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Online Learning News and Research
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Saturday, May 15, 2004
The puzzle of Virtual Learning Environments - Avgoustos TSINAKOS, TOJDE
INTRODUCTION: "Asynchronous Distance Education", is the educational process in which educators and educated they do not coexist essentially in the same natural space and the simultaneous attendance of both sides is not required during the educational session (Moore, 1977; Keegan, 1996, p. 8). In nowadays a number of commercial/open source programs exist for the provision of ADE services (Raymond Y, 2002; ELSG, 2003). These platforms so called Virtual Learning Environments (VLEs), constitute systems of software that give the possibility to the teacher of communicating with the students from distance and in not in a real time mode. Most of these platforms aim not simply to the reproduction of classic educational process in a computational environment, but also to the improvement of the education itself by providing highly sophisticated tools for both teacher and student assistance. One of the common problems among the Academic population evolve in Distance Education is the identification of the most appropriate VLE for the conduction of DE lessons. The plethora of the platforms and the variety of educational tools available in each of these platforms result to a bigger confusion towards the final (correct?) decision (Hatzipanagos S, 2001) (0) comments
CMC professor a leader in distance teaching - JULIE SUTOR, Summit Daily News
Colorado Mountain College (CMC) professor Louis Beatty is a great teacher - from a distance. In fact, that's how Beatty does the vast majority of his teaching. He conducts lectures, administers exams and distributes homework from his office in Breckenridge while his students are scattered across Summit County and as far away as Rifle and Aspen. They submit assignments, ask questions and participate in discussions over the Internet through a course-management system called Blackboard. (0) comments
Park University officials and trustees dedicated the College for Distance Learning - Sun News
The college serves 42 campus sites, university President Dr. Beverley Byers-Pevitts said. The College for Distance Learning unites the School for Extended Learning and the School For Online Learning. Pevitts said the Internet is attracting new learners to the university. "We are standing literally on the threshold of the next steps of education," she said. "We are looking at an education aided by technology." Distance Learning Vice President Dr. Tom Peterman said former President Dr. Don Breckon encouraged using technology to better facilitate education at the extended sites, especially the military sites. (0) comments Friday, May 14, 2004
Cyberstudent from Saipan heads to W.Va. for degree - Associated Press
A student from Saipan who's never set foot on campus will spend two days traveling to West Virginia University this week to pick up her master's degree and meet the adviser she has only seen on a computer screen. For three years, Robin Lizama Palacios has studied and conferred with adviser Robin Ludlow through WVU's growing distance-learning program. "It'll be like meeting a movie star,'' said the 28-year-old mother of two, who earned a 4.0 grade-point average in early childhood intervention. (0) comments
Online learning system can increase exam pass rates - ELIZABETH BUIE, the Herald
An online learning programme developed by a Scottish university can improve exam pass rates by almost 10%, an independent study has shown. The study, funded by the Scottish Executive, also found that the e-learning programme was so popular with pupils that they effectively use it behind their teachers' backs. The Scholar scheme – a programme for Highers and Advanced Highers which has been adopted by all Scottish education authorities – was developed by Heriot-Watt University. It was shown to improve exam performance across the ability range in an independent study by Drs Kay Livingstone and Rae Condie of the Quality in Education Centre at Strathclyde University. (0) comments
Online lessons feature Philippine teachers - Hiroko Ihara, Daily Yomiuri
With the use of fast, low-cost broadband Internet connections rapidly expanding in Japan, an increasing number of affordable online live English lessons are appearing as part of a growing e-learning market. Fourhalf, an e-learning venture firm in Yodogawa Ward, Osaka, runs a program named "english channel" (www.english-ch.com) for a monthly rate of 4,000 yen with no enrollment fee. The company has kept costs down by hiring teachers who live and work in the Philippines. "As (such teachers') personnel costs are less than that for native English-speaking teachers in Japan, our tuition is much less than that charged by major language schools," said Michitake Saito, a spokesman for Fourhalf. (0) comments Thursday, May 13, 2004
Teach them to Fly: Strategies for Encouraging Active Online Learning - Karen HARDIN, TOJDE
PROBLEM: One of the hot topics in education in the past 10 years has been the shift of the role of the educator. Whereas, he has traditionally been the owner and deliverer of the knowledge (Sage on the stage), now his role is shifting to a guide and facilitator (guide by the side). The purpose is to give the students ownership in their own learning process. As technology becomes more sophisticated, automation is replacing students’ problem solving skills, critical thinking and sometimes patience. On one of my evaluations in a 1999 online course, a student criticized that, “she’s not doing the teaching, I’m doing the learning.” Of course in my desire to encourage active learning, I took the response as a compliment, but the student meant it as a criticism. I began pondering the reluctance of students to take control of the learning process. (0) comments
