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Course Objective You may know about Moodle, Blackboard, Blogging, using Wikis, Edmodo, Canvas, or other learning or course management systems and how to add content and perhaps evaluate and grade students, but how do you facilitate online courses? Join the workshop to get tips and tricks on how to optimize your work as a facilitator of an online course. Free for teachers who wish to teach or are teaching online. Course Description Teachers will learn about online facilitation and how to turn online students into active learners. Participants will focus on best practices and learn a few tricks and tips on how to facilitate online classes and courses.Who should EnrollThe course is for current and future teachers who wish to teach blended or fully online classes.

"This free online computer skills course is a highly-demanded compilation of Web-based training for five Microsoft Office 2010 software products including Word, Excel, PowerPoint, Access and Outlook. This is a perfect course to do as an individual seeking to increase one's desk-based productivity. It also makes an excellent new employee induction training programme, or can be used as a required course for up-skilling your organisation's current staff. For those who happily use older versions of Microsoft Office, particularly 2003 and 2007 versions, the new feature sets of Microsoft Office 2010 will be a revelation. You will get an excellent return on your time and energy by updating your Office productivity skills via this free online course. For those who have completed ABC IT, our comprehensive introductory computer course, the Microsoft Office 2010 course is the perfect next step as a means of getting your Microsoft Office skills up-to-date."

"Special education addresses the individual differences and requirements of students with special educational needs. As a teacher or trainer, working with students with special educational needs requires specific skills and strategies to create and deliver effective programs of work for them. This free online education course serves as an introduction to the field of special education. The course begins by outlining core elements of special education, including the change in educational legalisation in recent years with particular emphasis on legislation in America. The responsibilities of teachers and trainers are also detailed, along with the individual educational plan (IEP). The course describes the most frequent disabilities encountered in the mainstream classroom: learning disabilities, attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD), intellectual disabilities, behavioural disorders, and physical disabilities and sensory impairments. The course provides key information about each of these disabilities and describes practical strategies on how to assist and teach students with these disabilities. This free online education course will be of great interest to professionals in the education sector who would like a greater knowledge and understanding of working with students with special educational needs, and to all students who are interested in special education."

This special report features a series of columns by Dr. Lawrence C. Ragan, Director of Instructional Design and Development for Penn State's World Campus, and will help you establish online instructor best practices and performance expectations. The following snippets are just a taste of the insider's advice found in the full report: Principles of Effective Online Teaching: #1 Show Up and Teach - The necessity of this statement is borne of the misimpression that the online class "teaches itself." Since most of the course is already authored and designed for online delivery, instructors may believe they simply need to serve as the proverbial "guide on the side" as the students navigate the learning system. Not true! Principles of Effective Online Teaching: #2 Practice Proactive Course Management Strategies - The online instructor can help create a successful learning experience by practicing proactive course management strategies such as monitoring assignment submissions, and communicating and reminding students of missed and/or upcoming deadlines. Principles of Effective Online Teaching: #3 Establish Patterns of Course Activities - Although the online classroom environment provides tremendous flexibility of time and place of study, establishing and communicating a course pace and pattern of work can aid both instructor and student, and alleviate confusion around how the course operates. Principles of Effective Online Teaching: #4 Plan for the Unplanned - For those small or not-so-small occasions when "life happens," having a strategy for informing students of these changes can go a long way to maintaining course continuity. Principles of Effective Online Teaching: #5 Response Requested and Expected - Timely instructor feedback is essential for the online learner to manage their learning experience. Instructors are expected to respond to student inquiries within one business day.

This free online course will help you switch to Excel 2010 from a previous version of the software, and will give you a thorough knowledge and understanding of Excel and its applications if you have never used it before. You can use Excel to analyse data, for example, in accounts, budgets, billing and many other areas. You learn how to navigate this revised version of Excel, exploring the menu bar and the different tasks that can be done with it. You will work on sample spreadsheets doing basic math, adding and deleting columns and rows, and preparing the worksheet for printing. You will learn how to represent your data visually to show trends, patterns and comparisons between the data in a chart, table or other template, and how Excel 2010 will automatically do all the calculations for you once you add in the formula. This course will be of great interest to all professionals in business, finance and many other areas that need to analyse data in accounts, or keep records of stock or schedules, and to anyone trying to keep track of their personal finances at home. Excel and spreadsheet use has found its way into daily life that few of us would ever have imaged just a few years ago. If you have done previous ALISON courses such as our Microsoft Excel 2003 course or ABC-IT, our comprehensive free introductory computer course, you will find MS Excel 2010 is the perfect next step to bring your spreadsheet skills to the next level.

For teachers and trainers to fulfil their instructional role most effectively, their teaching methods must be grounded in educational learning theory. Understanding the learning process is a key element of educational learning theory and provides a framework for teachers and trainers to plan, create and deliver effective lessons, and assess each student's learning. In this free online education course, you will be introduced to the learning process. The course begins by differentiating between teaching and learning, and by describing teachers' and trainers' perspectives on learning. The course provides details about two major learning theories: behaviourism and constructivism. Within the section on Behaviourism, operant conditioning and its implications for teaching are examined in detail. The section on Constructivism compares and contrasts two subtypes of constructivism: psychological constructivism and social constructivism. Finally, the implications of constructivism for teaching are discussed using two practical strategies. This free online education course will be of great interest to professionals in the education sector who would like a greater knowledge and understanding of the learning process that will enhance their teaching and training, and to all students who are interested in the process of how we learn. Introduction to the Learning Process for Teachers and Trainers is originally from and published by Global Text Project and has a duration of 2-3 Hours for the average learner.

