Category Archives for "Other"

0 Private Schools: Incorporating Online Application Systems

Does your private school have an online application system? The ease of enrollment affects whether a parent will even bother to apply to a school. If the enrollment experience is pleasant, it creates a good first impression of the school. It shows that the school cares and has made the effort to create a pleasant experience. It also demonstrates that the school is at the cutting edge of technology and implies that this would also be evident in the classroom.

The K-12 Online student application, enrollment, and registration system allows students to submit their entire application, including essays and personal statements, online. This process saves paper and resources. Parents can even scan and upload pictures and documents that are part of their application. When they hit the submit button, their application is sent. No papers, no postage! Continue reading

0 Celebrate Presidents Day this year by saving some cash

In these challenging economic times, just about everyone is looking for ways to cut back—even schools. From implementing virtual technology to accepting online payments, districts are continuously seeking money-saving methods. Here are some of our favorites.

Automate Your Processes. Thanks to companies like K-12 Online, districts can simplify everything from managing their lottery and registering students to updating PTA forms. K-12 Online offers an online payment system for uniform orders, field trips fees, textbook fines, and any other payments your district collects.

Channel Your Inner Jerry Lewis. Fundraising is an easy and effective way to raise money. Offering online fundraising options for parents has proven to increase donation amounts by 30%.

Realign Your Resources. Parents are a great resource for schools.   The contributions they make and impact they have on the success of a school are immeasurable.   A key aspect in managing school operations is ensuring that parents are happy. Online registration for schools is a proven parent-pleaser, reducing the amount of time parents spend in line and filling out forms.

It’s Easy Being Green. Reducing paper consumption is an easy, eco-friendly way to help save the planet. By using web-based technology, schools help set the example and address the increasing concerns of deforestation and environmental conservation.

Take our Free School Savings Survey and let us help you save some cash this President’s Day.

0 California Schools Have a Huge Win with Online Registration

Some California school districts have gotten way ahead of the curve on paperwork reduction, green initiatives, and parent satisfaction, not to mention administrative cost savings, quick access to information, and stress reduction for school personnel.

For one school district in California, K-12 Online has revolutionized the registration process. There are countless benefits to utilizing online registration’s online forms and integrated webstore.

According to Saul Gleser, Assistant High School Principal, registration used to have 40-60 papers in a welcome packet. Parents filled out the same information hundreds of times. Inevitably, when returning the forms on registration day, some students left some papers at home, which made for a very long registration day. For the school secretaries, this meant months of sorting, alphabetizing, filing, and entering new information into the student information system.

Jireh Infosystems developed K-12 Online, a time-saving, logical, effortless online registration system for parents and a very user-friendly online school management software system for schools.

Schools are able to create master schedules earlier as a result of K-12 Online’s ability to track the registration progress of each student. Nurses instantly know of any health concerns. PTAs instantly have access to volunteers. ASB instantly knows the quantities of items needing to be purchased. Registration has saved students and parents time, reducing the time spent waiting in lines from hours to mere minutes.

K-12 Online is effortless from the parent’s perspective and instantaneous from the school’s perspective. It makes registration quick and efficient. K-12 Online gets the school year off to a great start, and usually, registration is the first impression of the school. For this particular school, parents have been very excited, and the response has been overwhelming! Secretaries and administrators love it and couldn’t be happier.

0 Five Best Practices Schools Can Save Money

In this time of schools being burdened with budget cuts and facing the difficult decision of determining how and where to save money, administrators are looking in all areas to make changes that will positively affect budgets without sacrificing the quality of education and services to their students. Rather than sacrificing the quality of the educational experience for students, administrators can look at their administrative processes to determine if changes can be made and use these best practices to utilize time and money cost effectively.

1. There are many technological advances that schools can take advantage of to eliminate unnecessary costs, such as automating the system of communication with parents and students to relay important information such as grades, progress reports as well as moving to an online registration system which if taken advantage of can be a benefit to all involved.

2. There are also systems to coordinate the payments of school administrative fees such as lunches and other necessary items that assist in eliminating the need for school personnel to be involved in the process and therefore allow for more time spent focusing on more student focused tasks.

3. Another important money saving idea is the use of educational software programs designed to bring the latest information into the classroom. These programs allow the teacher to provide students with key learning tools without the need for the teacher to expend additional time and resources gathering this information on their own, which requires a high expenditure of their valuable time which can be diverted to personal attention to the students themselves.

4. Utilizing paperless and online forms or electronic office systems for the procurement of supplies and text books can be a big source of savings of time and money in addition to saving the administrator their personal working time, while providing the opportunity to utilize their resources on other tasks.

