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I appreciate the focus on preparing students, parents, and teachers for the "shift" that happens when customizing and personalizing instruction. This article focuses on the ground-work that needs to be laid to transition parent and student mentality from a traditional to blended environment.

Solid post. I Digg it. Would love to solicit guest posts very much like this with Michigan faculty. I think his words about giving "a) some examples of research that supports blended learning and b) have some concrete samples of the different types of work that students will produce and c) demonstrate what assessment will look like. If you cover these three components, then my experience is that parents are thrilled about the change." could also ring true for MyBlend PD.

"Instead of a course syllabus or description, I've found it more useful to give students a "roadmap for success".  Here is an example from my middle school Geography class.  The idea is that all learning options are clearly laid out and routes for success are made clear.  It is well worth spending a class or two clarifying what the journey will look like in a blended learning environment and I've found that this reframes the experience for students in a way that they understand.  It also lays the groundwork for the one-on-one conversations you will have with students moving forward.  You will want to delineate the different segments of the class, discuss possible timeframes for moving through the challenges and what the options are for demonstrating mastery at each stage.  In this particular roadmap, some items are bold because they will be done by all students.  Other components are framed by a dotted line meaning that only some students will be eligible for those challenges based on their progress at specific stages.  You will want to make the roadmap as clear as possible so students are able to understand the journey to the point where they develop a sense of agency around their work. "

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I have been planning to do an #EdTech review on Socrative and Infuse Learning as they are fantastic tools for getting a healthy pulse of a blended classroom, a checking on prior knowledge, an exit slip, a checking for understanding or even for creating a formative and collaborative quizzing environment for learning. Think clickers on steroids really, but without having to purchase and distribute a uni-function device. The interfaces will allow any web connected device for more in depth responses from the learner that goes beyond multiple choice functionality. In fact, Infuse Learning even goes as far as allowing students to respond to a prompt in real time by drawing a picture and the submissions all get aggregated on the teacher screen so that the class can see everyone's drawings in one main view. Brilliant. I see that @JohnHardison1 beat me to the punch not long ago in promoting the use of these tools. In fact, he even has included chunked video screencast tutorials from his YouTube account embedded right in the post so that you can experience a demonstration about Infuse Learning options from the teacher and student perspective. Nicely done John! I hope our MyBlend community can check this out and benefit from learning about the power of these tools.