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

Bloom’s Taxonomy is a well-known hierarchy of different levels of cognitive skills, often used in education to distinguish between higher-level cognitive skills and lower-level cognitive skills. (See this article for a history of the development and refinement of Bloom’s Taxonomy: Bloom’s Taxonomy by Patricia Armstrong.) A revised version of Bloom’s Taxonomy often takes the following… Read More

Instructional design (ID) can sometimes be an overly complicated and diverse field with various instructional design models and complicated terminology. But I’ve always found that instructional design can be simplified if you stick to a few important principles and ask yourself a small number of intuitive questions. Instructional design: What does it mean? Simply put:… Read More

Updated July 22, 2020 Right now an unprecedented situation has griped the country. Teachers are forced to teach online amongst school closures. Budgets everywhere are strained and conferences have likely been cancelled. While seminars and in-person courses are the normal ways for educators to gain professional development, there are tons of alternative online opportunities —… Read More

No, not that Link! These links: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hyperlink It’s been over 20 years since I obtained my first internet-capable computer, way back in 1997 (an IBM Aptiva running Windows 95, if you’re curious). With this being my first taste of the internet, I remember being amazed at the power of jumping from webpage to webpage (“web-surfing,”… Read More

Authors of online course materials are usually selected for a combination of their subject matter expertise, their pedagogical prowess, and their experience in the classroom. Course writers, however, sometimes struggle to translate what they do effectively in the classroom into the new medium of online course development. Pedagogically effective instructors use a number of techniques… Read More

For classroom teachers, earning an advanced degree can be a fulfilling way to invest in yourself and your classroom. But obviously, a Master of Education comes with a price tag. That’s why it’s important to think strategically about where to get the money for grad school. Carefully pursuing the right mix of scholarships, grants, and loans… Read More