The UNC system’s push to consolidate and streamline universities’ online education programs might still be in its early stages, but administrators already have one model to follow — an emerging foreign language consortium. A report presented at the UNC-system Board of Governors meeting last week by Jim Woodward, former chancellor of UNC-Charlotte and North Carolina State University, recommended universities develop a system-wide structure for online courses to cut costs during a tough budgetary climate. Woodward said the system should utilize its foreign language consortium as a pilot program before implementing the new online structure.
After graduating from Oakcrest High School in 2004, Justin Kelley joined the 177th Fighter Wing of the New Jersey Air National Guard and headed off to Kean University in Union. After going on active duty, he transferred to Rowan University in Glassboro but worked full time on base and found it too hard to attend classes. So he transferred to Thomas Edison State College, where he was able to transfer all of his credits, including some from National Guard training. In October he graduated, having completed his criminal justice degree online. “I could work but could also go to college full time, which is what I wanted,” said Kelley, 25, of Egg Harbor City, a command control specialist for the 177th.
For many faculty, particularly those who teach large classes, rapport is the most difficult of the five R’s, Price said. “The idea here is student learning outcomes, and getting students to achieve learning outcomes is a persuasive endeavor as much as we might hate that,” she said. “Students are going to be more likely to work toward achieving their learning outcomes if they have a positive rapport with us… You don’t have to be their best friend. You just have to be perceived as being on their side.”
Taking college classes online is a great alternative to a traditional classroom education. Laney College offers a large number of general education and elective courses for students online. Many students benefit from the flexibility of study time that they don’t have with regularly scheduled classes. A lot of instructors offer up the entire semester’s work at the beginning of the course. Students can go through assignments at their convenience and turn in work weekly, as well as having the luxury of open-book exams. Lectures can be downloaded and access to grades and teacher feedback is often posted in the teacher’s online web page for the course.So, if you are a busy adult, have a disciplined demeanor and desire the flexibility of working at your own pace, online classes may be for you. For people who travel a lot or have a hectic work schedule online courses can be useful because you can access your coursework anywhere you go.
Spanish freshman Keegan Storrs wanted to make his first college schedule an interesting one. Registering for fall classes, he saw a zombie apocalypse class in the online course listing. “My first reaction was disbelief,” he said. With UF spring registration under way, students like Storrs are registering for some unusual classes outside of their majors. Biology with Fireflies, Artificial Intelligence in Computer Games and a reading program called “To Hell and Back,” based on Dante’s “Inferno,” are some out-of-the-ordinary courses being offered at UF in the spring.
Dr. Chris Dede, the Timothy E. Wirth Professor in Learning Technologies at the Harvard Graduate School of Education, is encouraging teachers to embrace mobile learning devices to effectively engage more students, especially those who struggle with conventional instruction. “Teaching is like an orchestra,” Dede said. “There are many different instruments, and to reach everyone you need to put a symphony of different kinds of pedagogy together. Learning technologies provide a set of instruments teachers can use to achieve that range of instructional strategies.” Reflecting on the opportunity to ignite a passion for learning through augmented reality, a technologically enhanced version of reality, and mobile learning devices, Dede offers teachers a guided tour of his vision for a 21st century education.
by Professors Karen Swan and Dan Matthews, University of Illinois Springfield
Two University of Illinois Springfield researchers are conducting studies of learning outcomes in online classes. Their design-based research examines the success through the Community of Inquiry model and the application of effective online course design practices.
Slowly but surely, “disruptive technology” is penetrating the nation’s ossified public education system. The effects may be liberating for students, but they would be devastating for teachers’ unions. In his extraordinary book, Special Interest, Stanford political scientist and Hoover Institution senior fellow Terry Moe describes a succession of union victories—for tenure, strike rights, and seniority protection; against accountability, charter schools, and vouchers for disadvantaged families. But Moe argues that those victories won’t last. Union power will be marginalized, in part, by online learning. Emerging technology-based education, Moe writes, is the “long-term trend . . . and the unions cannot stop it from happening.”
