U.S. Department of Education and the IDEA Partnership Define the Work of Communities of Practice

Iowa’s Communities of Practice and Innovation
In November’s newsletter we shared Iowa’s Communities of Practice and Innovation (CoPI) goals with you. To further understand the work of the CoPI’s, download Essential Elements of Collaboration: Building a Community of  Practice to review how the U.S. Department of Education and the IDEA Partnership stakeholders are defining the work of CoP.

Introducing AEA K12 Online: Bringing Online Learning to Iowa K-12 Classrooms

Online learning is gaining momentum as a viable way to educate K-12 students. The learner can gain access to the instructor, other learners, instructional material and interactive digital lessons through the internet. Colleges and universities have been using online learning courses for years, and even AEA PD Online was created in 2011 as a one-stop shop of all AEA online learning opportunities across the state.

Primary and secondary schools are now being introduced to the possibilities that come with online learning. In order to assist schools and districts with online learning implementation in Iowa, the Area Education Agencies are pleased to announce that AEA K12 Online will support their online learning efforts!

AEA K-12 Online support includes:
·      Providing online curricular content for districts that is free, vetted for high quality, and is in alignment with the Iowa Core
·      Providing professional development for educators around online teaching
·      Providing a hosted Moodle environment for full online courses  
·      Providing a repository of online content

Sound like something your school should do? You can start now! AEA K-12 Online hosts the Iowa Community of Practice and Innovation (CoPI). CoPI is a network of educators with common interests, who explore ways of working together on digital curriculum, identify common solutions, and share good practice ideas.

Find more information about AEA K-12 Online and CoPi at the link below or contact Nancy Movall, AEA K-12 Online Learning Specialist at nmovall@ghaea.org.

http://www.iowaaea.org/pages/Area_Education_Agencies/Iowa_AEA_PD_Online/Online_Learning_in_the_K-12_Cl

CoPi Update

Iowa’s literacy, math, science, and social studies Communities of Practice (CoPi) are under the umbrella of AEA K-12 Online. The purpose of the CoPis to enhance online learning for K-12 students. The CoPis have several goals.

The first goal is to provide educators across Iowa with free, high quality online content. To accomplish this the CoPis will:

• Work to identify and provide access resources that currently exist.
• Support the social authoring of content for use across the state
• Contribute to the statewide repository of online content (EQUELLA)

The second goal is to develop wrap-around professional development for teachers who are using the online content that has been identified or developed. This will be done formally and informally: 

• Formal: OLLIE/MOLLIE Course, Foundational Professional Development around Iowa Core Investigations, Conceptual based teaching, and seminar series

• Informal: Webinars, online discussion, sharing repositories, meet-ups at conferences,

• Non-formal: Twitter chatter

To learn more about CoPi check out the video at: https://aea111.eduvision.tv/Default.aspx?q=N1VVbOR2eYOYEexxCQJ31w%253d%253d