NCVPS E-lert for April 19, 2012

NCVPS E-lert

April 19, 2012

What's New? New!

Registration System Updates
Funding Formula Podcast
OCS Blended Learning Registration
OCS Algebra 1 Registration
UNCG High School Programming Contest
Early Calendar Enrollment Eligibility

Check This Out!

Intervention Strategies
Featured Links

Registration System Upgrades

On the evening of April 18, the NCVPS Registration System was upgraded to include three new features that affect the ELA and ELC's view and input. The three new features are listed below.

NOTE: More detailed tutorial instructions and supporting information, will be made available in the next e-lert.

1) Fiscal year allotment calculation and usage tracker.

Both the ELA and ELC views while enrolling a student, will display at the top of the screen, a tracker of instant changes in calculation and cost of allotment usage. This feature is anticipated to be a benefit in monitoring enrollment usage and the cost thereof. The allotment figures displayed with this new feature, for the 2012-13 fiscal year, are pulled from the allotment report sent to ELCs by the regional consultants.

2) Prevention of OCS dual enrollment.

If an ELA attempts to register a student in both an OCS and regular NCVPS course, the user will be prompted with an alert/error message of an existing enrollment. This feature will help avoid dual enrollments.

3) Capture of the face-to-face (f2f) teacher information for OCS blended courses.

It is imperative for the NCVPS teacher to know who the f2f EC teacher is who will be partnering with the NCVPS teacher for OCS courses. Upon the process of enrolling a student in an OCS course, the new feature will have a forced field to input who the f2f teacher is.

A podcast tutorial demo is anticipated to be available by Wednesday, April 25 with more details on these three new features. Be on watch for details from your regional consultant.

Funding Formula Podcast

Ross White and John Brim discuss the funding formula in our latest series of podcasts.

Click here to see the podcast.

Learn more about our professional development podcast series here.

OCS Blended Learning Registration

As schools begin to plan their NCVPS OCS Blended enrollments for the 2012-2012 school year, please keep in mind these important factors!

Since there are no limitations on the number of enrollments in the NCVPS OCS Blended Learning courses, schools should enroll intentionally. Please enroll students in those courses that are actually needed within the appropriate academic calendar time frame.

1. The NCVPS registration system will allow schools to register students within these academic calendar time frames:

Fall 2012-- 1 credit block course that runs from August 2012 to January 2013

Spring 2013 -- 1 credit block course that runs from January 2013 to May 2013

Yearlong course -- 1 credit yearlong course that runs from August 2012 to May 2013

Schools need to be aware of the time frame in which they are enrolling students within the registration system. Students should NOT be enrolled in the same course for both Fall and Spring because the school has not made the decision as to which semester to offer the course. Wait to register students until your school has made the decisions as to when the OCS courses will be offered within the school's scheduling decisions.

NCVPS Course Calendars here: http://www.ncvps.org/index.php/courses/calendars/

2. These courses are available for registration for the 2012 - 2013 school year:

OCS Blended Learning Algebra I* will be delayed for registration -- see below

OCS Blended Learning Introduction to Math

OCS Blended Learning Biology

OCS Blended Learning Applied Science

OCS Blended Learning English 1

OCS Blended Learning English 2

*OCS Blended Learning Algebra I will be available for registration within the next few weeks, but is not available at this time. We are currently rewriting the course to meet the Common Core standards; we are working with NC DPI to determine if we can offer the OCS Blended Learning Algebra I course as a Part A and Part B course. More details to come soon as to when this registration will open and how the course will be offered.

OCS Blended Learning course catalog information here:  http://www.ncvps.org/index.php/courses/catalogue/

3.  Schools need to continue to prepare for the OCS Blended Learning program by working with classroom OCS teachers to determine who will partner with the NCVPS content teacher to provide the blended instruction for students. Each school stakeholder, including the classroom OCS teacher and the school administrators, should have an understanding of how the OCS Blended Learning program works so that teachers are prepared and the best scheduling decisions are made.

OCS Blended Learning program information here:  http://www.ncvps.org/index.php/courses/ocs-blended/

All classroom teachers will be asked to go through a new and improved online training that will be available this summer -- more details to come. This will be for all teachers, even those that have partnered with us before.