Some colleges are already heading in this direction by requiring or handing out iPod Touches, iPads, Kindles, or Nooks, often preloaded with textbooks and other curricular materials, or by disallowing paper texts for online courses. But I suggest that it’s time to go much further: to actually ban nonelectronic books on campus. That would be a symbolic step toward a much better way of teaching and learning, in which all materials are fully integrated. It could involve a pledge similar to the one that language students and instructors at Middlebury Language Schools take to speak only the foreign languages in which they are immersed during the study program. In this bookless college, all reading—which would still, of course, be both required and encouraged—would be done electronically.
Betty Goodykootnz emails and surfs the World Wide Web. The 101-year-old former teacher also has a Facebook account but found “there were too many faces,” so she doesn’t use it. Now, she’s taken her computer skills to another level. She recently created a blog. “I write it once a week, on a Sunday,” Goodykootnz said. “I comment on what I am enjoying, doing or the things I find particularly interesting.” Goodykootnz and some of her fellow residents at Kirkwood By The River, an independent and assisted living facility in Irondale, are computer savvy seniors, hip to the intricacies of the Internet and social media. They are part of a growing trend of adults over 65 who are logging onto the Internet to be more involved in the lives of their loved ones and to stay current with a high-tech world.
Woodward recommended that campuses fit new programs within the mold of their teaching missions and utilize online courses to cut costs. His report also identified the inefficiencies of online education as a set of programs ripe for consolidation. “What he really highlighted was all the barriers that we’ve created, because we haven’t had any system (guidelines) across our campuses,” Gage said. Students who might need to take a course to graduate — no longer offered on their campus because of budget cuts — find it almost impossible to wade through the bureaucratic morass of other universities’ admissions departments, she said. Online education also has the added benefit of reducing costs for stand-alone schools, such as the use of video-conference technology at satellite campuses of UNC’s Eshelman School of Pharmacy, she said. “I want to invest more in faculty and people,” she said. “If we can curb the need for bricks and mortar, and use technology to help us do that, then we can pay and retain the brightest and best faculty — which is what we’ve got to do.”
The champions’ podium. A gold, silver or bronze medal placed around the neck. The American flag rises over the crowd while the Star Spangled Banner pours from the sound system. What athlete hasn’t fantasized about being recognized for his or her achievements and the years of dedication and hard work? It’s the dream of countless amateur athletes across the country. With the hope of becoming the best in the world, world-class amateur athletes are devoted to their sport. Mostly in their late teens and early 20s, amateur athletes typically dedicate years of their life to training both their body and mind for more hours per week than most of us dedicate to a full-time job. So when do these athletes plan for life after sports and what happens when it’s time to turn in the uniform or hang up the skates? It’s no secret that no matter how talented or driven an athlete is, while their peers are off attending college, securing jobs and building careers, those who compete at the highest levels sacrifice these career-building years in order to stay at the top of their game.
With the rise of online education, the future of learning will be a student-paced culture as opposed to our current forms of custodial education, which are teacher-based. Students can hold down a job while working on their Masters. Children in unstable homes can ask for help online instead of working it out on their own. Anyone can “go back to school” without having to really go anywhere. With online education, learning never has to end. And certain online education models actually have the potential to reduce the costs of both delivering education for the university and the cost of tuition for the student. Human beings with the best education tend to do the best in the marketplace. “I think it will not be long before people will see that those who took their education online will have learned it better than people who got it in the classroom, and that’s exciting,” says Christensen.
Annette Burden, interim director of distance education at Youngstown State University, is leading an effort to make YSU a statewide model for quality assurance and continuous improvement in distance education. Her efforts also are intended to ensure that all of the university’s online courses meet nationally recognized standards. The effort started about a year ago, when Ohio launched Quality Matters, a faculty-centered and nationally-recognized peer review process that sets standards for the sound design of online courses. “Prior to this, there was absolutely no quality control whatsoever in these courses,” Burden said.
