K-12

We asked teachers to brag about their classrooms, which now gives us the chance to brag about teachers.

Blackboard K-12 held a blog contest to give schools a chance to tell us about technology strategies they’ve implemented to engage students in new ways. We are proud to announce our two #BragAboutYourClassroom blog contest winners.

Congratulations Grand Prize Winner Carol Cochuyt!

Carol grew up on a small family farm outside of Orion, Illinois and graduated from Orion High School, Black Hawk College, and Western Illinois University. Yes, that does mean her students learn how to make butter every year – even her virtual students! She is certified by the National Board for Professional Teaching Standards as an Early Childhood Generalist. Carol serves as the K-2 Department Head at Clay Virtual Academy, which is a part of the Clay County School District in Florida. Currently her Kindergarten students are meeting in the Virtual Classroom daily to practice their Completion Ceremony songs.

Read Carol’s winning blog: I’m Proud to be a Virtual Kindergarten Teacher

Congratulations Runner-Up Elissa Raffa!

Elissa Raffa has a B.S. in Secondary Science Education and an M.F.A. in Creative and Professional Writing, both from the University of Minnesota. She is licensed as a school superintendent as well as a teacher of physical science, physics and chemistry. A founding director of Minnesota Online High School, Ms. Raffa has been active in arts education as well as science education. Before starting MNOHS, she developed and taught courses for seven years with the Mindquest Learning Network in Bloomington and for twelve years at Loring Nicollet Alternative School in Minneapolis. She is a member of the Minnesota Online Learning Advisory Council and has been active state-wide in preparing pre-service and in-service teachers for the rigors of online education. During her first seven years at MNOHS, Ms. Raffa supervised the faculty and the learning program, and guided the development of high-quality, interactive online instruction and assessment in all content areas, using state-of-the-art technologies. She began serving as Executive Director in August, 2012.

Read Elissa’s blog: Traffic Cop: My love affair with webinar

Thank you to all of our #BragAboutYourClassroom blog contest participants.

To see how we are closing the gap between the way students live and the way they learn, follow @Blackboardk12..

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.

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”).

Just because something is getting a sudden burst of attention, does not mean it’s a passing fad. And that’s what we’ve tried to prove about social learning over the past few weeks. (Ex: Myth 1 – Social learning isn’t new!)

So, what gives social learning this broad appeal and staying power? Multiple studies and stories confirm students’ increased immersion in technology gives them the experiences, relationships, and stimulation that helps them stay better engaged in their learning experience, plus these technologies are something they are increasingly unable to live without.

Social learning is not going away, and in fact, it will continue to be bolstered by technology and students’ adoption of it.

Our fourth and final myth busted here: Social Learning Doesn’t Have Broad Appeal