Online Learning Update

by Janelle Vreeland, College News

CDW Government LLC—a corporation aiding educators and the government in IT solutions—has released the results of its 21st-Century Campus Report for 2010, and found that, for 63 percent of current college students, technology was an important factor in making their college selection. It also found that it was an important factor for a whopping 93 percent of current high school students. Students also emphasized the importance of wireless networks, off-campus network connections and course management systems in the report. The study showed that students want online learning to take a larger role in the classroom. Three-quarters of the students surveyed believed that their campus understands how they want technology to be used in the learning process, but non tech-savvy faculty members seem to be the biggest obstacle keeping technology out of the classroom.

http://bit.ly/a17k2I

by Rahul Gaitonde, Deputy Editor, BroadbandBreakfast.com

Education Secretary Arne Duncan announced the creation of the Online Learning Registry which will provide access to the thousands of documents, photos and other data housed at the Smithsonian. This online registry was one of the many recommendations made by the National Broadband Plan. “No technological innovation in our lifetime has greater potential to transform education than high-speed Internet,” said Chairman Genachowski. “But computers and connections alone are not enough to seize the opportunities of broadband for education. The National Broadband Plan recommended that the federal government increase the pool of high-quality digital resources that educators can easily find, access, and combine with other content to help their students learn. I am very pleased to see this recommendation being adopted. The Learning Registry will put a library of world-class educational content at the fingertips of every American student and teacher.”

http://broadbandbreakfast.com/2010/07/smithsonian-fcc-and-usda-announce-online-learning-registry/

By Sophia Li, Chronicle of Higher Ed

A new player entered the field of open online education last week: Nixty, a Web site that allows any user to take and create courses for free. The new learning platform started up with over 200 course offerings culled from open-source content already available online, such as courses from the Khan Academy and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology’s OpenCourseWare Project. Nixty’s users have begun developing about 120 new courses since its launch, said Glen Moriarty, the company’s chief executive.

http://chronicle.com/blogPost/Online-Course-Construction/25732/?sid=wc&utm_source=wc&utm_medium=en

By Eric Jou and Wang Wei, Asia One

Ever dreamed of attending a top-notch university such as Harvard, Yale or MIT? Well now is your chance to sit in on lectures from some of the most esteemed universities in the world, as they start offering free online access. Many prestigious Western universities have been offering free lectures for the masses through the Internet since 2002 as part of the Open Courseware initiative funded by the William and Flora Hewlett Foundation. These videos include lectures from renowned US institutions such as Harvard University, the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and Yale University.

http://news.asiaone.com/News/Education/Story/A1Story20100721-228109.html

By Tanya Roscorla, Converge

This year, more than 1,000 at-risk students in Chicago graduated on time by taking online classes. While students drop out because of socioeconomic and academic reasons, they also drop out because of some bureaucratic reasons, said Robin Gonzales, manager of distance learning for Chicago Public Schools.

http://www.convergemag.com/college-career/Online-Classes-Help-Potential-Dropouts-Graduate.html

by Stefanni Nolte, SC Now

Alice Peterson, said she knew her daughter was headed down the wrong path. “I might have been in jail and she might have been in the funeral home somewhere,” Peterson said. Instead, the cousins heard about Provost Academy, a free public online high school for South Carolina residents. They meet at Refuge Outreach Ministry in Lake City to take their lessons. “It’s all around the kids’ needs and maybe schools should have been doing that for a long time,” Provost Academy Executive Director Darrell Johnson said. “Our school is very student-centered. It’s all about the kids and success. We don’t allow them to fail, either.” Students spend an average of six hours a day working on their classes.

http://www2.scnow.com/scp/news/local/pee_dee/article/online_high_school_turns_two_lake_city_students_lives_around/228983/

by Leena Rao, TechCrunch

Grockit is an online learning community that adds game mechanics to helping high school students prepare for standardized tests such as the GMAT and SAT. The startup, which just raised $7 million in funding, is also moving into general online education for high school and middle school students with impending launch of the Grockit Academy, an online destination where students can learn together and teach each other.

