Development of the Digital High School Project

Abstract

A school district in the southwestern United States has over the past several years built its infrastructure to support high-quality technology integration by its teachers. The district partnered with a nearby university's educational technology graduate program to develop a digital high school project. Teachers and advanced instructional-design graduate students developed and field-tested four projects to aid teachers in implementing Web-based distance education, as follows: (1) A Rookie Camp was developed as an introductory unit to help students begin to use instruction delivered via WebCT courseware; (2) In The Odyssey Project a stand-alone Web-based courselet was developed for teachers to use to teach poetic devices and epic hero qualities related to The Odyssey; (3) A needs assessment yielded recommendations for teacher training and support for Web-based instruction; (4) Finally, a prototype unit was developed to help teachers learn about digital copyright issues related to distance learning via the Web.