iNacol, the International Association for Online Learning, publishes Standards for Quality Online Teaching.

Consider the following standards:

Standard B: The online teacher understands and is able to use a range of technologies, both existing and emerging, that effectively support student learning and engagement in the online environment.

Standard C: The online teacher plans, designs, and incorporates strategies to encourage active learning, application, interaction, participation, and collaboration in the online environment.

Standard E: The online teacher models, guides, and encourages legal, ethical, and safe behavior related to technology use.

Standard K: The online teacher arranges media and content to help students and teachers transfer knowledge most effectively in the online environment.

The Create module prepared me to meet Standard B by showing my how to create a portable learning object. I had started creating these years ago and I and other teachers liked them. This module, however, introduced me to resources to make my course more interactive and interesting to students. Using various modes to engage students in learning makes learning fun and relevant. The portable learning object module was probably most beneficial for me because it helped me to improve the courses that I had previously created.

Standard C was met via the discussion on Web Tools. I use web tools all the time in my face to face class but I haven’t used them in my online courses simply because the students don’t attend.  I think that I will begin to incorporate Kahoots, Socrative, and others into my online synchronous sessions. Perhaps if students see the fun I’ve planned, maybe they will attend.