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Online Learning News and Research
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Saturday, November 16, 2002
The Teaching Moment: a learning metaphor - Mia Lobel, Michael Neubauer, Randy Swedburg
USDLA Editor’s Note: This paper researches and demonstrates a constructivist model for synchronous online learning. It follows a sequence of presentation, interpretation and concept development that stimulates discussion and peer learning, and results in greater uniformity and depth of analysis, synthesis, and evaluation of both content and the learning experience.... (0) comments
The College Library in the New Age - Jeff Morris, University Business
Yes, the new college library is about access to information, but it's about more than that, say our 'virtual roundtable' members: It's about enabling the quest for knowledge. If there are three outstanding themes in this most recent University Business virtual roundtable, they are consolidation, collaboration, and community—the three C's. (0) comments
14th International Conference on College Teaching and Learning
CALL FOR PAPERS: 14th International Conference on College Teaching and Learning - April 1-5, 2003 Adam's Mark Hotel, Jacksonville, Florida Accreditation agencies emphasize the need for online services (counseling, advising, assessment, registration, et al.) to support online learning... Come share your knowledge and learn from peers! (0) comments Friday, November 15, 2002
Brick and mortar colleges pursue online learning - Sherri Cruz, Star Tribune
Teaching has changed for Kris Keeney. Her students at Normandale Community College don't hand in their papers in class or drop them by her office. They submit them online. Keeney downloads the papers from her home computer and corrects them often while her baby naps. And students can't hunker down in the back of the classroom to avoid being called on because there is no classroom. She monitors mandatory class participation on the online discussion boards. Keeney is one of a new breed of teachers who've learned to teach online and are part of a quiet evolution at land-based universities meeting increasing student demand for online courses and competing with online-only universities. (0) comments
UMassOnline Delivers Online Criminal Justice Master's Program And Undergraduate Certificate
University of Massachusetts President William M. Bulger today announces two new online criminal justice programs designed to meet the increasing educational needs of law enforcement, public safety and homeland security professionals. UMassOnline, the University of Massachusetts’ web-based learning division, will begin offering the UMass Lowell top-ranked Master of Arts in Criminal Justice and the UMass Amherst undergraduate Criminal Justice Studies Certificate online in January. (0) comments
Distance Learning Course for Teachers - Samuel Siringi, The Nation (Nairobi)
The University of Nairobi will begin training science teachers through distance learning, the Vice Chancellor Crispus Kiamba has said. The programme is meant to assist diploma teachers acquire degrees, he said during a graduation ceremony at the Kenya Science Teachers College, Nairobi. (0) comments
Web site offers prof evaluations by students - Sarika Govind, The Emory Wheel
As preregistration for spring semester classes enters full swing, Emory students continue to have trouble picking the right classes and professors. For help, students across the country can point their Web browsers to www.myprofessorsucks.com, a site currently featuring evaluations of 11 Emory professors, among hundreds of others. (0) comments Thursday, November 14, 2002
Theories for Deep Change in Affect-sensitive Cognitive Machines: A Constructivist Model by Barry Kort and Rob Reilly
ABSTRACT: There is an interplay between emotions and learning, but this interaction is far more complex than previous learning theories have articulated. This article proffers a novel model by which to regard the interplay of emotions upon learning and discusses the larger practical aim of crafting computer-based models that will recognize a learner’s affective state and respond appropriately to it so that learning will proceed at an optimal pace. (0) comments
Peder Jacobsen Looks at the Crystal Ball - Stephen Downes
What does the future (that is, the next eighteen months) hold for learning management systems (LMSs) and learning content management systems (LCMSs)? "It's past lunch time," said Logicbay's Peder Jacobsen, "but it's not dinner time." The companies, he predicts, will begin to eat each other once again. Pederson was speaking at Online Learning 2002 in Anaheim and divided his predictions into several major categories... (0) comments
Sylvan Ventures pays $14.5 million for National Tech U. - Stacey Hirsh, Sun Staff
Sylvan Ventures LLC, a subsidiary of Baltimore-based Sylvan Learning Systems Inc., said yesterday that it has acquired an online university for $14.5 million. The acquisition of National Technological University, or NTU, brings to Sylvan Ventures a company that runs online master's degree and professional development programs in engineering, information technology, business and management. (0) comments Wednesday, November 13, 2002
Developing an Interactive Web-Based Classroom - Mary Hricko
Abstract: Creating a successful interactive web-based learning environment can be a challenging task. There are many issues to consider in the design, development, and delivery of a web-based course. Instructors must rethink the way that they teach to create an interactive learning environment in a web-based format. Suggestions on how to address classroom management, technical difficulties, and course evaluation are given. Ideas to promote interactivity in online instruction are offered. (0) comments
