“Online courses, open educational resources (OER) and virtual schools are all the rage nowadays.
Christine Voelker teaches other teachers how to build their own online courses. She’s the K–12 program director for Quality Matters, a nonprofit educational organization based in Annapolis, MD.
Voelker’s got a background in childhood education and library science. She has also helped start libraries and three brand new schools — one elementary, one middle and one high school. Plus, she has extensive experience in starting and maintaining online courses. At the ISTE (International Society for Technology in Education) conference in San Antonio, TX, she will be presenting “Designing Your Online Course” Sunday, June 25 from 8:30 a.m. to 3:30 p.m. Preregistration and an additional fee ($239) is required.
THE Journal: How did your organization, Quality Matters, start?
Christine Voelker: We are a nonprofit. We’re based out of Maryland. It’s pretty much a virtual organization. Quality Matters began with a small group of colleagues in the MarylandOnline, Inc. (MOL) consortium who were trying to solve a common problem among institutions: how do we measure and guarantee the quality of a course? This question was especially important as institutions began to create a system where they could share available seats in their online courses with other institutions. They needed a way to ensure course quality — that courses would be equivalent — for their students, regardless of where the course originated.
In 2003 MOL outlined how the Quality Matters program could create a scalable process for course quality assurance, and applied for a Fund for the Improvement of Postsecondary Education (FIPSE) grant from the U.S. Department of Education. As word spread that there was now a tool for assuring quality across courses, more institutions became interested and involved in the QM process. By the end of the three-year grant period, we had trained 694 peer reviewers from 154 institutions in 28 states, and we had conducted more than 100 course reviews. While QM could have been just another bound report on a shelf somewhere, everyone saw the positive impact of the QM Rubric and peer review process. As a result, we expanded QM’s quality assurance tools and professional development to include organizations outside of the higher education sector, including K–12, continuing and professional education, course publishers and education service providers.
In 2014 we began operating as a standalone nonprofit organization to broaden our reach worldwide, build new partnerships, and take on a greater leadership role as we continue to champion quality assurance in online learning and provide the gold standard for certifying the quality of online courses and programs.
THE Journal: Do you guide students through online courses, or do you teach teachers how to make online courses and how to instruct online?
Voelker: I don’t guide students through online courses. I help schools engage with tools and resources to develop and deliver quality online courses. My job primarily is to work with schools that are developing online courses, or to help them make good decisions about online courses. There are schools and districts who have the capacity to go it alone. At QM, we have many professional development opportunities for teachers to help them with this process. Our Continuing and Professional Education Program helps them with the resources and tools to design quality professional development opportunities for their teachers.”
(Read the rest of this article here!)