Brian Lamb, at the University of British Columbia, and his weblog on social learning, online learning, and open education

For even the most experienced classroom teacher, teaching online requires a thoughtful transition to the new environment.

Do you currently teach online? Have you thought about teaching online but for some reason haven’t done it yet? Here at CU Online, we believe in the power of online learning. Whether you currently teach online or you are thinking about doing it in the future, we are here to help you sort through this process and we hope that this handbook might help you along the way. The boundaries between traditional face-to-face courses and completely online courses are beginning to blur. Therefore, as we move forward, we all must consider when, how, and why we integrate the tools that we do into our classrooms.

Thinking about the types of media that you are using in your teaching resource, write a short risk assessment identifying IPR/copyright issues that you may face.

Think about...

Who may view your teaching resource?

Who else may access and use the teaching resource?

Who is providing information/content for your teaching resource?

How public is the information that you are using and/or providing?

Are you using examples of students’ work?

How might your project be used in a public space? Identify aspects concerning issues of ethics, dissemination and responsibilities related to ownership of project content in a public space.

Why is using a multi-media approach useful to your teaching resource?
You may want to consider the possibilities from the perspectives of your students, your colleagues, yourself and across the education sector.

Aim of session: What do you want your learners to achieve?

Outline of content: Short description of learning activities/learning outcomes.

Risk factors/copyright issues: Identifying what they are within your resources

Licences required: Identifying what licenses are involved

Identifying online learning aims and outcomes

This "Teacher Time Saver" looks at free tools for creating Web-based discussions.

Online teaching and learning in higher education is growing at an exponential rate! This growth will continue to escalate during the 21st century! The powerful tools of technology will deliver instruction in unprecedented ways. Yet, the tools of technology are only as effective as the masters of this craft. Those using technology to teach online in increasing numbers are educational leadership adjunct professors. In some cases, universities adjunct faculty members comprise 100% of their entire faculty (Babb & Mirabella, 2007). Clearly, the time has come for online universities to provide mentoring that assures the success of their greatest teaching force, its adjunct faculty. The authors present the four most research based needs entitled the four cornerstones comprising an effective mentoring program for educational leadership adjuncts. The four cornerstones of effective mentoring programs for adjuncts teaching online are professional development, effective communication, building balance, and forming relationships.

How can we reach more learners, more effectively, and with greater impact? Education changes lives and societies, but can we sustain the current model? New models and new technologies allow us to rethink many of the premises of education—location and time, credits and credentials, knowledge creation and sharing.

Game Changers: Education and Information Technologies is a collection of chapters and case studies contributed by college and university presidents, provosts, faculty, and other stakeholders. Institutions are finding new ways of achieving higher education’s mission without being crippled by constraints or overpowered by greater expectations. Download entire book, individual chapters, case studies.

The Global Health eLearning Center was developed by he USAID Bureau of Global Health is a response to repeated requests from field staff for access to technical public health information because the Agency had heard from USAID Population, Health, and Nutrition officers (PHNs) and from Foreign Service Nationals (FSNs) that they want to be current on global health topics, yet find it a challenge to obtain the information because of logistical and time constraints. Non USAID users may use the site as well. You must register, but registration is simple and free of charge. The Global Health eLearning Center provides Internet-based courses that: 1. Provide useful and timely continuing education for health professionals 2. Offer state-of-the-art technical content on key public health topics 3. Serve as a practical resource for increasing public health knowledge.

Information about Hippocampus.org and the NROC project.

Multimedia Educational Resource for Learning and Online Teaching. The MIC07 conference theme Jazzing IT up with MERLOT recognizes the collaborative efforts within disciplines and the education community around the World to enhance teaching and learning through the use of Instructional Technology. Conference attendees span all disciplines and the continuum from novice to expert in the development and use of online resources. The conference is designed to foster learning, innovation and practice in the use of information, instruction, and communications technologies in higher education. It is the venue for educators, administrators, and technologists who have interests and expertise in technology-enabled teaching and learning and who recognize the need to remain current in this rapidly advancing field of educational practice and theory.

Some advances in instructional technology have emerged from the creative applications of existing technology. In this article we discuss such an innovation, the online self-organizing social system (OSOSS). Briefly described, the OSOSS structure allows large numbers of individuals to self-organize in a highly decentralized manner in order to solve problems and accomplish other goals. The OSOSS structure is neither an instructional design theory (such as those described by Reigeluth, 1999) nor an application or Internet protocol (such as Netscape or HTTP). However, due to its distributed and highly decentralized nature, the authors feel that the OSOSS structure could prove as disruptive to traditional notions of online learning as Napster proved to traditional conceptions of the Internet.

The Peer 2 Peer University announced its second round of free and open online courses today, opening sign-ups for 14 courses dealing in subject areas ranging from Physics to Transformational Art. Some of the courses were offered in the first phase of the pilot which launched last September, but seven are brand new.

The People's Open Access Education Initiative is just getting started. The goal is to use free and open source software to create high-quality educational resources that are available on the Internet in order to build public health capacity in low- to middle-income countries. Volunteer experts will be responsible for developing course modules and resources. There is an example focusing on maternal mortality on the peoples-uni” website. There is a UK based management group and an international advisory group, with African members from Ghana, Nigeria, and Sudan.

Conducting professional development by email can be an effective way to reach busy teachers, tailor the content to their needs, and provide an authentic context for learning.

Sixth-grade students are relatively successful with online reading assignments, but previewing and providing them with strategies for online reading improve their comprehension.