The National American Council for Online Learning (NACOL) defines online learning as: instruction and content delivered primarily over the Internet.

A newly released survey of 232,781 K-12 students, 21, 272 teachers, and 15,316 parents conducted by Project Tomorrow and sponsored by Blackboard, states that one in five students in grade 6-12 have taken an online course at school or on their own and one in three students chose online classes as a part of their ideal school. The report states:

As online learning becomes more integrated into day-to-day instruction, the compartmentalization of education breaks down. Everyone becomes a learner and an expert with opportunties to seek and share what they know, critique what they learn, and become more engaged and involved with the global community.    Read the rest of this entry »

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Co-written by technology evangelists Robert Scoble from Microsoft and Shel Israel, a Silicon Valley tech guru, this book is a primer for those interested in understanding how blogs are changing the conversation between producers and consumers.

Fundamentally, blogging interferes with traditional corporate communications in that it is no longer possible for a company to ‘control’ their message. The book shares many examples of how this happens and presents case studies of companies who have handled the change well and those who haven’t. And then there are those who have been standing on the sidelines waiting to see if blogging just goes away.

Well, it’s not going away and the faster companies realize this and adapt to it, the stronger they will be. One of the key points of Naked Conversations is that customers and prospects now have a potentially global audience and will talk about you whether you participate or not. Read the rest of this entry »

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I ran across this article  today at Speechworks and it reminded me of the same essential points I use in training sales people. Since this article echoes my own experience, I share it with you here. If you adhere to these five guiding principles, you will walk away with the order more often than not. Even if you’re “just” pitching your ideas to company colleagues, these principles apply.

1. Begin your presentation with a focus on your prospect’s problem and how it can be solved. It’s all about them, not you.
2. The power of making three major points. Beginning, middle, end. There is a magic in this number as human beings begin to lose focus with more.
3.  If you sell with passion, people will buy what you’re selling. If you don’t have passion, why should your prospect care?
4. Make it interactive. People don’t like lectures. Ask your prospects questions and listen to the answers. Make it a conversation.
5. Be ready. Act like a professional. Practice and rehearse.

There are many sales’ best practices, but if you concentrate on doing these five well, in addition to getting the sale, you’ll build a valuable relationship.

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We have been talking about building online communities around specific websites where educators can share their teaching experiences and resources. Yesterday, PBS Teachers took this concept to a whole new level when it unveiled a new online community  that has the functionality of many of the popular social networking sites.

PBS Teachers Connect describes it this way:
“PBS Teachers Connect is an online community of teachers exchanging ideas, resources and instructional strategies on the integration of digital media and technology.”

In many ways it is a blueprint for what K-12 publishers can and should do to build vibrant, purpose-filled online communities. Read the rest of this entry »

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