Online Learning

MOOOve over online courses, MOOCs are the next big trend in higher education.

The term MOOC stands for a Massive Open Online Course. Essentially, they are fully-online courses designed around lectures, discussion, and some type of assessment- but with their own unique distinctions. Traditional online courses charge tuition, offer credit, and limit student enrollment to allow for more interaction with the instructors. The MOOC, on the other hand, is usually free, usually credit-less, and (as the name implies) massive.Read more...

As teachers, we are used to being the center of attention. Unlike students, we can pretty much talk whenever we want to, interrupt anyone for any reason, and say whatever we feel like. Even those of us committed to student-centered instruction probably dominate talk and activity in the classroom far more than we think we do. This is often painfully obvious in classroom discussions that are supposed to be places where students interact about important content-related toopics. We want students to take the lead in discussions, but that is more easily said than done.

My experiences at making students responsible for discussions have taught me some valuable lessons:Read more...

Why do we hate and love quizzes? We hate them in school, especially the “pop” variety, but we love taking them about everything else from “Which Brittany Personality Are You”  to “The Nerd Test.” 
Online quizzes can be very useful tools for teachers, especially for differentiation. You can use online quizzes to help students review prerequisite knowledge and skills before starting a new unit and to help students identify areas where they might need more practice.

Teachers can use tools, such as Quizbox or My Quiz Creator to make their own quizzes. There are also hundreds of quizzes available on the web, many with bells and whistles that make them more like games than boring quizzes.

Useful Online Quiz Sites
Softschool.com
A collection of links to dozens of quizzes on math, science, social studies, grammar, and test preparation.Read more...

It has been said that as you get older time moves faster, and this has started out as one of those ‘fast’ years.  I can’t believe it is February, so is time flying?Read more...

I have been taking and teaching online courses since 2000. Over the past 11 years I have heard many questions regarding online learning and so I thought it would be a good idea to address some of those that are frequently asked.

What would you say the number one reason students are not successful in a virtual classroom or online course?

Time. Many students take online courses because they are drawn to taking a class that they can do anytime from anywhere.  But what they don’t do is schedule time into their schedule.  I tell all of my students to block calendar time for an online class every week.  It doesn’t have to be at the same time or from the same location each week – but they do need to include time to do course work and to go online each week.

How do you know how much time each student is spending online?  What is the minimum of they should spend online? Read more...

Over the past ten years, I have seen more and more online or virtual professional development opportunities become available. Although I have been facilitating and taking online courses since 2000 I have not totally made the switch to an entire virtual professional development environment. I am a huge fan of any learning opportunity that I can do from the comforts of my own home but I occasionally like attending training face-to-face. Read more...