The COVID-19 pandemic forced American students, teachers, and families to move learning online. Unfortunately, the transition has been messy and revealed glaring disparities among populations. While remote education has been life-changing for some, it has been markedly challenging for lower-income communities. Inequities have long been present in the American education system. However, the pandemic has… Read More

The 2020 school year has arrived with many unexpected challenges for teachers. On top of preparations of lesson plans, activities, and resources, teachers are now adjusting to teaching online. For educators who are used to engaging in-person and group settings, this is an incredibly challenging time. One of the biggest challenges for teachers changing to… Read More

It’s 9 a.m. Monday morning and you are logging into your first virtual learning session with your class of second graders. You are greeted by a few smiling faces, several blank screens, and some other random body parts. You encourage everyone to turn on their cameras and continue with your lesson. Instead of focusing, students… Read More

The COVID-19 pandemic has made remote education crucial. It was treated separately from traditional methods of education. People who wanted to save some time and look for flexibility chose online education and other forms of remote education as alternatives to traditional in-class lessons. Now, remote education is the only option available for many students and… Read More

While there is a wealth of subscription-based educational platforms that offer games to help make education more entertaining, they aren’t free. This poses a problem for teachers who would like to use them in a classroom environment with student participation. Fortunately, there are games that are not only free to use, but many that don’t… Read More

Most teachers look forward to the ritual of setting up their classroom for back to school. Stapling up construction paper on bulletin boards, hanging up posters, organizing books and bins of supplies, and getting things ready for students is something of a ritual. But this year, many classrooms sadly sit empty, and many teachers are… Read More

Are you a Zoombie? This fall, many classrooms are going 100% distance learning. Rather than preparing classroom space and walls to welcome students, teachers have been preparing their distance learning plans. Zoom has been adopted by many schools for distance learning. It’s because it’s easy to use, reliable, can be used on laptops, tablets, or… Read More

As the summer draws to a close, schools are having to make difficult decisions about how they will operate to safely prevent transmission of COVID-19. In most cases, the strategy includes the introduction of remote classrooms. Online learning is not a new approach. Over the last several years, a robust and varied eLearning infrastructure has… Read More

In today’s online educational environment, it is more important than ever to create genuinely interactive online educational experiences, above and beyond the out-of-the-box, cookie-cutter interactivity provided by most educational content development tools and learning management systems such as simple quizzing functionality and flashcards, which I often refer to as “baby interactivity.” So if most out-of-the-box… Read More

Digital learning encompasses a wide field, from bachelor’s degrees to proprietary training classes offered entirely online. Online learning directors participate in every aspect of digital learning from choosing the right technology to helping academic directors design accessible coursework. An online learning director might work with the registrar’s office to enroll new students, the office of… Read More

By Tom Armbrecht I changed careers in 2016 when I stopped being a French professor and became an instructional designer. In the eyes of some my former university colleagues, my resignation meant that I effectively switched teams when I abandoned my “noble vocation” as teacher and researcher for a job at a for-profit enterprise. Although… Read More

Google Translate is an astonishing program. It converts words and even whole sentences back and forth from dozens of languages through multiple modalities; you can type, handwrite, scan, and even say whatever you want to communicate. Its accuracy—at least in French, German, and Spanish, the three languages that I speak—is surprisingly good. At worst, Translate… Read More

Recently, I went back to school for the first time in 20 years. Although I was at the university every day teaching until about two years ago and have often taken adult-education courses, I hadn’t been a student in a class for credit since 1997. (In case you’re wondering, I recently celebrated my third 28th… Read More