Renee Citlau and her colleagues at Cypress High School in Anaheim, California, were puzzled why a student was performing much better in the online class Citlau taught than in his face-to-face classes, so she asked him why. The answer was heartbreaking.

“I feel more comfortable in my online class because no one can hear my voice and make fun of my accent.”

Renee Citlau, the 2013 Online Teacher of the Year, tells that story not to pull at heartstrings, but to demonstrate the potential of online classes to encourage student engagement and foster a sense of community.

“In the online classroom, it’s so important that community is developed, and we know that because we really have to work at making that online course engaging, or our students aren’t going to come back,” she said.

Renee, an online business teacher at Cypress High School, spearheaded the Anaheim Union High School District’s online program in 2007, and now helps her fellow teachers incorporate online tools into their classrooms. She uses Blackboard Collaborate to meet with students in her online classes through weekly virtual sessions.

We had the honor of sitting down with Renee in our Washington, D.C., offices and hearing from the best in the business what classroom teachers can learn from online teachers. Watch Renee explain the importance of developing community in online classes:

To learn more, check out EdTech: Focus on K-12’s interview with Renee on 5 Must-Have Elements for Every Online Class.

You’ve already embraced the idea of using technology in the classroom. And hopefully your school uses an online learning solution like Blackboard Learn or Blackboard Collaborate to connect with students anytime, anywhere.  After all, the data suggests today’s students are adopting technology at dizzying speeds.  Here are three things to help you make the most of tech in the classroom inspired by some top education technology bloggers.

#1: According to the 21^st Century Principal, educators need to be savvy about going beyond test scores as a measurement of successful tech implementation. “Test scores provide valuable information but they are not the only measure of effectiveness. School leaders who always want to know, ‘Will it increase test scores?’ aren’t really interested in successful technology infusion and tech implementation anyway.” Using technology builds life-skills that set students up for long-term success.

Companies tend to say “new” a lot, even when there is not a lot new or different in their product. To me, it is a bit like the boy crying wolf. Blackboard’s new innovation plan is quite new, however. Instead of building new features that would help administrators, teachers, and students 2x/year, we are now doing it every month. That way we can get you what you need faster.

There are several new features in Learn SP10 that are particularly exciting for me as I think about how our K-12 clients are using Learn.

We all make decisions based on factual information.  We get factual information from research and data.  And when it comes to data on education technology, the numbers say a lot about the growing demand for technology in the classroom.

Recently, Blackboard partnered with Project Tomorrow to delve deeper into demands for online education.  The findings? More than two thirds of administrators and almost half of students in grades 6-12 (45 percent) and their parents (46 percent) voiced support for requiring high school students to take an online class in order to graduate.  And there’s more:

• 84 percent of principals who endorse devices in the classroom believe they increase student engagement in learning
• 87 percent of parents say that the effective implementation of technology within instruction is important to their child’s success (50 percent label it as “extremely important”).

Guest blog post by John Watson. John is the founder of the Evergreen Education Group. He started consulting in 2000 after serving as director of business development and consultant for eCollege, where he helped educational organizations launch their online programs and was instrumental in developing the company’s K-12 strategy. John and Evergreen’s work has been cited in the New York Times, Education Week, and eSchool News, he has appeared on NBC Nightly News, and he has presented numerous times at the Virtual School Symposium of the International Association for K-12 Online Learning, Technology and Leadership Conference of the National School Boards Association, and other conferences. Prior to online learning, John worked in environmental consulting, environmental education, and a variety of other education, environmental, and travel-related fields. John holds a BA from Middlebury College and an MS and MBA from the University of Michigan.

On behalf of our 14 terrific sponsors, Evergreen Education Group is thrilled to announce the release of Keeping Pace with Online and Blended Learning: A Guide to Policy and Practice 2012 in conjunction with iNACOL’s Virtual School Symposium, being held this week in New Orleans.

Keeping Pace strives to be a resource for K-12 online and blended learning practitioners and policy makers around the country. We work with programs, districts, LEAs, state agencies, and other online organizations in every state to bring you the most up-to-date information possible. Highlights from this year’s report include: