28 Days of OLLIE: Day 6

Happy Saturday!
Well, I bet you didn't expect to hear from the OLLIE Community today...It is the weekend after all. Well, no worries. Today is all about looking back and reflecting about the first 5 days of this month long event and thinking about how you might be able to leverage the OLLIE community to help you teach online or blend your instruction.

• Day 1 focused on becoming an OLLIE Community member and exploring the community.
• Day 2 focused on how to keep up-to date on community events and activities
• Day 3 was all about staying connected via social media
• Day 4 looked at sharing resources with each other in the community forum
• Day 5 showed you where community members could share videos with each other

Scenario
It has been a busy week for Mr. Miller. He has learned that the OLLIE community and its members are there to support him as he moves toward more online/blended instruction for his students. He has also learned about different ways to connect with the community members and share ideas. Finally, he is excited to know that there is a a place where he can go to learn about online/blended learning, ask questions, and share resources. He plans to keep an eye on the announcements from the community facilitators for resources and upcoming events and do his best to support other community members by responding to questions and sharing resources.

28 Days of OLLIE: Day 5

Day 5
Are you a fan of Amazon.com? As a mother of a toddler and with another baby on the way, I'm a huge fan of Amazon. One reason, I love Amazon are the customer reviews. When it comes to selecting products, the reviews and recommendations are a huge help. While the OLLIE Community isn't Amazon, it does have a few ways to make your life as an online/blended teacher teacher. 
Today Mr. Miller will take a look at the video database where OLLIE community members can share and recommend videos for other community members to use in their own courses. The recommendations from community members can help take some of the time consuming guess work out of finding videos to use with students.
Scenario
Day 5 is "Share a Video Day". Mr. Miller learns that the OLLIE community has a searchable video database. Community members can share the videos that they use in their flipped or blended courses. Members can also search through the database to find videos that others have submitted that might be helpful to them. They can search by:

• Title
• Grade level
• Curriculum area

Mr. Miller takes some time to look through the database and shares a video that he uses with his students. He earns a sharing badge.
As he looks at the database, he finds that many teachers have created their own videos, which adds personalization and makes the instruction more exact to what's going on in the classroom. He would like to do the same, and wishes that he knew how. Then, he remembered the calendar for the 28 Days. With some excitement, he sees that days 15-17 will be looking at that process.

28 Days of OLLIE: Day 4

Before I get into today's focus, I want to remind you about the OLLIE community cohort course opportunity. The course, Designing Online Lessons is a 2-credit course and will begin on Feb. 17.  You may audit the course for free, or pay a minimal amount for license renewal and graduate credit. To register, click here.(Note: You must register even if you are choosing to audit the course and not take it for credit.) This course is an awesome opportunity to learn more about video-based lessons, text-based lessons, and tools like SoftChalk.

And now without further ado...

Day 4

ON day 4 Mr. Miller begins to see some of the ways community members can help each other out by sharing ideas, resources, and tools. You to can help out by sharing your own thoughts about question posed in the scenario here.

Scenario

It's day 4 of the 28 days of OLLIE and Mr. Miller is starting to see how he can connect with people. The announcements give him new information and ideas to think about and the forums, Twitter, and Diigo are all tools that he can use to connect with others in the community, but what has him really stumped is…"when and why do people connect?" Other than the information from the community announcements, he doesn't really feel like he has a reason to add his voice to the conversation... and that's when it happens.
In the general forum a teacher has made a post asking the community for assistance. She is a 4th grade teacher who would like to incorporate some digital citizenship content into her blended course. She is looking for online resources that could put in her unit.
Mr. Miller remembers that he read that a good online instruction includes extension activities and resources that push students thinking. Even though he teaches middle school science, he replies to her post with a resources that he uses with his students.  
As he looks at others responses to the post he even finds some resources that will assist his efforts in supporting digital literacy with his students. He makes a mental note to add them to his course.

Physical Science Self Paced Content Available

In AEA PD Online's Student Personalized Learning system teachers and students can learn more about Physical Science with learning modules on Waves, Chemical Reactions, Energy and Electricity, and Matter.  Teacher can check out the content by logging into the Student Personalized Learning system using their username and password that they use for the training system where they have taken mandatory trainings.

Once logged into the Student Learning system, click on Modules, Science and look at the individual Physical Science modules.  If you wish to use these with your students or have any questions please contact Denise Krefting (dkrefting@aeapdonline.org) or Melissa Wicklund (mwicklund@aeapdonline.org).

28 Days of OLLIE: Day 3

I don't know about you, but I spent a good chunk of yesterday digging my way out of the snow. The good news is I don't believe that the groundhog saw his shadow yesterday so spring is just around the corner, right? Right?

