Blended and Online Classroom in the International School - TTC 115

For Teachers of Grades 5 - 12

Unlike all the other TTC courses, the unique content and skills to be learned in this course will be more effectively acquired in the online environment than in our in-person, summer institutes.

Just as in the other TTC courses, participation is exclusively for teachers from international schools.

And unlike many online courses, participants can expect:

  • Individualized feedback - the class will be limited to 15 participants

  • Opportunities to engage with the teacher in real time

  • Projects and practices customized to your setting

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Designing, managing, facilitating and assessing an effective blended and/or online course in an International School setting. 

Course Description

Participants will explore through simulations, online forums, hands on activities, group projects, and multimedia tools  how to design, manage, facilitate and assess an effective blended and/or online course. We will explore and collaborate to understand the key components to design, manage and facilitate a blended and/or online course to enhance student learning. The focus will be on an international school setting taking into account the variables of infrastructure available in different areas of the globe.

Participants will design, facilitate and maintain a blended and/or online portfolio (through a blog) to demonstrate their learning of the essential components of an effective blended and/or online course to support best practice for student learning. In tandem they will also use a current blended and/or online course they are facilitating or develop a blended and/or online course specific to their curricular area to support the participants learning and reflections.

Participants will develop these key learning outcomes:

  • Understand the major trends for effective instruction and learning of online courses in an International School K-12 setting.

  • Examine how current practice in instruction and learning can be integrated in the design, facilitation and delivery of an online course.

  • Review the The International Association for K-12 Online Learning teaching and course design standards and how to integrate these effectively in online teaching course design

  • Identify effective activities/strategies that support student learning and teacher productivity/learning in an online course.

  • Identify effective strategies for differentiated learning that supports student learning and teacher productivity/learning in an online course.

  • Identify the effective features of an online course delivery system to support student learning and teacher productivity/learning in an online course.

  • Engage with technical aspects of Learning Management Systems, video, podcasting, forum, wikis, blogs, social media platforms and other Web 2.0 to support the design of online courses.

  • Utilize current electronic communication platforms and how they can support effective online learning instruction, learning and collaboration.

  • Critique and apply effective assessment and evaluation strategies that support student learning and teacher productivity in an online course

Workflow and Online participation

The course will be run through the PTC Moodle portal. All course participants will be expected to work from the Moodle course in close integration with the Google Apps Education Suite of Applications which are integrated into the Moodle Course.

It is expected that course participants have a very reliable internet connection 24/7. This course is 100% online. Participants will need to be well versed in using information technology tools, Google Apps Education Suite and multimedia tools.

Course participants are required to have the following 1 full week prior to starting the course

  • Gmail account

  • Twitter Account

  • Diigo Account

  • A skype account

  • A Professional Blog space (Wordpress, Blogger, LiveType or similar) where all assignments, group projects, reflection and multimedia project will be posted.

  • A current blended and/or online course created and facilitated by you in your school

 For participants who do not have such a course you will be then expected to build one throughout the course to then be used for a course facilitated by you at your school

Course Facilitator

All communication with Course facilitator, John Mikton is via

  • Email

  • Google chat (Google Apps Edu,)

  • Nuts and Bolts Discussion Form (Moodle)

  • Periodic pre-planned skype calls

John Mikton is an Apple Distinguished Educator and Google Apps for Education Certified Trainer. He is the current Chair of the ECIS ICT Committee. John works as the Director of Information Technology at the International School of Prague, in the Czech Republic. John has worked in Tanzania, China and Japan at International Schools. Previous to this John worked in television and print advertising in Switzerland  and  the United States.  John runs http://beyonddigital.org/ and http://beyonddigitalworkshops.org and contributes monthly to http://tek-tips.nethawk.net/ and writes http://ecisitcommittee.edublogs.org/.