K-12

At ISTE this past June, I had the opportunity to meet Cybrary Man. Cybrary Man (a portmanteau of Cyber and Library) is Jerry Blumengarten, a former New York state-based educator who spent years compiling educational resources from around the web and then sorted them by subject area and audience type on his blog.

He has a cult-like following in the K-12 community and it’s easy to understand why – he offers an endless number of instructive content and resources for teachers, browsing sites made by academics, educators, and students. Despite its 1.0 look, it’s really one of the best resources I’ve come across in a long time.

If you’re not familiar…

What I love about the Cybrary Man site is its simplicity and its expansiveness. The site is broken down into sections by audience – Parents, Students, Educators and General Interest. One of my favorite topics is on the Flipped Classroom.  The premise of making lectures the homework and using class time for more interactive learning is one we discuss frequently on the Blackboard blog, as well.  Cybrary Man has compiled an extensive list of resources on the topic from articles, to podcasts, to people to follow on Twitter.

Cybrary Man is a resource that’s both fun to explore and educational.  See for yourself!

The debate over the value of online learning has been going on for a while now – and has featured speculation from many critics who assume that there is no way that online education can fulfill the educational needs of today’s students, and vocal support from many who tout the importance of online learning platforms for education today. While there may be a few conversational tactics to address the doubters – the supporters of online education are getting a boost from a study released over the summer.

Daniel Willingham, a cognitive scientist recently contributed to The Washington Post’s “The Answer Sheet” blog, mentioning the possibility that students are more successful in school when they’re motivated by cash, prizes or other tangible goods, rather than by learning for learning’s sake.  Willingham points to a study by Freakonomic’s author Steven Levitt, which found that students did actually perform better with a payoff tied to good performance.

Summer is wrapping up. You’ve put away the inflatable pool, put the cover on the grill and you’re getting ready to retire your t-shirts and shorts: school is about to begin again.  Back-to-school season is the perfect time to prepare for new online students and take into consideration how to engage active learners.

We’ve put together our top three ways to prepare for online higher-education students, as they return to the digital classroom:

Let’s face it – it’s not just the students checking their Facebook accounts and watching videos on YouTube these days.  So why wouldn’t we transition these tools to education delivery?  Looks like these worlds are crossing more often than we think!