Wisconsin Digital Learning Advisory Council (DLAC)

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Details

Last Updated on Fri­day, 10 August 2012 15:14

Description:

The Dig­i­tal Learn­ing Advi­sory Coun­cil (DLAC) was devel­oped to pro­vide over­sight on all aspects of PK-​12 dig­i­tal learn­ing in Wis­con­sin. Mem­bers, appointed by the State Super­in­ten­dent, are a diverse group of stake­hold­ers from around the state. The Coun­cil is assisted by an inter­nal team at the Depart­ment of Pub­lic Instruc­tion (DPI). Con­vened in April 2011, the coun­cil met both vir­tu­ally and face-​to-​face sev­eral times to accom­plish its goals and estab­lish a plan.

Context:

The mis­sion of the Dig­i­tal Learn­ing Advi­sory Coun­cil (DLAC) is to pro­vide intel­lec­tual and prac­ti­cal insights into all aspects of dig­i­tal learn­ing in Wis­con­sin. The DLAC is charged with devel­op­ing a com­pre­hen­sive plan for PK-​12 dig­i­tal learn­ing in the state. This plan rep­re­sents rec­om­men­da­tions and will con­tin­u­ally be updated. The DLAC pub­lished what they are con­sid­er­ing to be a liv­ing dig­i­tal learn­ing doc­u­ment, which pro­vides rec­om­men­da­tions to the State Super­in­ten­dent on ini­tia­tives that advance PK-​12 dig­i­tal learn­ing, and which serves as a guide­post for edu­ca­tors and dig­i­tal learn­ing stake­hold­ers. This plan was pub­lished in Feb­ru­ary of 2012: https://sites.google.com/a/dpi.wi.gov/wi_digital_learning_plan/home

Considerations or Implications:

Many of the action items that the DLAC has iden­ti­fied are already under­way and all will require mul­ti­ple groups to step up to the plate. The bud­getary ram­i­fi­ca­tions of many of these items are still unknown and the DLAC is con­tin­u­ing to meet to dis­cuss the resources needed in order to move for­ward. The next step of the DLAC is to bring stu­dents, par­ents, teach­ers, admin­is­tra­tors, school boards, busi­ness, man­u­fac­tur­ing, com­merce, com­mu­nity mem­bers, libraries, col­leges and uni­ver­si­ties, leg­is­la­tors, policy-​makers, and every-​day cit­i­zens together to make these things happen.

