Online & Blended Learning Resources

Our friends at iNACOL have been busy lately. In addition to bringing together more than 2,500 believers in personalized learning at the International Blended and Online Learning Symposium, they’re producing a wealth of valuable resources to help aid in the implementation of high-quality online and blended learning in schools and districts across the globe.  These new papers add to an impressive list of existing resources, including some of our favorite places to point people like the K-12 Online and Blended Learning Database, National Quality Standards, CompetencyWorks and How to Start an Online Learning Program website.

Here are seven new sources from iNACOL:

Fast Facts About Online Learning (October 2013)

This succinct, well-presented set of “fast facts” includes key K-12 Online Learning statistics, fact and figures as well as online policy trends across states and top federal policy issues and top state policy needs.

Mean What You Say: Defining and Integrating Personalized, Blended and Competency Education

The goal of Mean What You Say is to explain the nuances of key terms used across the field of K-12 education related to personalized, blended and competency education, and how these ideas integrate in order to create new learning models. In addition to describing nuances at the classroom-level for the ability to personalize learning across implementations, Mean What you Say presents a resource for deeper exploration of instructional models and modalities to re-imagine what is possible for new learning models in K-12 education.

Partnering for Success: A 21st Century Model for Teacher Preparation

“No teacher should start their career with anything less than complete confidence that they have been effectively prepared for Day One, ” said iNACOL President Susan Patrick. “The partnerships highlighted here are poised to make that a reality and provide guideposts to rethinking and modernizing educator preparation programs for today’s schools.” This report offers case studies from Boise State University and Idaho Digital Learning Academy, Florida State University and Florida Virtual School, Wayne State University, Arizona State University and Florence Virtual Academy, Mount Vernon Nazarene University and TRECA Digital Academy, University of Central Florida and Florida Virtual School, and Utah State University and Utah Virtual Academy.

Transforming K-12 Rural Education through Blended Learning: Barriers and Promising Practices

This report details the findings of a joint research partnership between the Idaho Digital Learning Academy (IDLA) and Northwest Nazarene University and highlights these three key points:

• The positive impact that blended learning has on those teachers who choose to incorporate emerging models of practice into their classroom environments;

• A correlation between the opportunity for self-pacing and the quality of a student’s work and perseverance; and

• The importance of comprehensive teacher training for blended and online learning environments.

iNACOL’s New Learning Models Vision

The goal of the New Learning Models work is to “accelerate the development of effective online, blended, and competency-based models of learning that are necessary for the field to achieve its potential.” iNACOL has developed the New Models Using Online & Blended Learning TPAC framework based on Susan Patrick’s work that places the student at the center with each element supporting their individual learning – “T” represents technology, “P” represents pedagogy, people & professional development, “A” represents assessment, and “C” represents content and courses.
iNACOL Research Agenda
This paper reveals the findings of iNACOL’s 2013 survey of the field in order to identify research needs related to blended and online learning and to prioritize future research needs. The report identifies 10 research priorities that include the identification of effective learning environments, instructional design, teacher preparation, change management, competency-based learning, assessments and the effects of education policy.
iNACOL is an incredible resource for educators, leaders, policymakers and anyone interested in tracking developments in personalized learning. Keep up with iNACOL news and news across the field by signing up for Plugged In and keep an eye on the iNACOL website for webinars, new resources, and blog posts that track current implementation efforts and address key policy questions.
 
FLVS is a Getting Smart Advocacy Parnter. Tom Vander Ark is a director of iNACOL.