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Using Edmodo, I delivered online instruction to my students into an actual active and engaging learning environment. As my students engaged in learning the fundamentals of Edmodo, both in the classroom and at home, I was simultaneously able to test each student in Reading Workshop, so that I may assess their independent reading levels.

First is the idea of raising expectations and raising standards. Another piece: data-driven instruction. Every teacher in our state now spends 90 minutes a week sitting down with five peers to just drill into what the data is telling them about student performance. There's research that says the most effective economic development that a state could make is in early childhood education. We're increasing over a five-year period from 20 to 80 the percentage of high-need kids who are enrolled in preschool. That's a game changer.

"As the demand for online education continues to increase, institutions are faced with developing process models for efficient, high-quality online course development. This paper describes a systems, team-based, approach that centers on an online instructional design theory (Active Mastery Learning) implemented at Colorado State University-Global Campus. CSU-Global Campus is a newly-created online campus within the Colorado State University System, and launches in Fall 2008 with fully-online undergraduate degree completion programs and Master's degrees."

Kevin Wilcoxon, Instructional Designer at University of Nevada Las Vegas, created the following infographic to simply describe the Blooms Taxonomy. In my opinion, this infographic is a 60-Second guide to Blooms Taxonomy with no necessary words or graphs, straight forward and up to the point.

"The session was insightful, and several readers may find the tips shared helpful, which is the purpose of this post. Strategies shared in the session are applicable to online course design in general and are not exclusive to Canvas. I'll include the highlights of the session-an insiders look at MOOCs based on Andersen's experience supporting thirty MOOCs in her role with Canvas as Director of Learning, and the methods she shared for creating activities that drive learning and sustain student interest. I have no doubt that many readers will find what Anderson has to say instructive and helpful, even more so for to those considering developing a MOOC, and/or planning to teach one in the future."

"Quality in online learning can be defined in many ways: quality of content, quality of design, quality of instructional delivery, and, ultimately, quality of outcomes. On the face of it, the organizing principles of MOOCs are at odds with widely observed best practices in online education, including those advocated by my organization, the Quality Matters Program. "

"To, "moocify" k12, the connectivist opportunities need to come out in stages and be student centered with a humanistic focus.  Based on this information, I have suggested a, Continuum of Open Learning and an instructional design model, called the Open Classroom Model, for future consideration.  The next steps are demonstrating how K12 learning environments can be "MOOCified" by connecting, collaborating and creating."

The goal was to link together some of the close reading they were already doing in their weekly reading trackers, as well as tap into their own triumphs and struggles with reading over time. Posted below is the (lengthy) project instructions. Students were not responsible for every prompt - the idea was to give them many springboards for their own thinking.

"from time to time I have had the luxury of developing learning materials relating to my own specialities in workplace learning. These are the projects I have most enjoyed and which, in my opinion, delivered the best results. So, what works best: designing with your own content expertise, or concentrating on the process, without necessarily having content expertise?"

Innovation in the curricula, including experimentation with technologies and learning spaces, is most likely to be effective when driven by faculty and student needs and served by integrated support structures. Surveys of IU faculty and graduate students have identified spaces for scholarly community as a critical need. Collaboration across university services (technology, undergraduate education, libraries) delivers a more cohesive and comprehensive experience. The IU Bloomington Center for Innovative Teaching and Learning provides a mix of consultation and workshop spaces, instructional technology facilities, and relaxed forums for exchanging ideas.

"To acquire and practice literacy skills today, students and educators in Oklahoma City Public Schools require access to Evernote, Google Docs, Gmail, Edmodo, Posterous, Celebrate Oklahoma Voices, and other educationally appropriate, interactive websites. All these websites are currently (as of February 9, 2012) blocked by OKCPS for student access. OKCPS must stop its "draconian" and unjustified Internet content filtering policies and adopt BALANCED policies. The district must TRUST teachers and empower them to directly bypass the content filter with their login credentials when it is professionally justified for instruction and learning."

The conventional wisdom in education is that any school reform--be it curriculum, instruction, assessment, or teacher professionalism--is most likely to take hold in schools that have strong leadership. The same holds true for technology. Any educator will tell you the most successful implementation of technology programs takes place in schools where the principal sees him or herself as a technology leader.

"It speaks to students learning at their developmental level - what is right for them at that particular time (differentiated instruction, maybe even restructuring the grade system). Even as an adult, learning benefits when you have someone there to guide you through the process. My tile job is far from perfect. It would have been much better had there been someone to model the processes and give me feedback towards my performance. For other types of learners, videos would suffice (something which Salmon Khan banks on)."

"Gamification has several definitions but the one I find most compelling is one that involves elements of games beyond just points, badges and leaderboards. A definition that includes using elements like challenge, story, role-play, feedback-what I call "deeper" game elements."

"Responding to calls for additional resources to support postsecondary instructors, many vendors and organizations now offer online educational development resources. The ultimate goal is to improve instruction and student learning, but to get there, higher education institutions must examine and evaluate these tools, as well as consider the specific needs of diverse campus stakeholders. After research and discussion, the Professional and Organizational Development Network developed eight principles to guide institutions as they explore and select online educational development resources for their campus communities."

" I'm sure many teachers would happily outsource homework grading and assessment to the droids. Blended learning will likely continue to make advances across classrooms as a substitution of teachers' time, though I see it unlikely to dominate instruction, particularly in elementary grades."

"Personalized learning puts each student at the center of their own learning. Teachers are empowered to customize instruction to meet their students' individual needs and interests. Students are empowered to become self-directed learners and develop the habits, mindsets and behaviors that lead to academic and personal success."

"OCW Educator helps teachers search the vast library of OCW resources to find instructional approaches and teaching materials. Explore This Course at MIT pages to discover how MIT instructors teach their courses, and freely select and adapt their explanations, examples, and simulations to help concepts come to life in your own classroom."

"SAMR (Substitution, Augmentation, Modification, and Redefinition) is  a four-level conceptual framework  developed by Dr Ruben Puentedura (2006) to help teachers make  effective use of technology in their instruction"

""Relate" videos get the student to feel connected to the instructor. They seek to establish instructor presence. They also prompt students to reflect on their own prior experiences with the topic and reasons for taking the course. "Narrate" videos share stories, anecdotes, or case studies that illustrate a concept or put the learning in context. They tap into the power of narrative to make learning sticky. "Demonstrate" videos illustrate how to do something in a step-by-step way. They pull back the curtain on invisible phenomena or procedures. They visually demonstrate how students will complete assignments and apply learning in the real world. "Debate" videos are perhaps the most important if you want students to actually change the way they think. These videos explicitly surface and address the misconceptions that students have about a domain and showcase competing points of view."