5. Eliminating some offsite field trips by utilizing video conferencing or online resources can provide a significant boost in budget by allowing students to experience and explore learning resources without leaving the classroom and school facility. The savings of funding for bussing and additional personnel required to facilitate these necessary educational experiences can be significant, while allowing the same learning to be achieved without sacrificing time away from the campus.

By employing these best practices to make use of the advanced technologies available to them, schools should be able to save significantly in areas that will allow them to be more effective in personnel resources without sacrificing the funds in other areas that would take away from the social or educational resources of the students.

J. Pantle

0 Educational Technology Trends That Improve Student Engagement

Over the last few years, many trends have emerged in educational technology. For better or worse, one thing is for sure: schools are scurrying to find which tools work best in achieving student engagement and success. Has your school made educational technology changes recently? Did these changes improve a process or increase student engagement? Here are a few educational technology trends emerging in the field of education:

1. Social media used as a teaching tool

Social media has gained increasing popularity as educational technology over the past two years. These days, students know how to use a computer and the internet with ease, and most of them are using social media networks to share their thoughts and ideas. From student-created YouTube videos to professors creating classroom-focused blogs and Facebook pages, both teachers and students benefit from using social media inside the classroom.

2. Game-based learning gaining popularity

Who doesn’t love a good game? Game-based learning (GBL) exists as a learning tool by helping students visualize processes they otherwise could not see, such as the building of a molecule or the construction of a city. GBL is becoming increasingly popular inside the classroom as it can promote higher-order thinking skills, such as collaboration, communication, problem solving, and teamwork.

3. Flipping a classroom and BYOD

With more districts interested in saving money and more teachers interested in saving time, the concepts of flipping the classroom and BYOD (bring your own device) seem to be a good match. Because a key requirement to flipping a classroom is access to technology outside of the school, the joining of the two maximizes the potential of both concepts.

4. Increase in homeschooling

Like charter schools, home schools have enrolled more than 2 million students. The decision by so many parents to remove their children from local schools and teach them at home raises many issues. Scholars say parents are more likely to switch to homeschooling if they see the academic quality of local schools decline or the number of low-income students in those schools increase. Through homeschooling, parents are able to have more control over what their children learn. Although there is little data on homeschooling, it seems to be growing at the same surprising speed and volume as charter schools.

5. Integration of educational technology software companies

More and more, teachers and administrators are trying to streamline processes. From educational technology software companies that offer solutions to Common Core preparation and online courses to online registration, SIS systems, managing student data, and reporting, schools and districts are undergoing widespread adoption of these types of solutions.

0 Why Catholic Schools are Drawn to K-12 Online

A recent poll showed that 1 in 4 parents are considering switching their child(ren) from a traditional large public school environment to a Catholic school. Many parents feel that smaller schools have a clear academic focus and vision for high quality successful learning, while in a public school, children can easily get lost in the large, impersonal system.

With this change in mindset from parents, comes an increase in student applications for small schools.  Unlike the public school system that is required by law to accept all children, Catholic schools typically have an admission and acceptance process. Traditional procedures for handling applications and enrollment can be one of the most burdensome, costly, outdated and environmentally wasteful processes.  For that reason, many schools and districts are turning to online registration.  Online registration has proven to be extremely valuable, saving time and money, especially for Catholic schools.

Many small schools believe that online registration is just too costly, however, K-12 Online is the first company to offer affordable online solutions that cater to small schools.  Although the web-based application is designed for schools large and small, public and private, the product offers a solution for those districts and schools that otherwise would not be able to afford it.

Catholic schools are drawn to K-12 Online, not only for its affordability, but also for its assistance in increasing school donations.  Most Catholic schools rely heavily on fundraising in order to provide their teachers and students with the best learning environment possible. Therefore, a registration system that incorporates fundraising can prove valuable, help make money for the school, and in many cases, even pay for itself. K-12 Online offers several options for donations to be collected through the school web store or by linking a “Donate Now??? button from the school’s website. Schools that have used K-12 Online as a method of collecting donations have seen an increase in overall donations by 30%!

K-12 Online offers a complete online student registration software application that transforms the student application & enrollment process by eliminating expensive paper-based methods. They even offer payment plan options to small schools, making it an AFFORDABLE option to helping schools save money, time and resources!

0 A Healthy Me is Drug Free

Red Ribbon Week, America’s oldest and largest drug prevention campaign, is coming up (Oct. 21-29)! Not only does this campaign teach children K-12 the dangers of drug abuse, but it also honors those who have made sacrifices while fighting against drugs. K-12 Online believes in doing all that we can to help brighten the future of students. What is your school doing this year to celebrate Red Ribbon Week? Here are some ideas that we thought would be fun and beneficial:

• Door decorating contests
• Plan a Red Ribbon Rally for your school where students can take the pledge to live a drug free life.
• Organize an educational program for parents
• Encourage your students to enter one of the contests offered by the Red Ribbon Campaign. These include: Creating the 2014 Campaign theme, and a chance to win an iPad along with $1,000 for your school!
• For high school age, make it the theme of that week’s football game! Have the athletes incorporate red ribbons with their uniforms and take a moment before the game to honor those joining the cause.

