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The Digital Backpack
Your resource for online learning
Your trusted source for K-12 online learning insights, teaching strategies, and success stories from Michigan’s leading virtual education provider. Join us as we explore innovative approaches to help students thrive in the digital age.
LMS Selection and Implementation: Best Practices
What factors should schools and districts consider when selecting a learning management system (LMS)? What are the key processes that you should follow? What challenges and opportunities exist within the process? Where should you start?
Do Orientation Modules Contribute To Student Success In The Online Classroom?
Christopher Harrington
Dr. Chris Harrington has a conversation with three accomplished researchers (Erin Stafford and Jacqueline Zweig of the Education Development Center, Joe Freidhoff of Michigan Virtual) to discuss the details of their recent study focused on the impact of an orientation on the success of online learners.
Connecting Teachers: A Community of Practice
True collegial groups among teachers, in any context, still remain the exception and not the norm in many schools — especially for online teachers.
Student-Centered Learning: Catalysts for Change
Are there naturally occurring situations or circumstances in education that serve as catalysts, facilitating change and giving student-centered learning momentum?
Conversations on Continuity: Educators discuss the future of education in the face of COVID-19
Christopher Harrington
In this video, Dr. Chris Harrington talks to educational leaders from across the state and nation about the impact of the extended school closures on schools and districts. They compare the teaching and learning we're experiencing today due to rapid shifts to remote learning models to what we know to be effective online and digital learning and discuss new opportunities on the horizon for schools and what we've learned during this emergency remote learning period.
Mentoring Through a Pandemic
We are certainly living in uncharted waters right now. Who would have ever thought that we would be remote learning and teaching for the final 3 months of the 2019-20 school year? Despite mandated clo
Student-Centered Learning: The Impetus for Change
Student-centered learning isn’t necessarily a new concept. In fact, in one area of education, we’ve already nailed it.
Why Online Teachers NEED Ongoing Professional Development
In our last post on instructional leadership, we touched on the issue of professional development (PD) and the necessity of providing online teachers with ongoing training, support, and PD. This post will expand on the critical importance of PD for new online teachers and ongoing PD for all online teachers.
Podcast: SEL During a Pandemic with Lauren Kazee
In this episode, we chat with Lauren Kazee about the impact COVID-19 is having on our social and emotional wellness. We discuss what social-emotional learning (SEL) is, how it’s been used to help stud
March and April Research Round Up
What’s new in the world of K-12 research on online, blended, and innovative learning? This month, we take a look at Michigan's K-12 Virtual Learning Effectiveness Report and a recent edition of the Online Learning Journal.
Research study: Do orientation modules contribute to student success in the online classroom?
Learning online can be an adjustment for many students. It is widely believed that providing students with an orientation to online learning helps them better understand the novel challenges and expec
Instructional Leadership: Supporting Online Teachers
Supporting your online teachers seems like it should be easy, but what do they really need? Where should you start? In this article, we explore what it means to be a good instructional leader and give you some guidance as to how you can get started.
Parenting through trauma: What to do when things get difficult
Think of a time in your life when you felt totally overwhelmed.Maybe you were grieving the loss of a loved one. Perhaps you or someone you know experienced severe physical pain or injury. Or it was th
23 Team-Building Activities for Staying Connected in a Remote Work Environment
Most of us are proficient in how to complete the tasks and responsibilities of our positions while working remotely. We have the tools we need to perform our job functions and we have the technical sk
Parenting in a pandemic: Encouraging positive behaviors and self-discipline
As everyone continues to stay home to stay safe, new routines may have begun to normalize for parents and their children.As this new way of life continues, behavior patterns also begin to adjust. Ever
Online Student Support and Enrichment
We’ve talked previously about monitoring student progress as an essential responsibility of online instructors. Today’s blog post will dive deeper into instructor responsibilities around monitoring student progress, including providing support services or enrichment opportunities to students. These services are incredibly important as they can make the difference between student success and students failing to thrive in their online courses.
Your brain in crisis: Why it’s so hard to learn during difficult times
It’s 10 o’clock in the morning, and you glance at your to-do list. You have emails to send, phone calls to make, school lessons to complete with your child(ren). With the whole day ahead of you, you f
Self-care for parents: Why you need to take care of yourself first
Attention all passengers:In an emergency, a mask will drop from a container above your seat. Please fit the yellow cup over your nose and mouth and place the elastic strap around the back of your head
Supporting your child's social and emotional needs during school closures
Right now, parents and children across the globe are under a lot of stress. On top of this, parents are being asked to do even more to support the academic needs of their children than ever before. While it's easy to focus on the logistical concerns of living through a global pandemic, we also need to tend to the emotional impact such events can have both on ourselves and our children.
What Does Research Say About Mentoring Online Students?
There exists an ever growing body of research on mentoring online students. In this article we seek to answer the question: What does this research tell us about mentoring K-12 online students?
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