Starting an online program as a part of a school or as a separate school is a many-faceted challenge, even for seasoned educators. This session will identify which types of decisions need to be made first and which decisions should wait until after these initial decisions have been made. The session will give you the opportunity to work with experienced practitioners from around the country. Topics will include program design, curriculum decisions, administrative systems, teacher recruitment and professional development, student recruitment and support, policy development, and more. This session is designed for educators who are new to virtual schooling or in their first two years of their program.

It is widely accepted, but not well documented, that students of ethnic minorities are under-represented in virtual school populations. With the growth of virtual schooling, the diversity of online learners is increasing. Several programs that target disenfranchised populations of students are appearing on the virtual school landscape, raising many challenging issues. The results of a nationwide survey of virtual school programs by iNACOL and David B. Glick & Associates, LLC, adds further complexity to the discussion.

Who are virtual school students? Is the oft-touted anonymity of online learning really a benefit to students? Are ethnically-targeted programs a return to separate-but-equal, or do they provide culturally sensitive and uniquely supportive environments? What can we learn from charter schools who have been debating this issue for over a decade? How is ethnicity important to your students and teachers? This panel discussion will include leaders from both targeted and general programs, as well as individuals from communities underserved by online learning programs.

You've heard about virtual labs before, but now is your chance to learn how to integrate them into your online science courses! Here is a unique opportunity to learn from the virtual lab developers themselves. See new tools and technologies and pick an an-depth training session that best fits your needs!

In this workshop, participants will learn about the broad range of practices and technologies available for implementing high quality science learning in online courses. The workshop will feature an initial session of live demonstrations and test drives of various cyberlearning tools, virtual labs, and other online laboratory science resources. Participants will then select an in-depth hands-on training session provided by the tool developer and learn how to integrate one of the tools in an online science course. The goal of the workshop is to help online teachers and course developers to improve the quality of their science courses, to exchange best practices, and learn about the latest tools and technologies for online science education.

The workshop will consist of two highly interactive, hands-on sessions:

1. Hands-on demo session. Check out interactive and hands-on demonstrations of online science courses, investigations, resources, and technologies. Learn about new tools to enhance your current courses.
2. In-depth hands-on training session. Select the virtual lab tool that best fits your interests or needs and participate in a training session that will help you learn how to integrate the tool into your courses. Get tips on how to make your science courses more hands-on and engaging for learners. Each training session is led by the developer of the virtual lab tool, so you will be able to have direct interaction with the experts!

Call for Presenters!
Developers/publishers who are interested in either demonstrating their virtual lab/resource and/or conducting an in-depth training session for participants are encouraged to contact Dr. Jona. Space is limited and will be filled on a first-come, first-served basis.

Online educators face countless challenges as their programs grow, mature, and change over time. This session explores issues and findings from iNACOL's Promising Practices in Online Learning white paper series as a starting point to look at the approaches taken by experienced online programs in areas including content development, teacher management, blended learning, credit recovery, socialization, and other key operational issues. Attendees should come ready to share their ideas and practices from their programs in an interactive, round table format facilitated by the educators profiled in the Promising Practices white papers. The session will include active discussions that result in concrete strategies that attendees can take back to their organizations and begin to implement immediately. It will benefit any online learning educator, but will be a forum for discussing intermediate to advanced concepts in the management, operations and strategic planning of online learning programs.

Tom Clark, TA Consulting - Chairperson
Cathy Cavanaugh, University of Florida
This session focuses on asking answering questions that strengthen K-12 online learning programs. Program administrators, evaluators, and researchers will share their approaches to identifying questions that link to improving practice and methods that lead to insights for managing online learning environments, both for increasing quality and effectiveness and for meeting accountability needs. We will also share updates on K-12 online education programs that are in planning stages at the U.S. Department of Education. Participants will be asked to contribute their ideas on successful practices and lessons learned, and ways to strengthen research and evaluation practice.

This hands-on session will provide an overview to emerging technologies for online learning. The session will engage participants in conversation around creating successful learning communities, promoting collaboration, and enhancing instructive techniques with Web 2.0 tools. Participants who bring laptop computers will have an opportunity to try out a collection of Web 2.0 tools and think together about strategies for selecting and incorporating the ones that most meet their identified virtual school needs.

What do online teachers need to know and do? How can we balance effectiveness and efficiency in the delivery of professional development? How can we effectively evaluate teachers' progress against online teaching standards and competencies? How can we measure the effectiveness of our professional development programs?

Participants will join a panel of experts in professional development for online teachers to investigate best practices in answer to these questions. Participants are encouraged to bring examples of what has worked -- and what hasn't -- in their programs. Topics for discussion will include:

• NACOL, SREB, and NETS-T standards
• Synchronous v. asynchronous delivery mechanisms and tools
• Budgeting for professional development
• Getting teacher and administrator buy-in
• Implementing a robust evaluation program
• On-going professional development topics and delivery for veteran online teachers

In addition to the concrete strategies they will glean through collaboration and discussion at this session, participants will leave with sample professional development syllabi and implementation ideas and templates for teacher evaluation rubrics and personal professional development plans.