Abbotsford Virtual School
Abbotsford Virtual School (abbreviated as AVS) 1 is a Distributed Learning school that provides collaborative educational programs for Kindergarten to Grade 12 students and any BC resident wanting to complete courses to graduate. Abbotsford Virtual School (AVS) offers Virtual courses, as well as "any pace, any place" courses. Virtual courses are teacher-paced, semester-based courses which operate like a regular high school course BUT Delivered through the Internet. Teachers and students remain connected through the semester via email, text message, SkypeTM, and ElluminateLiveTM.
History of Abbotsford Virtual School''
Abbotsford Virtual School is an amalgamation of three Abbotsford School District school programs: W.J. Mouat Virtual School, Rick Hansen eSchool and Abbotsford Electronic School. In 2001-2002, Des McKay (now Superintendent, former Principal of W.J. Mouat) and Rob Comeau (current Principal, W.J. Mouat) lead a school-based initiative with several teachers at W.J. Mouat Secondary School 2 to teach courses in an online environment. Three courses were created: Principles of Mathematics 11, Chemistry 11 and CAPP 11/12. The success of these courses allowed for expansion to 17 courses by 2004-2005. Student success rate for completion was in the 90% plus range. Rick Hansen Secondary School developed several online courses in a different format obtaining high success rates as well. Abbotsford Electronic School spawned from home-based learner programs in Abbotsford to a thriving multidimensional home-learner support school. Nearly 300 students were enrolled by 2005-2006. Principal Don Martyn of Abbotsford Electronic School helped to amalgamate the three programs into Abbotsford Virtual School that was poised to deliver all things virtual.
Staff and Location''
Abbotsford Virtual School is located at 33952 Pine Street, Abbotsford, BC V2S 2P3 {Phone: (604) 859-9803} on the same site as Philip Sheffield Elementary School. Mr. Don Martyn is the Principal of AVS and is assisted by Mr. Brad Hutchinson, Vice Principal. The school has 6 full-time teachers dealing with home-based learners and AbOUT 30 virtual teachers. Virtual teachers typically have a part-time teaching and a face-to-face teaching assignment in one of the SD#34 high schools.
Unique Programs''
Abbotsford Virtual School offers a unique program in Animation and Modeling. The first course,3D Content Creation for Interactive Entertainment(Animation and Modeling 10) is designed to give the student a skill foundation in creating 3D objects that typically Appear in a video game. Students are given hands-on training utilizing industry methodologies. Learning the basics, students work in a 3D computer graphics environment gaining a solid understanding of navigation, scale, manipulation and the work flow for creating polygon objects in a production environment. Upon completion the students will be able to apply their knowledge to create polygon objects of their own design. With Vancouver rapidly expanding, being the Canada's largest hub of video game development 3, this program offers students a chance to acquire the fundamental skills needed to make an impact on the art of interactive entertainment. Animation and Modeling 11 or3D Animation for Interactive Entertainment 11provides the student with a solid skill foundation in creating animations that will provide the motion to characters and objects used in interactive entertainment applications (video games). Students will be given hands-on training utilizing industry methodologies. Learning the basics, students work in a 3D computer graphics environment gaining a solid understanding of animation history, planning, principles, and the application of the industry's production pipeline to create game ready animation. The course is designed to first guide the student through theory and exercises which develop their understanding of the process used to create game animation. The third course in this series,Game Design for Interactive Entertainment 12, offers the student the opportunity to develop an understanding and application of the design process and production pipeline that is typically used to design today's award winning video games.
Current Projects''
Abbotsford Virtual School has teamed with W.J. Mouat Secondary School to create a pilot project called LearningLive in which a teacher at W.J. Mouat teaches FSL 9 to a group of 28 Mouat students and is simultaneously teaching 26 students at ASIA-Sumas (Abbotsford School of Integrated Arts Sumas Campus4). This project is supported by a grant from the Ministry of Education.