Online Learning Update

By Joe Burris, The Baltimore Sun

Like other Anne Arundel Community College students, Dysha Huggins-Hodge spends much of her time immersed in schoolwork. The one difference: Her online coursework can sometimes be interrupted by a warning of a direct-fire attack. Then Huggins-Hodge, an Army staff sergeant stationed in Afghanistan, takes shelter with her fellow soldiers. “And when it’s over,” she says, “I go back to doing schoolwork.” An Athens, Ga., resident stationed with her family at Fort Meade, Huggins-Hodge has gone from being uninterested in college to excelling in one of AACC’s most difficult curriculums, all amid the challenges that come with serving in the military during wartime. Huggins-Hodge, 24, is pursuing a transfer studies degree at AACC. Since the 1970s, the school has been a Service Members Opportunity College, one of a consortium of schools that offer educational opportunities to service members and their families, AACC officials said.

http://www.baltimoresun.com/news/maryland/anne-arundel/bs-ar-aacc-student-afghanistan-20110105,0,7566347.story

by Dave Lederman, Inside Higher Education

A for-profit advocacy group is continuing its attack on the U.S. Government Accountability Office, releasing a report today that accuses Congress’s investigative arm of manipulating data and misstating facts in its highly critical review of for-profit colleges last summer. The report — commissioned and released by the Coalition for Educational Success and conducted by the consulting firm Norton/Norris, which conducts its own “mystery shopper” reviews for what its principals say is a mix of for-profit and nonprofit colleges — documents what its authors say are dozens of misrepresentations by the government agency that when taken together, they assert, seriously undermine its conclusions. “[O]ur review reveals that only 14 findings are credible as written by the GAO out of 65 originally reported (an additional 14 findings cannot be confirmed),” the report states. It cites the agency’s “bias” — “evident in several aspects of the undercover testing and subsequent report with inconsistencies in methodology, the lack of basic knowledge regarding college admissions practices and inaccurate reporting of conversations in order to skew facts.”

http://www.insidehighered.com/news/2011/01/13/for_profit_advocacy_group_lays_out_critique_of_gao_report

By IBTimes

Google Inc. is planning to harness the growing market for educational software and emerge as a single point of access to a majority of popular education applications available today, by integrating all in an exclusive online marketplace, according to recent reports from Bloomberg Businessweek.Google has taken its voice recognition service and personalized it for users.

While most of the revenue for Google so far has come from search advertising, it now eyes a share of sale proceeds from software developers for whom it will facilitate sales through the online store. A few applications from product companies such as Aviary and Grockit are already available in the Google Apps Marketplace, the current online store of the Internet major. However, any sales generated through the store accrues entirely to the developer at present. Under the Company’s new plans there is likely to be a change in this model.

http://www.ibtimes.com/articles/95860/20101229/google-software-education-apps-marketplace.htm

by Real Online Degrees

You’ve enrolled yourself in online classes, but may be feeling a little nervous. If you haven’t been to school in years, you may worry about how to get started again. You may even be worried about how to approach your online studies if you have never taken an online course. Follow these simple steps to stay ahead in your online studies and ace your online classes.

http://www.realonlinedegrees.com/how-to-excel-in-online-classes_2010-12-28/

by Natasha Willhite, ITTimes Korea

Distance Education became apparent after making its first appearance back in the 1990’s and quickly gaining popularity among college students of all types. Most colleges in the U.S., South Korea, and elsewhere in the world have since introduced hybrid courses to take advantage of learning outside of the classroom in addition to the time within the classroom. Before it was believed that the future of the classroom was located in front of computer screen, however, the new image is evolving into a mixture of computer plus classroom. E-learning has its advantages and disadvantages to students and colleges.

http://www.koreaittimes.com/story/12274/online-learning-bringing-classroom-student

by George S. MOUZAKITIS and Nazime TUNCAY, TOJDE

The historian Arnold Toynbee in a paper prepared for Britannica’s Board of Editors (1968) wrote: “What we know compared with what there is to be known is infinitesimal”. It is not surprising that even after 42 years this notion is still valid. For decades, educational planners, policy makers and educational participants, in general, have been proceeding to reforms in educational systems in their attempt to equip the workforce at national and international level with the necessary knowledge and skills. Yet, the anticipated goals have not been attained. The fact that economy has turned to be exclusively knowledge-based has exhibited an increasing demand for innovative ways of delivering education. (Zhang, D., Zhao. et. a., 2004)

