eLearning Blog

The internet is really a series of buildings housing data on rows of servers.   If you want to see what it looks like, watch the short video above on the inside of a server farm. 

I am a big believer that the teacher is important to learning but that doesn't mean that most of the learning can't be done asynchronously.  But it is decidedly hard to do this with world languages.  Enter the free app Duolingo .   I have heard from so many people (including my wife who loves it) that is a great way to learn one's own, or for a student, a supplement to the class.  Above is a very thorough overview of how to use the app. 

I have been teaching online students for the past fifteen years and as the leader of an online school I also am in charge of teaching our prospective teachers.   To that end the video above is what I believe are the ways to engage virtual learners.  Honestly it is not much different than teaching in the brick and mortar classroom, especially as more schools are going one on one.  But watch the short video to see how to do that with technology tools.

Schools around the country are bringing students into schools in a concurrent fashion.  This usually means that some students spend their entire time at home online while other students go in two days a week for in person learning - also in the same class with those who are online. The difficult issue is that those in person have to face forward and not turn to their neighbor peers.  This makes it hard to do group work.  But there are work arounds. Obviously if all of your students have smartphones and don't mind sharing numbers, they can text.  Another thought is to open a Google Doc and start a conversation on the upper right side on the icon that looks like a thought bubble.  But another way to consider it is to make a Cyber Sandwich.  This means that students start the work on their own and then share in a document when they are done and that is where the texting can come through.    This page has a great overview (video below explains it) an...

  As an online school leader I get to observe teachers from all content areas.   Our math teachers like to use the free site Desmos .  It allows students to have access to a variety of free calculators such as graphing, four function, scientific, etc.  It also allow you to assign the students to show work on a problem while the teacher can see what the students are doing.  In our virtual learning time, this is a great way to engage all learners at the same time.    The video above gives a nice overview of the functionality of the site. 

Eric Sheninger has six strategies to enhance online learning which boil down to relevance, active learning, flexibility, personalization and feedback.   As a long time leader of an online school I am going to put up my own video soon but for now this is a great list to start from and consider for your learners.   If you want to follow Eric, go here . 

About a month ago I was given a beautiful new laptop - something that happens every three year.  Pre-Covid-19 I often left it at work and came home to a new device - not to mention I also am on my smartphone a lot.  For those reasons I do not like bookmarking on my laptop as it ties me to one device. For years I have been bookmarking using Diigo .  It is a cloud based app that can be reached on any device.   I also use it for sites where I have passwords.   No I don't leave the actual password, but give myself cryptic reminders which are enough for me.  Plus the site allows you to check a box so no one else can see your bookmarks. But you can go from your bookmark and see others who have saved the site and see what they are publicly saving which can lead you to hundreds of new useful discoveries. 

  Yes I know this isn't a post on educational technology, but my roots are as a teacher and, in particular, US history.   Plus it's always good to know why you are doing something - in particular giving thanks today.   Did you know that the author of "Mary Had a Little Lamb" was behind the US making Thanksgiving a national holiday and that Lincoln was the president who initiated this.  There is no proof that turkey was actually eaten on the first Thanksgiving but watch the video above for more fun facts. 

In this year when so many students are receiving their entire class online, communication with students is more important than ever before.  So what are the best ways to communicate with students? The most important thing to do to have effective two way communication with your students is to create a welcoming culture.  This means starting your meetings with a quick warm-up that brings out something about the students.  You might simply go around the room and say hello to all your students or ask about their favorite holiday food or what they did this past weekend.  Answer the same questions you pose of your students as they want to know you are human too. You should start by creating a short welcome video to explain how students can navigate your learning management system (LMS).   The video ( here is how to make one ) should be no longer than five minutes and should be followed up with a course orientation that you do in your chat room.    Seco...

The district where I work has just switched to School for its Learning Management System.  As such I have been learning how to export and upload courses from another LMS and at the same time to manipulate what I am doing in Schoology. To that end the best place to start for learning is the Schoology tutorial page .  While you can certainly save the page, I have found it most helpful to simply write what you want to do and add the word "schoology" to a search engine as in "create assignment + schoology" and you'll be taken to the page to help you - in this case here . Schoology also has a YouTube channel which you can find here .