 Figure 1: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:1_nOmfBUSJI6V2G26EgKNpbQ.png by Antniogonzals For me, blended learning has always been a necessity because it adds another element of creativity, provides otherwise unreachable resources, and promotes collaboration in education. It also allows for multiple kinds of learning environments to help differentiate instruction. Moving from brick-and-mortar classrooms and blended learning to solely online education was not where I thought I was heading when I set out to be a teacher years ago, but it has changed my perception of what learning looks like and also made me a more flexible and mindful curriculum designer. When I started, there were some undeniably frustrating days. How do I reach students? How do I keep them engaged? How do I know they are learning? As I progressed, I reminded myself, these are the questions every teacher must face every year no matter how the curriculum is presented. There are simply different ways of observing what is successful and who needs support. It is up to us as educators to develop a course design that encourages and provides resources to foster the best possible learning experience for every student no matter what way the curriculum is presented. And then COVID-19 happened. Even though I am an online educator with my curriculum housed in Moodle, I still was not ready for this challenge. Although not a typical to an online teaching experience, I was used to meeting with my students whenever possible to check in, to see facial expressions, and make personal connections. That loss was palpable. These changes have made it apparent how valuable it is for educators to be able to go seamlessly from an in-person to online to offline experience. Of course, few if any are there yet, but I think this needs to be part of our new-found educational literacy in the teaching world. The set-up is difficult, but the results are undeniably valuable now and even when we are back in classrooms. Setting up our classrooms to be both online and in person, having that flexibility, is important for students who are at home because they are on medical leave, for parents wanting to check in, for collaboration with colleagues, students, and parents, and for having a supply of back-up resources ready for every situation. It’s valuable for substitute teachers. It’s valuable for teachers in the moment who need to differentiate instruction. Here are some scenarios. Did Johnny fail a test on algebra? I have a tutorial for that. Did Anika struggle with synonyms? I have an interactive video for that. Today, I need to have individual meetings with my students, but I want anyone not meeting with me to work on another assignment. There’s a simple solution because there are projects, readings, and activities ready to go in their online course. As it happens, this online course also hosts audio files, transcripts, and has printable and downloadable materials so that students without internet can take materials home on their school provided device or to their personal computer. Do I need my student to catch up on a lesson, unit, or semester they need to retake? Well, I have a credit recovery options available. Are a few students way ahead? That’s great because I can open a section in my online course that has extra resources, so the student remains engaged. I can do all of this because I already have my collection of tools, resources, curriculum, and my course designed in an online space where students and parents can go to seek guidance, examples, and choose the next step in their educational experience. Many educators have gradually started this process well before now and have some online space set aside with supplementary materials, lesson plan outlines, and activities. but most of us were not ready to teach everything this way. And for classes like welding and physical education, there may not be experiences that compare with hands-on education until we get advanced virtual reality capabilities, but there are still detailed and complementary online curriculums that can reinforce previous or prepare for future educational experiences. The good thing is that we have a lot of tools to make online education a wonderful addition to our classrooms, even if we don’t yet have the infrastructure.  Figure 2: https://www.pikist.com/free-photo-ssdep I work in distance learning at CA BOCES, so I know that through Learning Resources, it’s possible to find content for all types of classes – core, electives, AP, honors, CTE, and credit recovery. This is an invaluable tool chest because educators are juggling so much right now. We don’t have time to transfer all of our content into an online compatible form, try to reach all of our students at home, learn new technologies on the fly, continue to teach regular classes, prepare new material, and learn how to set up a course immediately all while keeping up with our own families. We have all tried and as successful as possible, but if you’re like me there is always more that’s possible and always a way to improve. If your district belongs to the DL COSER, CA BOCES might be able to help provide pre-made curriculum and as educators, we can supplement with our own material until we have time to create our own online classes.
I’ve found that the curriculum is excellent. It was created by education experts and is updated regularly to make sure that it’s current. Further, it includes resources that would take teachers months to gather. When I’ve used it, I’ve kept what I like, and added my own materials based on my expertise. Maybe as a teacher, I know that I have a better assessment or direct instruction, or my co-teacher has personal experiences that are invaluable to the learning experience, so I add those into my course. Maybe it’s clear that you know exactly how to engage your students, so you replace or add to the provider’s content with your own short videos. There are so many options and what I’ve learned using online content is that I don’t have to do everything. I can rely on my strengths, my knowledge of students and their lives, and my ability to tailor the best educational experience for students and I don’t have sacrifice parts when something unexpected happens. And to add to that, I can reach out to specialists at CA BOCES and get wonderful professional development on how to work in Moodle or another online platform, to help me make changes to my courses, to implement new digital resources, and to be ready in this interconnected and blended world. That is truly a blessing during this time of change and unpredictability. By: Christina McGee, CA BOCES Learning Resources
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We are always looking for ways to improve our Moodle instance and this spring has been no different. We have added two features that will provide additional support for our students and out teachers. ReadSpeaker and DocReader are both available for student support. Intelliboard offers data reports that will support teachers as they monitor student engagement with the course content. You will find more information about each in the paragraphs below. ReadSpeaker is a block that will appear on each page of your course. You may need to change the Appearance of your course if you don’t see any blocks. Clean is a good option if you need to make a change. Contact Karen Insley or Carrie Oliver if you need any help with changing the appearance. The DocReader icon will appear automatically to the right of any document you have in your course. This will read any document, allow students to highlight text and make notes from the highlighted text and much more. Here are the links to the playlists and the downloadable package.
Intelliboard will appear as the Instructor Dashboard on the left hand side of the teacher’s screen, near where your courses are listed. When you select the Instructor Dashboard you will see a visual representation of student interaction and engagement. There are also reports that you can select from for each of your courses. The resources below will give you further guidance on what is available and how to access it as a valuable resource for you.