Throughout the nation, many schools at the secondary level are adopting online learning courses for college and graduate course work, but Idaho may be the first in the nation to make two credits of online courses a requirement for graduation. The U.S. Department of Education has been eyeing online distance course options for years, citing that they offer a way to broaden the scope of classes students are exposed to in school. At the same time, however, they also can be a cost-cutting measure, allowing more students to be wired into a single course and requiring fewer educators per pupil. While Browning admits that there may be some cost-savings under the new requirement, the state also has to ensure that all schools the 115 districts are wired for high-speed connectivity by fall 2012 when the new ruling goes into effect. Districts can decide independently how to implement the program—either running them through school librarians or through classroom teachers.
The number of college students enrolled in at least one online course increased for the ninth straight year, according to the Babson Survey Research Group’s annual survey of more than 2,500 colleges and universities—including both nonprofit and for-profit institutions. The study, “Going the Distance: Online Education in the United States, 2011,” reports that more than 6.1 million students took at least one online class during fall 2010—a 10.1 percent increase over the year before. An online class is defined in this survey as a course where more than 80 percent of all content is delivered online, and there are typically no face-to-face meetings with instructors. While the growth is substantial, it is the smallest increase since fall 2006 when enrollment in online courses increased 9.7 percent.
The growing popularity of online public schools lets states and local school districts effectively outsource some teaching functions—to parents. Students enrolled in an online school full-time are required to work closely with a “learning coach,” usually mom or dad, to ensure that they are staying on track in their studies. “It’s not about just putting them in front of a computer and saying, ‘Here, get this work done,'” says Allison Brown, who has three young children attending Georgia Cyber Academy, a statewide online charter school run by the private firm K12 Inc. Online teachers are required to check in with each student—and each learning coach—regularly, often every month or two. They are available to answer questions by phone or email. They also try to encourage interaction by hosting optional field trips to real-world museums and by creating online social activities.
Thousands of people have enrolled for Stanford’s online science and robotics classes. This summer, Stanford University announced its plans to make three of its introductory computer science classes available for free to the general public. The classes — Machine Learning, Introduction to Databases, and Introduction to Artificial Intelligence — were to be taught by Stanford faculty and held online in conjunction with the regular on campus courses held during this October to December term.Those participating in the online versions were able to take (almost) that same class as the enrolled Stanford students, and the online students were given the option to take an easier version too, one that didn’t require completing the homework or taking the quizzes. Those who successfully completed the courses won’t receive grades or credit but will receive a signed “statement of accomplishment” from the professors.
Even as online education booms, fully digital language classes like Mr. Fondaw’s remain uncommon. But North Carolina’s experiment—driven by growing demand for Spanish instruction, limited classroom space, a shortage of qualified instructors, pedagogical innovations, and cost savings—is one of several efforts nationwide that are starting to map an online future for teaching languages. At some community colleges, online classes help language departments continue to offer less popular languages, like German or French, that might not attract enough students to fill a classroom. And, perhaps most promisingly, some universities have found success experimenting with hybrid language classes that shift much of the work online but still meet regularly face to face.
Doubts about the merit of online education are less about quality and more about the business practices of for-profit colleges, the accreditors say. Because of that, they argue, their agencies are being asked to regulate issues outside their domain. “What appears to be happening is that policy makers are asking accreditors to do things that they traditionally have not been doing,” says Michale S. McComis, executive director of the Accrediting Commission of Career Schools and Colleges, a national organization that accredits about 800 private, for-profit institutions. “The Department of Education has a role to play, states have a role to play, and we have a role to play,” he says. “Accreditation is not the only line of defense.”
I asked Devin Knighton, director of public relations for Instructure Canvas, for a timeline of the company’s major milestones and sales partnerships. Devin also indicated that the next milestone will be learning analytics, coming in Q1 of 2012. My hope in publishing Instructure’s timeline is to encourage and facilitate as much transparency, openness and knowledge sharing between Instructure and the EDU community as possible. I’d like to see Instructure step up its communication with higher ed, finding ways to document and share the process of starting an ed tech company in a manner beyond the traditional practices in our industry.