Prepare 21st century educators to support teaching learning in online, blended and traditional learning environments everywhere.
1. Improve the effectiveness of online teaching and learning in American schools.
2. Create professional communities supporting improvement of online teaching and learning.
3. Increase understanding of online teaching through educational research and program evaluation.
The effectiveness of online classes depends mostly on instructor’s effectiveness. Many of today’s online instructors still lack the preparation needed to teach effectively online. OTA’s courses provide teachers with the knowledge, skills and dispositions needed to be effective teachers online.
All of OTA courses include scheduled weekly online meetings in BigBlueButton. (BBB) BigBlueButton is an “Open Source” software project. Our integrated BBB suites provide synchronous, virtual learning environments where OTA course participants can discuss assignments with their instructors, exchange ideas and collaborate with their classmates in “real time.” (OTA’s BigBlueButton Provider is: http://hostbbb.com/)
OTA’s blog, bookmarking, file sharing and social networking resources are supported by Elgg; a flexible, open source, social networking environment designed to run at the heart of any socially-aware, educational organization. (http://elgg.org/index.php)
OTA’s Wiki is built using the internationally recognized MediaWiki, which is the open source Wiki rapidly becoming a standard for Wiki installations everywhere on the World Wide Web. (http://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/MediaWiki)
OTA’s online courses are built and deployed online using Moodle; an internationally recognized, open source course development and instructional management system. (http://moodle.org)
