Locate online learning references for students, parents and educators. Find links to
Minnesota based and national resources providing general information
about online learning as well as teaching websites, quality measures
and rubrics, cost guidelines and strategies.
Minnesota resources
ATLAS Academy Website
ATLAS (Arrowhead Technology Literacy Association of Schools) introduces the academy’s curriculum repository of lesson plans along with online resources for teachers, students and libraries.
Minnesota Department of Education – Online Learning
The official website of the Minnesota Department of Education. General information about online learning plus State statutes, forms and resources.
Minnesota Online Learning Alliance (MNOLA)
MNOLA fosters and enriches student
learning by promoting and supporting the viability of quality K-12 online programs
throughout Minnesota.
National resources
Digital Learning Commons
The Digital Learning Commons (DLC) is a nonprofit organization working
to improve access to educational opportunities and learning resources
by providing high-quality educational materials, online courses, and
technology tools to all students and teachers in Washington State.
National Repository of Online Courses (NROC)
NROC is a growing library of high-quality online courses for students and faculty in higher education, high school and Advanced Placement.
North American Council for Online Learning (NACOL)
The mission of NACOL is to increase educational opportunities and enhance learning by providing collegial expertise and leadership in K-12 online teaching and learning.
Educators
Essential Principles of Quality, Southern Regional Education Board (SREB)
This checklist is based on the SREB Essential Principles of Quality and is designed to assist states in determining the quality and effectiveness of web-based courses for Middle and High School students.
Guide to Teaching Online Courses, National Education Association, 2006
This guide is designed to provide an overview of the development of an effective online education system, focusing particularly on the skills teachers need to teach effectively online, the professional development necessary to acquire those skills, and the models schools need to evaluate and improve online teaching. It is critically important that school systems and school administrators contemplate such issues before launching online courses or enrolling significant numbers of their students in such courses.
Investigating Quality of Internet Courses (IQ)
Locate reports on courses that have been evaluated against the IQ guidelines and have met or exceeded criteria made available on this site to assist school administrators, parents and students in making purchasing and enrollment decisions.
Minnesota Learning Innovations Council
This Council was created to review and approve education projects that keep Minnesota at the forefront of learning innovations. The vision and action plan will provide the foundation for meeting the digital learning needs in the K-20 learning environments by providing a strategic direction, promoting a collaborative model, and developing services to fulfill identified needs.
Rubric for Online Instruction (ROI)
This site is designed to answer the question being asked: What does a high quality online course look like? Instructors and instructional designers will use this site to learn more about the rubric, and be able to view examples of exemplary courses that instructors have done in implementing the different components of the rubric.
ITEMS BELOW ARE SAVED FROM CURRENT 28310 Links & Resources page
Locate online learning references for educators. Find links to
Minnesota based and national resources providing general information
about online learning as well as teaching websites, quality measures
and rubrics, cost guidelines and strategies.
General - Minnesota resources
InforMNs
InforMNs hosts MN Learning Loop Tools and Internet2 Resources. Tools include a database of web resources aligned to Minnesota academic standards; videoconferencing resources to locate digital field trips and experts to talk with students on a variety of topics; and the classroom collaboration center to search for classrooms to share projects.
Minnesota Department of Education – Online Learning
The official website of the Minnesota Department of Education. General information about online learning plus State statutes, forms and resources.
Minnesota Digital Learning Plan
The plan was created under the auspices of
iSeek Solutions. All public
higher education institutions, the Department of Administration, the Minnesota
Department of Education, and the Minnesota Private Colleges Council, K-12 and
library educational leadership were part of this collaborative
effort among educational institutions and constituencies with a
stake in digital learning.
Minnesota Learning Innovations Council
This Council was created to review and approve education projects that keep Minnesota at the forefront of learning innovations. The vision and action plan will provide the foundation for meeting the digital learning needs in the K-20 learning environments by providing a strategic direction, promoting a collaborative model, and developing services to fulfill identified needs.
Minnesota Online Learning Alliance (MNOLA)
MNOLA fosters and enriches student
learning by promoting and supporting the viability of quality K-12 online programs
throughout Minnesota.
General – National resources
America ’s Digital Schools. 2006
Survey results regarding online learning.
Digital Learning Commons Archives
The Digital Learning Commons (DLC) is a nonprofit organization working
to improve access to educational opportunities and learning resources
by providing high-quality educational materials, online courses, and
technology tools to all students and teachers in Washington State. Access public documents, such as annual reports and evaluation reports, for a detailed view of the DLC's history.
