March+3,+2011+-+New+Reports+and+Publications,+Online+Learning,+Resources,+Blogs,+Open+Education,+Disabilities,+Plus+More

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=**Worthy of Note: March 3, 2011**=

**New Reports/Publications**
Lessons for Online Learning //Erin Dillon and Bill Tucker, Education Sector, published in Education Next, Spring 2011// More than 1 million public-education students now take online courses, and as more districts and states initiate and expand online offerings, the numbers continue to grow. But to date there’s little research or publicly available data on the outcomes from K–12 online learning. And even when data are publicly available, as is the case with virtual charter schools, analysts and education officials have paid scant attention to — and have few tools for analyzing — performance. Until policymakers, educators, and advocates pay as much attention to quality as they do to expansion, virtual education will not be ready for a lead role in education reform. View related vidoe. Read more…..

Evidence of Learning Online: Assessment Beyond The Paper //Judith V. Boettcher, Campus Technology, February 23, 2011// Discussions of technology strategy and planning for new media at colleges and universities are informed by many factors of higher education culture and the way its core constituents ― faculty and students ― work and learn. One rapidly evolving area is online assessment, whether for fully online programs or for blended learning environments. Here, learning designer Judith Boettcher examines online assessment strategies beyond the traditional end-of-term paper.

Discerning Learning //Lumina Foundation for Education, February 2011 // Profiles colleges' efforts to better define and assess student learning outcomes and ensure educational quality by using more integrative and competency-based measures, including "learning portfolios," instead of credit hours.

SREB Data Exchange 2009-2010 Indicators Report For the first time, information from the Southern Regional Education Board (SREB) shows the proportion of college graduates who were transfer students across the South and the time and number of course credits that students take to finish college degrees. The information is part of the SREB Data Exchange 2009-2010 Indicators Report, SREB’s annual update of higher education data.

**Online Learning**
Should You Teach Online? //Chloe Yelena Miller, Inside Higher Ed, February 24, 2011// Are You Ready to Teach Online? Like anything, teaching online will only help your career if you can do it well and succeed at it quickly. If you answer “yes” to most of the questions posed, you’re ready to consider teaching online.

//Education Week//'s 2011 Spotlight on E-Learning brings together a FREE collection of articles hand-picked by Ed Week’s editors for their insights on: · Understanding different models of online learning · Choosing the right e-learning company · Growth of the e-learning industry · Research on the effectiveness of virtual learning · Increasing access and equity in digital learning · Growth of online classes · Organizing and preparing to teach virtual classes · Managing the schedules of virtual classrooms

What Are The Best Free Hosted Course Management Systems On The Internet? //Kelly Walsh// //, Emerging EdTech, February 13, 2011// What options exist for teachers who want to try using a Course Management System, but don’t have one available in their school? These are the four he recommends. (Note, he mentions Moodle and Sakai but they require that you either install and maintain them locally, or pay for hosting, so they are not included in this list.) SchoolRack Schoology; Wash’s comments about Schoology can be found here**.** Rcampus; Walsh’s comments about Rcampus can be found here. MyiCourse; Walsh’s comments about MyiCourse can be found here. Check out resources on other topics here.

Migrating from PowerPoint: Make Online Teaching More Engaging and Interactive //Campus Technology, Webinar, Februry 17, 2011 (Archived)// The best way to reach our students is with the use of interactive and engaging strategies, but online students are often inundated with PowerPoint presentations that offer little more than illustrated bullet points. Busy faculty members are understandably reluctant to devote a great deal of time learning how to produce more dynamic online content –- including multimedia. Join us as two e-learning experts demonstrate just how easy it is to: · Turn an existing PowerPoint into web content for training or teaching · Build-in navigation and interactive activities into your presentations · Produce professional-quality streaming video clips · Ensure accessibility compliance · Increase the learning impact at your organization

Report: Blended Learning Could Hit or Miss //Meris Stansbury, Associate Editor,// //eSchool News// Referencing Michael Horn’s publication, The Rise of K-12 Blended Learning,” which we cited in the last //Worthy of Note//, the author points up that it all depends on policy. Here are a few other reviews. Read CLRN’s review of Horn’s publication here. It is summed up in Forbes. Here’s what Ian Quillen in //Education Week// says.

Discerning Learning Lumina Foundation //Winter 2011//

Profiles colleges’ efforts to better define and assess student learning outcomes and ensure educational quality by using more integrative and competency-based measures, including “learning portfolios,” instead of credit hours.

//CHANGE: Migrating from Legacy LMS to an Open-Source Moodle Platform (free)// March 10, 2011 @ 11AM (PT)/2PM (ET) Register Now: @http://www.1105info.com/t.do?id=7127962:24239335 Join us as Campus Technology's Linda Briggs leads a group discussion with university IT professionals as they share reasons why they transitioned to Moodlerooms and the outcomes of their conversions.
 * Upcoming Webinar on Migrating to Moodle**

**Resources**
Thousands of Free Course Materials Are Available and Easy to Find (Higher Ed) //California State University// A compendium of free online course materials easily accessed. Find free course materials related to a book by entering the ISBN number. Find free course materials related to a topic by key word search. Fine Open Courseware related to a topic by key word search

"Learning Perspectives: 2010" Contributions by 40 Global Learning Leaders Edited By: Nigel Paine & Elliott Masie Free Open Source Print & e-Book: CreativeCommons License

EduHound Site Sets are collections of topic-based online education resources. Cha Cha Questions and answers powered by people. Get answers delivered to your desktop or your Smartphone. (Suggested by David Wiley)

SlimeKids ** S ** chool ** li ** brary ** me ** ** d **ia ** Kids **, an innovative new site packed with games and book trailers is designed to provide a fun, interactive learning experience to get students motivated to learn on their own! They can choose from exceptional literacy-related resources such as author and book review Websites as well as superb educational tools including reference works and search engines.