Please contact us if you have any questions or would like some training! By: Karen Insley, CA BOCES Learning Resources
 In my short experience working with the Instructional Support Services Team and being introduced to the online world that is available to our students, I have come to realize that I could have done so much more for my students in the classroom. OK…. OK…. Don’t get all in a bunch!! I know that for us educators, doing more is always included when we are preparing for our classrooms of students each day…… BUT …… had I known about MOODLE I could have created blended learning experiences that also made my valuable time more efficiently used. Possibly even giving me some self-care time!! I have been working and creating course work in MOODLE for the past few months, as well as completing some of free training that is available to help maneuver all the options within MOODLE. Of course…..it is something that will need to be created and set up, but once it is done it will allow for more time. Great resource and great experience for inclusion of the classroom. We are always available to assist with any questions or concerns.
By: Lisa Scott, CA BOCES Learning Resources
 Have you ever taken an online course? Do you have any idea what is available in the catalogues of online providers? Well… I sure didn’t have any idea of the range of availability to our students. I entered into a new position this school year with Instructional Support Services Division as a Distance Learning teacher for Learning Resources, and let me share with you that I am very excited and in awe of what I can now help offer to our students through CABOCES. Even amongst all of the overwhelming moments that the new school year brings I am HOOKED ONLINE and sinker!!  As I started being introduced to the inclusions of the position, I began to realize all that was available and waiting for students to utilize. The course catalogues, with content areas across the board, displayed on the website and promising to enhance the educational experience in addition to the core and elective selections offered within their district. I would encourage you to take a moment and browse the listings, share it with your friends, coworkers, even your children at home. The students are supported through the Learning Resources department with any technical difficulties or questions as well as communications with course instructors as needed. It gives the students more choices, individual learning skillbuilding, and support as needed. What more could they want ?? 😊
I look forward to working with all the students in all the districts who are taking advantage of this wonderful opportunity. If you have not done so already, take time to check out the long list of opportunities available to our students. Pass the line (HAHA).... and enjoy the atmosphere of being HOOKED ONLINE for learning. By: Lisa Scott, CA BOCES Learning Resources We have been busy with two new improvements in Moodle this summer. First, we have upgraded our Moodle site to version 3.6. New features in Moodle include:
Second, we have partnered with Intelliboard to provide Moodle instructors with a dashboard that will display course information. Intelliboard offers an abundance of instant data from your course which provides instructors with real time data on student progress, completed assignments, and a big picture view of the course. Reports can be generated that provide detailed and specific information about the course and the participating students.  Both of these improvements are value added to our already free Moodle site. You can learn more about any of these at our Moodle Users workshop on Wednesday, August 28th or contact Karen Insley at karen_insley@caboces.org. To register for the workshop, have your district representative register you at: www.register.caboces.org. By: Karen Insley, CA BOCES Learning Resources
 Moodle is a learning management system that is free, supported locally and readily available to component districts in the Distance Learning CoSer. Not only can you share documents or artifacts in your course, but you can add journals, discussion boards, videos, quizzes/tests, poll and much more to encourage interaction between you and your students, your students and the content, and student to student. Moodle will even grade assignments for you, after you set up the assignment to do so. To learn more about how to access Moodle or how it could benefit you and your students contact Karen Insley: karen_insley@caboces.org. You can also access Moodle via guest access at moodle.caboces.org/demo and log in as a guest. Current uses of Moodle across our region:
 Future uses of Moodle across our region:
How will you use Moodle to benefit your students and yourself? By: Karen Insley, CA BOCES Learning Resources
Imagine, if you can, a world where teachers are given choice in their professional development, where they lead their own research and collaborate with others to hone their craft. You wouldn’t have to imagine too much if you are familiar with the Collaborative Research and Development Professional Development instituted by the administrative team at the Wellsville Secondary School of Mary Ellen O’Connell (Secondary Principal), Jason Mank (Assistant Principal) and Rick Bull (Assistant Principal).
After some initial planning and collaboration by the administrative team, Mary Ellen contacted me with the idea and from there we created a Moodle course on Poverty around Poor Students, Rich Teaching by Eric Jensen, a FlipGrid component (thanks to Mark Beckwith for this idea and support) for reflection and as an instructional classroom tool. The team’s vision was to create opportunities for teachers to select to collaborate with others in their building around their four main initiatives for the year poverty, assessment, PBL and positive relationships with students and families. Teachers may be researching and collaborating around something they saw at a BOCES workshop, or a conference or that they read about and want to dig into deeper. Mary Ellen created the opportunity for that research to happen for them by replacing three faculty meetings with three hours of collaborative research and development with a requirement to use FlipGrid to share their learning and reflect on their practice. Teachers have four checkpoints (30-60 second videos) along the way where they get to share their learning and how they apply new knowledge their classroom practice. To date, the administrative team has seen an increase in general collaboration among colleagues, an increase in FlipGrid use as an instructional tool by teachers in their classrooms and a deeper dive by teachers into areas of interest based on instruction or content. Mary Ellen stated “The engagement and interaction on FlipGrid has been unbelievable! We have only completed two of the four “checkpoints” and already my faculty has accumulated 3,500 views and over 21 hours of time online learning from each other’s research. It is clear they enjoy learning from each other’s experiences and research. I’m also very sure they love not attending traditional faculty meetings and they are having fun with the flipGrid format.” If you had a chance to read the ASCD Educational Leadership journal When Teachers Lead their Own Learning in November 2018 you can note some of the same elements (choice, flexibility, personalization) from those articles in the work that the administrative team from the Wellsville Secondary School has created for their building. Change can be good! By: Karen Insley, CA BOCES Learning Resources |
