eLearning Opportunities Grand Canyon University Tech 511

1. eLearning OpportunitiesGrand Canyon UniversityTech 511 By: Jennifer Bradley, Tammy Butler, Heidi Gruhn& Jessica Roberts

2. Introduction With the arrival of Web 2.0, distance learning has evolved to produce what is now called, “eLearning”. This is basically education delivered via the world wide web. The revolutionary new tools associated with eLearning provide unprecedented flexibility. This new teaching environment may solve a number of problems that schools face today (i.e. scheduling, overcrowding, 21st century-learners, etc.). In an effort to study these eLearning technologies for our own classroom use, this group looked within our local schools and communities to compile a list of opportunities already available. This presentation documents our findings.

3. ed2go.com • Delivery: Ed2go courses are completely online. • Platform: Windows and Microsoft OS • Audience: Courses are available for students 17 and up, but there are several teacher training courses like: Differentiated Instruction in the Classroom, Web 2.0: Blogs, Wikis and Podcasts, Integrating Technology in the Classroom and etc. • Access: Students access these highly interactive courses through a college/company website or directly through ed2go.com. • Price: Prices vary according to school. Piedmont Community College offers classes for as low as $65. • Other: Classes start every month! Link to ed2go.com

4. Delivery: Online or as a hybrid course. • Platform: compatible with Windows and Microsoft • Audience: Teachers can design completely online classrooms or online supplement areas for k-12 students. • Access: Teachers and students access their classrooms through haiku using user names and passwords. • Price: The price ranges from free for 1 class with 100 users… to $8 per user. See prices. Link to Haiku

5. Vidcasts or Webcasts • Delivery: Online video lessons. • Platform: compatible with Windows and Microsoft, usually broadcasted as a WMV or MOV file. • Audience: Anyone can produce these instructional videos and broadcast or post them on the internet. These can be great supplements to lessons, or they can actually replace teacher-centered lectures. • Access: Teachers can find these videos in a variety of places like You Tube, United Streaming or Yodio. • Price: Usually, these video lessons are free. Creating these for your classroom can also be done cheaply if you already have a device that takes video. (Most phones do.) Simple editing software can be downloaded for free too! Photo courtesy of www.digitalproductionme.com

6. Delivery: Think Central works with Houghton Mifflin text book programs. It has both online and hard copy materials. Platform: Think Central is a web based program with both interactive materials and ebooks. Audience: Think Central has materials for grade levels K-6. Access: Students log on to the site and use a unique login and password. Price: Think Central costs approximately $780 per grade level for the online materials alone. Other: Think Central allows for teachers to give online assessments and from the results it gives intervention prescriptions to assign to students. http://www.thinkcentral.com/index.htm

7. Delivery: Florida Virtual School (FLVS) is a classroom with a blend of online and offline content and phone or chat conferences. • Platform: FLVS uses K12 learning curriculum and web access to retrieve assignments and materials. • FLVS full time curriculum is partnered with the Connections Academy. • Audience: FLVS is primarily geared at part-time students and some full time students mostly in Florida, but it is available worldwide. • Access: Students access all of their materials through the FLVS website, but additionally keep logs and complete offline assignments. Students also have phone conferences with teachers regularly which may include oral exams. • Price: Florida Residents can attend at no cost, for any other students it is $375 per class per semester. AP classes are an additional $25. • Other: Students have teachers phone numbers to contact at any time. • Full time students can arrange to meet with others on organized field trips. Clubs and organizations are also available. http://flvs.net/Pages/default.aspx http://www.flvsft.com/ http://www.connectionsacademy.com/home.aspx http://www.k12.com/

8. Delivery: Online , with printable activities and quizes Platform: Website compatible with most browsers Audience: Teachers supplement areas for k-12 students, or design their own lessons and activities. Access: Teachers and students access their classrooms through BrainPOP using user names and passwords. Price: The price for the school combo (BrainPOP Jr., BrainPOP and BrainPOPEspanol) is $1,495 / year. There are lesson plans available that are created both by the site and submitted by other educators. http://www.brainpop.com/

9. iTunes U Delivery:Public or internal access internet access. Platform: With an iTunes U site, an institution has a single home for digital content, which can be easily downloaded and viewed on any Mac, PC, iPod, or iPhone. Audience: Students of all ages and abilities. Access: accessible through iTunes, an application many students are already using. So it’s easy and intuitive for them to find what they’re looking for. Price: an iTunes U site is free. The content can be open to the public or you can customize it and make it available through the iTunes store. Other: With support for both the PDF and ePub file formats, iTunes U can also be used to distribute schedules, syllabi, lecture outlines, study guides, notes, maps — even entire books.

