Open-High-School-of-Utah

The Perfect Storm Much of the education technology world - and many of the foundations and venture firms that provide the funding for it - are obsessed with adaptive learning. The Gates Foundation’s Adaptive Learning Market Acceleration Program RFP is the most recent evidence of this trend. The fascination largely stems from the fact that, because these systems are completely automated, they can scale. Scale matters to foundations because it means broader impacts for the work they fund. And, of course, scale matters to investors because it means more customers and, consequently better returns. ...

The Open High School of Utah just keeps raking in the awards: The United States Distance Learning Association recently awarded OHSU a Gold Medal in the “BEST PRACTICES AWARDS FOR DISTANCE LEARNING PROGRAMMING” category and both Gold and Silver medals in the “BEST PRACTICES AWARDS FOR EXCELLENCE IN DISTANCE LEARNING TEACHING” category. Also, according to the Utah Best of State awards competition, OHSU is the best charter school in the state of Utah! ...

The Open High School of Utah has released a new batch of openly licensed curriculum on the Open High School of Utah Opencourseware site. They now offer 20 fully online courses’ worth of content, constituting a complete 9th and 10th grade curriculum. The catalog now includes: Language Arts English 9 (A) English 9 (B) English 10 (A) English 10 (B) English Composition Mathematics Algebra A (A) Algebra A (B) Algebra B (A) Algebra B (B) Algebra 1 (A) Algebra 1 (B) Geometry (A) Geometry (B) Algebra 2 (A) Algebra 2 (B) Science Earth Systems (A) Earth Systems (B) Biology (A) Biology (B) Social Studies Current Issues Geography World Civilizations (A) World Civilizations (B) Electives Digital Photography Music Appreciation Graphic Design Health Fitness for Life Computer Technology Advanced Computer Technology Some interesting notes about the OHSU collection: ...

During his recent keynote address to the State Educational Technology Directors Association, US Secretary of Education Arne Duncan sent an unexpected shout out to the Open High School of Utah, spending about 30 seconds of his 30 minute talk praising the effectiveness and flexibility of our teaching model, and particularly emphasizing the individualized attention and personalized instruction our students receive. You can hear the Secretary talk about OHSU from approximately 14:45 - 15:20 in the video above. ...

The Open High School of Utah today announced the public opening of its OpenCourseWare collection of 9th grade curriculum materials. 10th grade materials will come to OHSU OCW during the summer of 2011, with 11th and 12th grade curriculum materials coming in the summer of 2012. The OHSU OCW collection is unique because a large portion of the materials shared in OHSU OCW are pre-existing OER, created by other institutions and aggregated by OHSU for use in supporting student learning. As opposed to most OCW collections, which are comprised almost entirely of materials created by the institution sharing the materials, the OHSU breaks ground by extensively reusing pre-existing OER within its formal curriculum and, consequently, it’s OCW. ...

Creative Commons published an interview today with the Open High School of Utah’s Director, DeLaina Tonks. DeLaina does an excellent job describing the school and talking about the impact of OER on education and learning. Congrats to OHSU on all their recent press and the great things happening there!

Congratulations to Amy Pace, who teaches science at OHSU, for receiving the Presidential Math and Science Teachers Award!

Many people wonder why the Open High School of Utah has committed itself to using open educational resources licensed for reuse, adaptation, and sharing. I’ve heard that question more than once at the orientation this morning. (Did I mention that folks from RedHat / opensource.com are here doing a video / photo / interview production about the OHSU? But I digress…) Here are some possible hypotheses about why there’s an O in OHSU: ...

Earlier today the Open High School of Utah (disclaimer: I’m the school’s founder and currently serve on its board) issued the following press release. Congratulations to Sarah and the whole school. FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE June 28, 2010 Contact: DeLaina Tonks, (801) 725-3396 Director~Open High School of Utah dtonks@openhighschool.org Online Teacher Named Utah Charter School Educator of the Year Open High School of Utah, a virtual charter high school serving students statewide, announces that online math teacher, Sarah Weston, is awarded Utah Association of Public Charter School Educator of the Year. ...