Florida Community College, Anne Arundel Community College and Skagit Valley College Named Top Digital Community Colleges
The Center for Digital Education and the American Association of Community Colleges named the nation's top digital community colleges in the second annual Digital Community Colleges Survey. The Digital Community Colleges Survey -- Launched in October 2003 -- examined and assessed how community colleges have progressed in using information technology to deliver services to their students, faculty and staff. College officials responded to a set of 18 questions and community colleges were ranked according to a four-point scale, providing Web site addresses and background data for final verification and validation. (0) comments
Probe finds federal workers with 'diploma mill' degrees: GAO warns they may lack proper training - Bruce Alpert, The Times-Picayune
At least 28 high-level federal employees hold college degrees from bogus or unaccredited universities that require little or no class work, government investigators said Tuesday. Degrees from the so-called "diploma mills" raise questions about competence and national security, officials said, and also cost taxpayers who foot the bill for salaries based on academic credentials and sometimes subsidize the tuition. The list includes a worker who oversees nuclear weapons safety and paid $5,000 for what he described as a worthless master's degree from the former LaSalle University in Mandeville. (0) comments Wednesday, May 12, 2004
DISCUSSION-BASED ONLINE TEACHING - Tomorrow's Professor Msg.#561
The experts in this article focus on the concept of transactional distance between students and teachers and how to reduce this distance through interesting ways of stimulating student discussion in the online class. They are from Discussion-Based Online Teaching to Enhance Student Learning: Theory, Practice, and Assessment (Stylus, October 2003), by Tisha Bender. (0) comments
College books go digital - Maureen Feighan, The Detroit News
As soaring textbook prices continue to be a sore spot for college students and their parents, a cost-effective alternative that could change the way students learn is gaining steam. At least one major educational company plans to release 300 online titles this fall at half the price of regular textbooks, and dozens of other online textbooks and supplemental materials already are available. For students, who would pay a subscription fee at 50 percent of the regular cover price, digital textbooks can cut costs and streamline note-taking. They also allow professors to link classroom notes to online materials for more discussion and easily update items as needed. Several professors at colleges across Michigan already use digital books, or e-books, as well as other online materials in their classes. (0) comments
Broadband Boosts UK Learning - TMCNet
Education is seeing significant benefits through broadband technology. Learning is no longer restricted to the classroom but can be carried out in a virtual environment where students, irrespective of age or class, can access experts and information from across the world. With fast access to rich multimedia content, broadband brings learning to life through interactive education that can be performed remotely to complement classroom learning. Broadband has made effective remote or home-based learning a reality for those excluded from the classroom through illness, geographical location or due to behavioural issues. Equally, it has opened up opportunities for extended learning to support classroom work and for mature students who wish to further their education but need or want the convenience of studying at home, as and when it suits them. (0) comments Tuesday, May 11, 2004
Best Online Instructional Practices: Report of Phase I of an Ongoing Study - Morris T. Keeton, JALN
ABSTRACT: This study examines how best practices in online instruction are the same as, or different from, best practices in face-to-face (F2F) instruction. The book Effectiveness and Efficiency in Higher Education for Adults [1] summarizes some 20 years of research on best practices in F2F instruction. The bases of comparison are principles from the KS&G material and from Chickering and Gamson’s “seven principles for good practice in undergraduate education” [2]. A reason for making these comparisons is that the rapid growth of online instruction promises that online instruction may become the largest source of ongoing higher education. Not surprisingly, interest in assessing the quality of online offerings has also grown [3, 4, 5, 6]. The question is increasingly raised: Are postsecondary institutions effectively “doing their old job in a new way?” [7]. One way to answer that question is to analyze the online instructional practices of faculty with the aid of research on patterns of instruction, face-to-face and online. This paper is abbreviated from a February 14, 2002 report by Marisa Collett, Morris Keeton and Vivian Shayne of the Institute for Research and Assessment in Higher Education for the Office of Distance Education and Lifelong Learning at the University of Maryland University College. (0) comments
UK Online university project prepared for sell-off - e-consultancy
Government-backed online university project, UK e-universities (UKeU), is up for sale and is looking to attract bidders this month as a result of poor student interest. The sale notice follows a meeting last month conducted by The Higher Education Funding Council for England (HEFCE) on the restructuring of UKeU's activities and services. In February, the HEFCE said global financial conditions and missed student recrutiment targets in the first year meant the UkeU should continue its plan of scaling down, while a sale of elements of the project would be considered. (0) comments
Online learning - Anne Danahy, Centre Daily Times