10. Skype Delivery: Computer, phone, T.V. Platform: Windows, Mac, Linux, iPhone, Android, Symbian mobile, Samsung, Panasonic Audience: Anyone looking to communicate or collaborate. In education: all learners. Access: Computer, smart phones, some televisions. Price: Free, Pay as You go, or subscriptions. Other: Can be used for inclusion in your classroom to a connect student from home. See blog: http://blogs.skype.com/en/2007/04/inclusion_helping_a_classmate.html

11. PBS Teachers LIVE! Delivery: Online Webinars and resources. Platform: Mac, PC, any internet provider. Audience: Educators/Students Access: PBS Teachers enjoy access to all of our FREE services, including the PBS Teachers online community, where preK-12 educators can collaborate with their peers, discuss digital media use, and "save" online instructional resources Price: Free and includes PBS Educational Media website discount of 15%. Other: These webinars feature leading education technology experts and PBS producers sharing resources and strategies to help teachers use digital media to engage students in rich learning experiences.

12. Delivery: Gmail is available online at gmail.com. Platform: Gmail is a service online that combines the best features of traditional email with lots of extras, including document creation and storage, calendars and a webpage builder. Audience: Gmail is a service that would benefit a variety of users from middle school and up. Access: Teachers and students can sign up on gmail.com, creating a username and password. Price: Gmail is a free service with internet access Other: Gmail includes Google docs, calendars and sites. Google docs is a convenient place to share documents with students or vice versa. Google sites is helpful for teachers in creating class websites consisting of information and daily lessons. Google calendars is helpful when assigning due dates to projects. They all can be shared within Gmail.

13. Delivery: Anywhere internet is available Platform:Moodle is an open-source, e-Learning software. It is mostly used for online learning, however in most cases Moodle is used to support and combine face-to-face interaction with e-learning. Audience: Late elementary and up. Teachers and students can both benefit from using this site. Access: As long as internet is available, teachers are able to upload and edit content for their classes. Students can access virtually anywhere, working on class readings, lessons, quizzes and discussions Price: FREE! Other: Moodle is a sort of virtual learning environment where teachers can upload a variety of information for their courses, creating a simple webpage for their courses including lessons, discussion forums, quizzes, etc. The advantage of this is that it can serve as an additional tool for content delivery.

14. Delivery: iQity is an online program that serves as an independent classroom for students. Platform: An eLearning platform available at iqity.net. Audience: Middle and high school students and teachers. Access: Students and teachers have access anywhere that internet is available. Price: The price varies. iQity charges a fee for each individual student account. Other: The IQity e‐Learning platform is a complete educational system that accentuates or enables any learning environment – from simple instructional to an entirely distance‐learning situation. The benefits offered by both the traditional classroom and online learning. The site is beneficial for students who benefit more from independent learning.

15. Conclusion E-learning is becoming ever more present in the classroom with each passing year. In order to prepare our students to be successful 21st Century learners, educators need to let go of past teaching methods and embrace the tools that are available. To reach our students we need to use methods that are compatible to their learning styles, this is where eLearning comes in. Problem solving, application and critical thinking skills are the tools our students need to master in order to be competitive in the future. The more eLearning that is utilized now, the more prepared our student will be for life. The future of education is in our hands.

16. Bibliography ThinkCentral (2010), Retrieved from: http://www.thinkcentral.com/index.htm Google (2011), Retrieved from: http://mail.google.com/support/ Moodle, (Dec 2010), Retrieved from: http://docs.moodle.org/en/Teaching_FAQ Florida Virtual Schools (2011), Retrieved from: http://flvs.net/Pages/default.aspx Florida Virtual Schools Full Time (2011), Retrieved from: http://www.flvsft.com/ Connections Academy (2011), Retrieved from: http://www.connectionsacademy.com/home.aspx iQity Learning Suite (2005-2011). Retrieved from: http://www.iq-ity.com/platform.aspx K12 (2010), Retrieved from: http://www.k12.com// Haiku Learning Management System (2010) Retrieved from: http://www.haikulearning.com/ Ed2go (1997), Retrieved from: http://www.ed2go.com/ iTunes U (2011). Retrieved from: http://apple.com/education/itunes-u/ Skype (2011). Retrived from: http://www.skype.com/intl/en/home?intcmp=wlogo Teachers Live (2011). Retrieved from: http://www.pbs.org/teachers/webinar

17. Bibliography Egbert, Joy. (2009) Supporting Learning with Technology. New Jersey, Pearson Prentice Hall Images • (Slide 3) http://www.digitalproductionme.com • All other images are from the listed website