Teacher education

SoftChalk Innovators in Online Learning Series

Hello Michael,

Innovators webinars highlight extraordinary work done by SoftChalk clients. They are aboutthe pedagogy, not the technology.

This Wednesday see how one school system is creatinglessons for the 21st Century Frameworkusing SoftChalk. Click here for details .

In January see the work of our youngest teacher, 10 year old Adora Svitak, who will show how sheteaches the importance of writing and integrating technology. Click here for details .

To learn more about why so many educators believe that SoftChalk is the ONLY choice for easy lesson content development…..

-register for one of our online live demonstrations at www.softchalk.com/webinar

-check out our newly updated Quick Tour Videos at www.softchalk.com/demo.html

-explore sample lessons at www.softchalk.com/lb_examples.html

Please feel free to forward this email to your colleagues who may have an interest in creating more engaging on-line lessons for their students.

Please contact us with questions or concerns.

Your SoftChalk Team
team@softchalk.com www.softchalk.com 877-638-2425 (toll free USA/Canada)

Guest Blogger: Eddie Reisch – New Zealand Virtual Learning Network.

Again, continuing the guest blogger feature… This third entry is from a recent colleague that I met this past August while I was in Wellington at the Distance Education Association of New Zealand’s conference.

The Virtual Learning Network is ending its 5 year at the end of 2008. Another successful year with our focus this year on supporting our year 1 to 13 students with a mixture of video Conference, Adobe Connect and Learner management System supported lessons. These are the stats as at Nov 2008:

Current Total Schools: 238
Current Total Teachers: 143
Current Total Courses: 184
Current Total Classes: 189
Current Total Enrolments: 1141

A number of new areas have been explored this year and we will be implementing a lot of them in 2009

If you follow this link it will give you a pretty comprehensive outline of what is going on a part from the info provided above.

Kia Ora
Eddie Reisch
Virtual Learning Network
Web Site: http://www.virtuallearning.school.nz

Another item that was originally posted in one of the NACOL forums.

School Accreditation is one of the key issues facing online schools. Very recently, a number of the regional accrediting bodies have begun to structure separate accreditation standards for distance learning. As Director of Instruction for Insight Schools, I have had the opportunity to work with very closely with NAAS, the Northwest Association of Accredited Schools. NAAS’ leadership have expressed their desire to ensure that their standards are well aligned with the best practices of online learning via a Distance Learning Conference in Las Vegas, NV February 28, 2008.

Please join me in supporting the Northwest Association of Accredited School in their first Distance Learning conference. Dr. Ray Lindley, the Executive Secretary of the International and Transregional Committee of NAAS, who accredits the majority of their online schools, has been very supportive of online learning, but there is definitely still work to be done to make the standards applicable. This work can really only be done by leaders in the industry who know the current issues facing online schools.

The keynote address focusing on Hot Issues facing Online Schools will be given by Keith Oelrich, a pioneer of online learning and CEO/Founder of Insight Schools. Allison Powell of NACOL was kind enough to accept our invitation to address the group and to assist as we work through accreditation standards and difficult policy issues. This will be the first time that NAAS has worked with NACOL to match their standards to the research based work that NACOL has been focused on…this is a great step forward that I’m hoping as NACOL members we can demonstrate our support of with input at the Las Vegas session.

This is an excellent opportunity for us to influence the accrediting agencies to accurately measure and improve the field of online learning. I am really hoping that this will begin a trend toward more specialization in accreditation standards for other accrediting bodies so that online learning can be accurately represented and measured.

Please make arrangements to attend February 28, 2008 in Las Vegas, NV. Click the link below for registration information and location. Please feel free to contact me with any questions. I hope to see you there.

http://www.northwestaccreditation.org/meet…egistration.pdf