We hope you were able to participate in the CITE online conference on
Blended Learning over the past three days. There were many great
sessions for schools and teachers alike.
We
are now turning our focus to the design process. It is one thing to
know that you want to use blended learning, but it is a different one to
actually deliver it. Online learning design (often referred to as
"instructional design") requires an artful touch to it.
Scenario:
Meet
Ms. Sanchez. She has been teaching for a few years, but she has never
thought about teaching in an online setting. She has heard from other
teachers about blended learning, and putting together a Moodle course,
but she wasn't sure what that was. Her sister teaches in a different
district that uses Canvas, and she knows her sister likes using the
tool, but doesn't really know if she is creating online courses
correctly.
When she looks at her sister's course, as well as courses from other teachers in her building,
she can't help but feel something is missing.
It just seems to be a bunch of PDFs and power points uploaded. It feels
more like a resource place for the class, so that they can download
files from home, than it does true online learning. She doesn't think
her students would take much interest going through a power point or
reading a PDF without understanding what it is, and if she is explaining
it in the classroom, then basically it is just like assigning homework.
But, today is Day 12, which means that the OLLIE Community is beginning to look at
instructional objects. She has never heard the term before, but she finds out an instructional object is a catch-all term to describe
online instructional lessons, online collaborative activities, and online assessments. "Yes," she nods to herself, "this is what I was looking for."
Ms.
Sanchez takes a look at the discussion for Days 12-14 as well as the
Instructional Object sharing database. Whoa! There are a lot of ideas
here that people are sharing. She sees some good ideas, but also
realizes, she will need to find out a bit more information tomorrow
before she can contribute. But, her sister might benefit from looking at
this right away.
To-Do:
• Visit the
Instructional Object database in our community. As you search through the database, think about what strategies makes sense in your curriculum?
• Take a look at our
discussion forum
for days 12-14. This will ask you to reflect on the database and share
with community members something that you found that would enhance your
classroom practice.
Share your ideas on how to personalize learning and hear how Iowa educators are supporting student personalized learning through this 
This video on how to use 
