Schools teaching primary & secondary grades in the U.S. are obligated to align their curriculum to state and national standards. The approach schools have taken to track and report on these standards has largely varied. For more than eight years, BlueSky Online School has utilized the competency functionality in Moodle to align academic standards. This approach has allowed them to avoid the need for proprietary third-party software, and it has also greatly streamlined processes while giving teachers ownership of their curriculum.
This presentation will showcase how BlueSky uses Moodle competencies to align academic standards with course activities, as well as how BlueSky tracks academic standards in courses through custom analytics created with SQL reporting. Participants will also learn how BlueSky has implemented competencies to measure social emotional learning, and how new technologies can help standardize competency frameworks to ease the burden of initial implementation.
Speakers:
- Daniel Ondich – Principal/Assistant Director. Dan is the Assistant Director and 6-12th grade Principal at BlueSky Online. He has led the technology development and alignment of all content areas to local, state and national standards. Dan has also led professional development training in technology integration, standards-based instruction, professional learning communities, using data for results and Google Apps for Education integration.
- Brenda Ritter – Instructional Designer. Brenda leads curriculum implementation at BlueSky. She loves using technology to help meet her goals in innovative ways.
- Ben Haensel – IT Lead & Technology Infrastructure Specialist. Ben leads technology implementation at BlueSky. He enjoys crafting custom analytics and creating streamlined workflows to offer satisfying end user experiences. He is an experienced DB analyst, Moodle site administrator, instructional designer, and educator.