GRAND RAPIDS, MI - The second largest leader in online education, Connections Education, plans to open a charter high school this fall - Nexus Academy of Grand Rapids.

The company, based in Baltimore, is opening physical versions of its virtual high schools, Nexus Academy schools, in four other cities besides Grand Rapids: Lansing, Toledo, Cleveland and Columbus. The tuition-free open enrollment will have a college prep focus.

The Grand Rapids school will be located at 801 Broadway Ave. NW, in the American Seating Park complex. Officials expect to serve 250 to 300 students in grades nine through 12 on the second floor of the office building.

"Grand Rapids has been on the cutting edge of new school models and school choice both in the traditional public school setting and charters," said Mickey Revenaugh, executive vice president of Connections Education, about why Grand Rapids was chosen as a site.

"Certified teachers will interact with students both online and on-site. Every student has a specialized learning plan with the blended learning, which accommodates itself well to wherever a student might be in their performance."

Revenaugh said two math and two science teachers will be on-site and they are close to naming a principal. She said the school will offer visual and performing arts courses, bringing in instructors and have a fitness center on site.

The new blended learning high school plans to offer students access to core academic courses in math, science, social studies and English as well as Advanced Placement courses. Foreign language offerings will include Spanish, French, Chinese, Japanese, German, Latin and Sign Language.

Revenaugh said students will be issued laptops but Connections is exploring the best tablet solution to access its curriculum. She said Central Michigan University officials are scheduled to vote on authorizing the charter next week.

A five-member school board will be named after that expected approval.

This is the third charter school to announce plans to open this fall. Pastor and gospel singer Marvin Sapp is opening a performing arts school, the Grand Rapids Ellington Academy of Arts and Technology (GREAAT), at 600 Burton St.SE. The school will initially serve 225 students in sixth, seventh and eighth-grades but expects to add a grade each year through 12th grade.

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Online giant Connections Education opening charter high school in American Seating Park complex in Grand Rapids

Udacity was the brainchild of Sebastian Thrun.

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Editor's note: William J. Bennett, a CNN contributor, is the author of "The Book of Man: Readings on the Path to Manhood." He was U.S. secretary of education from 1985 to 1988 and director of the Office of National Drug Control Policy under President George H.W. Bush.

(CNN) -- Educators and policymakers have long dreamed of providing universal, low cost, first-class higher education. Their wish may come true soon thanks to an unlikely source: Silicon Valley.

The mecca of the technology universe is in the process of revolutionizing higher education in a way that educators, colleges and universities cannot, or will not.

One of the men responsible for what may be an Athens-like renaissance is Sebastian Thrun, Google's vice president and pioneer in artificial intelligence and robotics. Known in science circles for his engineering feats -- like Stanley, the self-driving car -- Thrun is using his technological prowess to make quality higher education available to the world. I recently interviewed him on my radio show, "Morning In America."

William Bennett

Last year, while teaching a graduate level artificial intelligence class at Stanford University, Thrun lamented that his course could only reach 200 students in the suburbs of Palo Alto. So, he decided to offer his own free online class, with the same homework, quizzes and tests that he gives to Stanford students.

He announced the proposal with a single e-mail. Before he knew it, he had a flood of takers. "Usually I reach about 200 students and now I reach 160,000," said Thrun incredulously. "In my entire life of education I didn't have as much an impact on people as I had in these two months."

By utilizing online videos and educational resources, Thrun's class was being accessed by students from all corners of the world. In fact, the students themselves translated the class for free from English into 44 languages.

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Is Sebastian Thrun's Udacity the future of higher education?