http://tojde.anadolu.edu.tr/tojde41/articles/article_9.htm

Kevin YEE & Jace HARGIS, TOJDE

One of the more vexing problems in teaching fully-online classes concerns the development of community. As Rovai (2001) identified, online courses must combat feelings of isolation and impart a sense of personal and individual attention. To create a sense of belonging and togetherness, instructors typically need to surmount numerous technological hurdles inherent in online delivery, not least of which is the inescapable conclusion that the one factor most basic to the formation of community-face to face interaction-is by definition absent in an online class. Many new tech-based teaching tools have been developed in an attempt to ameliorate the digital alienation and promote interaction, such as discussion boards, synchronous chat rooms, and emerging media like wikis, blogs and podcasts, as well as virtual worlds, such as Second Life. As the frequency of interaction grows, so does the sense of belonging to a learning community (Dawson, 2008).

http://tojde.anadolu.edu.tr/tojde41/notes_for_editor/notes_for_editor_1.html

by Steve Kolowich, Inside Higher Ed

Some adventurous professors have used Twitter as a teaching tool for at least a few years. At a presentation at Educause in 2009, W. Gardner Campbell, director of the academy of teaching and learning at Baylor University, extolled the virtues of allowing students to pose questions to the professor and each other — an important part of the thinking and learning process — without having to raise their hands to do so immediately and aloud. And in November, a group of professors published a scientific paper suggesting that bringing Twitter into the learning process might boost student engagement and performance.

http://www.insidehighered.com/news/2011/01/11/college_professors_use_social_media_such_as_twitter_and_itunes_to_teach_students_foreign_language

By Beecher Tuttle, TMCnet

With lower budgets, limited physical space and new insight into the effectiveness of online learning, a myriad of highly regarded public and private colleges and universities have begun transitioning their curriculum to a digital world. In fact, the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, one of the most well thought-of state institutions on the East Coast, recently announced its plans to offer its prestigious MBA program completely online. The business school’s dean told Mashable that the university made the move because it did not see online learning as a lesser form of education, if delivered properly.

http://education.tmcnet.com/topics/education/articles/131254-technology-empowering-online-learning-post-secondary-level.htm

by George L Mehaffy, AASCU Red Balloon Project

For-profit universities have been around a long time. What is it about them now that creates a greater concern? For many years, for-profit universities were the Rodney Dangerfields of higher education. They were the trade schools, the certificate programs, and whatever else. They were always viewed as second class. Despite huge changes, they are still viewed with some suspicion. They still struggle, as Rodney Dangerfield did, to get respect. But things are changing, and changing fast. I have four reasons to worry about the growing influence and power of the for-profit world of higher education.

http://aascuredballoonproject.wordpress.com/2011/01/10/for-profit-universities/

by Oakland University, Rochester, Michigan

Open Education is a current theory that knowledge should be transparent and accessible to anyone who wants to learn. Technology and the Internet have increased the global community’s access to knowledge. The hope is that openness will help create a more democratic and equitable global society, as our information networks dissolve traditional geographic and cultural boundaries. Benefits, however, must be weighed against possible complications. The public nature of this work can lead to privacy and security abuses, global communication might have to contend with local law, and democratic organizations, although they may lack the built-in abuses of hierarchies, can lead to chaos and inefficiency. This conference will examine specific examples about how openness is implemented in higher education and the resulting successes and problems. The three tracks will be about open education, open access (journals), and open source (computer code).

http://www2.oakland.edu/elis/conference.cfm?countrytabs=0

by Steve Kolowich, Inside Higher Ed

Ed Garay, assistant director for academic computing at the University of Illinois at Chicago, says that while it is “superficially” apparent that Blackboard, Facebook, and increasingly sophisticated text-messaging platforms built into smartphones might amount to a death knell for institutional e-mail, there are certain types of communication — such as formal notices from financial aid, student affairs, and health officials — that might be too formal and detailed to convey effectively in a pithy text message. “Texting and [instant messaging] works well when communicating with students about discrete pieces of information,” Garay wrote to fellow campus information officials on a listserv last month. “For reflective writing and substantive digital communications, email and threaded discussion boards are very effective, sorry, you must check your university e-mail or have it routed to your pocket.”

