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Online learning appears to be a classic disruptive innovation with the potential not just to improve the current model of education delivery, but to transform it. Online learning started by serving students for whom there was no alternative for learning. It got its start in distance-learning environments, outside of a traditional school building, and it started small. In 2000, roughly 45,000 K-12 students took an online course. But by 2010, over 4 million students were participating in some kind of formal online-learning program. The preK-12 online population is now growing by a five-year compound annual growth rate of 43 percent-and that rate is accelerating.

The Internet is full of free and open educational resources, from courses to academic journals, and with so many education providers getting in on the movement to offer free educational content online, there's likely to be even more in the future. Yale, Stanford, MIT, and Berkeley are just a few of the high-profile universities that share some of their best courses with the world for the low, low price of zero dollars. While there are a lot of great resources out there, there are some online education resources that truly stand out as inspiring, for their vast collections, unique perks, and incredibly supportive organizations. We've picked out 15 open education resources that we find to be the most impressive and inspiring out there, and we encourage you to take advantage of what they have to offer.

"Online education is quickly becoming a prominent and important piece of the education pie in the United States. The explosive growth of this segment of education, even during a recession, is nothing short of spectacular. It is becoming clear that there is a fundamental shift in how Americans are being educated after high school. The flexibility, lower cost, and variety of choice are just some of the reasons that online education is growing at its current pace. The following infographic will give you a better idea of the scope, impact, and future of online education. Enjoy!"

Online learning is sweeping across America. In the year 2000, roughly 45,000 K-12 students took an online course. In 2009, more than 3 million K-12 students did. What was originally a distancelearning phenomenon no longer is. Most of the growth is occurring in blended-learning environments, in which students learn online in an adult-supervised environment at least part of the time. As this happens, online learning has the potential to transform America's education system by serving as the backbone of a system that offers more personalized learning approaches for all students.

The Peer 2 Peer University (P2PU) is an online community of open study groups for short university-level courses. Think of it as online book clubs for open educational resources. The P2PU helps you navigate the wealth of open education materials that are out there, creates small groups of motivated learners, and supports the design and facilitation of courses. Students and tutors get recognition for their work, and we are building pathways to formal credit as well.

The purpose of 21things4teachers is to provide "Just in Time" training through an online interface for K-12 educators based on the National Educational Technology Standards for Teachers (NETS-T). These standards are the basic technology skills every educator should possess. In the process, educators will develop their own skills and discover what students need in order to meet the NETS for Students, as well as online course requirement.

We know how important it is to protect and educate young people on using the Internet and want to provide all of our users with a safe experience. When it comes to family safety, we aim to: * Provide parents and teachers with tools to help them choose what content their children see online * Offer tips and advice to families about how to stay safe online * Work closely with organizations such as charities, others in our industry and government bodies dedicated to protecting young people

BigMarker provides fully-featured web conferencing solution for free to everyone. Here you can host web conferences with friends, family or colleagues, teach online training seminars to students, practice presentation skills, or broadcast events in real time - all free and unlimited! There are no trial period and no monthly fee.

Academic Earth is an organization founded with the goal of giving everyone on earth access to a world-class education. As more and more high quality educational content becomes available online for free, we ask ourselves, what are the real barriers to achieving a world class education?  At Academic Earth, we are working to identify these barriers and find innovative ways to use technology to increase the ease of learning.

So what is a teacher's role in keeping students safe online? Teachers and schools can actively block websites on desktops, laptops, and iPads but when it comes to a student's personal phone… that's a tricky area.

""Todays students are technologically savvy and spend hours a day online. Why are we still trying to teach them with textbooks when we have a wealth of digital options? These are teachers' responses after being asked to gauge the effectiveness of various forms of education materials.""

Collaborize is an online decision-making platform that helps your group identify, refine and respond to important questions, topics and ideas by adding structure to your conversations that drive to results and outcomes.

View & Comment on Any Document Review a Word document, fill out a PDF form, mark up an image, and more... All with Crocodoc, all online, all for free.

Turn your iPad into your personal interactive whiteboard! ShowMe allows you to record voice-over whiteboard tutorials and share them online. It's a radically intuitive app that anyone will find extremely easy to use, regardless of age or background. To see examples of smart, entertaining, fun, and inspirational ShowMe's that other people have made, check out ShowMe.com.

Educreations transforms your iPad into a recordable whiteboard that captures your voice and handwriting to produce amazing video lessons that you can share online. It's as simple as touching, tapping and talking.