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Online Learning News and Research
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Saturday, March 27, 2004
U of Michigan expands access to hidden electronic resources with OAIster
A repository of information that provides links to previously difficult-to-locate electronic scholarly resources is widely available under a new agreement between the University of Michigan and Yahoo! Inc. The repository—developed through Michigan's University Library OAIster Project—is now available through Yahoo!'s Content Acquisition Program (CAP) and accessible through Yahoo! Search. OAIster offers information that links to hidden digital resources such as the complete contents of books and articles, technical reports, preprints (unpublished works that have not yet been peer reviewed), white papers, images of paintings, movies and audio files of speeches. http://www.oaister.org/o/oaister/ (0) comments
eLearning Expert Teaches Museum Educators How to Create Online Courses
Stretching the reach of museums from the physical into the virtual world, Lisa Neal will present an e-learning workshop at Museums and the Web 2004, a conference which attracts the best innovations in bringing museums online. In the workshop, Neal, editor-in-chief of the online publication, eLearn Magazine, will teach participants how to successfully use e-learning techniques to provide rich and engaging online educational experiences. This encompasses online courses, online seminars, and online learning communities -- any way of reaching people who can't visit a museum or who want to learn in preparation for or following a visit. (0) comments
Web-learning on the rise at CNCC - Amy Hatten, Craig Daily Press
It may be the middle of the night or the end of the weekend but it doesn't stop Nicole Beckum from logging on and learning. Beckum is just one of a growing number of Craig residents earning a degree through online classes offered through Colorado Community Colleges Online (CCCOnline) and Colorado Northwest Community College (CNCC). As a mother of two children and a teacher at Moffat County High School, Beckum said the Web-based program is the only way she could work toward degree in mathematics. From her Craig home, Beckum is earning a bachelor's degree in mathematics through Regis University in Denver. (0) comments Friday, March 26, 2004
City University boosts e-learning - James Mortleman, What PC?
City University has reported a significant increase in the uptake of e-learning following the creation of a dedicated support unit and implementation of an improved course delivery and management system last summer. The university claimed that over a fifth of its 11,500 students, as well as up to 300 lecturers, are now regularly using the WebCT Vista e-learning system to access online course modules and support materials. City University sees e-learning as a way to increase course participation levels, attract part-time students seeking more flexible learning options and lower administrative costs. (0) comments
Suspect Degrees Snare State Educators: So-Called Diploma Mill Issued Credentials - WSBTV
The president of a college has joined the list of Georgia educators who got online degrees from a school that state officials now believe is a diploma mill. Michael Davis, president of Gwinnett College of Business in Lilburn, received a doctorate from Saint Regis University, an online school that sells degrees while requiring little or no course work. Davis is also a commissioner for the Accrediting Council for Independent Colleges and Schools, a Washington-based agency which accredits about 600 schools nationwide and abroad. (0) comments
The Guerra Scale - Tim Guerra & Dan Heffernan, Learning Circuits
LMS, LCMS, learning objects, synchronous, asynchronous, authoring tools, knowledge management repositories, threaded conversations, multimedia…. The litany of learning technology tools, terminologies, and suppliers overwhelms training managers and creates misfit demands among customers. Compounding the issue is the fact that no two computer users share consistent expectations of online learning experiences, and few want to add to the time they spend online. (0) comments Thursday, March 25, 2004
Classroom Teaching Changes in Web-Enhanced Courses: A Multi-Institutional Study - Robin G. Wingard
Web-based instruction in higher education has grown exponentially, with more than a thousand universities offering courses over the Web in the United States alone.1 Web-based instruction offers obvious advantages for distance and continuing education populations by making access to education at any time or place feasible. This kind of flexibility is similarly advantageous for informal or professional training. However, a major use of Web-based instruction is to enhance traditional, on-campus courses, where the benefit of Web enhancement as a supplemental resource is less obvious. Nonetheless, universities are investing significantly in course management software, expanded networks, and training and support capabilities to introduce Web enhancements to traditional courses. Faculty are embracing these tools as well and investing significant time and energy into adding Web-based supplements to their traditional courses.2 (0) comments
Labor releases free e-learning app - Joab Jackson, GCN Staff