For more ideas on how to incorporate Red Ribbon Week into your school visit the Red Ribbon Campaign or http://www.imdrugfree.com/

0 Connect, Collaborate, Conduce: October is Connected Educator Month

One of the most important factors in student learning is the educator.  That being said, how can you, as an educator, maximize the impact that you make on your students? The answer is to get connected! Thanks to the Internet and constant improvements in technology this is becoming easier and easier for educators to do.

In an effort to increase the amount of educators that participate in online social learning and collaboration the Department of Education is supporting its second annual Connected Educator Month (CEM). This can be utilized on an individual level, as well as on school, district, and state levels.

One of the best ways to learn is by collaborating with other professionals who share the same passion as you. CEM offers educators an easy way to connect with other educators from around the nation through holding hundreds of events and creating online discussions.  Last year’s CEM hosted over 450 activities, presented more than 2,200 speakers, and delivered over 90,000 hours of professional development to those who participated.  And this year they plan to gain even more momentum.  So get connected and learn more than you ever would on your own!

Some of this year’s themes include:

• Integrating Social Learning into Formal PD
• Connected Leadership
• Personalized Learning
• Innovating STEM and Literacy
• From Connection to Collaboration
• 21^st Century Classroom Management

Learn more about CEM: http://connectededucators.org/

Get involved: http://connectededucators.org/cem/cem-getting-started/

0 Successful Schools: Leadership is influence, Influence is movement

0 13 Free Election Resources you can use in the Classroom

Election 2012 is just a few days away. Have your students been watching the debates? Are they talking about the electoral process? Do they understand the history and importance of voting?

Check out these great web resources about voting, the candidates, and the Electoral College that you can use in the classroom or pass along to your parents.

1. A History of Voting YouTube Video

This 3.5-minute video provides a concise and easy-to-understand history of voting and voting rights. Celebrity blogger Perez Hilton, Grammy Award winning artist John Legend, “Glee??? star Darren Criss and R&B singer Bridget Kelly speak directly to the audience to educate them about the importance of exercising their right to vote.

2. Eight Steps to the White House

This animated look at the major stops on the road to the white house is a useful tool offered by CNN. They also offer other useful tools like “Ask a President??? and “Campaign Trail Jargonbuster.???

3. Candidate Match Game

With USA Today’s Candidate Match Game, your students can learn more about their positions and find out which candidate they agree with most on key issues as the face of President Obama or Mitt Romney shifts across the screen depending on the answers they choose.

4. Political Party Quiz

Students can take a twelve question national survey conducted by the Pew Research Center to see where they fit on the partisan political spectrum.

5. Following the U.S. Presidential Election

The Choices Program offers a free lesson that builds students’ media literacy skills by having them compare sources as they analyze the news.

6. Election Dashboard

Similar to the New York Times’ Electoral College Map, the Huffington Post’s Election Dashboard gives information about which states are likely to vote for each candidate. It goes one step further in that it provides a little bit more history on the voting record of each state. It’s interesting to see the trends over the years!

7. ProCon.org

The most comprehensive tool for researching the candidate’s stance on issues is this nonpartisan nonprofit. The site provides quotations from President Obama, Mr. Romney and the major third party candidates on more than 60 issues.

8. Electoral College Map

This New York Times’ Electoral College Map shows which states are likely to vote for each candidate, and highlights the “toss ups,??? while providing information on why they’re so tightly contested.

9. MTV’s Fantasy Election

An online game styled after the ultra-popular fantasy football leagues. Participants draft a team of presidential and Congressional candidates and rack up points based on how well the candidates perform in various categories such as transparency and honesty.

10. iSideWith

Have your students take iSideWith’s short quiz on important political topics to find out which candidate most closely holds their political views.

11. 
 Scholastic’s Election 2012 Classroom Magazine

This collection of kid-friendly resources is home to breaking election news, a “what you need to know??? section, lesson plans and even several useful videos.

12. BrainPOP

Animated videos, games and lesson plans that teach lessons about the electoral process. The site also features a special section for K-3 election resources.

13. PBS Learning Media

A collection of classroom-ready content and material about the election. The election-focused digital resources are available to K-12 classrooms and educators nationwide. Features include a student-aimed Elections 2012 newscast, a multimedia glossary, interactive digital games, and lesson plans geared toward high school students and teachers.

How do you teach your kids about voting and the upcoming election? Let us know.