http://goo.gl/iKFA3

by Michael E. Ward, Gary Peters, and Kyna Shelley, IRRODL

Some faculty members are reluctant to offer online courses because of significant concerns relative to the impact of such formats on the quality of instruction, learning, and participant interaction. Faculty members from The University of Southern Mississippi implemented synchronous interactive online instruction (SIOI) in the spring of 2007. This article explores the rationale for use of the particular technology, faculty conclusions regarding implementation of the technology, and the impact of the technology on instruction and learning. Comparisons by students of the quality of the learning experience in this environment with the quality of learning in face-to-face and asynchronous online learning environments were also analyzed. The study finds that instructors and students view SIOI favourably. The mean student ratings for the dimensions of instructional quality were the same for SIOI and face-to-face course formats in all but one dimension, but mean ratings for SIOI and face-to-face formats were consistently higher than those for asynchronous online instruction. The single exception was for the dimension, ease of access to the course; the SIOI and asynchronous online formats were rated higher than the face-to-face format in this quality dimension. These findings suggest that it is possible to achieve levels of effectiveness in an online instructional format similar to those that are realized in face-to-face delivery. However, there is slight, though not statistically significant, evidence of concern about the quality of student collaboration in SIOI-enabled courses. Thus, instructors will need to capitalize on available mechanisms for interaction and collaboration.

http://www.irrodl.org/index.php/irrodl/article/view/867/1610

By Josh Fischman, Chronicle of Higher Education

In his keynote address at the Higher Ed Tech Summit, Walt Mossberg, the influential technology columnist for The Wall Street Journal, told an audience of higher-education officials and company executives that their future held many tablet computers. And not just the iPad, but some of the 70 or so new tablet devices that have been announced this week at the Consumer Electronics Show here. Speaking yesterday, Mr. Mossberg noted that CES this year should be renamed “TES” because there were so many of the things. (There was Motorola’s new Xoom, for instance, and Dell’s Streak 7, Lenovo’s IdeaPad Hybrid—a laptop with a detachable tablet—and devices from Samsung, Toshiba, Motion …)

http://chronicle.com/blogs/wiredcampus/walt-mossberg-says-colleges-will-deal-with-a-deluge-of-tablets/28889

by Sarah Kessler, Mashable

Online education is often dismissed as a pipeline for expensive degrees of little value and a sponge for veterans’ tuition payments. But while it’s true that for-profit universities have made a hefty business out of e-learning, it’s becoming apparent that learning online can also benefit almost everyone else. “It’s very clear that five years from now, on the web, for free…you will be able to find the greatest lectures in the world on the web,” Bill Gates recently predicted in an interview at Techonomy 2010. Gates is not the only smart guy pulling for online education to extend the reach, affordability, and even quality of education. Here’s why the virtual classroom counts deans of prestigious universities, entrepreneurs, and people who want to change the world as its advocates.

http://mashable.com/2011/01/03/virtual-classroom/

By Lev S. Gonick, Inside Higher Ed

While the rhetorical debates will continue, blended learning models based on hybrid pedagogies of face-to-face interactions with online exploration, discovery, reflection and mentoring are emergent realities. Universities will necessarily continue to grapple with how best to lean into these new realities. Leading institutions will embrace the change and seek to shape the evolving meaning of excellence through faculty innovation and demonstrated student success. There are a host of technologies that have contributed to this new reality so far and are likely to shape it moving forward. Mobile platforms extend where and when learning takes place. Gaming and simulation technologies can advance problem-based learning, hands-on learning, and play-based learning. How and when simulation and serious gaming technologies are experienced as part of the learning environment need not be a trade-off between pedagogical design and serendipity. New platforms will emerge that support both real time and asynchronous learning opportunities across multiple mediums, from traditional classroom experiences to online, large-scale online collaborations to personalized interactive video and telephony conferencing, and field-based, lab-based, or classroom based learning, either in stand-alone mode or in various permutations of integrated learning environments. Nascent experimentation leveraging these new technologies is poised to help frame new and powerful myths that might attract, engage, and retain student interest and time on task, two critically important conditions associated with deep learning.

