A short while back, I mentioned an “Amazingly Secret Web Project.” Today if you go over to Best Online High Schools, you will discover that a brand-new design went live last night. It is my hope that it provides a better resource for the online high schools community.

It also provides what I hope is a better format on the back-end for me to use. The previous design was done in Joomla and ultimately it did not work as I would wish. This new design is actually a WordPress theme and was designed by my regular developer, Bob Martin.

To say I am pleased with how it turned out would be an understatement.

What? Part 1? You mean there’s more?

Yes. Yes, there is, but you will need to be patient.

While there is still some minor work being done, for the most part, Virtual School News is up and running again. It will be offering significantly more news about online schools and related subjects. I hope you will take a look at VSN 2.0.

If you are one of the several thousand folks that follow VirtualSchoolNews.com, yes, it is temporarily down. I am doing a serious upgrade to the site that should result in more and better articles and information. Check back in 48 hours or so. It should be done by then.

You may recall that I mentioned a super-secret surprise? It is mostly completed, so you get to be among the first to see it. It is a brand-new website that pulls in RSS feeds about online high schools, online colleges, and educational technology.

The name? Online Synthesis.

I hope that you will consider taking a look. I am quite pleased with how it has turned out. Since these seem to be the three areas that I do a great deal of reading — online high schools, online colleges, ed tech — I decided that there are likely other folks out there just like me. Scary thought!

Borrowed from one of the funnier places on the planet.

I began my teaching career in a traditional bricks-and-mortar setting, and when the opportunity presented itself to me to teach in an online environment at Nevada Connections Academy, I practically beat down the principal’s door in order to get a chance to try something new. For me, online learning presented a highly challenging type of academic environment—one that changed much of what we traditionally know about learning—and shouted, “Let’s try something new!” I love a new learning curve, and this was so far removed from my teaching comfort zone that the brand-new excitement of an innovative challenge to teaching and learning was almost overwhelming.

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(Posted by Belinda Shillingburg on the Connections Academy Blog. Click to read the rest.)

Connections Academy