Tournament Completed

Over the Christmas break JVLA sponsored an online tournament for Jesuit Prep students.  Players were able to register for free on chess.com and then complete their games on that site.  While we were hoping to have 36 of the 52 Jesuit prep schools in the United States complete, we ended up with an even 8.  Congratulations to Steven Rand of Rockhurst High School in Kansas City, who was crowned the first JVLA Jesuit Grandmaster!*  For winning, Steven will receive a JVLA polo shirt in his size.

The work of the administrator:  contacting principals, most of whom forwarded it to their respective chess advisors or put the missive in the “never-to-do” pile; finding a suitable chess link (I joined chess.com myself as a member in order to facilitate the event online at their site, where I added the JVLA logo and a link to our website); making the brackets; and contacting the players before, during, and after the tournament.

JVLA hopes to sponsor more general competitions for all Jesuit high school students over the next year.  Many online games I found too violent, or too pink.  As someone well-versed in foreign language learning, I was impressed with Sushi-Go-Round, but could not discern how would players submit their scores.  Also I liked a site called, “Third World Farmer,” for its realistic, if not dismal Weltanschauung.  In the latter game, famine or disease killed me off quickly.

*Editor’s note:  I am also a graduate of Rockhurst High School.

New beginnings

I’m the chief academic officer for the Jesuit Virtual Learning Academy (JVLA), an enterprise employing the interactive power of the Internet to harness the collaborative capacity of the network of Jesuit secondary schools to make each Jesuit secondary school better than it could be alone. JVLA provides credit bearing course work, workshops, lectures, and other learning opportunities for students, as well as professional development and collaboration opportunities for faculty.

I’ve been in the position about seven month and I thought 2009 would be a good opportunity for me to post on educational issues, especially those facing administrators of virtual schools.  I have found many of the issues dealing with staff to be similar, but unexpected issues do arise frequently.

My background:  Foreign language acquisition, so you’ll probably read a bit about that also.  I chair the Central States Conference for Teachers of Foreign Languages, and in January, I will begin also observing a few student teachers for a university where I am an adjunct.

This week I have been facilatating an on-line chess tournament for Jesuit prep school students. I created a page for JVLA to use on their site.   I used chess.com, but ran into some issues I hadn’t anticipated in terms of scheduling.  Those seem to have been resolved, or at least, the students are busy with Xmas and not writing me.  ;-0

This morning I thought I’d devote some time to social networking as I am in the virtual school business.  Reviewed and added a bit on Facebook and Linkedin, before moving onto Gather and Delicious.  Gather strikes me as the older generations Facebook for cat lovers–I’m not sure I’ll return.  Especially as I have the UrEnglish Bulldog at my feet, Mr. Gladstone.  Mr. Gladstone (jpeg)

 

 

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