Online Learning Update

By Rebecca Kern, US News

With the growing amount of online colleges and courses to choose from, how can you make sure you don’t waste your time or money on a badly taught course? Some highly experienced online instructors and students suggest asking an instructor these six questions before signing up.

http://www.usnews.com/articles/education/online-education/2010/06/29/6-questions-to-ask-when-choosing-an-online-instructor.html

By Jazmine Woodberry, Arizona Daily Wildcat

The School of Media Arts will debut a 15-unit teacher certificate program for media education on July 12. The courses will be taught solely online. Set to become the School of Theatre, Film and Television starting July 1, media arts felt it was important to instruct teachers on how to teach with media. The school found that people were utilizing television, film and audio in their classrooms, but not really learning how or why any particular medium does or does not work. Beverly Seckinger, a UA media arts professor and interim director of the school, notes the new program is a way for media to be taught online, a way to reach beyond just those who can attend regular classes.

http://wildcat.arizona.edu/news/teachers-get-taste-of-multimedia-instruction-1.1495772

By Alex Kayle, IT Web

Google reveals that two more US states have given the green light for interested school districts to begin using the company’s Web-based applications, reports Information Week. Following Oregon’s decision in April to allow its school districts to deploy Google Apps for Education, Colorado and Iowa have agreed to make Google Apps available to over 3 000 schools in the two states. In addition, Google is introducing a suite of training solutions and an online Google Apps Education Training Centre to help educators understand Google Apps better.

http://www.itweb.co.za/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=34418:google-drives-online-learning&catid=69&Itemid=58

By David Nagel, THE Journal

The percentage of high school students taking online courses nearly doubled in a single year. According to the latest data available from Project Tomorrow’s annual Speak Up Survey, more than one-quarter (27 percent) of all high school students took at least one class online last year, up from 14 percent the year before. But the numbers could have been higher, according to the researchers. According to a new report released at this week’s ISTE 2010 conference, “Learning in the 21st Century: 2010 Trends Update,” the percentage of middle school students taking online classes has also climbed. Twenty-one percent of middle school students reported taking online classes in 2009 versus 16 percent in 2008.

http://thejournal.com/articles/2010/06/29/report-online-learning-nearly-doubles-among-high-school-students.aspx

by Sam Dean, Ostatic Blog

The idea that lectures and online classes can succeed is nothing new. E-learning is actually big business, and large universities such as U.C. Berkeley are investing in technology and teams to take lectures and classes online. There are also free, open source platforms, such as Moodle, that make it easy for anyone to deliver a lecture or class online. Still, the common denominator for broadcasting online remains YouTube, and that’s why it’s not surprising to see a successful, free and open series of lectures taking shape there. As Physorg.com reports, California-based Sal Khan already has over 1,500 lectures on YouTube, and you can find out more about the Khan Academy lectures here.

http://ostatic.com/blog/khan-academy-explores-free-open-lectures-on-youtube

by LIA TIMSON, Sydney Morning Herald

Australian companies and government agencies are turning to game developers for help creating recruitment, marketing and training programs that are fun, engaging and cost-efficient. Following their American and British counterparts, ASIO, McDonald’s Australia and the NRMA are jumping on the online learning game wagon, commissioning serious gamers and digital specialists to create games, courses and websites with short-term campaign targets in mind.

http://www.smh.com.au/technology/enterprise/making-fun-of-business-20100629-zfxt.html

by Andria Krewson, PBS Media Shift

The CEO of Creative Commons, Joi Ito, is currently teaching a free online journalism class through Peer 2 Peer University, an online community of “open study groups for short university-level courses.” The online class syncs with a graduate-level class Ito teaches at Keio University in Japan, and features a UStream presentation and IRC chat once a week. IRC chat? Yes, the class glues together tools like UStream and IRC, and the platform, which was built on a Drupal base, continues to evolve. P2PU’s organizers make it clear they know the tools aren’t perfect, so they’re using feedback from participants to refine things as they go.

http://www.pbs.org/mediashift/2010/06/free-online-journalism-classes-begin-to-gain-ground179.html

by the University of Texas at Dallas

What does it take to make online learning as engaging and effective as traditional classroom teaching? Dr. Rebekah Nix, a senior lecturer in the School of Interdisciplinary Studies, knows. Nix, who teaches science education courses through the University’s Teacher Development Center, has been honored with the 2010 Innovations in Online Learning Teaching Award, given by the UT System Innovations in Online Learning Conference. The award is given to an outstanding UT System faculty member or teaching assistant who has made innovative contributions to the field of teaching in online education. Recipients must have taught an online course within the past year and used inventive techniques in presenting learning materials and/or teaching their online course. Nix used her experiences as an online student and as a teacher to create a student-centered learning environment that would be useful and engaging, whether online or face-to-face.