Video Link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_--8n7XsacQ

04-07-2012 06:04 http The Florida Virtual School serves 100000 students throughout the United States, offering courses not available to them locally and providing more individual interaction with a teacher. Find more videos on Edutopia's YouTube Channel Online Learning Personalizes Education at the Florida Virtual School education, edutopia, edutopia videos, k-12, teaching, learning, classroom, teaching strategy, education tips, how-to, education technology, education videos, teaching tips, george lucas foundation, education how-to videos, technology integration, digital divide, online learning, technology, classroom 2.0, distance learning, virtual school, blended learning, virtual learning

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Online Learning Personalizes Education at the Florida Virtual School - Video

Video Link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cqRxe1Pjwsc

03-07-2012 12:10 With your Office 365 for education account, you can create a new site in SharePoint Online for communication and collaborating with your students. In this video, you'll learn how to upload files to a document library, post announcements, create a shared calendar, and share the new site with your students. Learn more

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Create a class website using SharePoint Online with Office 365 for education - Video

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03-07-2012 12:11 Mobile devices are part of the ambient noise of the 21st century. Focusing on mass deployment of devices on campus is giving way to the effective incorporation into existing practices. Most students have a device and use it to conduct the social, financial and educational business of their life. Students expect to use mobility in their educational experience. This workshop will provide you with practical, research-based steps any individual or institution can take to effectively incorporate mobility into online and blended learning environments. For more information and to register, visit

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Mobile Learning Integration Workshop Introduction - Video

Video Link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GrS1ZX2G2mg

03-07-2012 12:16 Schedule, present, record, and save your lectures online using Microsoft Outlook 2010, Lync Online, and SharePoint Online. Learn more at:

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Set up an online lecture using Office 365 for education - Video

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Universities are delving into online education as a way to cut costs and take in more students. But questions remain as to whether online teaching will bring the same kind of education to students.

Universities are delving into online education as a way to cut costs and take in more students. But questions remain as to whether online teaching will bring the same kind of education to students.

The University of Virginia may have settled its most urgent controversy by reinstating President Teresa Sullivan after initially forcing her out. But still unresolved is one issue underlying her ouster: whether the university was too slow to join the stampede of schools into the world of online education.

Many other schools share the concern and wonder if the technology will live up to its hype.

Rollins College in Florida was one of the early pioneers of online learning. It's one of 16 Southern schools using technology to share courses and professors. Rollins President Lewis Duncan says it's easy to understand how neighbors may be fretting about "not keeping up with the whizzes."

"There's the old saying that for any organization when the outside world is changing faster than the inside world, you're moving backwards," Duncan says.

Add in the financial pressure on universities and their need to find new ways of doing business, and it's not hard to see how anxiousness could turn into panic. Especially with each new venture launched, such as Coursera with Stanford, Princeton and others and edX, a partnership between the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and Harvard.

"Certainly it got everyone's attention, and I think schools that don't try and find their place in that will be left behind," Duncan says.

While it used to be just a relative few who paid MIT tens of thousands in tuition to take Electronics 6002, today anyone in the world can take Electronics 6002X online free.

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Online Classes Cut Costs, But Do They Dilute Brands?

DULUTH, Ga., July 2, 2012 /PRNewswire/ --ChildCare Education Institute (CCEI), an IACET approved, nationally accredited, online child care training institution, offers new users the opportunity to try online learning by taking the course CCEI112A: Child Abuse: Signs of Abuse and Reporting Requirements for Early Childhood Professionals at no cost in July, in recognition of National Make a Difference to Children Month.

(Logo: http://photos.prnewswire.com/prnh/20111019/MM90221LOGO )

Child care professionals are mandated reporters, meaning they are legally responsible for identifying and reporting signs of child abuse and neglect. In order to uphold their duties, teachers and caregivers must receive adequate training on appropriate practices for identifying signs of maltreatment. Course participants will learn about the four major categories of abuse, along with the signs, symptoms, and examples of each type of abuse, as well as basic procedures and responsibilities when a suspicion of abuse arises.

"Child abuse is a horrifying issue, but unfortunately it is an issue that many early care providers will have to confront at some point," said Maria C. Taylor, President and CEO of CCEI. "Early detection and reporting by responsible, knowledgeable adults can prevent long-term psychological, emotional, and physical damage, and it might even save a child's life."

CCEI112A is available to new CCEI users as a trial course for the month of July and awards 0.1 CEU upon successful completion. Users with an existing CCEI account who do not have an active, annual subscription may purchase this course through online enrollment.