The Labor Department is offering agencies a free version of an application it created to build multimedia training sessions. EZ Reusable Objects will let agencies build Web-based e-learning courses, said Peter Gallagher, president of Development InfoStructure. The Arlington, Va., IT consulting firm helped Labor build the application. EZRO is an example of the resource-sharing model of how companies, agencies and the open-source software community can collaborate and build apps, Gallagher said today at FOSE 2004 in Washington. (0) comments
Global Researchers Collaborating to Advance 1:1 Educational Computing
The Taiwan National Central University announced the first global collaborative research network on 1:1 (one on one) educational computing among world topnotch e-learning researchers and signed a MOU with HP Taiwan.... The G1:1 (Global one-on-one) program is an initiative to support increased international sharing and coordination of 1:1 networked learning devices throughout the world. As technologies prevail and become affordable, it is then predicted that in the next ten years, every student will be equipped with some kind of portable device which has wireless communication and computing capability. These devices will become indispensable learning tools like pencils; yet enable students to learn more quickly, more deeply, and with more fun, whether in classroom or outdoor settings. (0) comments Wednesday, March 24, 2004
Simulation-Based Training Appeals to New Generation of Learners - Linda Van Der Loo, ITWeb (Johannesburg)
The emergence of learning technologies is fundamentally changing the nature of how people learn to do their work in SA, in particular software simulation-based training is providing better retention rates for trainees, ease of development for trainers and will appeal to the younger generation of learners. This is the view of e-learning expert Linda van der Loo, founding member of the eLearning Institute of SA, who was speaking on the trends in simulation-based training and the practical implications for both learners and trainers at the recent Software Training Technology (STT) seminar. (0) comments
200 new courses on 'learnonline' - Trade Arabia
More than 200 new courses have been added to the www.learnonline.ae portal which has proved to be a great success. Emirates Internet and Multimedia (EIM) hosts and promotes the portal, providing access through its high quality IT infrastructure, while Element K's role is to supply the content and 'Knowledge Hub', its state-of-the-art Learning Management System. The new courses bring the total number of existing courses to 1,000, with over 200 series of courses now available. E-learning offerings available on their joint website are being increased under the growing partnership between Element K and EIM (0) comments
'Internet2 Day' showcases the future of education and research - Cara Branigan, eSchool News
More than 10,000 students and faculty members from schools and universities across the nation tuned in to the first virtual Internet2 Day March 18 to witness firsthand a series of projects that take advantage of the Internet2 network's ultra high-speed capacity. In one demonstration, a jazz sextet from the Manhattan School of Music used the Internet2 connection at Columbia University to broadcast its performance live to Internet2 Day participants. Because of the network's high-speed capacity, the audience was able to watch the concert in real time with the highest-quality video and stereo sound. (0) comments Tuesday, March 23, 2004
Virtual Universities: Real Possibilities -Rhonda M. Epper and Myk Garn, Educause Review
Virtual colleges/universities (VCUs), as we know them in the United States,1 were created amid the technology boom of the mid-to-late 1990s.... Then 2001 brought an economic downturn, hitting the technology sector especially hard and driving more realistic assessments of the realities, costs, and payoffs of distance learning. In the following years, whereas Internet-based distance learning slowly became a growing enterprise for individual campus-based initiatives, the multi-campus consortial VCUs remained neither fully embraced nor fully understood by the higher education community. The VCU has been questioned as a duplication of institutional responsibility and an unnecessary layer of bureaucracy—especially during tight budget years. Yet one fact is certain: while policy leaders, institutional leaders, VCU leaders, and industry observers debate the value and appropriate role for VCUs, students are enrolling in courses via the Web sites and are using these services to meet their educational goals. (0) comments
Sure signs - watching a language grow online - The Age, Australia
For businesses looking through the narrow prism of return on their e-learning investments, learner motivation and courseware relevance are said to be the keys to success. But contributor-based e-learning, where we go on to learn from each other after having understood the basic curriculum, will probably provide the most value of all. One of the best examples will be in a web application due to go online next month - a sign-language dictionary for the deaf community. This e-learning system is not only designed to educate, but also offers deaf people an opportunity to standardise and participate in the formation of their own body of knowledge - the "Auslan" sign language. (0) comments
“ChalkBox” Project Launched to Integrate Publishers’ Learning Applications with the Blackboard Learning System
