Heritage Christian Online School Newsletter

Volume 2 - Edition 1 - August 2005

2005/06 Will be an Amazing Year in HCOS

Wow, year two is now upon us. To think that just fifteen months ago we decided to enter the arena of Distributed Learning. For those who are new to the school and those of you who like to be a bit nostalgic, let me briefly reminisce.

In April of 2004 the KCC Society Board gave us the go ahead to launch a Distributed Learning program. My commitment to the Board, which released $60,000 for start up costs, was to start if we had 50 students. If we enrolled 100 then we would consider the starting year a great success. By the time school started we were at 432 students which made us the largest DL program in the BC Independent School Branch. We hired 22 teachers, three gals for our office and a technology team of four young people. Many have asked me, “How do you account for such amazing success in your first year?” I have never been able to give a simple answer to a question like this. From my perspective it was a combination of the following factors: . . . .

The Teacher Component in the Education of DL Students

Janet Rainbow

Every child enrolled in a DL program has three main components involved in their education. There is the Ministry of Education which sets out the guidelines of what a child should learn in each grade. We refer to these guidelines as the PLO’s. The other two components are the teacher and the parents. In this Newsletter I want to focus on the teachers’ component.

For the 2005 -2006 school year Heritage Christian Online School is probably going to have about double enrollment of students over last school year. With the increased numbers of children we of course had to greatly increase our number of teachers. The Administration staff has been very busy since April interviewing new teachers. Our ideal teacher is a Christian who is also or has home schooled their own children. Each teacher that we hired had to go through a 3 part interview system. ....

Designing Your Student Learning Plan

Sarah Bennett

I’ve had a number of calls and emails over the past couple of months asking about how to set up a Student Learning Plan. I’d like to lay out some simple steps that will help you to plan your year in a stress-free way.

Quick Start SLP – short and sweet. This includes the main subjects plus CAPP, PE, Fine Arts and any planned electives (for older students). It will outline a goal, resources you plan to use, and will include a photocopy of the Table of Contents for any curriculum you will be using. This is all you really need to forward to your teacher at the beginning of the year. ....

Prepare To Take An Online Course

Chris McGrath

“The purpose of education is to show a person how to define himself authentically and spontaneously in relation to his world – not to impose a prefabricated definition of the world , still less an arbitrary definition of the individual himself” ~Thomas Merton.

So, you have selected or are still thinking about selecting your courses for the new school year or perhaps they have been selected for you for the purposes of graduating with a Dogwood Diploma. Now you have had a chance to look over the course description and are waiting for the books and other materials to come. All that needs to be done now is to make sure the internet is connected, Windows is working, and the software is in place and you are set. Right? Well, maybe not. How does your student prepare for an online course or any course for that matter? Perhaps the question has more meaning than to have a well laid out course, a good computer, a teacher and a ‘pen or a pencil’. Perhaps, at first read, there is more here to think about than getting next year’s school course work underway and completed with a certain degree of success or satisfaction. Allow me to purpose that there is more to taking an online course from HCOS than just running the paces of another year’s worth of schoolwork.

Upgrades to Encom and Moodle

Steve Therrien & Jeff Therrien

What is Encom?

Encom is a web application designed for Heritage Christian Online School that manages all the student data, lets teachers manage the various learning outcomes (PLOs), keeps track of the Student Learning Plan (SLP), and, at the end of the year, works with the teacher to combine all that information into the report card. .....

Moodle - Our Leaning Management System for the Online Courses

For the 2005/2006 school year, we have made huge upgrades and improvements to our learning management system. These improvements will allow better communication between teachers and students. For those of you that were with us last year, we have replaced the need for Bitwise. The functionality of instant messaging and voice chat is integrated in our learning management system. ....

Tutorial: Selecting Courses in Encom

We've put together a short video tutorial showing you how to log into Encom, and select the various courses and resources for your students.

Click here to view the tutorial.

Christian Home Educator's Convention

Heritage Christian Online School is honored to host the first annual BC Christian Home Educators' Convention. This exciting, two-day event will take place April 21st & 22nd, 2006 in the warm and welcoming city of Kelowna. In addition to our keynote speakers, we will have a wide variety of interesting and informative seminars and workshops. Out keynote speakers will be Susan Wise Bauer, Dr. Jay Wile, and our very own Greg Bitgood. There will be programs running for the duration of CHEC for children and youth, so you can enjoy the convention worry-free. CHEC will also host a number of well known exhibitors. For more information, please visit bcconvention.ca.

Online Course
Sign-Up
If you have a student who is planning to take an Online Course and haven't signed up for it yet. Please do so as soon as possible. You can review all of our courses here: Online Course List

Here is a copy of the email that gives the detailed instructions for signing up for an online course: Online Course Sign Up Instructions

We have created an automated tutorial here: Online Course Sign-Up Tutorial

Internet Site of
the Month

Google Earth

This amazing technology can now be downloaded to most PCs. You can look from the lofty perch of satellite imagery and behold the details of almost anywhere on earth. The software magically converts images to 3D.