For additional information, please contact Michelle Lourcey, Curriculum and Instruction Division Director, at michelle.lourcey@ncpublicschools.gov.

OCS Algebra 1 Registration

OCS Blended Learning Algebra I has been rewritten to match the Common Core standards. For this reason, we have worked with NC DPI to determine that this course needs to be two courses, a Part A and a Part B.

OCS Blended Learning Algebra I Part A (course code 9223Z) will be available in the FALL semesters only and will be 1 math elective credit. OCS Blended Learning Algebra I Part B (course code 9224Z) will be available in the SPRING semesters only and will be 1 Algebra I credit if Part A was taken in the Fall.

Registration for both OCS Blended Learning Algebra I Part A (FALL ONLY) and Part B (Spring ONLY) are now available for registration. For those schools who offer courses on a yearlong schedule, you will still register for Part A for the Fall and then Part B for the spring. There will be no separate yearlong OCS Blended Learning Algebra I course.

Also, the Introduction to Math Course is still required for students --nothing has changed in course requirements except NCVPS is offering the Blended Learning for Algebra as two courses because of how much is required of students.

OCS Blended Learning course catalog information here: http://www.ncvps.org/index.php/courses/catalogue/

Please contact Michelle Lourcey with questions, michelle.lourcey@ncpublicschools.gov.

UNCG High School Programming Contest

Basic Information and Call for Participation

The Department of Computer Science and the student ACM chapter of the University of North Carolina at Greensboro invite students to participate in a programming contest for high school students, to be held April 21, 2012, from 12:00-4:00 on the UNCG campus.

Some information is provided below - for additional information, including sample problems, please contact Prof. Steve Tate at srtate@uncg.edu.

Basic Contest Information
* Students will compete on teams of 2-3 students. Teams will use a single computer during the contest.
* Teams must register by sending an email with the names of team members to srtate@uncg.edu before April 17. If multiple teams are coming from one school, all teams can be specified in a single email.
* Winners are determined first by the number of problems solved correctly, and then among teams with the same number of correct solutions the ordering is by the number of "penalty points." Penalty points consist of the total amount of time spend on all problems submitted correctly, with a 20 minute penalty for any incorrect submission on these problems. For example, if a team submitted a correct solution for problem 1
after 25 minutes, an incorrect solution for problem 2 at 37 minutes, a correct solution for problem 2 at 49 minutes, and an incorrect solution for problem 3 at 68 minutes, then the
total number of penalty points would be 25+49+20=94 - note that the times of the correct solutions are what count, and there are no penalty points for a problem that was never
correctly solved.

* Prizes will be awarded to the top 3 teams.

Technical Information
* Programs may be written in either C++ or Java.
* Program output must match exactly with what is stated in the problem statement, no more and no less, including "invisible" characters. In particular, be careful that your program doesn't output extra whitespace at the end of lines, or have extra blank lines at the end of the output.
* All input should be read from standard input (cin in C++, or System.in in Java) and written to standard output (cout in C++, or System.out in Java).

* Programs are submitted through a web-based contest management system. Interested students will be given access to this server before the contest in order to become familiar
with its operation, but the server will be disabled 24 hours before the contest so that we can set the system up for the contest.

Early Calendar Enrollment Eligibility

Schools that have submitted a designated waiver form to NCDPI and have been approved to operate on an early calendar schedule, are the only schools that can enroll students in early calendar NCVPS courses. The waiver form and process to submit can be reviewed here.

PREVIOUS E-LERT UPDATES

Navigating an Enrollment Report

Watch this video to see how to access and read an NCVPS enrollment report.

NCVPS Peer Tutoring

The NCVPS Peer Tutoring Center Promotional blog contains information and promotional items for distribution to teachers, e-learning advisors, parents and students of NCVPS. The promotional items are graphics and videos about our various services including Quick Questions services which are provided to all NCVPS students.

