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In Net Cetera: Chatting With Kids About Being Online, OnGuard Online gives adults practical tips to help kids navigate the online world.  Kids and parents have many ways of socializing and communicating online, but they come with certain risks.  This guide encourages parents to reduce the risks by talking to kids about how they communicate – online and off – and helping kids engage in conduct they can be proud of.  Net Cetera covers what parents need to know, where to go for more information, and issues to raise with kids about living their lives online.

Most people think of online learning as a quiet, solitary experience. But over the past few months, after interviewing students, parents, and educators, a different sort of picture has emerged. We’ve learned about who teaches and learns online, and why, what works and what doesn’t, and perhaps most importantly, whether online learning affords the same quality of education as that of traditional schools.

As Principal Investigators of the Center on Online Learning and Students with Disabilities, we are writing this letter to express some concerns about the present participation of students with disabilities in online learning. Several months ago we accepted the challenge of finding answers to important research questions about how online learning environments can be optimally designed and implemented to be accessible, engaging, and effective for all students, including students with disabilities.  To accomplish this goal, the Center is conducting research to identify and verify trends and issues as well as describe potential positive outcomes and negative consequences related to participation of students with disabilities in online learning.  These findings will inform our development and testing of promising approaches to online learning for students with disabilities.  This research program definitively has barely begun.

Travis Moses is a blind student who can’t always do his homework because an online program the University of Montana uses is inaccessible to him.Moses, a senior in the social work program, is one of some 1,121 students registered with UM’s Disability Student Services. He estimates from 75 percent to 90 percent of his classes have an online component – and some UM courses are only online.“I’ve been told every year, ‘Oh, we’re working on it,’ ” Moses said Monday. “Well, you know, I’ve gotten to the point that I doubt it. I’m angry that something was put in place that was not verified.”Last May, the Alliance for Disability and Students at the University of Montana – ADSUM – filed a complaint with the U.S. Department of Education alleging students such as Moses who have disabilities face discrimination at UM. On Monday, the department’s Office for Civil Rights confirmed in an email the complaint about educational technologies is under investigation.

The U.S. Department of Education announced today that its Office for Civil Rights has entered into an agreement with Virtual Community School of Ohio to ensure compliance with Section 504 of the Rehabilitation Act and Title II of the Americans with Disabilities Act for students with disabilities at the school. This first-of-its-kind resolution promises equal access to educational opportunities for students with disabilities in virtual charter schools. Virtual Community School of Ohio is an Internet-based, public charter school that serves approximately 1,200 students who reside throughout the state of Ohio. "Students with disabilities who attend online public charter schools are entitled to all the protections of the federal civil rights laws that their peers receive at traditional public schools, including the right to receive a free appropriate education. Online schools also must take steps to ensure that the websites and online classrooms they use to promote their services and to educate students are accessible to individuals with disabilities," said Catherine E. Lhamon, Assistant Secretary for Civil Rights. "Online education environments such as this in which students reside across the state and go to school together in a totally on-line environment, may present unique challenges. Nevertheless, these online schools must comply with the civil rights laws. I commend Virtual Community School of Ohio for agreeing to address these issues as part of its agreement with OCR."

Are you thinking about setting up your own online classroom? This webinar will explore how to more effectively serve your community through online instruction. Date:  Tuesday, May 10, 2011 Time: 11:00am - 12:00pm Mountain Read More and Register

A rural Washington school district has found a new way to better support students needing speech therapy. Moses Lake School District 161, a 7,000-student district located in Moses Lake, WA, recently adopted PresenceLearning, a live online speech therapy service, to lighten the caseload for its staff of speech-language pathologists, according to Darcy Johnson, special services director for the district, in a prepared statement released today by PresenceLearning. More than 70 students are participating in the new program.

The OPI Montana Autism Education Project is providing a limited number of FREE parent subscriptions for the Autism Training Solutions online autism/behaviorism training program. The subscriptions will begin in late March and will last for 90 days. For each individual subscription, the parent watches short online videos and then answers quizzes. Parents will have 24/7 access to 13 hours of online video lessons teaching: Antecedent Interventions Consequence Interventions Teaching New Behavior Principles of Behavior: Behavior Reduction Principles of Behavior: Reinforcement Introduction to Austim Spectrum Disorders Teaching to Request/Mand Instructional Control Participants will be asked to complete a training survey at the conclusion of the pilot project. At the end of the pilot project each participant receives a certificate of completion. More information and a free trial of the program can be found by searching the web for, "Autism Training Solutions." If you are interested in participating in this FREE training please send an email with the subject line of "ATS Parent Account" to DDOTY@MT.GOV Please include the following information in your email: Your name Your child's gender and age The town in which you live Thank you, Doug Doug Doty, Coordinator Montana Autism Education Project Montana Office of Public Instruction