Georgia Virtual School
Georgia Virtual School is a program of Georgia Virtual Learning through Georgia Department of Education’s Office of Technology Services. The program is SACS CASI accredited and operates in partnership with schools and parents to offer middle school and high school level courses across the state of Georgia. Georgia Virtual School (GAVS) provides a teacher led, virtual classroom environment. It equips students with an online media center and guidance center to support students throughout their online course experience. GAVS has over 100 course offerings in the core content areas, world languages, CTAE, electives, a vast AP course selection, as well as the Credit Recovery Program. Georgia Virtual Learning supports open learning by providing free textbooks to students, parents, and educators looking for quality, Common Core aligned content through accessing Georgia Virtual School’s Open Educational Resources. For educators, GAVL offers Teaching Open Online Learning, or TOOL, a free, open learning platform providing professional development for online education professionals.”
Projects and highlights:
- Georgia Virtual School (GAVS) began offering the free Teaching Online Open Learning (TOOL) course in 2014. This MOOC is driven by badge credentialing. Teachers complete the five modules in the areas of participate, navigate, communicate, create, and evaluate. The successful completion of each module, including evidence of competency in the area, results in a badge being awarded. Once all five badges are earned, the teacher has completed the course and is eligible to teach for GAVS. The course is at https://www.openteachertraining.org.
- Georgia Virtual School makes its original course content available as open educational resources; about 70 courses, including several for Advanced Placement. A team of course development specialists work with subject matter experts in each respective area to design a course through a nine-month process. They are available at http://www.gavirtuallearning.org/Resources.aspx. The courses are bound by a creative commons attribution, non-commercial, share-alike license.
