I’m Back: A New Chapter for The Online Educator

 It has been a while. Actually, it has been quite a while. My last blog post was published in January 2025. Somehow, nearly two years have passed since I last sat down to write here. I could probably give you a long list of reasons why. Life got busy. Work got busy. New projects took shape. Priorities shifted. And somewhere along the way, blogging kept moving further and further down the list. But I never stopped thinking about The Online Educator or the community of nurse educators I created it to serve. In fact, quite the opposite happened. Over the past two years, I have spent even more time thinking about how we teach online, how technology is changing nursing education, how we can create more engaging learning experiences for our students, and—perhaps most importantly—how we can do all of that without making teaching harder than it already is. And that has brought me back here.

So…what's changed?

A lot. When I first started The Online Educator, much of my work focused on helping faculty figure out the mechanics of teaching online: organizing courses, creating content, navigating technology, and finding ways to engage students from behind a computer screen. Those things still matter. But online education has evolved. Our students have changed. Technology has changed. Artificial intelligence has entered our classrooms. Faculty have access to more tools than ever before—but having more tools doesn't necessarily make teaching easier. Sometimes it does the exact opposite. We can spend hours learning a new platform, creating a resource, redesigning an assignment, answering emails, updating course content, or trying to figure out how to make yet another discussion board feel engaging. I've become increasingly interested in a different question: How can we use innovation to make online teaching better—not just for our students, but for ourselves as educators? That question is going to guide where The Online Educator goes next.

So…what's next?

I'm not waiting until January to start again. Beginning this October, I'll be back here every week, sharing ideas, strategies, resources, and experiments designed specifically for online nurse educators. For the rest of 2026, I want to get back to the basics of what made me start The Online Educator in the first place: sharing practical ideas that make online teaching better. We'll talk about engaging students. We'll explore new technologies and AI. We'll experiment with gamification and interactive learning. We'll think about ways to make our courses easier for students to navigate. We'll look for opportunities to simplify the work we do behind the scenes. And we'll talk about what it really means to create an online learning experience rather than simply putting a course online. Think of these next few months as our reset—a chance for me to reconnect with you, a chance for us to think about what's working in our online classrooms and what isn't, and a chance to start imagining what we want our teaching to look like in 2027.

The vision for 2027

In January, we're going to take that conversation even further. My goal for The Online Educator is simple: to help online nurse educators create meaningful, engaging learning experiences while teaching more intentionally and efficiently. That means we're going to talk about innovation—but not innovation for innovation's sake. I'm much more interested in practical innovation. The kind you can actually use in your course. The kind that solves a problem. The kind that saves you time. The kind that gets students thinking instead of simply clicking through another assignment. And the kind that doesn't require you to completely redesign your course every semester. Throughout 2027, our conversations will center around four areas that I believe can make a tremendous difference in online teaching.

Organization

We'll start the year by getting our online classrooms in order. How easy is it for students to find what they need? Is the course structured consistently? Are instructions clear? Are we answering the same questions repeatedly because information is difficult to locate? Sometimes improving the student experience isn't about adding something new. Sometimes it's about making what we already have easier to navigate.

Preparation & Time Management

There are only so many hours in the week. We'll explore ways to streamline repetitive teaching tasks, develop better workflows, use automation appropriately, and incorporate AI and other technologies in ways that actually give us some of that time back. Because innovation should not automatically mean more work. In fact, sometimes the smartest innovation is the one that makes our work simpler.

Instructional Design

This may be the area I'm most excited about. I want us to think beyond the traditional online formula of: Read this. Watch this. Post to the discussion board. Reply to two classmates.There is nothing inherently wrong with any of those activities. But they shouldn't be our only options. We'll explore active learning, gamification, scenarios, simulations, case-based learning, interactive activities, and other approaches that give students opportunities to apply, decide, analyze, practice, and create. And I'll be sharing many of the things I'm experimenting with along the way.

Communication & Community Building

Finally, we'll talk about something technology can never replace: connection. How do we establish instructor presence without feeling like we have to be online 24/7? How do we create opportunities for students to learn from one another? How do we communicate clearly enough that students feel supported while still encouraging independence? And how do we create an online classroom that actually feels like a learning community? These questions will guide us through the final part of the year.

What you can expect from this blog

My plan is to be back here every week. Some posts will give you practical teaching strategies you can try immediately. Some will introduce tools and technology. Some will take you behind the scenes of activities I'm creating. Some will explore what's changing in online nursing education. Some will give you resources you can take directly into your course. And occasionally, I'll share something that didn't work quite as planned—because innovation involves experimentation, too. Most importantly, I want these posts to be useful. I don't want you to finish reading and think, Well, that was interesting. I want you to finish reading and think: I can try that. Maybe you'll leave with a new activity. Maybe it will be a tool you've never considered. Maybe it will be a different way of approaching an assignment you've taught for years. Or maybe it will simply be one small change that makes your course a little better for you and your students. Because I don't believe improving our teaching always requires a complete course redesign. Sometimes it starts with one small change.

And there's something else coming in 2027…

The blog isn't the only thing returning. I'm also reimagining The Innovative Online Nurse Educator Academy, my membership community for online nurse educators. And this time, I'm intentionally connecting everything. Beginning in 2027, the topics we explore here on the blog will align with the deeper work happening inside the Academy. We'll move through the year together—starting with organization, moving into preparation and time management, then instructional design, and finishing with communication and community building.

Inside the Academy, we'll take those ideas further. We'll have Innovative Masterclasses where we can dig deeper into strategies and technologies for online teaching. I'll be creating ready-to-use Gamified Lesson Plans that members can adapt for their own courses. We'll have dedicated course preparation and reflection sessions throughout the year. And every Thursday, we'll meet for Co-Working & Office Hours—dedicated time to actually work on our courses, ask questions, experiment with ideas, and get things done.

Because I've learned something important over the years: Sometimes we don't need another idea. We need the time, structure, resources, and community to actually implement the ideas we already have. That's what I want The Innovative Online Nurse Educator Academy to become. My hope is that the blog becomes the place where we explore ideas, while the Academy becomes the place where we put those ideas into action. But we have plenty to talk about before January gets here.

Let's start again

Coming back after nearly two years feels a little strange. But it also feels like exactly the right time. There has never been a more interesting time to teach online. Artificial intelligence is changing what's possible. New technologies are giving individual educators the ability to create learning experiences that would have been difficult—or impossible—for many of us to build just a few years ago. We can create interactive cases. We can build games. We can design simulations. We can automate repetitive tasks. We can rethink what an online assignment looks like. But with all of those possibilities, I also think it's important that we don't lose sight of the fundamentals. Good teaching still matters. Clear communication matters. Thoughtful course design matters. Meaningful interaction matters. And creating learning experiences that encourage students to think, apply, question, and connect still matters. Technology should help us do those things better. It shouldn't become the point of what we do. And that's the conversation I'm excited to have with you.

So I'm starting again. This October. One blog post. One teaching strategy. One experiment. One small improvement at a time.

If you're teaching nursing online, I hope you'll join me. 

Welcome back to The Online Educator.

We have a lot to explore.