| California K-12 schools to gain free access to UC online college prep courses on powerful high-speed network |
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| SANTA CRUZ — Millions of California students and teachers will gain free access to UC quality online college prep courses and online lessons through a new partnership between University of California College Prep (UCCP) and the K-12 High Speed Network, a high-speed, high-bandwidth statewide network that reaches over five million California students and educators.
UC College Prep, a statewide program of the University of California, will house its state- and College Board-approved online courses and digital lessons on the K-12 network’s servers so that California high schools can easily pull down the courses to teach online at no cost. The network’s Calaxy Web site (www.k12hsn.org/calaxy) includes a wealth of resources including free access to a learning management system needed to teach online credit-bearing courses. Rather than acquiring and maintaining servers and technology to instruct the courses, schools can access the courses and content through the network.
Automatic access to UC College Prep courses on the network will be available later this year. UC College Prep and K-12 High Speed Network are currently building a content bank and other features for a piloted implementation that will precede the statewide implementation of the courses. In the meantime, schools and school districts may license courses directly from UC College Prep and use the courses independently.
“This partnership gives UC College Prep a central distribution point to help a greater number of students become college eligible or enhance their academic achievement,” said Rafael Granados, executive director of UC College Prep. “We look forward to contributing new content to the network and expanding the partnership. This is a perfect blending of quality online content with a sophisticated system and ready tools to make using that content workable for any California school.”
The agreement will make over $8 million worth of high-quality, interactive online courses and lessons developed by UC available to the entire state through one centralized portal. Another $5 million worth of online course content will be added to the network in the next two years. Concurrently, UC College Prep will construct a special Web portal on the network offering sophisticated math lessons, including algebra and California High School Exit Examination resources, to serve the state’s algebra and math development needs. UC College Prep’s goal is to eventually provide the network with the entire college prep curriculum.
“We are excited to be working with UCCP in meeting the needs of schools across California,” said Todd Finnell, chief executive officer of the K12HSN. “The ability to leverage the resources of each organization and coordinate our services will ensure students in all areas of the state have access to compelling content and learning opportunities.”
The two programs will also collaborate on a pilot to reach rural and underserved schools so students and teachers in dire need of Advanced Placement and college prep courses may access UC College Prep’s approved courses through the network. Both organizations are dedicated to providing access to materials through technology for the advancement of students everywhere in California with a special emphasis on underserved students.
Founded in 1999, UC College Prep develops and distributes UC-approved online Advanced Placement and other college prep courses for use by California teachers and students. Its courses are considered some of the highest quality multimedia courses in the world. Last year, over 83,000 California students used UCCP’s online content and over 153,000 students across the world accessed UC online course content. For more information on UC College Prep, visit www.uccp.org
The California K-12 High Speed Network enables educators, students and staff across the state to have access to a reliable high-speed network with the capacity to deliver high-quality online resources to support teaching and learning and promote academic achievement. K12HSN is a state program funded by the California Department of Education. For more information on K12HSN, visit www.k12hsn.org.
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| UC-Mexico Partnership Yields Algebra in Spanish for California Students |
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University of California College Prep (UCCP), which publishes high-quality UC-approved online courses to benefit California high school students, has agreed to share its online materials with Mexican educators in return for Spanish language translations of its courses.
A Spanish version of UCCP’s popular Algebra course was delivered to UCCP on November 21, 2008 and will be made available to California educators in early 2009.
UCCP utilizes streaming video and interactive simulations to help students succeed in subjects like Algebra and Calculus. Spanish-language versions of UCCP courses will be available to students in California at no cost, whether through open web sites or by licensing courses to California schools. A Spanish version of AP Calculus is already available through UCCP and its partners.
This exchange provides California's native Spanish speakers with a powerful supplemental tool to support their success in math, as well as their progress in meeting California's rigorous academic standards. California 8th graders score near the bottom of the county in Algebra and the course is a key gateway to high school graduation and college eligibility.
The Universidad de Guadalajara is conducting the translations of the courses, which will offer Mexican secondary and college students with free access to high-quality online mathematics courses developed in the U.S. In return, Spanish translations of the courses will be developed and distributed free of charge by UCCP in California and to Spanish-speaking students in the U.S. and beyond by Monterey Institute for Technology and Education (MITE), a U.S. non-profit that distributes Internet-based education courses.
Educators in both countries have actively sought ways to overcome poor preparation in mathematics. The online courses in this agreement will be used to improve test scores, especially among underserved students in urban and rural areas.
Shared goals for improving student performance in mathematics have led to an agreement between Corporacion Universitaria para el Desarrollo de Internet (CUDI), a Mexican nonprofit corporation composed of members from the public and private sectors, UCCP and MITE. CUDI funds an advanced, high-speed network in Mexico and has agreements with a number of carriers that provide high-performance applications to higher education and research institutions. CUDI is also a partner of CENIC, the Corporation for Education Network Initiatives in California, which designs, implements, and operates CalREN, the California Research and Education Network, a high-bandwidth, high-capacity Internet network to which the vast majority of the state's K-20 educational institutions are connected.
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| UC Building New Online High School Courses |
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New online college prep courses are being developed by the University of California so high schools can offer their students innovative, state-approved online courses. University of California College Prep (UCCP), a statewide program of UC, recently began production of six new multimedia courses to add to its catalog. All UC College Prep courses are available to California schools at no cost.
Since 1999, UC College Prep has developed and distributed 18 courses to meet UC and California State University admissions requirements. UC College Prep licenses courses to California schools and freely posts its course content at www.ucoa.org for learners to use worldwide. This year UC College Prep is producing new ground-breaking courses with UC colleagues and expert course developers:
* AP Computer Science A (with UC Berkeley)
* AP Statistics (with UCLA and UC Berkeley)
* Statistics (with UCLA and UC Berkeley)
* Pre-Algebra (with Words & Numbers)
* Algebra 2 (with Words & Numbers)
* Pre-Calculus (with Words & Numbers)
To build this next generation of courses, the UCCP production team will apply the latest technologies while leveraging UC faculty and program resources for K-12 use. The goal is to make courses that students want to use by aligning content to student lifestyles, learning styles and commonly used devices. UCCP’s new wave of courses will be finished, tested and ready for use by California high schools in 2010.
UC College Prep is working with UC Berkeley to bring faculty research in computer science education to the high school computer science curriculum. UC Berkeley’s Electrical Engineering & Computer Sciences (EECS) group will develop AP Computer Science A, replicating Berkeley’s lab-centric approach in a two-semester high school course.
In a similar way, faculty from Berkeley and Los Angeles will help in the development of AP Statistics, a project led by UCLA’s Center for Digital Innovation (CDI). A unique aspect of this project is the integration of an open textbook, Collaborative Statistics, created by Susan Dean and Barbara Illowsky, faculty from Foothill-De Anza Community College District, and made available through the Maxfield Foundation and Connexions, a project of Rice University in Houston.
With math achievement a major goal in California, UCCP has engaged Baltimore’s Words & Numbers and its partners, LearningMate and Math Resources, to build three critical mathematics courses to fill out UCCP’s math sequence. Web 2.0 and mobile technology will be integrated to support students’ learning in the new courses. By fall 2009, students will have access—by school licensing and the Web — to pre-algebra through AP Calculus BC, including Calculus and Algebra in Spanish, thanks to partners in Mexico – the University of Guadalajara and La Corporación Universitaria para el Desarrollo de Internet 2 (CUDI).
UC College Prep is developing other new resources to complement and enhance its online course content. Course ideas under review include career-tech geometry, a project-based course with construction tasks in virtual space. Another idea is to merge the text and selected images from UC’s AP Biology to produce an open textbook available for free download or purchase at a nominal fee.
All UC College Prep’s course development serves the college eligibility needs of California students. Thousands of students in underserved schools have completed UCCP’s AP and other “a-g” courses, achieved success on AP exams, and advanced toward college eligibility. In previous years, 76.2 percent of UC College Prep participants overall and 68 percent of underrepresented students in the cohorts enrolled in a two- or four-year college the year following high school graduation.
For more information or to license UC courses, contact Curt Anderson at. To add your organization’s name to the distribution list for announcements about upcoming requests for proposals for course development, write to.
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| Santa Cruz County Building Online Program with UCCP Courses |
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High school students in Santa Cruz County are using online courses developed by UC College Prep to become eligible for UCSC and other colleges and universities. Under a special partnership between UC College Prep and the Santa Cruz County Office of Education, online college prep courses are being offered to clusters of local students across the county.
“Our new mission involves putting these high quality courses and materials in the hands of students and educators,” said Rafael Granados, executive director of UC College Prep. “Our partnership with Santa Cruz allows us to bring that resource to our own community and work closely with our colleagues to find the most effective ways to help these students, especially underserved students who might struggle to find college prep courses.”
Michael Watkins, Santa Cruz County Superintendent of Schools, responded to a demand for expanded access and opportunity for college eligibility by establishing a priority to deliver A-G courses online. UCCP has worked closely with Santa Cruz COE’s Theresa Rouse, Director of Educational Services, to help build an online environment using UCCP courses as the core college prep curriculum. To help support the program, UC College Prep is hosting Santa Cruz’s courses on its servers and advising Santa Cruz COE on implementation of the courses.
“Santa Cruz COE’s Online Teaching and Learning Community, eClassroom, provides a web-based classroom environment to support delivery of UCCP A-G courses customized to meet district needs,” says Rouse. Kelly Wade, Santa Cruz COE’s eLearning Coordinator, facilitates the implementation of this environment by assisting districts with policy and sites with strategies for student success. “We are able, through this partnership, to provide a flexible solution to the challenges districts face,” says Wade.
UC College Prep was founded in 1999 and licenses its courses at no charge to California schools, school districts and county offices of education.
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