By Vince Hill, School Principal and Director
It boggles my mind how some online schools focus on asynchronous delivery and think Elluminate Live! is just for supplemental use. They may cite cost or flexibility as issues, but in my mind student success justifies cost, and most students attend virtual school to get classes they can't get in their communities, so flexibility is not a concern. Interaction should be a daily part of the curriculum.
At CVHS, we are able to demonstrate the effectiveness of providing this type of education. For example, the Saskatchewan Government Correspondence School is paper-based, asynchronous, and self paced. The current student completion rate is just 23%, a staggeringly low number. In comparison, our student completion rate at CVHS is 83%. We attribute that largely to doing everything synchronously with scheduled classes every day.
CVHS began as primarily a First Nations school, but today half our population comes from the province. It's great to see the interaction between the First Nation and non-First Nations kids as well as the interaction between the different tribes, who speak different languages. We are expanding more and more all the time. I love the dynamic.
The socialization factor is important. The number-one thing students love about CVHS is interacting with others outside of their communities. That wouldn't happen in an asynchronous environment. For example, I have one English class where the students really want to use their webcams. Every day, they start off with one person taking a turn on camera and doing a little dance, which the next person takes over, and so on down the line. We can't wait for Elluminate Live! V9 with multipoint video.
As much as possible, I want to replicate a face-to-face experience for these kids because our foremost concern should be about student achievement and outcomes. That regular communication every day is building a network of kids who are feeling engaged. I am one of Elluminate's biggest fans. We would be lost without it in our world. It's absolutely the best thing out there.
Recently, we celebrated the graduation of 80 students in the Early Learning Childcare Certificate program, which was done entirely online one night a week with Elluminate. These students all work in childcare in their communities and would not have had the opportunity to attend a traditional program, so this is quite an accomplishment for them and for CVHS.
Elluminate Live! Activities
- Daily online interaction in virtual classroom
- Archived lessons and standalone recordings
- Integration with ANGEL Learning Management System
- Monthly student assemblies and student presentations
- Weekly staff and faculty meetings
- Faculty professional development
- Weekly meetings for faculty pursuing graduate studies
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