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The Blended Schools Network is hosting a massive open online course (MOOC). Starting on Monday, October 21, 2013 this course is designed for educators who wish to Learn the fundamentals of being a quality online teacher using a pre-built online course. Note: This course is designed for educators that have access to online course content via a course management system of their choosing (e.g. Blackboard, Canvas, Edmodo, Moodle etc.). If you do not have access to an online course the Blended Schools Network can provide you with a sample online course for use during the MOOC. This MOOC is an online course consisting of: Weekly online lesson content that can be completed at any time during the assigned week Weekly online collaboration activities that can be completed at any time during the assigned week Weekly online presentation and discussion sessions that can be attended live or viewed as a recording

This looked interesting - very interesting.....

"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."

" humans are more important than technology, but inspiring faculty should be our goal. Our organizational cultures need to embrace online learning as unique. We need to be supporting faculty by immersing them in engaging, meaningful online classes as part of their preparation to becoming great online instructors. When our organizational practices convey a hierarchy between face-to-face and online classes, that hierarchy will translate into the attitudes of the instructors who teach those classes."

Online enrollment growth, while still substantial, is slowing. The 2013 Survey of Online Learning conducted by the Babson Survey Research Group reveals the number of higher education students taking at least one Online course has now surpassed 7.1 million. The 6.1 percent growth rate, although the lowest for a decade, still represents over 400,000 additional students taking at least one Online course.

"Several weeks ago the University of Florida Online program opened for the Spring 2014 semester, accepting 600 transfer students, and the new program will accept Freshmen starting August 2014. This announcement comes just 2 years after the Florida legislature commissioned a study from the Parthenon Group on how to best leverage Online programs in the state, and this program is probably one of the highest profile new Online programs in the US within the past few years (along with California's Online initiative, Open SUNY, SJSU / Udacity and GaTech / Udacity)."

San Jose State has already achieved remarkable results with online materials from edX, a nonprofit online provider, in its circuits course, a longstanding hurdle for would-be engineers. Usually, two of every five students earn a grade below C and must retake the course or change career plans. So last spring, Ellen Junn, the provost, visited Anant Agarwal, an M.I.T. professor who taught a free online version of the circuits class, to ask whether San Jose State could become a living lab for his course, the first offering from edX, an online collaboration of Harvard and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

"Although massive open online courses (MOOCs) are seen to be, and are in fact designed to be, stand-alone online courses, their introduction to the higher education landscape has expanded the space of possibilities for blended course designs (those that combine online and face-to-face learning experiences). Instead of replacing courses at higher education institutions, could MOOCs enhance those courses? This paper reports one such exploration, in which a Stanford University Machine Learning MOOC was integrated into a graduate course in machine learning at Vanderbilt University during the Fall 2012 semester. The blended course design, which leveraged a MOOC course and platform for lecturing, grading, and discussion, enabled the Vanderbilt instructor to lead an overload course in a topic much desired by students. The study shows that while students regarded some elements of the course positively, they had concerns about the coupling of online and in-class components of this particular blended course design. Analysis of student and instructor reflections on the course suggests dimensions for characterizing blended course designs that incorporate MOOCs, either in whole or in part. Given the reported challenges in this case study of integrating a MOOC in its entirety in an on-campus course, the paper advocates for more complex forms of blended learning in which course materials are drawn from multiple MOOCs, as well as from other online sources."

"As part of a university system that has delivered online courses, programs and degrees for a very long time, I am troubled by what appears to be the inseparable link between online education and massive online education-that is, that "massive" is THE way to deliver online programs.  Most online degree programs are not MOOP(rograms)s. "

"Lack of civility in online forums within learning communities is manageable in small, closed online learning communities where an instructor is in control of a class of up to thirty, or even forty students. However, as classes expand, with MOOCs, and other types of learning communities growing, in combination with platforms that allow anonymity (such as Coursera) it will become an issue for educators [and their institutions] involved in online learning at some time or another. Peers within my network have shared their experiences as students and instructors within MOOCs that involve politically charged or contentious subject matters where discussion forums are fraught with offensive, even toxic comments and vitriol discussion.  It is for this reason that I write this post; to provoke thought and discussion in order for educators to be proactive and develop appropriate strategies."

