Online Courses so far:

Both the K-3rd Math Meeting and the Math Co-Op (Pre-Algebra/Algebra) online courses are up and in a beta test right now. We have been using the algebra level pretty intensely for the last few days as a cram session for the standardized testing coming up next week. We even had a late 9pm to 10:30pm session to accomodate students - it felt like a real cram session with it being so late. LOL.

Plans for the future:

I have been considering how to define what I am trying to do. I definitely want to keep a hold of this technology and put it to use for us all as homeschoolers. I am uncertain if I might be jumping ahead of myself in trying to get a co-op up and running immediately. My co-op idea is to have many moms jump in with two feet and start offering courses themselves so that we have a rich array of classes that students can come in and take. The co-operative part being that if a mom teaches a class she gets to have free enrollments for her kids. If a mom doesn't teach a class, then there would be a small fee to help cover the costs of Elluminate and to give the teachers some small budget to cover their own expenses - software to design their slides, a good microphone, bumping up their internet speed if needed, etc.

I think that the idea is a great one, but my head is coming out of the clouds as far as how fast something like this is going to come together. The use of the technology is too new to expect moms to jump in like that. So, I am going to focus my time over the summer to offering several classes, tutoring sessions, and webinars. These will serve to help me refine best teaching practices for the online environment, introduce the technology to other homeschool moms as they and their kids participate, and hopefully bring in enough money to cover the fee for the Elluminate each month ($50). I don't want to drain our family funds. While I really am not wanting to do this to make any money (co-op is my ultimate goal), I also don't want to go into debt while teaching others either. LOL.

By fall, I hope to have fully-fledged and thoroughly beta-tested courses to offer. I am going to select courses that my own kids will need to take so that I am not spreading myself too thin. Their needs get met and I just invie other kids to come along with us. It is looking like I will have some or all of the following courses lined out by then:

K to 3rd Math Meeting and Learning to Read Classes:

The idea is to begin at the K level in the fall and the same kids can stick together all the way through 3rd grade. Hopefully other moms will come on in teaching too and then we can have several staggered skill levels happening simultaneously.

Math Co-Op (Algebra)

Algebra 1/2 and Algebra 1 will be the focus this fall. It will be a small group class with a one-on-one support time for kids that might need any extra help.

E-Notebooking

This course block will be open during each weekday afternoon with classes and seminars that will step the kids step through how to make electronic notebooks or portfolios of what they are studying in their own family's homeschool.

This will involve multiple skill areas -

A strong language arts component - research skills and composition

A strong art and design component - graphic art and design of their pages

A strong technology component - webpage design

And we will cover multiple types of e-notebooks -

Literature E-notebooks

Art E-Notebooks

History E-Notebooks

Science E-notebooks

Music E-Notebooks

I will need beta families over the summer to test out the courses in the design phase so that by fall the courses are ready to hit the floor running with most of the tweaking out of the way. If you would be interested in being a summer beta test family let me know.