http://www.utdallas.edu/news/2010/6/28-4091_Faculty-Member-Lauded-for-Online-Course-Approach_article.html

Salam ABDALLAH & Jamal DOUGLAS, TOJDE

SL has been characterized to enable feelings of immersion, connection with students and content, shared social learning space, and real sense of being there. SL is considered as an ideal ground for social constructive learning, where knowledge and artifact are constructed collaboratively. Teachers are designing learning activities and conducting complete courses in variety of disciplines. Second Life can provide a platform to mirror real workplace situations. It is recognized for collaborative learning environment to foster teamwork and interactions for students’ projects such as Systems Development, and developing electronic commerce business plans (Bixler, n.d; Ye et al., 2007, Bloomfield, 2007; Ives et al, 2008, Jarmon et al., 2008). It has a potential as a communication tool for lecturing (Martinez, 2007 ) and creating virtual offices to assist and advice students during office hours (Cliburn et al. 2009). It is for all these reasons, faculty and students are being attracted to SL.

http://tojde.anadolu.edu.tr/tojde39/articles/article_10.htm

by Ayse KOK, Turkish Journal of Distance Education

Recent epistemological and psychological theories have moved focus away from the individual to the social and constructive nature of knowledge. In contrast to the acquisition perspective which considers the mind as being a container, knowledge as a substance and learning as the transfer and addition of substance to mind, the participation perspective derives from studies of learning which understands learning as participation in communities of practice (Lave & Wenger, 1991). Accordingly, knowledge is socially constructed through collaborative efforts in dialogic interaction (Salamon, 1997). Cognition is also based on distributed access to information and a shared understanding amongst participants (Hutchins, 1995). The learning implications of this epistemology are profound. First, learning is situated, contextual and closely tied to the situation in which knowledge is being created (Brown et al., 1989; Lave & Wenger, 1991). Legitimate peripheral participation occurs through the attainment of the subjective perspective of individuals engaged in a shared enterprise that is contained within artifacts, behaviour and language (Lave & Wenger, 1991). Learning is more about becoming a practitioner through social interaction with others than learning about the practice (Brown& Duguid, 1991).

http://tojde.anadolu.edu.tr/tojde39/articles/article_5.htm

by Janet M. Ferguson & Amy E. DeFelice, IRRODL

This research presents findings from a two-part study. In the first part, graduate students taking online courses were given a course evaluation form. Student responses from online abbreviated summer sessions were compared to student responses from online full-semester courses. Both the intensive and full-semester courses were taught by the same professor and both had identical requirements in terms of assignments and exams. The independent variable was the length of time taken to complete the requirements, with the dependent variables being satisfaction with the course, perceived learning, and academic performance. A statistical analysis of the data found significant differences in a number of areas.

http://www.irrodl.org/index.php/irrodl/article/view/772

by Terry Anderson, IRRODL

In this presentation Terry defines three pedagogical models that have defined distance education programming – behavioural/cognitive, constructivist, and connectivist. He talks about the challenges and opportunity afforded by each model, with a focus on the emergent development of connectivism.

http://www.irrodl.org/index.php/irrodl/article/view/865/1551

by Grace E. Merritt, Hartford Currant

Summer school is going high tech. Starting this summer, Connecticut students can take classes online. That means rather than waking up early and climbing on a bus, summer school students can stay home and work on their laptops on their own schedule. Even better, students usually don’t have to take the entire course over again. A diagnostic test determines what course material the student didn’t understand the first time around, then the course is tailored to cover only those areas, allowing students to finish more quickly.

http://www.ctnow.com/news/hc-online-summer-school-20100627,0,2300626.story

By BRIAN TUMULTY, Journal Courier

The nation’s next federal loan-related time bomb may be ticking among for-profit colleges that aggressively recruit low-income students who never graduate and can’t repay their loans, a Senate committee was told Thursday. Although fewer than 10 percent of college students attend for-profit colleges, these schools account for 44 percent of all defaults on federal student loans. “We’ve just loaded one generation of Americans with mortgage debt that they can’t afford to pay back,” portfolio manager Steven Eisman of FrontPoint Financial Services Fund told members of the Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee. ”Are we going to load up a new generation (with) student loan debt that they can’t afford to pay back?”

http://www.jconline.com/article/20100624/NEWS09/100624020

By DAVID METZEN and DAVID OLSON, Star Tribune

Gov. Tim Pawlenty has been an outspoken proponent of online learning for a reason: It works. So when a recent Star Tribune editorial (June 19) said the Governor’s “iCollege” vision of cost savings for government is “out of focus,” it missed the overall mark. Here’s why: Of the more than 400,000 students attending college in Minnesota this past academic year, about 45 percent were 25 or older. It is these students — who often have full-time employment, children and car payments — who benefit most from the convenience and flexibility of online learning course delivery. And they are not the only Minnesotans benefiting from online course delivery.