"University teaching and learning have transcended the physical boundaries of the classroom. UTK instructors and students can now connect and engage in learning through a variety of Internet-enabled technologies. Interest is growing in pedagogically sound online courses. An online course is delivered via the Internet and is comprised of instructional materials designed and developed to be student-centered and uses a variety of tools and techniques to facilitate communication and convey the subject matter. OIT has developed the online Instructor Toolkit to assist instructors in preparing and teaching their online courses."

"Teaching face-to-face and teaching online are both teaching, but they are qualitatively different. In comparison, driving a car and riding a motorcycle are both forms of transportation, but they have enough differences to warrant additional training and preparation when switching from one to the other. The same is true when faculty move from the traditional classroom to the online classroom. There are some things that the two have in common, but there are also plenty of differences. With this in mind, consider the following eight roles of an effective online teacher."

"This video helps students understand the reality of using today's Internet in terms of privacy. It explains how our actions online are tracked and used. It teaches: Why privacy online is different than it is in the real world How nearly everything we do online is documented and analyzed by companies Why our data is important to the success of online companies How our data enables websites to be free What we can do to understand how our data is being used and make choices to protect it."

"Online education has been touted as a way to increase access to education. But it's increasingly unclear if Online learning is living up to its promise for students, even as digital learning makes its way into more institutions' offerings. The quality of Online courses still varies drastically, and research shows there are major racial disparities in digital-learning outcomes. This has all left us asking: Who does Online education really serve?"

"Chester Ludlow, a pug dog from Vermont, has been awarded an online MBA degree (Masters in Business Administration) by Rochville University-an online college that offers life experience online degrees. Chester is believed to be the first dog to be awarded an online masters degree based on work and life experience credentials. But did he earn it-or did he buy it?"

"In recent posts I've written about how course instructors can support online learners, how to consider the needs of the learner and guide them through phases of dependency to independence. Yet what is the responsibility of the learner? What role does the online student play in his or her learning? And how can this be communicated to him or her? In this post I discuss learning models that assign responsibility to the learner, how these principles can be applied to online learning, and finally describe how instructors and institutions can hand over responsibility to the student."

The Online School for Girls is both the first single-gender Online school and the first independent Online school in the world.

"The massive open online course craze may have subsided, but the debate about the role of online courses in higher education persists. Even as more faculty members experiment with online education, they continue to fear that the record-high number of students taking those classes are receiving an inferior experience to what can be delivered in the classroom, Inside Higher Ed's new Survey of Faculty Attitudes on Technology suggests."

"University officials say the higher tuition rates for online courses are the result of expensive infrastructure and the costs for designing the courses, which often involve partnerships or contracts with outside online education providers.   Nassirian said the infrastructure costs make it difficult to create online classes cheaply on a small scale."

"Privatization of online higher education is on the rise. For-profit online education corporations like Academic Partnerships, Kaplan, Wiley, Pearson, and Blackboard contract with public and private nonprofit institutions to provide digital platforms for educational content, recruit students, manage enrollment, facilitate the development of course materials, and more. While the use of digital platforms and online teaching tools can enrich higher education, elements of contracting with for-profit online education corporations can present problems in areas of interest to faculty, particularly academic freedom and shared governance. Check out our resources, surveys, and social media shareables below and learn how you can get involved in making sure that higher education serves the common good, not private profit."

"Almost 25 years have passed since Chickering and Gamson offered seven principles for good instructional practices in undergraduate education. While the state of undergraduate education has evolved to some degree over that time, I think the seven principles still have a place in today's collegiate classroom. Originally written to communicate best practices for face-to-face instruction, the principles translate well to the online classroom and can help to provide guidance for those of us designing courses to be taught online."

...Just in time!! :)