http://www.insidehighered.com/views/2011/01/03/gonick

By Doug Belden, Pioneer Press

Wyatt McCoy won a state tennis title in eighth grade, and as he moved into high school, he realized he needed to raise his game by competing in national tournaments. But having to miss school for a week or two at a time “gets to be kind of a hassle,” he said. So McCoy, a Shoreview resident, left Mounds View High School after freshman year to enroll at Insight School of Minnesota, an online high school affiliated with the Brooklyn Center school district. The senior often does schoolwork in the mornings and evenings, and much of the day is devoted to tennis and other exercise. The independent schedule also allows him to travel. For McCoy, 18, the move paid off. The state’s top-ranked player, he raised his national profile and earned a tennis scholarship to Notre Dame.

http://www.twincities.com/localnews/ci_16995849?nclick_check=1

by Martha Ann Overland, The Chronicle of Higher Education

Cable Green, of the Washington State Board for Community & Technical Colleges, says students pay $1,000 a year for books, so the savings in switching to online materials were obvious. Calculating the savings, when students are paying up to $1,000 for books each year, was an exercise in simple math, says Cable Green, director of e-learning and open education at the Washington State Board for Community & Technical Colleges. “We believe we can change the cost of attending higher education in this country and in the world,” he says. “If we are all teaching the same 81 courses, why not?” So with a $750,000 matching grant from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, the board has started an ambitious program to develop low-cost, online instructional materials for its community and technical colleges. For the Open Course Library, as the materials are known, teams of community-college instructors, librarians, and Web designers from around the state are creating ready-to-use digital course modules for the 81 highest-enrolled courses. The first 43 courses, which are as varied as “General Biology” and “Introduction to Literature 1,” will be tested in classrooms beginning this month.

http://chronicle.com/article/State-of-Washington-to-Offer/125887

by Randall S. Davies, Scott L. Howell, and Jo Ann Petrie, IRRODL

This article explores and summarizes trends in research and scholarship over the last decade (i.e., 1998-2007) for students completing dissertations and theses in the area of distance education. The topics addressed, research designs utilized, and data collection and analysis methods used were compiled and analyzed. Results from this study indicate that most of the distance education research conducted by graduate students in this period of time has been descriptive, often addressing the perceptions, concerns, and satisfaction levels of various stakeholders with a particular distance education experience. Studies of this type typically used self-report surveys and analyzed the data using descriptive statistics. Validating the concern of many distance education scholars, there was a lack of graduate student research aimed at developing a theory base in distance education. On a positive note, projects directly comparing distance education with traditional face-to-face classrooms to determine the merit of specific programs declined significantly in 2007 as compared to 1998. This result might indicate that distance learning is becoming accepted as a viable and important educational experience in its own right. Another encouraging finding was the decreased emphasis on studies focused on technology issues, such as those analyzing the quality of distance education technology and questioning educators’ ability to provide an acceptable technology-enabled distance learning experience.

http://www.irrodl.org/index.php/irrodl/article/view/876/1602

by David Pundak,Orit Herscovitz, Miri Shacham EURODL

Instruction in higher education has developed significantly over the past two decades, influenced by two trends: promotion of active learning methods and integration of web technology in e-Learning. Many studies found that active teaching improves students’ success, involvement and thinking skills. Nevertheless, internationally, most instructors maintain traditional teaching methods. A research tool – Active Instruction Tendency – (AIT) questionnaire developed on the basis of ‘active instructors’ experience exposed the transitions they had undergone. Following a review of the literature and examination of ‘active instructors’ attitudes, six key areas that may characterize the lecturer’s tendency to adopt active learning were identified. Using the AIT questionnaire, we examined attitudes concerning active learning of 135 instructors in three Israeli higher education institutions and 56 European distance and e-learning instructors. Their attitudes were compared with the attitudes of ‘active instructors’ who, for the past five years, have taught in active learning environments. In all six identified instruction areas, significant differences were found between attitudes of ‘active instructors’ and other instructors. Identification of these differences expands the theoretical knowledge corpus concerning instructors’ attitudes toward active learning, presenting a new tool to characterize these attitudes.

http://www.eurodl.org/?p=current&article=412

We invite you to submit your proposal(s) online to present at the 27th Annual Conference on Distance Teaching & Learning, hosted in Madison, Wisconsin in August. Learn more about the presentation formats by selecting from the session types at the URL below.

Lead sessions on the planning/management of distance ed/training programs.

• Share your research and expertise.
• Network with other professionals in your field.
• Distill essential knowledge/skills.
• Demonstrate your successful course and/or training materials to others.
• Guide interactive discussions with your colleagues.

Submissions will be accepted until January 19 at 4 pm CST.

http://www.uwex.edu/disted/conference/