http://techcrunch.com/2010/07/19/grockit-makes-youtube-edu-more-useful/

By Stanford University School of Medicine, Health News Digest

The setting is clearly a simulated operating room, with a robotic mannequin as the patient, but the resident’s anxiety feels all too real. And the scary soundtrack — imagine the ominous music played when the shark approaches in Jaws — only adds to the tension. This is not just entertainment, it’s also educational. This video is part of START, a new 10-month online course from the Stanford University School of Medicine, filled with lectures, video-podcasts, interactive group projects, virtual classrooms and virtual mentoring. The name stands for Successful Transition to Anesthesia Residency Training, and is the brainchild of Larry Chu, MD, assistant professor of anesthesia, and Kyle Harrison, MD, clinical assistant professor of anesthesia. The course was designed to help relieve some of the anxiety that often accompanies the start of the residency.

http://www.healthnewsdigest.com/news/Education_390/New_Online_Learning_Approach_Prepares_Doctors_for_Stanford_Residencies.shtml

by Jennifer Aaker, Andy Smith, Good.is

Stanford Graduate School of Business offers a class called the Power of Social Technology, the goal of which is to arm entrepreneurial business students with online social media tools that create social good. The class has also spurred research on the “ripple effect”—the idea that small acts of goodness can create big change—and has welcomed speakers from Pixar, Facebook, Twitter, FourSquare, Groupon, and Google to talk about how students can harness social good in a way that goes hand-in-hand with profit-making.

http://www.good.is/post/how-do-you-teach-social-good/

By Marc Parry, Chronicle of Higher Education

As more colleges dip their toes into the booming online learning business, they’re increasingly taking those steps hand-in-hand with companies like Embanet. For nonprofit universities trying to compete in an online market aggressively targeted by for-profit colleges, the partnerships can rapidly bring in many students and millions of dollars in new revenue. That’s becoming irresistible to an increasingly prominent set of clients. George Washington University, Boston University, and the University of Southern California, to pick just three, all work with online-service companies. But the new breed of online collaboration can tread into delicate academic territory, blurring the lines between college and corporation.

http://chronicle.com/article/Outsourced-Ed-Colleges-Hire/66309/

by Daniel B. Wood, Christian Science Monitor

A pilot program of 25 to 40 courses this fall would offer the university’s most crowded courses, including calculus, chemistry, physics, and freshman composition. Making it work will require $6 million in private donations, and it comes at a challenging time for higher education in California. It was just a year ago that students took over campus buildings and blocked parking lots in high-profile demonstrations, protesting a 32 percent increase in student fees.

http://www.csmonitor.com/USA/Education/2010/0716/University-of-California-considers-online-bachelor-s-degree

By JEANNIE KEVER, Houston Chronicle

A board advisory committee later this month will recommend ways to cut costs in higher education, and requiring everyone who attends a public college or university in Texas to take some classes online could be up for discussion. Whether online education saves money is up for debate, since schools have to invest in technology and support services in order to deliver it. The most obvious savings comes from not having to provide additional classroom space. Campuses need fewer parking spaces, campus police and other auxiliary services, too. Tuition is generally the same, although some schools charge an additional technology fee.

http://www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/metropolitan/7112203.html

Kathy L. Guthrie & Holly McCracken, The Journal of Educators Online, Volume 7, Number 2, July 2010

The use of reflective pedagogies has long been considered critical to facilitating meaningful learning through experientially based curricula; however, the use of such methods has not been extensively explored as implemented in virtual environments. The study reviewed utilizes a combination of survey research and individual interviews to examine student perceptions of the meaningful learning which occurred as a result of their participation in two Web-based courses that utilized reflective pedagogies. One course focuses on topics related to service-learning and the second on placement-based internships. Both were instructed using online coursework based in reflective pedagogies to compliment on-site placements within local communities.

http://www.thejeo.com/Archives/Volume7Number2/GuthriePaper.pdf

by The Associated Press

The University of California is moving ahead with a plan to develop a new batch of online courses that could eventually lead to the country’s first highly selective, Internet-based degree program for undergraduates. The UC Office of the president is raising money from private donors so faculty can begin developing 25 to 40 online courses, starting with those in highest demand, including calculus, chemistry and physics. It’s unclear when students could enroll. UC already offers 1,250 online courses, which Edley said could serve as a starting point for a more sophisticated, high-tech approach that gives students easier access to instructors and classmates.

