The Virtual School Symposium (VSS) is right around the corner, and I look forward to joining the hundreds of K-12 education leaders from across the country and beyond to discuss the challenges, successes and innovations around online and blended learning.

In the midst of preparing for VSS, I stopped for a moment to reflect on this year’s conference theme, “Inventing the Future of Learning.” I couldn’t help but smile and think of Blackboard’s own vision, “Let’s Build a Better Education Experience.”  Both themes are forward looking. Both acknowledge that previous methods and tools for learning need to adapt to the needs and expectations of today’s active learners.

August has been declared Connected Educator Month by the US Department of Education, and we’ve been actively following the conversation through the first part of the month on Twitter (#CE12).

According to the DOE, the idea behind Connected Educator Month is:
“Online communities and learning networks already help hundreds of thousands of educators by providing ‘just in time’ access to knowledge and opportunities for collaboration, and by reducing isolation. Expanding participation will allow more people to realize the full benefits of this arena for professional learning and collaboration,” (read the full press release).

To commemorate, we thought we’d share five easy ways for you to observe:

I was fortunate to attend an excellent panel discussion at Bbworld a few weeks ago entitled, “How to Build a Virtual School.” The panel was made of up five virtual learning experts, including Tambre Tondryk of Clark County Public Schools’ Virtual High School, Jack Hawkins and Doug Renfro of Metropolitan Nashville Public Schools’ Virtual School, and Linda Schriver and Ruth Paine of Clay County Public Schools’ Clay Virtual Academy.

While each virtual school represented came about for unique reasons and through various state legislation, they all have a common denominator: “It always starts from the top.” Every panelist agreed that in order for a virtual school to be successful, the first step is to get buy-in from executive administration. From there, you’ll receive the financial, technological and institutional support required to get your program off the ground and running.

The following post is written by guest blogger Leslie Fetzer,  Occupational Course of Study Biology Teacher at North Carolina Virtual Public Schools and the 2012 iNACOL/SREB National Online Teacher of the Year. I have always been of the mind that giving a textbook to students with the instruction to read is not teaching. This is even truer online. Ebooks have their place, but not as the foundation of a good online course. Online courses should allow students to see, hear, read, and experience content in multiple ways. New Web 2.0 tools are popping up at an exciting pace giving teachers an array of options for presenting content through different media. With so much available, it can sometimes be tempting to search for or buy in to what is already out there, but the truth of the matter is that sometimes what is out there may not be exactly right for the content or for the student. In fact, it can often take longer to search for and preview pre-existing content versus creating your own content personalized for individual students. Here are just a few tips for developing a good online course:

There is a constant buzz in the Blackboard DC office this time of year – the BbWorld Buzz. It seems like everyone has a hand in planning this year’s conference. Whether coordinating with clients on sessions, brainstorming ideas for focus group topics or creating beautiful designs for the exhibit hall displays, there’s a lot going on here! With so many people working on BbWorld, it’s bound to be one of our best conferences yet. So why should you attend BbWorld 2012 in New Orleans this summer? There are plenty of reasons to name, but we’ve narrowed it down to a digestible Top Five. Take a look at the brief presentation below, and then decide – “Will I be at BbWorld in July?” I hope the answer is, “Most definitely, yes!”