New Mexico Virtual Course Consortium

The New Mexico Virtual Course Consortium (NMVC²) is a network of public school districts and charter schools under the guidance of the New Mexico Public Education Department to provide high quality, standards-aligned supplemental online courses for subject areas that might be difficult to staff locally.

Of particular interest here is the idea that educational offerings might transcend older configurations of educational resources. Getting used to putting those resources together in new ways may support more flexible organizational thinking and innovative structures for delivering public education in NM. No doubt similar creative visions are being enacted in other states and regions.

The idea that online connectivity can offer learning resources to rural areas that might be too small to support the variety of learning possible in urban areas has been around for some time. That’s part of the generalization that asynchronous learning can be “recorded” and distributed digitally so that the reach of top teachers can be dramatically multiplied.

Maybe the costs of doing it right are significant,  but if there are consortiums such as NMVCC, costs can be shared. There’s the corollary that quality learning “media” can be scaled up, and the higher production values made available to masses of students anywhere in the US, or world.

The state network of Providing LEAs facilitated by PED. The course fees are:

• Middle/High: The Consortium fee is $375.00 per course, per semester

• Elementary: The Consortium fee is $700.00 per course, per year (e.g. grade 5 ELA for the entire year). The Elementary half-year, or semester, fee is $375.

• This Consortium determined fee is to cover costs such as administrative fees (e.g., help desk, registration, student data); teacher / instructor compensation; e-curriculum or locally curriculum development; tech support; etc.

(of note, it’s unclear here how the cost to an individual student might be determined, as costs on the NMVCC website are listed “per course”…presumably paid by the school “using the course”? Is there a direct cost to the students? )

Perhaps what continues to puzzle, is that online learning can support local inflections that drive student enthusiasm, while at the same time involving the benefits of scale to obtain the highest and best versions regardless of location. As noted in a recent post, Kahn Academy is attempting that sort of marriage as they plan to work with local school districts.