National Center for Education Statistics (NCES)
NCES, located within the U.S. Department of Education and the Institute of Education Sciences, is the primary federal entity for collecting and analyzing data related to education.
National Repository of Online Courses (NROC)
NROC is a growing library of high-quality online courses for students and faculty in higher education, high school and Advanced Placement.
National Educational Technology Standards (NETS)
The NETS Project is an ongoing initiative of the International Society for Technology in Education (ISTE). The primary goal of the ISTE NETS Project is to enable stakeholders in PreK-12 education to develop national standards for educational uses of technology that facilitate school improvement in the United States. The NETS Project will work to define standards for students, integrating curriculum technology, technology support, and standards for student assessment and evaluation of technology use.
North American Council for Online Learning (NACOL)
The mission of NACOL is to increase educational opportunities and enhance learning by providing collegial expertise and leadership in K-12 online teaching and learning.
North Central Research Educational Laboratory - Learning Points Associates
A nonprofit educational organization with more than 20 years of direct experience working with and for educators and policymakers to transform education systems and student learning. Find valuable links under Technology in Education including: e-learning, featured resources, key resources by topic and more.
Online Learning and Distance Learning Resources
The Colorado Department of Education (CDE) offers Technology in PreK-12 Education resources. Find listings by organizations, reports an recommendations and resources for planning and management of online learning programs.
Partnership for 21 st Century Skills
Brings together business and education leaders, and policymakers to ensure every child's success as citizens and workers in the 21st century. They encourage schools, districts and states to advocate for the infusion of 21st century skills into education and provide tools and resources to help facilitate and drive change.
Sloan Consortium (Sloan-C)
Sloan Consortium encourages the collaborative sharing of knowledge and effective practices to improve online education in learning effectiveness, access, affordability for learners and providers, and student and faculty satisfaction.
Southern Regional Education Board (SREB)
SREB's many programs include the nation's: largest school improvement network, High Schools That Work and Making Middle Grades Work; first fully integrated web site for e-learners and adult learners; largest educational technology collaborative of state K-12 and post secondary agencies; and many other
innovative initiatives.
Western Cooperative for Educational Telecommunications (WCET)
WCET is
a membership-supported organization open to providers and users of
educational technologies. Their mission is to promote and advance the
effective use of technology in higher education.
Online teaching websites
What works in Distance Learning
A collection of findings in the effectiveness of design and development strategies for Distance Learning (DL). This document, available from Advanced Distributed Learning provides up-to-date guidance for researchers, instructors, program managers and instructional or assessment designers of DL programs, and can serve as a best practices guide for the design and development of future DL programs.
Online teaching PDFs (Portable Document Format)
Evidence of quality in distance learning programs drawn from interviews with the Accreditation community
The Office of Postsecondary Education engaged in discussions with accrediting organization staff and other experts to identify best practices in the accreditation of distance education. This information helped develop guidance for staff in the Accreditation and State Liaison Unit to use in evaluating accrediting agency reviews of distance education when making an initial recommendation about whether to include the evaluation of distance education in an agency’s scope and when an agency petitions for renewal of recognition, and to share the guidance with the accreditation community.
Guide to Teaching Online Courses, National Education Association, 2006
This guide is designed to provide an overview of the development of an effective online education system, focusing particularly on the skills teachers need to teach effectively online, the professional development necessary to acquire those skills, and the models schools need to evaluate and improve online teaching. It is critically important that school systems and school administrators contemplate such issues before launching online courses or enrolling significant numbers of their students in such courses.
Virtual School Report, Connections Academy, 2006
A quarterly newsletter focused on effective virtual K-12 education.
Student success in online learning
Study Guides and Strategies
A learner-centric educational public service. These student guides are collaboratively maintained across institutional and national boundaries to benefit learners.
The Library Network (TLN)
TLN new user tutorial has been designed to help people who have never used a computer before. It focuses on using the mouse and a few other basic skills.
OLL quality measures and rubrics
Essential Principles of Quality, Southern Regional Education Board (SREB)
This checklist is based on the SREB Essential Principles of Quality and is designed to assist states in determining the quality and effectiveness of web-based courses for Middle and High School students.
