For the past three years, Scott Charlson has served as the Director of Learning Support Systems at Western Oklahoma State College (WOSC) in Altus, Oklahoma. In this role, Scott has served as a facilitator and coach for college instructors teaching entirely online and in blended learning environments. In this recorded interview from May 28, 2008, Scott relates many of the successful strategies he and WOSC technology director Kent Brooks have employed the past three years to help instructors redesign their courses to integrate identified best practices for distance learning and blended learning, as well as the pivotal role which relationships and peer coaching have played in the learning revolution underway at Western. WOSC is a state leader in the utilization of Moodle as an open source learning management system, and continues to innovate with many other open source and web 2.0 technologies to help improve opportunities for learning. Scott is leaving WOSC to accept a new role at the K-20 Center at the University of Oklahoma this summer, and will continue to support collaborative learning as well as pedagogic change in the K-12 school districts working with the K-20 center to implement customized versions of its IDEALS framework. Oklahoma is lucky to have passionate, innovative, and dedicated educators like Scott Charlson helping other instructors and teachers "make the change" from 19th and 20th century paradigms of instruction to more learner centered, engaged models of learning focusing on student media products and digital interaction.
