Online Learning
News
www.milearnsonline.org
Week of February 15, 16
Below is a collection of news items about online learning, online/blended learning courses and
resources that can support online learning that were gathered the week beginning February 15, 16
More Information about online learning and online learning material can be found at
www.milearnsonline.org
This MILearnsOnline Newsletter contains links to the articles in the following areas:
About Instruction
Policy/Programming
Technology
Don’t Forget
About Instruction
 Chatting online at school to sharpen critical reading skills
Students at Ngee Ann Secondary School often chat online in class, with their teachers’ encouragement.
The Tampines school recently developed a Web-based reading and learning analytics programme that
develops students’ critical reading skills.
The programme, used for subjects such as English throughout the year, allows students to use their mobile
devices and read uploaded materials, on topics such as abortion and Singapore’s education system, on the
WiRead platform. They then consider the text’s finer details such as the purpose, assumptions and points of
views, before sharing their answers with their peers online.
 Blended Learning ToolKit- Webinar Sessions 03-05
The Blended Learning Toolkit was prepared by the University of Central Florida (UCF) and the American
Association of State Colleges and Universities (AASCU) with funding from the Next Generation Learning
Challenges (NGLC). It is provided as an open educational resource under a Creative Commons AttributionNonCommercial-ShareAlike license.
The 20 to 30 minute webinar session recordings include (you may have to copy and past the URL into
the browser):

BlendKit Course 2015 - Session05: Quality Assurance in Blended Learning
https://blended.online.ucf.edu/podcast-blendkit-course/bk15-05/

BlendKit Course 2015 - Session04:Blended Content and Assignment
https://blended.online.ucf.edu/podcast-blendkit-course/bk15-04/

BlendKit Course 2015 - Session03:Blended Assessments of Learning
https://blended.online.ucf.edu/podcast-blendkit-course/bk15-03/
 12 Onramps for Personalized and Competency-based Learning
Your school, program, or college has probably seen improvement in learner access to technology in the last
few years (although it may still be an EdTech mess of devices and apps). But you may still be looking for
ways to achieve real personalization in path and pace. It turns out that developing competency-based
models where learners progress based on demonstrated mastery is a lot harder than adding devices.
Policy
 Enrollment in online courses rises, but their importance to academic chiefs wanes
The number of students in online courses continues to rise, even as higher-education enrollment is
declining—but enthusiasm for them appears to be waning slightly among some university leaders,
according to an annual survey.
About 63 percent of chief academic officers consider the likes of massive open online courses, or MOOCS,
to be critical to their institutions’ long-term strategies, down from 71 percent last year, the survey, by the
Babson Survey Research Group, found.
Twenty-nine percent say the outcomes are inferior to those of face-to-face instruction, up from 26
percent the year before.
 New Blog Series: Promising Policies for Personalized Learning
iNACOL is launching a new blog series to provide analysis on supportive policies and approaches to enable
and catalyze high-quality personalized learning. In our work, we are working with state policy leaders
interested in how to best support K-12 educators personalizing learning for each student’s needs.
 What Learning Will Look Like in 2035
We’re living through a revolution in how human beings learn and develop. We’re two decades into the
‘anyone can learn anything’ era and it’s translating into big changes in formal education worldwide.
Unbelievable progress will be made in the next two decades. For example, my grandkids will be able to vote
about the time that artificial intelligence becomes smarter than we are.
 Meaning Matters: Defining and Differentiating Personalized Learning, Blended Learning and Competency
Education
For the first time in history, we have the opportunity to offer every child a world-class, student-centered
education through competency-based, blended and online learning, providing every learner with powerful,
personalized learning experiences. However, for the past several years, the fields of personalized learning,
blended learning and competency education were having definitional issues, with the terms often used
interchangeably or without thorough understanding.
Technology
 Project Management Tools for School and Work
In an effort to continue working smarter, not harder, our team has been trying out some new task and
project management tools. Being organized and communicating well is essential for success with team
members in four time zones.
Top
And Don’t Forget:


February 24 at 4PM, Webinar at which Jay Miller, Counselor from Dewitt Public Schools will be
responding to questions regarding the Counselors role in helping the online learner.
http://tinyurl.com/LearnMLO2015-16
The MiLearns Online Newsletter is archived at:
http://tinyurl.com/MLONewsArchive
Watch your teacher colleague talk about how they do online blended learning.
http://tinyurl.com/MLOHybred-BlendedLearning

Learn to share courses at:
www.milearnsonline.org/giveandget