The blog will also contain news items related to the Peer Tutoring Center such as live review and work sessions and other Peer Tutoring events. These promotional items are appropriate for sharing via school newsletters, bulletin boards and emails to students and parents. Celebrations of successes within courses and departments, and recognition of outstanding tutor achievement are also included in the blog. All posts are tagged to allow instructors/eLAs to quickly and easily find the information they require--whether it be promotional items for Quick Questions or links to TutorTalk.

We strongly encourage you to follow the blog for the most up to date information and promotional materials. You may do this by visiting the blog and entering your email address in the "Follow by Email" box at the top right of the page.

For more on our Peer Tutoring program, check out this quick reference guide.

Grade Reports and NCWise

NCVPS only reports weighted grades for two marking periods in block courses. Each is weighted at 37.5%. Our yearlong courses have four weighted marking periods. Each is weighted at 18.75%. Final exams count as 25% in all courses.

NCVPS posts progress reports every two weeks in the registration system. Do not enter our UNWEIGHTED progress report grades into NCWise as WEIGHTED grades. If you do this, your final grade averages will not match our final grade averages.

Here are the reporting dates for our weighted marking periods:

March 10: 1st Grade Report for Early Calendar Block 2012. (37.5%)
March 28: 1st Grade Report for Spring Block 2012. (37.5%)
March 28: 3rd Quarter Report for Yearlong 2011-2012 Courses. (18.75%)

May 12: 2nd Grade Report and Final Grades for Early Calendar Block 2012. (37.5%)
May 31: 2nd Grade Report and Final Grades for Spring Block 2012. (37.5%)
May 31: 4th Quarter and Final Grades for Yearlong 2011-2012 Courses. (18.75%)

Here are the details:

Standard Grading Scale for Fall and Spring Block Classes

Midterm: 37.5% (First Grade Report)
End Term: 37.5% (Second Grade Report)
Final Exam: 25% (Schools must administer EOC/CTE exams and calculate in this 25%.)

Standard Grading Scale for Yearlong Classes

18.75% (First Grade Report)
18.75% (Second Grade Report)
18.75% (Third Grade Report)
18.75% (Fourth Grade Report)
25% (Exam) (Schools must administer EOC/CTE exams and calculate in this 25%.)

Standard Grading Scale for Summer Classes

75% Cumulative grade for all course work
25% Final Project or Final Exam (Schools must administer EOC/CTE exams and calculate in this 25%.)

Vendor Approval Process

NCVPS's Vendor Course Approval Process is now live. All TEACHER-LED outside vendor courses must go through the approval process. Currently the course approval process is limited to the courses posted on our site. Please visit our vendor approval process page to see the basic tenets and steps to this process.

We want your feedback. We are sure that there are courses that you would like to see approved. Complete the following form to provide us with an idea of which course(s) your LEA would like to see reviewed for this process. Complete the form at this link for each course requested for future review.

If you have questions, please contact Don Lourcey at don.lourcey@ncpublicschools.gov.

Intervention for Low-Performing or
At-Risk Students

If you have students who are low-performing, under-performing, or at-risk for any reason, NCVPS has a number of intervention strategies for districts and schools to follow.

Have students contact their instructors during their office hours for live help.
Try to establish a recurring time for student to meet with instructor (by Wimba, Pronto, or phone) for one-on-one tutoring.
Have student sign up for NCVPS Peer Tutoring, which is available for certain courses. Go to this link to learn more: http://goo.gl/GRkwT .
Establish peer tutoring with other successful NCVPS students at your school (if available).
Have EC students meet with the school's EC specialist.
See our list of assistive technologies. Go to this link to learn more: http://goo.gl/eryLQ
Have students attend your school's review sessions (if available).
Have students attend your school's tutoring session (if available).
If the student is taking the course off campus, consider moving the student to a lab setting, especially if the student is not logging into the course.
If you have students in EOC courses, but sure that they take part in our EOC Reviews that are in each EOC course. Have them contact their teachers for more information.
Establish weekly or bi-weekly contact with instructors of any at-risk students.
Check for progress reports and report cards in the registration system. Updates are made every two weeks. You may contact teachers directly between updates to check on student progress.
Have parents log in with the students at home and monitor their work. Parents can communicate with the instructor, too.