What Works in K-12 Online Learning Book

I recently got the book from ISTE: What Works in K-12 Online Learning by Cathy Cavanaugh and Robert Blomeyer. I was interested in how to keep the momentum of Moodle going along with the best practices.
I am impressed so far as I read the chapters and feel good about where we are today. I am very grateful to all of the teachers and students here who are using Moodle to enhance the learning of each other. Moodle is clearly the way of the future for the learning environment of Durham Academy.
I have been reading the chapter on Teaching and Learning Literacy and Language Arts Online. I would like to be in these teachers classes. Some of the resources mentioned our students use or could use if teachers knew about them.

Visual Thesaurus is a nice way to see words come alive. There is a subscription aspect to this tool that may be useful for students.
Dictionary is one I see students use every day.

Connecting Students Around the Globe
Kidlink is a knowledge-building network with volunteers in about 50 countries. Teachers and students create accounts and then find classrooms around the world to collaborate with on projects.
Telecollaborate allows you to find classrooms around the globe as well.
Internet Project Registry has been around for along time and connects classrooms with awesome projects.

E-mail type exchanges
e-Pals connects classrooms and gives teachers and students free email and blogs.
IECC is a site that will connect teachers with teachers from all over the world.

Story Sharing
Story Center has a tag line called: Listen Deeply – Tell Stories.
Digital-Story Telling – has ongoing projects for teachers and students.
Voicethreads – create images or text and add your voice and share it with the world. This is the most written about site this past year as it alters how students can share their stories.

Authors and Literature Guides
Children’s Literature Web-Guide gives access to authors and illustrators.
Internet Classics Archive from MIT

Podcasts
Podcast Directory of Literature – like it sounds.
Lit2Go from the University of South Florida or subscribe via iTunes under iTunesU.

What does this mean for learning? It means to me that the if a classroom is not flat it is not taking advantage of the tools that are available. Lets all get flat I say.

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