Integrating Critical Thinking into Online Classes - Brent Muirhead
Introduction: The integration of critical thinking skills into the online curriculum is an essential to providing intellectually challenging and relevant learning experiences for students. The paper will offer a basic description of critical thinking and discuss how to engage students in higher order thinking skills. (0) comments
Gates to give $20 million for e-learning in India - IndiaExpress Bureau
Microsoft chairman Bill Gates has agreed to provide an assistance of $ 1 million for the Media Lab Asia project by government of India, besides extending $ 20 million for an e-learning initiative called "Shiksha". Mr. Gates announced this during his meeting with Communications and IT Minister Pramod Mahajan. Reports quoting the official spokesperson, Mr. Gates would extend $ 1 million for Media Lab Asia and $ 20 million towards an e-learning project - Shiksha, for "training the trainers".... Under the Shiksha project, the Microsoft assistance of $ 20 million would involve training of 80,000 teachers along with 3.5 million students over a 3-5 year period. (0) comments
Planning Grant To Launch Online North Carolina Encyclopedia
The North Carolina Humanities Council has joined with the University of North Carolina Press and the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill Library to plan the creation of "The Encyclopedia of North Carolina Online," the first comprehensive reference to North Carolina's people, places, history, culture and arts, both past and present. When complete the encyclopedia, a project the partners call ENCO, will be published on the World Wide Web, capitalizing on the Internet's accessibility, interactivity, multimedia capabilities and potential for expansion and frequent updates. The project partners have received a $50,000 award from the National Endowment for the Humanities to support a year of planning for the encyclopedia. (0) comments Tuesday, November 12, 2002
Distance learning gains, yet use of ICN declining in Iowa - MADELAINE JEROUSEK, Register Staff Writer
Internet classes, satellite courses, and audio and video learning are becoming more popular through public universities, while classes offered on the state's controversial fiber-optic network lost students last year, according to a report by the Iowa Board of Regents. Enrollment in classes offered by the three state universities through the costly and trouble-plagued Iowa Communications Network was down 5.4 percent and the number of classes decreased by 21 in 2001-02. The increasing demand for Web-based courses also has contributed to the slide in interest for classes that use the fiber-optic network, education officials said. Still, more students were enrolled in network courses than in off-campus, Web-based classes last year. (0) comments
Call for Proposals - 14th Annual TELECOOP Distance Learning Conference
Destination Education: Your Place or Mine? Call for Proposals - 14th Annual TELECOOP Distance Learning Conference. April 23-25, 2003 Breckenridge, Colorado Deadline is December 13, 2002. (0) comments
MIT's Superarchive - Sally Atwood
A digital repository will revolutionize the way research is shared and preserved. Every year MIT researchers create at least 10,000 papers, data files, images, collections of field notes, and audio and video clips. The research often finds its way into professional journals, but the rest of the material remains squirreled away on personal computers, Web sites, and departmental servers. It’s accessible to only a few right now. And with computers and software evolving rapidly, the time is coming when files saved today will not be accessible to anyone at all. Until recently there has been no overall plan to archive or preserve such work for posterity. But true to its problem-solving nature, MIT has come up with a solution. In September the Institute launched DSpace, a Web-based institutional repository where faculty and researchers can save their intellectual output and share it with their colleagues around the world and for centuries to come. (0) comments
Elearning Adoption & Marketing - Jennifer Cowley, Sharon Chanley, Stephen Downes, Lisa Holstrom, Dawn Ressel, George Siemens, Mitchell Weisburgh
Introduction: Designing, developing, and deploying elearning resources are only part of the elearning battle. Actually getting employees and prospective students and instructors to use elearning is a challenge on it's own. In this article, we explore the adoption of elearning as it relates to student, instructor and organization. (0) comments
Online Chemistry Course - DAN CARNEVALE
Two science professors have cooked up a way for distance-education students to fulfill their science-lab requirements, by turning their kitchens into chemistry labs. The professors say their approach, currently being fine-tuned, can help provide online students with laboratory courses, which are often required for an undergraduate degree. (0) comments Monday, November 11, 2002
Online learning gains ground in Hawaii - Beverly Creamer