http://www.mercurynews.com/news/ci_15524372?nclick_check=1

by Rosalie L’Ecuyer, Fairbanks Daily News-Miner

As a result of readily available, new communications technology, there is a quiet, revolution in education under way but no one appears to be looking at its long-range impact. Hundreds in the Fairbanks area, perhaps thousands worldwide, are participating. Students at the graduate, undergraduate and secondary level are enrolling in online courses, some taking enough online classes to complete certification or degree requirements without attending a traditional campus class.

http://newsminer.com/bookmark/8767533-Online-courses

by Clayton M. Christensen and Michael B. Horn, Forbes

More than 70% of school districts already offer some form of online learning, and that number is growing among traditional brick-and-mortar middle and high schools. With big budget cuts looming, online learning is likely only to grow, as students increasingly look to it to for courses they want to take and credits they need for graduation. Many of the leading online learning providers have experienced sharp growth over the past few years, and that’s unlikely to slow. The adoption of online learning is much more than just a cost-saving move for school districts. It has the potential to transform schooling more broadly by allowing students access to a wide range of high-quality offerings and teachers, regardless of where they live.

http://www.forbes.com/2010/07/12/education-online-learning-leadership-careers-christensen.html?boxes=Homepagechannels

By Cory Hare, St. Albert Gazette

Summer school used to be just for students who had fallen behind. Now it’s increasingly for those who want to get ahead. “It’s actually a phenomenal trend here in St. Albert,” said Randy Kozak, summer school principal at St. Albert’s Paul Kane High School. Enrolment in that school’s summer program is around 450, more than a third of the student count the school attracts during the year, Kozak said.   The Catholic division offers traditional classroom-style summer school at St. Albert Catholic High School and also online learning through its St. Gabriel’s iLearn centre. The system has 120 students enrolled in the school setting and more than 300 learning online, said summer school principal Cara Mazur.

http://www.stalbertgazette.com/article/20100714/SAG0801/307149968/students-get-head-start-on-high-school

by Christopher Edley Jr., San Francisco Chronicle

The University of California is launching an online learning pilot program. If successful, I hope the university will embrace large-scale online instruction – not to replace the on-campus experience, but to enrich it. More urgently, online learning would enable us to serve the growing number of qualified students for whom there will be no room on campus or for whom a residential full-time program won’t work.

http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2010/07/17/INMJ1EDUFJ.DTL

by Katie Kim, WILX Lansing, MI

Kogut tells us creativity starts with cyber space. Several districts are restructuring their alternative education format to meet the needs of their students. “These children typically don’t want to come to high school,” says Kogut. “They need to have more flexibility in the way they learn and the time that the curriculum is offered.” Districts across Ingham County are incorporating online education one way or another. The Lansing School District is meeting Monday to discuss providing online alternative education to students at their old high schools, instead of at the Hill Center. “It’s new and very different,” says Dan Quisenberry, President of the Michigan Association of Public School Academies. “Teachers become facilitators of learning instead of deliverers of instruction.”

http://www.wilx.com/news/headlines/98266869.html?ref=869

By GAIL SCHONTZLER, Bozeman Daily Chronicle

Starting this fall, high school students in Bozeman and around the state can take free online classes for credit from the state’s new Montana Digital Academy. Bozeman High School students will be able to take online classes that aren’t already offered at the school, like oceanography, Principal Rob Watson told the Bozeman School Board on Monday night. Students who fail a class needed for graduation, like math, will be able to retake the class online to earn credits. That will be especially set up to make it convenient for students in the Bridger alternative program to recapture lost credits, Watson said.

http://www.bozemandailychronicle.com/news/article_b1710a74-8e30-11df-9a34-001cc4c03286.html

By JACKSON WEST, NBC Bay Area

The initial pilot would include 35 to 40 courses, and require $6 million in private contributions to fund. A description of the project and a slideshow presentation with video is available online, naturally. The courses would focus on basic undergraduate requirements for language and math, which students at the large school have long complained it can be difficult to get into because demand outweighs supply, sometimes delaying graduation. Making the courses available off-campus could also help students at community colleges earn credits ahead of a transfer.

http://www.nbcbayarea.com/news/local-beat/UC-Berkeley-Could-Cash-In-on-Online-Courses-jw-98273339.html