http://www.startribune.com/opinion/commentary/97114089.html?elr=KArksc8P:Pc:UthPacyPE7iUiD3aPc:_Yyc:aUU

by Rockbridge Seminary

Rockbridge Seminary, a fully online seminary that allows students to learn while serving in a ministry role, today announced Seminary Test Drive, a program that targets potential students who are ready to begin their seminary education, but are hesitant about 100 percent online learning. The new program allows a student to register for any course on the schedule and pay only one-half of the regular tuition fees, as long as the student agrees to enroll for the next term, if they are satisfied with their online learning experience.

http://www.prweb.com/releases/2010/06/prweb4185044.htm

by NewsOK

Distance learning programs have skyrocketed at Oklahoma State University and the University of Oklahoma in recent years. Distance learning can make earning a degree more accessible to working or nontraditional students. Many more students are choosing to take classes partially or entirely online, officials at OU and Oklahoma State University said. Advances in technology and an increasingly diverse student body has caused enrollment in distance learning classes and programs to skyrocket during recent years, officials said.

http://bit.ly/cq52pk

by Lynn F. Jacobs, Jeremy S. Hyman, US News

The U.S. government defines distance education as “a formal education process in which the students and instructor are not in the same place.” It may seem like just about any college course satisfies this definition, but this specifically is referring to online courses that you take either in pursuit of a degree or to improve your knowledge and skills in some area. Distance learning is a really big thing these days: At any given time, more than 2.5 million students are taking these classes. And with the increasing demand for higher education, given globalization and the competitive job market, this number is bound to grow exponentially in years to come. To get you started thinking about distance learning, and to help you figure out if it might be for you, here are 7 tips for prospective students thinking about online education

http://www.usnews.com/blogs/professors-guide/2010/06/24/7-tips-for-distance-learning.html

by Ana GARGALLO-CASTEL, Luisa ESTEBAN-SALVADOR, M. MARZO-NAVARRO; TOJDE

The purpose of this study is to analyze the application of Information Communication Technologies (ICTs) within tertiary education in a Spanish University. We analyze the results of a new initiative developed by the University of Zaragoza through an innovative project for a virtual campus called ‘Anillo Digital Docente’. Data relating to the degree of WebCT’s use is analyzed, as well as the academic results achieved by the students using it. These results are compared with the results achieved by other students studying in a traditional teaching setting. Several conclusions are drawn from this comparison: firstly, on how effective these technologies are within regulated university education; and secondly, on how beneficial the extension of its application would be to other educational areas.

http://tojde.anadolu.edu.tr/tojde39/notes_for_editor/notes_for_editor_3.htm

Sheila Scutter, Ieva Stupans, Tim Sawyer and Sharron King, AJET

Podcasting is used commonly recreationally and is now increasingly used in education. The technology for podcasting is readily available, easy to use and inexpensive, making it an attractive option for providing additional flexible learning resources for students. However, little is known about how podcasts are used by students and the implications for learning. This paper describes how podcasts were used by students in a medical radiation program. In common with many other health science programs, the medical radiation program has a large content load, particularly in first year where courses such as anatomy and physiology are introduced. Students generally used podcasts to review lecture content, especially when they had difficulty with understanding lectures or new terminology. Students generally listened to the recordings whilst viewing the lecture PowerPoint presentations on a home computer. Results from this study indicate that academics need to contemplate the introduction of instructional methods such as podcast lectures within the broader context of instructional goals.

http://www.ascilite.org.au/ajet/ajet26/scutter.html

by Nian-Shing Chen and Leong Ko, JETS

This article is based on an experiment designed to conduct an interpreting test for multiple candidates online, using web-based synchronous cyber classrooms. The test model was based on the accreditation test for Professional Interpreters produced by the National Accreditation Authority of Translators and Interpreters (NAATI) in Australia. Specifically, the test involved interpreting-specific components such as dialogue interpreting, sight translation, and consecutive interpreting, as well as non-interpreting-specific components such as questions on ethical issues. The test was conducted live synchronously and concurrently with multiple candidates – i.e., all candidates were tested in their own locations at the same time. The result of the experiment indicates the potential and feasibility of conducting interpreting tests online using the specific technology of synchronous cyber classrooms. However, there are also a number of constraints when compared to conventional face-to-face tests. There is a need for further studies on how to effectively apply this kind of technology to conduct interpreting tests for multiple candidates online in synchronous mode and without the constraints identified in this research.

http://www.ifets.info/journals/13_2/13.pdf