection as they learn how the concepts of purpose, character and story development, and structure apply to both art and game design.
The Museum will host another teen event in spring 2012 to recognize students for their achievements in the new course and help them explore careers in art, game design, and museum-related fields. Additional courses are in development.
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The North Carolina Museum of Art’s permanent collection spans more than 5,000 years, from ancient Egypt to the present, making the institution one of the premier art museums in the Southeast. The Museum’s collection provides educational, aesthetic, intellectual, and cultural experiences for the citizens of North Carolina and beyond. The 164-acre Museum Park showcases the connection between art and nature through site-specific works of environmental art. The Museum offers changing national touring exhibitions, classes, lectures, family activities, films, and concerts.
The Museum recently opened its new gallery building, home to the permanent collection. The North Carolina Museum of Art, Lawrence J. Wheeler, director, is located at 2110 Blue Ridge Road in Raleigh. It is the art museum of the State of North Carolina, Beverly Eaves Perdue, governor, and an agency of the Department of Cultural Resources, Linda A. Carlisle, secretary. Admission to the Museum’s permanent collection and Museum Park is free. Museum hours are Tuesday–Thursday and Saturday–Sunday, 10 a.m.–5 p.m.; Friday, 10 a.m.–9 p.m.; Closed Monday. For more information about the Museum, visit www.ncartmuseum.org.
The NCVPS Peer Tutoring Center has been awarded a State Youth Council Mini Grant from the Youth Advisory Council. In an effort to promote youth involvement and leadership, a requirement of this grant is that it be completed and submitted by a youth. James C., Lead Tutor, completed the process for the Peer Tutoring Center. Money from this grant will be used to provide tutors awards through the Presidential Volunteer Service Award Program.
Congrats again to the Peer Tutoring Center and James!
Additional news from the Center is that editor Amy Bareham has added a news feature. The news feature is entitled,Tutor Talk: A Note from the Editor. Twice a month she is going to share fun facts with her readers. These will range from arbitrary tidbits about current events to helpful hints for success inNCVPS courses.
Check out her new article at:http://ncvpspeertutor.blogspot.com/2011/12/breaking-news.html.
Expand your horizons…with NCVPS Arts!
NCVPS Spring 2012 Registration is open and filling fast!
Ask your school counselor or E-Learning Advisor about Spring courses now!
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Contact:
Shannon Howle Tufts, PhD UNC School of Government
CGCIO Program
(919) 962-5438
Chanin Rivenbark Graduates from the UNC Certified Education Chief Technology Officers Program
Chapel Hill, NC, November 11, 2011. Chanin Rivenbark, Chief Technology Officer at North Carolina Virtual Public Schools, has successfully graduated from the 2011 Certified Education Chief Technology Officers (CeCTO) Program at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill’s School of Government. The North Carolina Department of Public Instruction and MCNC partnered with the UNC School of Government to offer this groundbreaking professional development opportunity.
The CeCTO program is the first education specific program for CTOs and CIOs in the nation and is proud to graduate its second annual class. The program is designed for K-12 Chief Technology Officers and Chief Information Officers whose responsibilities require a broad understanding of management, leadership, and enterprise topics. The course is approximately 240 hours in length. Course instruction covers enterprise issues, strategic technology planning, communication, project management, emerging trends, risk assessment and management, acquisition management, change management, leadership, security, legal issues and financial trends.
Chanin Rivenbark is one of the 23 K-12 Chief Technology Officers who successfully completed the course this year, joining 34 graduates from the inaugural year. The CeCTO program is one of the many offerings in the nationally acclaimed Certified Government Chief Information Officers’ series, which was pioneered by the UNC School of Government’s Center for Public Technology. The CGCIO program, started in 2005, was the first of its kind in the nation and has successfully graduated more than 600 public sector IT professionals across the country.
In recognition of outstanding services provided through the NCVPS Peer Tutoring Center, we would like to announce that Sandeep is the November Tutor of the Month!
Sandeep earned this recognition through his countless hours tutoring not only the courses the Peer Tutoring Center officially services, but assisting students in courses from all over NCVPS. Sandeep never ceases to amaze with the breadth of his knowledge across a variety of subjects. If he is not familiar with the content a student presents, Sandeep is quick to locate another tutor that has the required expertise.
Not only does Sandeep support the students at NCVPS, he also works hard to support other tutors within the Peer Tutoring Center. Sandeep showed great initiative by connecting with other peer tutors during his office hours via Pronto group chat so that they may work together and share their abilities to better serve NCVPS students. After noting the benefits of this type of group chat within Pronto, he recorded a video tutorial so that other tutors could learn to create groups within Pronto as well.
Sandeep is a new comer to North Carolina and the Iredell-Statesville school system, but he quickly made an impact since moving here from California a couple years ago. He has a natural proclivity for math, programming languages and probably many other subjects. He desires to eventually work in the video game industry. This is, perhaps, influenced by his hobby of playing video games and surfing the web. He thinks someday he might want to live in Japan because they have “all the cool tech stuff”. He says his gravitation towards math and science may come from his grandfather who was an astrologer and dad is an IT project manager. One thing he isn’t keen on sharing is that he had to go to school one day dressed as a tomato.
Sandeep is consistently available via Pronto Monday through Friday for several hours in the afternoon and evening to provide peer tutoring services.
For more information on the Peer Tutoring program, please contact Crystal Pullen at crystal.pullen@ncpublicschools.gov.
http://www.ncvpselaportal.org/michael-c-super-user-page.html
GenerationText Super Users are students who have mastered Web2.0 skills. They are very adept at all things Internet. Computer shortcuts are easy for them. PowerPoint, no problem. Video mixing, easy. Networking, second nature. Online, all the time. They’ve earned the names of Digital Natives and Screenagers and . . . our favorite . . . GenerationText!
Congratulations to the 2011 NCVPS Teacher of the Year, Leslie Fetzer!
Leslie started her career in the pharmaceutical industry as a Medical Writer before she realized she had missed her calling and became a teacher. Leslie’s first teaching job was as a Chemistry, Biology, and Forensic Science teacher for the Bolivar-Richburg Central School in the rural community of Bolivar, NY. She moved to Holly Springs, North Carolina in 2007 and taught Chemistry and Biology for Holly Springs High School. In 2009, Leslie joined NCVPS as a Credit Recovery Teacher, and has been a teacher and Instructional Leader for the OCS Blended Learning Program since it began in 2010.
Regarding online teaching, Leslie notes: “Teaching for NCVPS allows me to reach students not only in my local community and classroom, but across the state in engaging ways. I am able to create a lesson meant for a single student that is challenged to learn. They might need to “see it, hear it, or read it” in a different way. I truly believe that students are not limited by their disabilities- they are challenged by them. Teaching online gives me the advantage of having a repertoire of tools and media that I can use to reach students. I am limited only by my own imagination. Their learning challenges prompt and inspire me to be more imaginative and more creative, and I am more fulfilled for it.”
NCVPS would also like to take this opportunity to extend our congratulations to all of the teachers who were nominated by their peers for this recognition: Crystal Pullen, Darlene Schaefer, Debra Pylypiw, Jen Currin, Karen Barraza, Karen Carroll, Kateryna Decker, Lydia Richmond, Michelle Barnhill, Teryn Odom, Andrew Sandel, and Susan Johnson.
Leslie was evaluated by a set of peers and a cross-functional committee of NCVPS staff members.
The NCVPS Peer Tutoring program has launched its Tutor Talk blog. Please visit the blog online at http://ncvpspeertutor.blogspot.com/ and see our inaugural post from Amy Bareham!
Create your own video slideshow at animoto.com.