Personal Note--I just graduated!

6/28/07

I just graduated with a Master's of Art in Learning and Technology from Western Governor's University! I am so excited.

WeAVE offers Hathaway eligible courses

6/19/07

Wyoming e-academy of Virtual Education | Hathaway Scholarship

WeAVE offers over 30 courses that are eligible for the Hathaway Scholarship. This is a great opportunity for all Wyoming high school students who may not have access to higher level courses in their home high school.

Guide to Teaching Online Courses

6/14/07

onlineteachguide.pdf (application/pdf Object)

Here is another report that I found on NACOL. This one is written by the NEA.

National Primer for Online K12 Learning

national_report.pdf (application/pdf Object)

Here is another great resource from NACOL. If you haven't checked them out yet, you need to. These guys have a ton of useful information. Our school finally joined them, so now I have access to the forums.

Happy reading.

Highschool.com | Edutopia

6/5/07

Highschool.com | Edutopia

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This is a great article, presentation, and video that does a really good job of explaining online education specifically in a K12 environment. While the technology is similar between K12 and higher ed, many of the issues, challenges, funding sources, and various requirements are drastically different between the two worlds.

For someone new to online learning in K12, this is a great place to start for information.

Hybrid Learning: Challenges for Teachers : May 2007 : THE Journal

Hybrid Learning: Challenges for Teachers : May 2007 : THE Journal: "The main problem here is that the instructional design has not changed because the actual online methodology has not been understood. In professional development for teachers, more time should be spent on methodology training than on technology training. Usually, the reverse is true, and teachers can know how the technology works but remain confused about what the benefits are to instruction or why the change is necessary in the first place."

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I totally agree w/ this author's point of view. The technology is the easy part of online and/or hybrid learning systems. There are real geeky people out there that just lap up all the technical issues (myself included). What techies don't have, is a good knowledge and experience in teaching methodology. Techies don't understand pedagogy and all the other educational -ologies. It is important for teachers to have a say in how a hybrid course functions from an educational point of view. Let the techies make it look nice and work better.