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The Beginners Guide to MOOCs (Massive Open Online Courses)

The relatively new trend of "MOOCs" (Massive Open Online Courses) are taking the internet and online education by storm.

Image credit: Nicholas Rapp

What is a MOOC?  Essentially, it is an online course free for anyone to enroll in, regardless of university affiliation or student/non-student status.  While you can't earn a tangible degree in courses taken at a MOOC, you do get a letter grade from the course instructor at the end.  They are often taught by actual professors, with several hailing from prestigious universities, such as Stanford and UC Berkeley.  Courses are offered in a wide variety of subjects, from Cryptography I, Introduction to Genetics and Evolution, to Songwriting.

Then why should I even bother with MOOCs? Well, call me an idealist, but I believe this trend embodies the true meaning of education, where one attends a course for the simple reason of learning and having a deeper understand of our complex world.  While there may not be any professional or academic degrees of completion from taking a MOOC, Coursera.org's 2 million + members shows the great human desire to learn for the sake of learning.

Furthermore, in the grand scheme of things, the popularity of MOOCs displays the democratizing force of the Internet and how the Information Age has shaken up traditional power structures (see: Arab Spring, Wikileaks, Anonymous).  While having an actual degree still takes precedence in status and importance, MOOCs advance the spirit of learning by enabling many more individuals to seek and attain knowledge they otherwise would have very limited access to.

It may be a tad bit early to determine what sort of long-term impact MOOCs will have in the grand scheme of the things, but for the meantime, things are looking good for innovation and creative new ideas with technology in education.

For me, I’ll be learning HTML and CSS.  Maintaining a blog without these tools is an utter nightmare.

Here is a great list of MOOCs you should explore.  Always wanted to know more about 19th Century Victorian England? Well, why not.

Prominent MOOCs

1.    www.coursera.org

2.    www.udacity.com

3.    www.edx.org

Other great (and free) online learning resources

1.    www.khanacademy.org (Video lessons on an immense number of subjects)

2.    www.duolingo.com (Learn Latin-based languages for free)

3.    iTunes U (Apple app store)

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Engagement as a Framework for Change

"Parental involvement has been identified by research as the number one factor in students’ success” - M. Paredes

A few questions educators told us they often ask when it comes to parent involvement are: What impact does family and community engagement have in a school? What should this involvement look like? What is a school with high parent involvement to gain? Is too high involvement detrimental?

What does Parent Engagement and Involvement mean? The U.S Government has defined Parent Involvement in the NCLB Act of 2011, as regular, two-way, and meaningful communication to enhance student academic learning. Aligning powerful forces of influence

The alignment of the conversation between what is happening at school and what goes on at home does have an enormous effect on the child’s future. When parents and teachers communicate well the teacher can appropriately react to the child’s behavior always aware of challenges faced at home that might impact the child's behavior. This “live” knowledge helps in the child’s education and eliminates frustration for the teacher.

Parent involvement is also a catalyst of change. 

A strong group of parents are able to help innovation and push positive change. Some educators/schools are reluctant to foster family involvement. They shut down community participation. These schools are overlooking the importance of family participation in the child’s learning outcome, engagement in class and overall success. I believe parent involvement should be interwoven throughout the school. Fostering the exchange of information and knowledge is a great way to make a school a center of connection for the community. Parents are also great source through which innovation can take place. They provide not only their world views at meetings but also resources, and political pressure that will speed up innovation. Parents should never be involved in bureaucracy but school leaders have a important role to play in enabling involved parents to build social and political capital catalyzing innovation and learning outcomes. Building Partnerships The learning process is a partnership. Educators should embrace and involve parents in the process of learning by starting with personal communication with parents whenever possible. Tools like Sparkroad are one of the way to streamline that communication. Share your thought and ideas on how to get parents involved, how to help them engage and contribute to innovation and learning at your school. For the best of learning to take place the whole child needs the whole school, the whole family, and the whole community working together in collaboration (Moles and Fege (pg:11)) How does parent involvement look like at your school? Do you have a School-Parent Compact (required for Title 1 schools)? What does it look like? Would love to hear your thoughts.

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Happy Holidays!

Merry Christmas, Happy Diwali, Happy Hanukkah, and happy holidays!

Whether or not you observe any religious occasion  everybody should use this time to spend some quality time with those who are special to them.  Friends, significant others, and family.

Even if they're hundreds of miles way, the marvels of modern technology have allowed us to remain connected, through social media and video-chat services.

While tis' is the season for gift-giving and shopping, it is also the time for us to enjoy the simple pleasures of having a good company.

From our family at Sparkroad to yours,

Happy Holidays! :)