1 Basics - Blended Learning

• ENGAGE prior knowledge to INTEGRATE specific strategies vocabulary.
• CONDUCT standardized, guided PRACTICE on strategies workflows.
• DEMONSTRATE the use of specific strategies practice and vocabulary.
• Example: USE specific identified strategies vocabulary.

Combining the best elements of face-to-face and online instruction, these six schools have adopted various blended learning models successfully. Here’s how

The majority of content on this site is intended for program administrators — the people that are either investigating the possibility of creating an online program or have already been assigned this task. The site also contains useful information for policy makers — state legislators, staff members at the state department of education, and district administrators who wish to establish a positive policy environment for online learning.

This bookmark resource links to the International Association for K-12 Online Learning (iNACOL) resources for national standards on online courses, teaching, and programs.

This resource provides an overview of the programs and services provided by iNACOL. Through a variety of service offerings and other activities, iNACOL continues to make strides in supporting and advocating for our members as the leading organization for K-12 online learning.

Effective online instruction depends on learning experiences appropriately designed and facilitated by knowledgeable educators. Because learners have different learning styles or a combination of styles, online educators should design activities that address their modes of learning in order to provide significant experiences for each class participant. In designing online courses, this can best be accomplished by utilizing multiple instructional strategies. Teaching models exist which apply to traditional higher education learning environments, and when designing courses for the online environment, these strategies should be adapted to the new environment.

Quality Matters (QM) is a faculty-centered, peer review process that is designed to certify the quality of online and blended courses. QM is a leader in quality assurance for online education and has received national recognition for its peer-based approach and continuous improvement in online education and student learning. QM subscribers include community and technical colleges, colleges and universities, K-12 schools and systems, and other academic institutions.

Quality Matters created a set of forty specific elements, distributed across eight broad standards, by which to evaluate the design of online and hybrid courses. The web-based, fully interactive rubric is complete with annotations that explain the application of the standards and relationship between them.

The standards for quality online courses in this report were developed by knowledgeable, experienced resource persons from K-12 and postsecondary education, drawn from national and regional organizations, SREB state departments of education, and colleges and universities. Through extensive collaboration and sharing with SREB staff over many months, their work culminated in specific standards that SREB states can use to define and implement quality online courses.

Education scientist Sugata Mitra tackles one of the greatest problems of education -- the best teachers and schools don't exist where they're needed most. In a series of real-life experiments from New Delhi to South Africa to Italy, he gave kids self-supervised access to the web and saw results that could revolutionize how we think about teaching.