Day 3

Yesterday, we focused on connecting with the community via announcements. These announcements are the best way to stay up-to-date on community events and activities. Today focuses on how the OLLIE Community helps keep members informed and connected via social media like Twitter and Diigo.

Scenario
It's Day 3 of the 28 Days of OLLIE and Mr. Miller didn't have time to look at the daily announcement during the day. However, as he lays in his bed looking at the phone he takes a few minutes to review its contents.
The announcement focuses on two additional ways that community members can connect with each other. One is Twitter and another is Diigo.
Twitter is a microblogging tool where individuals can write 140 character messages and post it so that others can view it. The announcement includes several different resources to help people new to Twitter get started. After reviewing the information, Mr. Miller downloads the Twitter app to his phone, does a search for the #28OLLIE, and looks at what others community members have been posting on twitter.
Diigo is the other tool that is introduced. It allows members of a group to bookmark and annotate articles. The OLLIE community uses it to share articles about online/blended learning with each other and sometimes discuss them with each other using the annotation feature. Mr. Miller takes view the tutorials, download the diigo app to his phone, and finally review some articles that the community has annotated in the past.
Here is what Mr. Miller and you can do to stay connected with the community via Twitter and Diigo.

• Review informatin about Twitter, including what it is and how to use it here.
• If you don't have a Twitter account create one here
• Review the tweets at #28OLLIE
• Earn your Twitter badge by posting your own tweet at #28OLLIE
• Review the information about Diigo found here
• If you don't have a Diigo account create one here and join the OLLIE group
• Explore articles that the community has shared with each other
• Earn your Diigo badge by sharing an article with the OLLIE Group

28 Days of OLLIE: Day 2

Does snowmageddon 2016 have you stuck inside? If so, take a few minutes to check out Day 2 of the 28 Days of OLLIE.

Day 2
Today focuses on how to stay informed with community events, activities, and conversations. Now that Mr. Miller has joined the community he is looking for ways to stay connected to the events, activities, and conversations that are happening in the community.

Scenario
It's second period and it is Mr. Miller's planning period. He opens his e-mail and notices that he has a message from the OLLIE community. He doesn't have much time so he skims the message.

He notices that the message includes a short video about how the community uses announcements and forums. He doesn't have time to view it now, but decides he will take a look at it when he is waiting to pick up his son from basketball practice.

...Fast forward to later in the day...
Mr. Miller has viewed the super short video and learned 

• that as a member of community he will receive announcements via e-mail
• he can review older announcements by locating "Announcements" under the "Resource" heading in the community.
• Announcements are made by the community facilitators.
• Announcements contain useful information about events, activities, and opportunities to engage in conversations about online/blended learning.

View the video on community announcements below.

28 Days of OLLIE: Day 1

Day 1: Becoming a Community Member

Mr. Miller is a middle school teacher and is wanting to blend his instructions, but he doesn't know where to begin. He has heard several of his colleagues talking about OLLIE community and the 28 Days of OLLIE that begins today, Feb. 1.

They explain that the OLLIE community is an online community where individuals who are interested in online or blended instruction can connect with each other. Members they have the opportunity to benefit from each other's ideas and experiences, as well as gain insight into the newest innovations in online learning. It is a great place to ask questions and bounce ideas off others who are expanding their instruction into the online world.
After hearing this, Mr. Miller decides to become an OLLIE community member. He isn't quite sure what he wants from the community or what to expect, but he's willing to give it a try. He:

• Enrolls in the community here.
  
• Introduces himself in the general forum found here.
  
• Pins his location here and learns that there are 3 other teachers in his school who are members of the community.
  
• Learns the lay of the OLLIE community by completing the OLLIE Scavenger Hunt here
  

Later that day he is pleased to see that several community members have replied to his introductory posts, including the community facilitator. He also notices that he has received a badge for completing the OLLIE scavenger hunt.

Be Like Mr. Miller!

• Enroll in the community here
• Introduce yourself in the general forum here
• Pin your location and see where other OLLIE community members are from here
• Earn your Explorer badge by completing the OLLIE community scavenger hunt here

28 Days of OLLIE Starter Kit

AEA PD Online is excited to announce that The 28 Days of OLLIE Starter Kit is now available. 

AEA PD Online has created the 28 Days of OLLIE Starter Kit to help you get started in the OLLIE Community events and conversations during the month of February. The Starter Kit contains 28 days of information, activities, and resources. It doesn’t matter if you want to just observe the community or if you want to jump into all 28 days of learning opportunities, we are confident that you’ll find something that will interest you.