Bent over her laptop in the belly of a lumbering C-17, Air Force Dr. Karen Bartku would study online by the hour during long flights home from Yokota Air Base in Japan where she was stationed before coming to Hawai'i. Signing into a virtual classroom created by the University of Phoenix and nestling plugs into her ears, Bartku was oblivious to the droning engines while she worked uninterrupted for 14 hours as the plane crossed the Pacific. "Some people prefer the face-to-face experience, but not me," says the 40-year-old military podiatrist, who last week hit the computer 'send' button to turn in her final project for her master's degree in business administration. (0) comments
Using Construction Kits, Modeling Tools and System Dynamics Simulations to Support Collaborative Discovery Learning by Marcelo Milrad
ABSTRACT: In this paper I present my efforts in exploring new ways for designing innovative pedagogical scenarios to support learning about complex domains. My efforts involve the design of interactive learning environments (ILE) to integrate systems supporting alternative ways of interaction with simulations with an emphasis upon support for shared interaction to mediate social aspects of learning, knowledge construction, reflection and design. I will illustrate a particular ILE that has been developed using new IT approaches and computational tools to foster scientific experimentation, modeling and simulation in distributed and collaborative settings. Furthermore, I will present some preliminary results in which I describe how undergraduate students in Computer Science have been using and interacting with this particular ILE during a course called "Computers and Learning". (0) comments
WhiteboardVCR: a Web Lecture Production Tool by Ng S. T. Chong, Panrit Tosukhowong, and Masao Sakauchi
ABSTRACT: With rapid advances in computer speech technology, TTS (text-to-speech) synthesis is becoming increasingly attractive as a supplement or even as an alternative to the human narration. This paper explores the potential of TTS synthesis in Web lectures. We propose WhiteboardVCR, a new approach that we have developed for producing and presenting Web lectures. The system supports synchronization of slide markups and slide switching with a narration. The narration is a combination of video, human voice, and speech synthesis. Users can create a presentation on the fly or at leisure time, and edit it before publishing to the Web. Preliminary experimental results of using WhiteboadVCR from the perspective of the audience are discussed. (0) comments
Virtual Counseling - SCOTT CARLSON
As campus psychologists go online, they reach more students, but may also risk lawsuits. Amy, a freshman at the University of Wisconsin at Eau Claire, thought something in her life had gone wrong, and she went to talk to a friend about it. The friend referred Amy not to a counseling center, but to a Web address that had been mentioned as part of a class orientation. At the Web site, Amy found information about the university's counseling center, including pictures of the counselors and pamphlets about topics like homesickness and drug addiction. (0) comments Sunday, November 10, 2002
Online vs. Traditional Degrees - Jennifer M. Sakurai
Used to be that the only online degrees that were heavily marketed were for IT types (ITT Tech) or from programs with unfamiliar names, their tiny ads hidden away in the jumble of classifieds near the back of consumer magazines or in commercials during weekday daytime TV. While those still exist, they have been joined by more aggressive direct mail campaigns from programs that seem a bit more ubiquitous since their campuses are often visible from freeways (for example, the University of Phoenix). However, with increasing numbers of mainstream, traditional universities jumping on the online course-and even degree-bandwagon, it's time to examine the pros and cons of online versus traditional programs and why the former is becoming increasingly prevalent. (0) comments
Building Online Communities by chromatic
The Internet exists to improve communication. Communities can grow anywhere communication occurs. Truisms or not, those statements have tremendous implications. Their adherents see a commercial Web site less as a brochure and more as an opportunity to communicate with customers. They consider those who run a television fan site not as copyright infringers but as a community of fans. They think in terms of conversations and relationships. Cultivate a community, and you'll attract eyeballs and ears willing to read and to listen to your message. Encourage discussion, and you'll attract people willing to share their own messages. (0) comments
HP, MIT delve deep with digital library - Michael Kanellos
The Massachusetts Institute of Technology and Hewlett-Packard on Monday unveiled a system for electronically archiving books, lecture notes and scientific data that potentially will serve as a model for academic libraries. Called DSpace, the new system is essentially a centralized, electronic repository for the massive amounts of intellectual property created by research institutions, said Mackenzie Smith, associate director of MIT Libraries and the DSpace project director. (0) comments
Connectedness and Self-Revelation - Steven W. Gilbert
As forms of distance and online education become more widely used, pressure increases on educators to take advantage of the unique benefits of face-to-face interaction. Consequently, connectedness and self-revelation are becoming even more important. Certain approaches to instruction can be combined with appropriate uses of information technology to improve teaching and learning via the four principles of "personalizing pedagogy." (0) comments Online Learning News Blog Archives OTEL - Ray's Home Page - Notebook - UIS Online - U of I Online - UIS Home Fair Use |
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