Investigating Quality of Internet Courses (IQ)
Locate reports on courses that have been evaluated against the IQ guidelines and have met or exceeded criteria made available on this site to assist school administrators, parents and students in making purchasing and enrollment decisions.
Quality Matters (QM)
A peer-based approach to quality assurance and continuous improvement in online education. The QM project has created a set of review criteria based
in the research literature and national standards; incorporated these
criteria into an interactive web-based rubric with annotations; and
developed a process for conducting team course reviews.
Rubric for Online Instruction (ROI)
This site is designed to answer the question being asked: What does a high quality online course look like? Instructors and instructional designers will use this site to learn more about the rubric, and be able to view examples of exemplary courses that instructors have done in implementing the different components of the rubric.
OLL Cost Guidelines - Minnesota Resources
The Office of Enterprise Technology (OET) - State of Minnesota
OET's Information Technologies (IT) Standards and Resource Management offers services in: hardware, software and IT commodity standards which set product standards for all agencies; enterprise-wide software licensing which works to negotiate enterprise-wide licensing for software commonly used by agencies and other governmental units; and IT Professional Services which assists agencies in compliance with state requirements for requests for proposal (RFP), statements of work (SOW), vendor choice, and master contracts. Standards are developed in collaboration with a broad base of agency representatives.
OLL Cost Guidelines - National Resources
A Study of the Effectiveness and Cost of AEL’s Online Professional Development Program in Reading in Tennessee (PDF)
Appalachia Educational Laboratory (AEL) developed content for online professional development that would help meet the goals of the Tennessee Department of Education state’s Reading First program. Laboratory staff developed and subsequently delivered Assessment and Intervention in a Comprehensive Literacy Classroom. The five-module course was designed to help K-3 teachers, K-12 special education teachers, and building-level administrators incorporate formal and informal assessments into their reading instruction and use the results of those assessments to guide instruction.
CoSN/Gartner TCO Tool & Case Studies
This tool specifically investigates the workstation, network and server cost of ownership in the K-12 environment, providing an instrument and a process that schools and districts can use in determining their total cost of ownership (TCO) for technology.
Learning Circuits
Learning Circuits, a product of ASTD (American Society for Training & Development) was launched to promote and aid the use of e-learning, creating a body of knowledge about how to use technology efficiently and effectively for learning. It delivers a fully interactive website with discussions, demos and resources, and nearly 500 articles on a weekly basis. A bi-weekly opt-in email newsletter sends news, teasers, and links to subscribers.
Vision, Objectives and Strategies
ATLAS Academy Website
ATLAS (Arrowhead Technology Literacy Association of Schools) introduces the academy’s curriculum repository of lesson plans along with online resources for teachers, students and libraries.
E2T2 Technology Grant
Read the cmERDC (Central Minnesota Educational Research and Development Council) E2T2 Technology Grant article by Minnesota Dept. of Education. A consortium of 18 public, parochial, and alternative districts and schools led by cmERDC has been awarded a major grant for Enhancing Education Through Technology (E2T2) by the Minnesota Department of Education.
Minnesota Educational Media Organization (MEMO)
MEMO is an organization serving school media and information technology professionals. MEMO provides leadership and professional growth for quality media and technology programs which meet the learning and instructional needs of our students, staff and administration.
Policies and Procedures
CAST
Center for Applied Special Technology, CAST has earned international recognition for its development of innovative, technology-based educational resources and strategies based on the principles of Universal Design for Learning (UDL).
Closing the Gap
Closing the Gap, Inc. is an organization that focuses on computer technology for people with special needs through its bi-monthly newspaper, annual international conference and extensive web site. Founders and parents of a deaf child, Budd and Dolores Hagen, share their personal experiences and insights with parents and professionals worldwide.
Keeping Pace with K–12 Online Learning: A Review of State-Level Policy and Practices
The rapid expansion of K–12 online learning threatens to outpace the development of appropriate state-level policies. The report provides information on specific topics of K–12 online learning policy and practice, as well as analysis and discussion of those issues.
LD OnLine
Helps children and adults reach their full potential by providing accurate and up-to-date information and advice about learning disabilities and ADHD. The site features hundreds of helpful articles, monthly columns by noted experts, first person essays, children’s writing and artwork, a comprehensive resource guide, active forums, and a Yellow Pages referral directory of professionals, schools, and products.
Source: Minnesota Department of Education
Page last updated in July 2008.
K-12 Online Learning