Ben Pollard, a State College Area High School freshman, was working on a quiz after school recently -- but in this case, he was typing in the questions, not just the answers. "It's fun to learn how these things work," said Pollard, one of the members of a State High student club who are getting first-hand experience in providing education via the Internet. In the process, the students are giving the school district a chance to offer classes online. English 12 is the first class that the club -- Technologically Experienced and Creative Students, or TECS -- is working on. It could be available on the Web this coming school year, and more classes might be available to students at State High and other schools for a fee in the future. (0) comments Monday, May 10, 2004
Asking the Hard Questions - Howard Strauss, Syllabus
While a professor may not recognize every URL a student references, a savvy professor is not impressed by dozens of even great sources. What’s important is how clearly the student integrates the concepts from the course with external material to make a compelling and supportable case for the thesis of a paper. Numerous URLs or an extensive bibliography should not make a bad paper seem stellar. A professor who feels she has lost control of her class needs a higher comfort level with Internet technology. Once she understands how to use Google or Yahoo! and how to deal with URLs, her students will seem far less intimidating. (0) comments
Student Role Adjustment in Communities of Inquiry: Model and Instrument Validation - D. Randy Garrison, Martha Cleveland-Innes, Tak Fung; JALN
ABSTRACT: The purpose of this study is to validate an instrument to study role adjustment of students new to an online community of inquiry. The community of inquiry conceptual model for online learning was used to shape this research and identify the core elements and conditions associated with role adjustment to online learning (Garrison, Anderson and Archer, 2000). Through a factor analytic process it is shown that the instrument did reflect the theoretical model. It was also useful in refining the items for the questionnaire. The instrument is for use in future research designed to measure and understand student role adjustment in online learning. (0) comments
Ignou makes mark worldwide in distant learning SUROJIT - MAHALANOBIS, Times of India
Indira Gandhi National Open University (Ignou) has taken the world of academic sphere by storm, claimed a study paper of the University. With expansion in 26 nations, including the Commonwealth ones, the University by far has touched all continents and has become an Indian symbol in open and distance education. The University has enrolled over 10 lakh students, making it the second giga open university after China 's. At an exclusive to TNN in New Delhi , the University spokesman Ravi Mohan mentioned the study and said, the University has many new schemes up its sleeves and has created strength to become a force in world's education map soon. Its tentacles in United Kingdom having been well-received for quite sometime now, Ignou has especially gained popularity in the open and distance learning (ODL) area, he said quoting noted Unesco academic John Daniel. Ignou learners are mostly hardworking workers and professionals, who continue their pursuit for higher education while carrying out professional duties, the study maintains. (0) comments Sunday, May 09, 2004
Norwich University Graduate Portal: Establishing Community for Online Students - M. E. Kabay, Ubiquity
When students arrive at Norwich University, they see a familiar and beautiful campus with 185 years of history visible in everything from beautiful buildings, lovely stonework and memorabilia such as World War II tanks driven by illustrious alumni . There are clubs such as the Special Interest Group on Security Audit and Control and daily opportunities to interact with professors, staff, and other students. There are championship-winning sports teams. All of these facilities and activities provide opportunities for friendship, teamwork, and a sense of belonging to something very old, very deep, and very proud. How do students of Norwich University's online graduate programs develop a sense of involvement with each other, with their professors, and with the University? One way is the Norwich University Virtual Campus, a Web site dedicated to encouraging a sense of community among all of the participants in our online graduate programs. (0) comments
Son's day is mom's, too - Lindsay Jones, Palm Beach Post
Tracy Fenno received her Mother's Day gift a day early from her oldest son, Eric, when they both walked across the stage to receive degrees from Indian River Community College on Saturday morning.... Though the Fennos were both IRCC students at the same time, even taking classes from the same professors on occasion, it wasn't until last fall that mother and son, who live with Tracy Fenno's two younger sons, realized they would celebrate their graduations at the same time. "That was a surprise... but it was really just a coincidence," Tracy Fenno said. The 48-year-old started taking classes part-time in 1998, many of them online while she worked at the Blake Library in Stuart. She has enrolled in a distance learning program through the University of Maine to earn her bachelor's degree. (0) comments
Online courses just as good - Malasia Star
While there is cause to be wary of online scams, remember that there are legitimate online and distance learning programmes that are being run by accredited universities.... Online learning is also becoming an increasingly viable new medium of education. Marlene Zeffreys from MACEE noted that “more universities are now recognising that the quality of online work is the same as work done in classrooms.” Students must, however, be completely sure that both the course and the university to which the online course is affiliated are properly accredited. (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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