Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation - Quality in Online Learning Discussion - April 2010

Unfortunately, I have not been very regular in my blog-postings :( This past week I had an opportunity to travel to Seattle for a one day meeting at the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation about quality in online learning. It was my first time in the Seattle area and I was very impressed with the types of industries in the area (e.g. Boeing, Amazon, Starbucks, Microsoft). The current headquarters of the Foundation are located on the east side of Lake Union and I had a nice run along the lake shore (lots of people living on houseboats). I managed to take some photos of my trip and a few notes. The Foundation also set up a wiki where we have been able to share resources and ideas about blended and online learning in North American higher education.

A few course evaluation rubrics that for blended and online courses that I need to further investigate include:

• NSSE
• Quality Matters
• Community of Inquiry
• Transparency by Design