Ten Great Sites with Free Teacher Resources //Jenna Swang, Assistant Editor, eSchool News// // eSchool News // has compiled this list of some of the best free teacher websites on the Web; what are your favorites?

Web 2.0 for the Classroom Teacher; An Internet Hotlist on Web 2.0 //Sue Summerford, Created by AT&T, Filamentality// These links are categorized to help you find Web 2.0 tools that might be of use to the K-12 classroom teacher. The list was last checked for active sites on 01.08.11.

**Blogs**
mlearnopedia Judy Brown’s blog on mobile learning.

Leading from the Classroom //Patrick Ledesma, posted in Education Week: Teacher// Patrick Ledesma is a National Board-certified teacher and School Based Technology Specialist in Fairfax, Virginia, where he focuses on instructional-technology integration and special education at the middle school level. For the 2010-2011 school year, Patrick is serving as a Classroom Fellow with the U.S. Department of Education's Teacher Ambassador Fellowship Program, as well as working on teacher recruitment and outreach for the National Board for Professional Teaching Standards. The opinions represented in this blog are his own.

iterating toward openness David Wiley’s blog is a must for those people who want to learn the latest on open education.

Kathy’s EdTech Blog Picks This is a listing of some of the most popular, controversial, or informative blogs. Most of them defy categorization, and often deal with issues that are not necessarily related to educational technology, so they are simply presented here in alphabetical order.

**Open Education**
Openness as Catalyst for an Educational Reformation //© 2010 David Wiley.// //EDUCAUSE Review////, vol. 45, no. 4 (July/August 2010): 14–20// //The text of this article is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 License// //The Horizon Report//, produced by the New Media Consortium (NMC), the EDUCAUSE Learning Initiative (ELI) and other publications, declared that open content will "reach mainstream use" in higher education within the next twelve months. But what does that mean? What is this //open// we keep hearing about? We are approaching the end of that year. Are we getting there yet?

For over a decade, //open// has been used as an adjective to modify a variety of nouns that describe teaching and learning materials. For example, open content, open educational resources, open courseware, and open textbooks are all part of the current higher education discourse. In this context, the adjective //open// indicates that these textbooks and other teaching and learning resources are provided for free under a copyright license that grants a user permission to engage in the "4R" activities, Reuse, Revise, Remix and Redistribute. Read more of his article…..

iterating toward openness David Wiley’s blog is a must for those people who want to learn the latest on open education.
 * David Wiley’s blog **

Open Education and the Future
 * David Wiley on TED (YouTube)**

Transition Resources on the Web (from K-12 to Higher Ed) //CITed// Transitioning from the high school setting to postsecondary education, the workplace, and community living presents new challenges for students with disabilities. Fortunately there are many resources available on the web to help practitioners and families address the needs of transitioning youth. Here is a long annotated list of transition websites.
 * Students with Disabilities**

**And More**
How Bill Gates' Favorite Teacher Wants to Disrupt Education //Gregory Ferenstein, Fast Company, February 16, 2011 // Gates ― and Google ― funded Sal Khan seeks to make his popular YouTube lessons universally accessible, and change the nature of education in the process. In 2008, Sal Khan had a bright future making millions as a hedge fund manager. He gave it up to produce low-budget math films on YouTube for free. Fortunately, hidden among his millions of loyal students, were the wealthiest of educational philanthropists, Bill Gates and the [|Google Foundation]. Now, with a whole lot of cash and even more street cred, Khan aims to demote the institution of "school" to just one of many educational options.

A Physical Education in Naperville //Mona Iskander, Need to Know, PBS, February 8, 2011// While physical education has been drastically cut back across the country — in response to budget concerns and test score pressures — Naperville Central High School, in the Chicago suburbs, has embraced a culture of fitness: PE is a daily, graded requirement. And for one group of struggling students, there’s an innovative program to schedule PE right before their most challenging classes. In the six years since that program started, students who signed up for PE directly before English read on average a half year ahead of those who didn’t, and students who took PE before math showed dramatic improvement in their standardized tests.

The Future of Learning; Web2.0 and the Smart eXtended Web //Steve Wheeler, University of Plymouth, UK, Slide share (Posted F.)// “Is it simply about gaining knowledge or about making connections….” Interesting perspectives and presentation…Find out what this author says the new literacies are that students will need to succeed.

Creating Connected Learning Societies: Connect, Collaborate, Innovate //THE Journal in conjunction with CISCO// The U.S. Department of Education’s National Educational Technology Plan (NETP) recommends that schools use technology to engage students, connect teachers with their peers and experts, and increase district productivity and student achievement. There are several videos here that feature connecting with students and peers. Links to other Cisco White Papers are available.

Kentucky, Pearson Aim to Create First Digital Learning Repository Aligned to Common Core State Standards //Benzinga, February 14, 2011// Pearson and Kentucky have just announced a collaboration to create the first digital learning repository aligned to the Common Core State Standards. Kentucky, the first state to adopt the standards, uses Pearson's EQUELLA software to embed the standards in the Kentucky Learning Depot, the state's digital library and learning community. The EQUELLA software currently powers the Depot.

Obama to Push for New Ed-tech Agency //Dennis Carter, Assistant Editor,// //eSchool News// The White House announced Feb. 7 that its requests for the 2012 federal budget would include an agency called Advanced Research Projects Agency – Education, which would “support research on breakthrough technologies to enhance learning.”

Karen Cator answers questions about the National Education Technology Plan //YouTube video; posted on February 11, 2011//