Extending Career Options for Rural Students

The Background
The Southern Oregon Education Service District (SOESD) which serves 13 school districts, over 100 buildings, 3,500 teachers and 52,000 students in Jackson, Josephine and Klamath Counties - a 10,600 square mile geographic area was the recipient of a grant from the Department of Agriculture in October of 2005. USDA’s Rural Utilities Services grant program supported the acquisition of cutting edge videoconference technologies to deliver a variety of career related distance learning experiences for their widespread rural service district.

The Timeframe
The resulting project, Extending Career Options for Rural Students (ECORS), launched during the summer of 2007 when teachers, administrators and tech support staff representing three rural counties attended two-day seminars to receive training in the purpose of the project and the use of the technology.

The Training
When school began for the 2007-08 school year, these educators took a leadership role in implementing the ECORS project over the upcoming two school years. The group has formed an online learning community to share success and solve mutual problems.  They are using the online forum to support their use, and their colleagues’ use, of two mobile videoconference units placed in each participating school.

Learning Community teachers are practicing videoconferencing with each other as they learn to integrate IVC into their classroom learning plans. There will be another face-to-face two-day workshop during August 2008, for new ECORS project participants. Subsequently, the 2008-09 school year online community and teacher guide will focus on bringing science, math, technology, and engineering professionals into participating classrooms via interactive videoconferencing (IVC).

The Equipment
One unit based on the Tandberg 770 MXP codec provides a mobile multimedia teaching/learning station that moves from classroom to classroom.

A smaller Polycom VSX 3000 allows administrators and teachers to have district and regional meetings without having to leaving the building.

The Focus
Elementary students will utilize IVC as a virtual textbook connecting them to career-awareness opportunities. Middle school students will use IVC as a virtual guide or mentor as they explore career options in these fields. High school students will use IVC tools as a virtual career counselor, extending state mandated career experiences with virtual job shadowing and mock interviews.

The long term goal of the ECORS project is to introduce hundreds of K-12 students who live in remote, low-income areas to a broad range of cultural  opportunities and exposure to a variety of career paths.

CILC thanks Camille and Jay for submitting this article.
We will be excited to learn about the success of this project!