#Director of virtual arkansas full#
#Director of virtual arkansas plus#
#Director of virtual arkansas free#

Arkansas has taken consistent action to improve student opportunities in STEM education, including the formation of a cybersecurity task force and stipend program for computer science teachers. This initiative is the latest effort by the Arkansas government and educational institutions to advance cybersecurity education in the state. “Our responsibility as a state and as educators is to align both standards and curricula to cyber-based workforce roles to ensure that students are graduating high school with not only an awareness of cyber but the knowledge, skills and abilities to close the workforce gap that exists in cyber.” “The greatest cyber-threat to national security is K-12 education,” said Kevin Nolten, director of academic outreach for the Cyber Innovation Center and the National Integrated Cyber Education Research Center.

#Director of virtual arkansas plus#

Set to begin in the 2020-21 school year, the program will take students through a three-year program where students will learn about fundamental computer science and eventually advanced cybersecurity concepts.Ĭourses will be aligned to the ADE Information Security, ADE Advanced Information Security, and National Initiative for Cybersecurity Education, or NICE, standards and will prepare students for industry recognized cybersecurity certifications, like CompTIA’s Networking Plus and Microsoft Technology Associate certifications. “Once again, Arkansas’s educational institutions are demonstrating their commitment to providing our students with high quality educational opportunities that will prepare them for the job market they will soon be entering into,” Gov.

#Director of virtual arkansas free#

The free cybersecurity curriculum and course pathway - being developed in partnership with the University of Arkansas at Little Rock, the University of Central Arkansas at Conway and the Arch Ford Education Service Cooperative’s Virtual Arkansas division - will give students the opportunity to immerse themselves in cybersecurity concepts and prepare to enter the workforce, which according to, has more than 1,000 unfilled cybersecurity positions across the state. Finally, districts that partner with Virtual Arkansas will be satisfying the requirements of Act 1280, the Digital Learning Act.The Arkansas Department of Education announced a new cybersecurity education initiative last week which aims to help better prepare the state’s high school students for careers in cybersecurity. A district may face a teacher shortage, or want to provide additional course scheduling opportunities to their students, or offer their students access to a digitally enriched curriculum, or to broaden their course offerings beyond those mandated by the Standards for Accreditation of Arkansas Public Schools. School districts “Power Up with Virtual Arkansas” for a variety of reasons. Debbie Jones, director of curriculum and federal programs, said many students who are completing their assignments through Virtual Arkansas are still falling behind, adding that parents have. We provide continual job-embedded training to best facilitate instruction in.

All Virtual Arkansas teachers are Arkansas qualified and certified teachers, with over 75 holding a masters degree or higher.

#Director of virtual arkansas full#

Virtual Arkansas is committed to developing the full potential of Arkansas students by providing access to quality online courses that incorporate interactive instruction to prepare students to be successful in their college and career educational pursuits and in the global economy. Virtual Arkansas is committed to recruiting, developing, and maintaining the best practitioners in the education profession.

The mean years of experience teaching is 10 years. Fifty, or 76 percent of the Virtual Arkansas teachers have earned a Master's degree and three have earned a doctorate. Students who are enrolled in a public school may be enrolled in Virtual Arkansas courses by the local school administration. Who are the Virtual Arkansas instructors/teachers Virtual Arkansas had 72 Arkansas licensed and highly qualified teachers on October 2, 2015. We are not an online high school or a diploma-granting institution but are a resource for supplementing education for public school students. Virtual Arkansas serves approximately 200 districts and over 30,000 student registrations. We provide an array of quality digital courses to public school students in Arkansas and utilize Arkansas licensed instructors.

We are an Arkansas-based program that is implemented through a partnership between the Arkansas Department of Education and the Arkansas Education Service Cooperatives.