28 Days of OLLIE Features: Thomas Griffin

During the first few days of the 28 Days of OLLIE we are featuring Thomas Griffin. Thomas is an instructional coach and social studies teacher at Johnston High School, in Johnston Iowa. Thomas is piloting a year long, junior US history course.

Over the next few days, check out the community here and hear Thomas:

• Describe his blended learning instruction
• Reflect on his blended learning instruction
• Discuss how he ensures that learning is happening
• Share how he grades students
• Talk about how he models learning to students

28 Days of OLLIE Begins Feb. 1

February 2018, marks AEA Learning Online’s fourth annual   28 Days of Online Learning forIowa Educators (28 Days of  OLLIE). During this year’s month-long event we will be hearing from Iowa teachers who are blending their instruction and administrators who are supporting blended learning in their schools. Throughout the month watch for videos that highlight these teachers and their blended learning practices, reflections on blended learning, and their plans for the future.

• Week 1 will focus on Thomas Griffin’s high school blended social studies class in Johnston.
• Week 2 will focus on Brianne Barr’s fourth grade classroom in Davenport.
• Week 3 will focus on the Indianola School district. We will hear Kim Grissom share about their 9th grade English students. During the second half of the week we will also hear from Indianola administrators how the Indianola school district is building a comprehensive online program.
• Week 4 will focus on Megan Deyen’s fourth-grade math class in Johnston.

To cap the week off the 28 Days will conclude with innovative and practical ideas on how you can get started blending learning for your students.

To participate in the 28 Days of OLLIE, join the community found here. Once you have joined the community, you will receive an email notifications for posting that are occurring in the OLLIE community. Please be sure to join in the conversation by posting comments or questions related to the videos that are being shared in the community.

And follow AEA Learning Online on Facebook and Twitter. 

Orthopedic Surgeon, Structure of the Eye, and Skeletal System Modules Added to the Student Personalized Learning System

Today we have student guest bloggers.  Atul Chandran, Cassidy Poage, Kayla Nine, Mady Malone, Ava Nelson, Katia Wilson, Bella Anania, Ben Parks, Evian Peterson, and Asher Hutchinson who represent their teams from Waukee High School’s Aspiring Professional Experiences Program (APEX) who have been working on creating health and medical content  for teachers and students in AEA Learning Online's Student Personalized Learning System. AEA Learning Online thanks leads Atul Chandran, Mady Malone,  Evian Peterson and their teams and their instructors Ryan Lensing and Cyndi Snell for their hard work on these modules.

 The Health Sciences and Medicine class of Waukee APEX (Aspiring Professional Experience) is proud to share with you the work we have done on the Orthopedic Surgeon profession, Structure of the Eye and Anatomy of the Skeletal System placed in the Student Personalized Learning System.  Our group has created content that educates students about the following content.

Teachers and students can now check out modules

• Orthopedic Surgeon: After completing this module you will

1. know what an orthopedic surgeon does
2. know what orthopedic surgeons specialize in
3. understand the education requirements to become an orthopedic surgeon

• Structure of the Eye: This module includes information on all aspects of the eye such as…
1. The Function of the eye, here we cover what the eye does for the human and how it interacts with other parts of the body.
2. Structure of the eye, here we cover what different parts of the eye do and where they are located.
3. Pathway of the eye, here we cover the parts of the eye that are directly related with how we see and interpret image.
4. Basic diseases of and correction of the eye: In this module, you will learn about the basic diseases in eye’s that can happen at birth or develop as you grow. You will also learn how to correct these diseases.
• Anatomy of the Skeletal System: This module gives users an in-depth glance at the functions and parts of the skeletal system.
1. In the module we have defined the 4 main functions of the skeletal system, which are key in maintaining bodily skeletal health.
2. Our module gives detailed information on the different regions of the skeletal system, explaining the uses of each region, and describing the parts that make up each one.
3. Our module includes interactive games and quizzes that can be used to benefit users, helping them to demonstrate their newfound knowledge.

To learn more about these modules, you can visit http://learning.aeak12online.org/ and click on Catalog and then Science.

Teacher's Softchalk Lessons Chosen as Lesson of the Week.

Congratulations to Kyle Berg, high school Social Studies teacher from Indianola whose Softchalk lesson " New Deal Government Intervention " was chosen as Softchalk's Lesson of the Week.  In this Lesson students learn about some of the responses FDR took to battling the Great Depression and are asked to determine which system they believe would work the best if we faced another depression in modern times.  Kyle previously had another Softchalk Lesson of the week titled "Cuban Missile Crisis"

Congratulations to Troy Staudt, technology teacher at Gilbert Middle School,  whose Softchalk lesson "App Developer: Athletics and Body Systems " was also chosen as Softchalk's Lesson of the Week.  This lesson serves as the instructions for a project where students design the concept for an app about human body systems.



Each week Softchalk selects a stand out, top notch, lesson from SoftChalk Share and feature it across thjeir social media platforms. SoftChalk Share is an Open Education Resource (OER), learning object repository with thousands of free learning materials created by educators.

Softchalk is available at not cost to Iowa teachers teaching in the State of Iowa. If you are interested in learning more about this tool and getting access to it, contact us via email at eabbey@aealearningonline.org, dkrefting@aealearningonline.org or mwicklund@aealearningonline.org.

You can learn more about using Softchalk and blending your classroom in our Blending/Flipping Your Classroom cohort professional development.  Learn more about this professional development at https://instructor20.wixsite.com/aealearningonlinebf.