This course is designed for teachers and administrators interested in the flipped classroom model. The course has two main components: WHY flip your classroom and HOW to flip your classroom. Why Flip? Participants will get a glimpse into the what and why of the flipped classroom beginning with an iBook. This iBook will provide readers with the history, background, research, and examples of flipped classrooms through interactive texts, keynotes, and videos. This text is the preface to the second portion of the course addressing how to flip the classroom. How to Flip Once participants understand the WHY, this self-paced course will provide specific support for the skill acquisition needed for successful implementation of a flipped classroom model. Tutorials, strategies, resources and examples will provide the materials needed to create accessible videos, implement instruction and assess student success.

Apple iPhones are one of the most popular smart phones on the market today. Thousands of iPhone apps are available for download and every day millions of people across the world download these apps. This free online course is a series of video lectures that bring you through the process of iPhone app development. The course introduces you to the Objective-C programming language and how it is used to program iPhone apps. You will learn about the features of the Mac OS X such as the Core OS level, Core Services level, Media level and Cocoa Touch level. You will also learn about programming for single touch and multi-touch functionality and how to develop iPhone apps that use the built-in accelerometer. This course will be of great interest to professionals who develop applications for mobile phones and the iPhone in particular, and to students who want greater knowledge and understanding about iPhone app development. Many people make a lot of money from developing high quality apps for the iPhone. Study this course and you could perhaps join this elite group!

Course Design and Development Ideas That Work examines this multifaceted issue from a variety of fronts to bring you proven course design alternatives implemented in courses of varying sizes and disciplines. Featuring 12 articles pulled from the pages of The Teaching Professor, the report will inspire you to rethink some components of your course. 

Google Search is the most widely used search engine on the Web and processes several hundred million search queries every day. However, there is a level of sophistication to Google Search that most people don't know about and therefore don't use. Using the advanced search features on Google Search would greatly improve the efficiency and effectiveness of the search process for all users. This free online course will demonstrate both the advanced features now available on Google Search and give practical examples of how to use them. This course will give you a clearer understanding of how Google Search works, why word order matters, how to read the Search Engine Results page, how to remove invasive results, and how to use WHOIS and look for other site information. You will also get a clear knowledge and understanding of how to use features such as conversions, the calculator, search-by-image, and translation services. You will see examples of how combining these techniques together will give you much more effective search results in a faster time. This course will be of great interest to all users who use Google Search in a professional capacity as they will learn how to input more specific search queries and obtain more relevant search results in a faster time, and to individuals who want to learn tips and techniques about improving their search process.

It just plain makes sense that students who dig incorporating technology into their academic pursuits would likely make mobile computing via tablets and smartphones an integral life component. Taking advantage of everything these applications have to offer streamlines the largely autonomous process behind enrolling in an online course. Some, of course, prove a little more useful than others, but the following offer a nice enough start!

If you are a South African educator and would like to know more about technology integration by participating in short free online courses from SchoolNet, please think about joining our next two courses on offer for April and May.

If you are looking for open online courses, please consult one of the sources below. If you are offering a MOOC (that is not from one of the sources listed) please send email to stephen@downes.ca and I will included it in the MOOC Course List.

RT @SchoolNetSA: Our SchoolNet free online short course 'Google for Professional Development' course starts today! http://t.co/ltNwHZjd ...

An example of a blog being used for a university course (JURP 411 NWU Module guide) module. It acts as a way to structure the flow of the course and to get

"Whether you're studying online or at a traditional college, there's no question that school is expensive.  But not everything has to cost an arm and a leg.  There are plenty of free distance education resources out there for cash-strapped students-if you know where to look.  Here are 135 free ways to enhance your education online. Free Classes Many of these schools and sites offer a large number of free courses and courseware.  These links to individual classes represent only a small sampling of what they have to offer, and the sites are worth exploring further."

The Commonwealth Certificate for Teacher ICT Integration (CCTII) is a distance qualification that can be offered in blended mode or as a distance learning course. It can also be offered as a qualification or module by module as a range of short courses. Teacher education institutions can adopt and use this resource.

"Reusing existing Open Educational Resources (OER) can save significant time and effort. The OPEN partners recommend TAACCCT grantees invest up-front time finding OER to reuse rather than starting development of new educational resources right away. A significant benefit of OER is that they provide source material to build your development efforts around. No need to invest development effort in creating something that already exists. OER come in a wide variety of types. Many educators are simply looking for individual media elements to use within their courses, such as photos, graphics, videos, and audio, that are openly licensed in a way that freely permits education use. The page below will help you find openly licensed media elements to use within your courses. To jump directly to what you are searching for use these links:"

The First Steps into Learning and Teaching in Higher Education massive open online course (mooc) will run from 21 May to 22 June 2012. This mooc is developed by the HEA/JISC funded OpenLine Project at Oxford Brookes University. First Steps into Learning and Teaching in Higher Education, is targeted at new lecturers, people entering higher education teaching from other sectors and postgraduate students who teach. We also welcome experienced lecturers to update and share their knowledge and expertise. The First Steps course is an element of the Oxford Centre for Staff and Learning Development's (OCSLD) HEA accredited Post Graduate Certificate in Teaching in Higher Education (PCTHE).

"We offer courses from the top universities, for free. Learn from world-class professors, watch high quality lectures, achieve mastery via interactive exercises, and collaborate with a global community of students."