A Conversation with the 2015 iNACOL National Blended & Online Learning Teacher of the Year

The Blackboard K-12 Innovative Teaching series is offing this upcoming webinar.

Need some inspiration?  Join us Monday for a conversation with Paula Barr, the iNACOL Blended & Online Learning Teacher of the Year for 2015. Paula will share her perspective on how blended and online teaching improves student engagement, provides for greater personalization of learning, and how a veteran classroom teacher has adapted to a new teaching and learning environment. Paula will share examples of successes and challenges she experienced in the journey of becoming an outstanding blended learning teacher. Paula recently had the opportunity to meet with and share about personalized learning within the blended learning environment utilizing flipped learning with colleagues at Beijing Normal University in Beijing, China.

Register today.  There are limited seats for this special session. 

AEA PD Online and Heartland AEA are teaming up to provide teachers, instructional coaches and administrators in Heartland AEA with a Blended Learning Cohort. The first learning opportunity in this series is "Blending/Flipping Your Classroom”. This face-to-face three day course for license renewal credit is meant to deepen your learning around blended and flipped classroom models.  The first part of this course looks at specific examples of blended learning and key components of teaching in such a manner.  Throughout all of the coursework, directions are available in an online platform. This is not about a specific Learning Management System (LMS) but instead about the pedagogical changes and tools needed to blend or flip your content.

Learning Goals or Targets

• Participants will apply Blooms Taxonomy to the use of blended or flipped classrooms
• Participants will explore flipped learning opportunities and tools
• Participants will understand the challenges and benefits of various blended learning models
• Participants will explore creating and applying essential questions and connections beyond the school walls
• Participants will learn to weave formative, summative assessments as well as adaptive learning that are well suited to blended and flipped learning environments

Class Dates: March 29, April 20 & May 12, 2016
Class Times: 8:30 AM - 3:30 PM

If you are interested in finding out more or want to sign up for this learning opportunity go to https://prodev.aeapdonline.org/4DCGI/TE106292111601INV&*

More learning opportunities for this cohort on blended learning, instructional design and assessment to follow.

Science Courses for credit and STEM Endorsement

These online science courses have been approved for the STEM Endorsement through Drake University and Grand View College.  If you are interested in taking this class for your knowledge or for to obtain the STEM Endorsement, you can find out more or sign up by clicking on these links:

Inquiry in the Science Classroom-Supporting Science and Engineering Practices-  2 credits Online February 1-March 18, 2016   Activity # 22030399991601

Physical Science for Elementary Teachers  3 credits  June 6-July 29, 2016  Activity #: 22031499991701

Earth Science for Elementary Teachers (K-5) 3 credits  June 13-August 20, 2016  Activity #: 22031999991701

Learning Opportunities for Martin Luther King Jr. Day

edWeb.net is hosting a special event for Martin Luther King Jr. Day!

One size does not fit all when it comes to student learning. This webinar, led by Shanna Peeples, 2015 National Teacher of the Year, is based on her experience as a teacher in Title I middle and high schools, as well as her work with refugee students, English language learners, and students in remedial classes. Shanna encourages teachers to focus on achievement for students in humanizing and empowering ways.

Bringing together the various strands of differentiation, RTI, and other protocols, this session will help teachers and administrators create effective learning experiences for students. Join Shanna for this live, interactive event to learn how to bring out the best in all of your students. She will field questions from attendees after her presentation. This webinar will deliver both practical strategies and inspiration to educators and administrators working toward success for all of their students.
This webinar is January 18, 2016 at 3 pm standard time.  Click here to register for this webinar.

There are a number of online resources available for teachers for Martin Luther King Jr. Day.  Check out some of these links:

• Martin Luther King Jr. Research and Education Institute https://kinginstitute.stanford.edu/king-resources
• NEA  http://www.nea.org/tools/lessons/mlk-day.html
• National Parks Service  http://www.nps.gov/malu/learn/education/lessonplansandteacherguides.htm
• Teacher vision https://www.teachervision.com/martin-luther-king-jr/teacher-resources/6643.html
• Education World http://www.educationworld.com/a_lesson/lesson248.shtml
• Scholastic http://www.scholastic.com/teachers/collection/commemorate-life-dr-martin-luther-king-jr
• Brainpop https://educators.brainpop.com/bp-jr-topic/martin-luther-king-jr/
• Teaching Tolerance http://www.tolerance.org/supplement/dos-and-donts-celebrating-mlk-day
• www.CivilRights.org  http://www.civilrights.org/resources/mlk/
• Discovery Education http://mlk.discoveryeducation.com/