1. Imple­ment the Statewide Stu­dent Infor­ma­tion Sys­tem (SIS) as man­dated. This item is already underway.
2. Imple­ment the statewide data ware­house, dash­board and report­ing sys­tem known as WISEdash. Build on rela­tion­ships between the part­ners such as higher edu­ca­tion, early child­hood, and work­force devel­op­ment to increase the rel­e­vance of the data within the sys­tem. This item is also already underway.
3. Imple­ment a statewide Moo­dle learn­ing man­age­ment sys­tem (LMS). Iden­tify part­ners who will assist with on-​going man­age­ment and sup­port of the environment.
4. Imple­ment a method for eval­u­at­ing qual­ity con­tent included in the Moo­dle LMS. Place qual­ity con­tent in the Moo­dle LMS and orga­nize the con­tent so it is use­ful and effi­cient for edu­ca­tors and stu­dents. Options for access­ing con­tent will be open edu­ca­tion resources or low-​cost. Empha­sis may be placed on those resources cre­ated or held by Wis­con­sin entities.
5. Part­ner with other orga­ni­za­tions to design, build and pro­mote a statewide edu­ca­tional resource por­tal. Focus on Wisconsin-​based open edu­ca­tion resource con­tent that is inter­op­er­a­ble with national efforts such as the US Depart­ment of Education’s Learn­ing Reg­istry, as well as con­sor­tia efforts such as the SMARTER Bal­anced Assess­ment Con­sor­tium and Dynamic Learn­ing Maps, using the knowl­edge, expe­ri­ence and prac­tice of states with sim­i­lar efforts as a guide.
6. Final­ize design and imple­ment a stan­dard­ized, hosted dis­trict tech­nol­ogy plan­ning tem­plate tool for use by all Wis­con­sin school dis­tricts. Use the frame­work of the statewide dig­i­tal learn­ing plan as the out­line. Lever­age best prac­tice research within the tem­plate for local planners.
7. Imple­ment the dig­i­tal SMARTER Bal­anced Assess­ment Sys­tem (SBAC) as a replace­ment for the cur­rent Wis­con­sin Stu­dent Assess­ment Sys­tem (WSAS) in part­ner­ship with SBAC and the Dynamic Learn­ing Maps con­sor­tium. Simul­ta­ne­ously, explore the fea­si­bil­ity of dig­i­tal sys­tems across state school sys­tems, includ­ing but not lim­ited to SBAC, that use self-​assessment tools such as e-​portfolios as part of their bench­mark and for­ma­tive assess­ment components.
8. Explore the imple­men­ta­tion of a com­mon elec­tronic pro­fes­sional devel­op­ment plan sys­tem as an exten­sion of the cur­rent efforts to auto­mate the teacher licens­ing process.
9. Cre­ate a seam­less oper­a­tional envi­ron­ment that ensures access to vir­tual courses and the statewide stu­dent infor­ma­tion sys­tem (SIS). This would address such details as a com­mon statewide course cat­a­log for vir­tual courses, inte­gra­tion with course selec­tion, reg­is­tra­tion, and mas­ter sched­ul­ing, grad­ing and transcripts.
10. As a means to facil­i­tate col­lege and career readi­ness for all Wis­con­sin stu­dents, explore best prac­tices for imple­ment­ing an indi­vid­ual learner plan (ILP) sys­tem includ­ing soft­ware appli­ca­tions, cur­ric­u­lar resources, and pro­fes­sional devel­op­ment. Per­form this action in part­ner­ship with other Wis­con­sin agen­cies and orga­ni­za­tions. This group should pro­vide a rec­om­men­da­tion for action to the State Superintendent.
11. The State Super­in­ten­dent will charge the Dig­i­tal Learn­ing Advi­sory Coun­cil with estab­lish­ing a part­ner­ship with expe­ri­enced edu­ca­tional leader rep­re­sen­ta­tives from state pro­fes­sional orga­ni­za­tions. The charge to the group will be to pro­vide guid­ance on pol­icy and pro­ce­dure devel­op­ment that facil­i­tates edu­ca­tor and stu­dent access to dig­i­tal learn­ing as spec­i­fied in the plan. A for­mal report will be devel­oped and sub­mit­ted to the State Superintendent.
12. Within the statewide edu­ca­tor resource por­tal, cre­ate a repos­i­tory of best prac­tice resources that can be uti­lized by tech­nol­ogy staff through an estab­lished pro­fes­sional learn­ing net­work. Explore the cre­ation of regional tech­nol­ogy sup­port cen­ters focused on infra­struc­ture and hard­ware and in align­ment with the best prac­tice guide­lines in the dis­trict tech­nol­ogy plan­ning tem­plate (see #6 above).
13. Estab­lish bench­marks for band­width capac­i­ties that reflect the require­ments of a trans­formed edu­ca­tional sys­tem as delin­eated in this report. Pub­li­cize these bench­marks across the state. Facil­i­tate part­ner­ships that will lead to cre­ative, cost-​effective solu­tions for achiev­ing the bench­marks statewide.
14. Estab­lish for­mal­ized and work­ing part­ner­ships between DPI, other agen­cies and edu­ca­tional orga­ni­za­tions, and the pri­vate and non-​profit sec­tors to focus on resource acqui­si­tion that enables imple­men­ta­tion of the rec­om­men­da­tions. To this end, specif­i­cally explore part­ner­ship with the Board of Com­mis­sion­ers of Pub­lic Lands (BCPL) for use of the loan fund for imple­ment­ing local tech­nol­ogy infra­struc­ture improve­ments aligned to the dig­i­tal learn­ing strate­gic plan.
15. While the Coun­cil was not able to com­plete the task of “pro­vid­ing a work­ing time­line and iden­tify esti­mated invest­ment costs for all actions,” it is our strong under­stand­ing for the need to con­duct addi­tional research and to include addi­tional stake­hold­ers. We feel it is impor­tant that this task be addressed as the Council’s work moves ahead.
16. Build a foun­da­tion from which to deliver the dig­i­tal learn­ing poli­cies and pro­ce­dures. This foun­da­tion will reflect the state’s dig­i­tal learn­ing core val­ues, teach­ing and learn­ing prin­ci­ples, and be aligned with the fol­low­ing crit­i­cal pol­icy elements:

• Stu­dent Eli­gi­bil­ity — All stu­dents are dig­i­tal learners;
• Stu­dent Access — All stu­dents have access to high qual­ity dig­i­tal con­tent and online courses;
• Per­son­al­ized Learn­ing — All stu­dents can cus­tomize their edu­ca­tion using dig­i­tal con­tent through an approved provider;
• Advance­ment — Stu­dent progress based on demon­strated competency;
• Con­tent — Dig­i­tal con­tent, instruc­tional mate­ri­als and online and blended learn­ing courses are high quality;
• Instruc­tion — Dig­i­tal instruc­tion and teach­ers are high qual­ity (includ­ing an exam­i­na­tion of teacher licens­ing requirements);
• Providers — All stu­dents have access to mul­ti­ple high qual­ity providers;
• Assess­ment and Account­abil­ity — Stu­dent learn­ing is the met­ric for eval­u­at­ing the qual­ity of con­tent and instruction;
• Fund­ing — Fund­ing cre­ates incen­tives for per­for­mance, option and inno­va­tion; and
• Deliv­ery — Infra­struc­ture sup­ports dig­i­tal learning.

Resources:

State Dig­i­tal Learn­ing Plan:
https://sites.google.com/a/dpi.wi.gov/wi_digital_learning_plan/action-items

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