About CCEIChildCare Education Institute provides quality, affordable professional development programs for continuing education, including over 100 English and Spanish online child care training courses to meet annual state licensing and Head Start training requirements. In addition to online training, CCEI offers online certificate programs, such as the Online Child Development Associate (CDA), Online Director's Certificates, Early Childhood Credential, and more.CCEI is accredited by the Accrediting Commission of the Distance Education and Training Council, approved by the International Association for Continuing Education and Training to award IACET Continuing Education Units (CEUs), and authorized under the Nonpublic Postsecondary Educational Institutions Act of 1990, license number 837.

For more information, visit http://www.cceionline.edu or call 1.800.499.9907.

ChildCare Education Institute, LLC +1-800-499-9907

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Learn Signs of Child Abuse and Reporting Requirements with One-Hour Online Training

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29-06-2012 14:52 A brief overview of the Dynadjust Online Continuing Education Program offered by OrthoNeuro Technologies.

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Dynadjust Online Continuing Education Program - Video

Newswise Arizona State University, in coordination with Leuphana University in Germany, has launched an educational pilot project which will lay the groundwork for an intensive institutional collaboration in undergraduate education.

Funded by a $900,000 award from the Mercator Foundation, the ASU-Leuphana program will focus on the topic Sustainable Cities: Contradiction of Terms? The program will utilize virtual conferencing using the technology of Vidyo, a revolutionary video conferencing platform, intensive writing assignments and student writing workshops, online exhibits, peer-to-peer mentoring, and in-person international exchange. This global classroom model tests traditional teacher-student roles, advances new, blended approaches to curriculum and teaching, and redefines the rules tying interdisciplinary liberal arts and sciences education to place.

"Any good idea or revolution has started in a bar or coffee house, not a lecture hall, said Manfred Laubichler, co-author of the Mercator grant and a Presidents Professor in ASUs School of Life Sciences. This project is basically a way to recreate this in a virtual environment."

Vidyo technology was adopted by ASU for use in classrooms in 2010. These virtual conferencing connections have catalyzed research and science education exchange between ASU, the Smithsonian Institution and local K-12 classrooms, and set the online stage for the project with Leuphana.

A workshop in Germany at the Wissenschaftskolleg zu Berlin drew ASU professors Laubichler, Robert Page, Jane Maienschein, James Collins, Richard Creath and Daniel Sarewitz to meet with their German counterparts. These included Yehuda Elkana, President and Rector Emeritus of the Central European University, Sascha Spoun, the president of Leuphana University, and representatives from Stiftung Mercator, who invest in educational projects. Together this collective considered how to transform our traditional approach to education into a new model using virtual technology, and an international and interdisciplinary pedagogy suited for the 21st century.

One of the things that we discussed was how knowledge is socially, geographically, and temporally contextual. That is: that all knowledge has context, said Robert Page, ASU vice provost and dean of the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences.

So we asked, what if as we teach about sustainability, conservation biology, science, humanities and culture, we have students from Europe, South America, China, and the U.S. all talking together? said Page. There would be differing views and the sharing of those views might allow students to develop solutions to challenges that none could have conceived of individually. And so was born the concept of a global classroom.

Starting in January of 2013, undergraduate students from Leuphana University considered the ASU of the EU, ASUs Barrett Honors College, and the Schools of Life Sciences and Sustainability will define and work together on group projects that extend over three semesters. To support the collective effort, students will also pursue individual research activities at their home institutions. The result will be individual edited short papers by each student, and a set of collective exhibits to be published through a digital educational repository that the group is developing. Ben Minteer, an associate professor in environmental ethics and policy, Arnim Wiek, an assistant professor in sustainability, and Charles Kazilek, an assistant dean in the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences who develops award-winning internet science education materials, will also contribute to the Mercator program.

In addition, as the next cohort of students enters during the programs second year, the first years cohort will serve as peer mentors to the incoming group. This reinforcing investment from one cohort to the next allows the instructors to teach more and the students to have a more interactive learner-oriented experience.

Graduate students in Germany and with ASUs Center for Biology and Society and with ASUs Global Institute of Sustainability will serve as co-instructors for the Mercator project. At ASU, these will include Sean Cohmer, Guido Caniglia, Katherine MacCord and Julia Damerow, who studies digital history and philosophy of sciences and also works with the Max Planck Institute.

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Online Technology Spurs Education Reform, Expansion of Arizona State's 'Global Classroom' to Europe