Blackboard Inc. announced that it has joined three of the world’s leading academic publishers in a development project to integrate the companies’ most popular e-Learning applications into the Blackboard Learning System.... The development project, titled “ChalkBox,” will go beyond simple importation of textbook-related electronic content to accommodate more sophisticated integration between the publishers’ hosted instructional applications and Blackboard-powered course web sites at client institutions. The primary deliverable of the development project is expected to be the release of a “ChalkBox Runtime Environment” and a file format for publishers to develop “Chalk Titles” that integrate their centrally hosted learning applications with Blackboard-powered course Web sites. Blackboard’s joint development partners in the project include Houghton Mifflin, Pearson Education and Thomson Higher Education. (0) comments Monday, March 22, 2004
Ten Efficient Research Strategies for Distance Learning - Thomas C. Wright and Scott L. Howell, JDLA
Abstract: Today's distance education administrator, frequently with an expertise in another academic discipline, is also supposed to be a distance education scholar. This expectation results from the recent interest in distance learning that nearly all institutions of learning and disciplines of study have shown. More research, studies, journals, and essays about distance education also exist than at any other time. A distance education administrator and an education research librarian at Brigham Young University have teamed up to identify ten pragmatic research strategies to help new, busy, and even a few experienced distance education administrators stay current in their field and successful in their applied research. All distance education research strategies identified were required to pass a distance administrator test for pragmatism, user-friendliness, and efficiency. The ten research strategies that will be covered are accessing library expertise, books from your or others' library catalogs, academic journals, databases, current awareness services, subscription services, distance education Web portals, associations, listserv/discussions, and use of research assistants. (0) comments
New learning models are under scrutiny - Linda Anderson, UK Financial Times
What a difference a decade makes. Ten years ago fledgling corporate universities were just beginning to spread their wings, with often just one committed individual championing their cause. E-learning was still in its infancy, with technology and expectation often at loggerheads. Only distance learning had an established track record, with institutions such as the Open University leading the way. But today, corporate universities (CUs) and e-learning are familiar aspects of the corporate landscape. (0) comments
Air chief marshal Sir Brian Burridge hits long-distance targets - Linda Anderson, UK Financial Times
A distance-learning MBA is a notoriously difficult nut to crack, combining professional life with academic rigour. But for many determined to earn the degree while continuing their chosen profession, there is often little choice. For Air Chief Marshal Sir Brian Burridge, Commander-in-Chief Strike Command, an MBA with the Open University Business School (OUBS) was pretty much his only option. "I wanted an MBA that was accredited by the Association of MBAs and was looking for something that was easily integrated with the sort of jobs I do," he says. (0) comments Sunday, March 21, 2004
Leadership in Distance Education: Is It a Unique Type of Leadership - A Literature Review - Sara Marcus, JDLA
Numerous articles and documents have been written about the management of distance education. The International Centre for Distance Learning (ICDL) Distance Education Library and the Educational Resources Information Center (ERIC) alone contain hundreds of such documents. Most of these documents, however, examine distance education policy, institution management, student support systems and student administration relevant to the first three generations of distance education delivery models [correspondence, multimedia and telelearning]. Surprisingly little appears to have been written about the academic management and administration of what Taylor (1996) labels as fourth generation distance education delivery [flexible learning]. (0) comments
The Development of Online Courses - Dean Caplan, Theory and Practice of Online Learning
Introduction: In the ideal world, instructional media developers—those who will actually create the planned instructional materials with which the student will interact—are included in the course development process from the beginning, to consult with and advise course team members on development-related topics as they arise.... Of course, most of us do not have the luxury of working in an ideal world. There’s a good chance that a very thick file has just landed on your desk(top), and you’re not sure where to start! (0) comments
Netting an education: Online class options keep expanding - Jackson Citizen Patriot
Enter the Web site for Mark Schopmeyer's Macroeconomics course at Jackson Community College, and you will find assignments on John Smith's principles on free markets, an active discussion board and students' opinions on taxes. On Alana Tuckey's Intro to Statistics Web site, also through JCC, you will see advice from students who took the course in previous semesters and a "Help Board" where Tuckey answers students' questions. This is the face of education in the 21st century. (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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