January+14+Email

Hi all potential COETIAL participants,

Happy New Year. I hope you had a fun and restful break.

Like many, I was disappointed to have to postpone the proposed COETAIL cohort due to numbers being ever so slightly below the minimum number needed to keep costs below the announced $500/course (all currency is in USD). One of my goals was to keep this course affordable and this was a determining factor in my decision. A number of people have asked for more details with regards to costs with the possibility of running the cohort with fewer people.

As such, I have decided to provide more information about the fixed costs and how they are affected by the number of participants. Each participant must pay a one-time application fee of $50 to SUNY. For each course, there is a programmatic course fee of $18. The cost to run the program is $9200/course. For each individual participant the cost per course is: Course Fee/# of participants + programmatic course fee. The chart below shows those costs per course for a minimum of 15 to a maximum of 25 participants.



When I made the decision to postpone, we had approximately 18 people confirmed for the program. As you can see, that would put us slightly ($30) over the announced maximum for the course per person. I have also been informed that historically courses such as these lose a couple of people due to extenuating circumstances. If this were to happen then the cost could be an extra $100 per person per course. Ideally, it would be far better to have a cohort of closer to 23 so that if someone were to be unable to continue, the increased cost would not be too significant.

I am more than willing to help organize this cohort as long as I can either guarantee a firm financial commitment for the entire program or an understanding from participants that the costs could fluctuate.

I have spoken with Jeff Utecht, the instructor, and we are still working on possible start dates (I will email date information as soon as we have worked this out). Jeff has also posted a blog discussing the Local vs. Online Cohort: ([]). I do believe COETAIL will be an exciting program that puts into practice the use and understanding of learning through and with technology.

Please let me know if you are interested in joining this cohort. If a significant number are, I will make another announcement to schools in the area next week.

Thanks all for your patience and understanding.

Sincerely,

Ivan Beeckmans Technology Integration Specialist New International School of Thailand

PS – Apologies to those who have stated they will not be taking the course. I have sent this email for your information so that you are kept informed. If you want to be removed from the mailing list, please reply to me and ask to be unsubscribed.