|
Online Learning News and Research
|
Saturday, June 12, 2004
Birmingham University sees surge in e-learning - James Mortleman, vnunet.com
The University of Birmingham is preparing for a huge expansion of e-learning, following high levels of enthusiasm from students and staff. The university has been dabbling with the technology for around a decade, but has seen demand soar since 2001 following the launch of its central e-learning service and implementation of a WebCT virtual learning environment. Birmingham currently has 2,000 courses on the system, and it is used at least some of the time by around 75 per cent of its 29,000 students. Stephen Clarke, head of e-learning at the university, explained that the existing system could no longer keep up with demand. "Over the past year, the level of usage has more than doubled and we expect the same to happen over the next 12 months," he said. (0) comments
Employers jumping on e-learning bandwagon - VIRGINIA GALT, Globe and Mail
For software company president Mike Gardner, one of the most enjoyable aspects of e-learning is the informal brainstorming that goes on around the virtual water cooler. "All of us religiously read the water cooler," said Mr. Gardner, who is earning his executive MBA in Vancouver through an electronic hookup with Queen's University in Kingston, Ont. Between formal classes, held in locations across the country every second weekend, the classmates compare notes on-line, often in the water cooler chat room. If someone is grappling with a problem in his or her day job, fellow students and professors are quick to weigh in with advice. They pass tips about job opportunities and sometimes gossip about the merits of this or that employer. (0) comments
American Military University Graduates Gather for Unique Commencement Ceremony
American Military University (AMU) graduates are gathering this Saturday for a unique commencement celebration. For the first time, graduates of this distance learning institution will meet their professors in person -- coming from as far away as the Netherlands. They will salute the 2003 graduating class -- about 400 students in all -- from one of the nation's largest providers of higher education to the U.S. armed forces. AMU is one of three member institutions of the American Public University System, serving nearly 11,000 soldiers, sailors, airmen, Marines and Coast Guard members. Students also include security management, law enforcement professionals and others. They study online from their own living rooms, aboard ships and in barracks. One deployed soldier in Iraq even studies from a laptop resting on an overturned crate. (0) comments Friday, June 11, 2004
SUMMER 2004 Sloan-C Online Learning Research Workshop
Sloan-C announces an interactive online research workshop beginning in July 2004. Developed with 40 of the most influential researchers in the field of online learning, and brought directly to your computer, this workshop will provide you with critical information about the most important issues in online learning including: blended learning, assessment methodologies, improving student satisfaction, and increasing learning effectiveness.... The purpose of the workshop is to share knowledge about quality online learning among practitioners. Four successive, rapid cycle challenges drawn from Elements of Quality Online Education: Into the Mainstream—Student Satisfaction, Learning Effectiveness, Blended Environments, and Assessment—engage workshop participants in answering questions that face higher education. Following the two week cycle, participants may join special interest groups to continue in-depth challenge responses. (0) comments
UK Newspaper archive planned for the web - Public Technology
A new project, which will digitise in excess of one million pages of fully searchable texts and associated images from out-of-copyright 19th century newspapers from the British Library, has been announced by JISC (Joint Information Systems Committee). The vast majority of newspapers in the British Library collections remain in print form, and are only accessible to researchers who can visit the Newspaper Library in Colindale, North London. The website resource will provide an unparalleled and freely available resource for further and higher education, in the first instance. (0) comments
ECC approved for distance learning program
Erie Community College has been approved by the State Education Department as a provider of distance learning for a five-year period, making it one of only 15 two-year colleges in the state permitted to provide degree programs from a distance. The endorsement allows ECC to expand its flexible and interactive educational options for students with busy lives and limited resources. Plans call for expanding current offerings, including office technology, business administration and liberal arts programs. About 950 students enroll annually in telecourse classes; while online courses have seen an increase from 288 students in fall 2001 to 1,841 in spring 2004. Enrollment in fall 2004 in all distance learning courses is expected to reach nearly 3,150. (0) comments Thursday, June 10, 2004
Teachers from Online Master's Program Having Greater Impact on Students, Study Shows
A commissioned study released today by Walden University, an online higher education institution, shows that teachers enrolled in its distance-learning reading and literacy master's degree program significantly improved their students' reading scores over the course of a school year. Important findings of the study include: * Students taught by teachers completing Walden's M.S. in Education, with a specialization in Elementary Reading and Literacy, improved on the national level from the 40th percentile mean in the fall semester, to the 59th percentile mean in the spring semester. * Teachers in Walden University's master's degree program had an overall effect size of .51. Effect size is used by the U.S. Department of Education to measure educational significance. According to department standards, .51 is exemplary. (0) comments
Dropouts get chance to work from home - STUART DYE, New Zealand Herald
School dropouts will be given internet at home and access to mentors in a pilot scheme to get the country's most disaffected teenagers back into education. From next month 100 students in Auckland and Wellington will become involved in the $2.5 million programme called Notschool.net. The online learning scheme will be available to 13- to 16-year-olds and, if successful, will be extended around the country. Young people who are not at school or not achieving well will be allowed to work online from home 24 hours a day, seven days a week. Mentors and subject experts will encourage and guide the students, and they will be able to talk in a secure chatroom with others in the programme. (0) comments
Unofficial education center at LSA Anaconda preps troops for testing - Jessica Inigo, Stars and Stripes
Get smart in Iraq — prove it in Kuwait. A fledgling education service center on Anaconda is taking the first steps to become an official education center for military troops. Currently, the center can set up troops with distance learning courses from almost all major colleges, act as a proctor for school exams, tutor students on general studies and set up appointments for testing at the nearest official education center in Camp Doha, Kuwait. The majority of the traffic is from troops trying to improve their general/technical score on the Armed Services Vocational Aptitude Battery, or ASVAB, the initial exam servicemembers take to measure what jobs are open to them when joining the service. With a higher GT score, troops get more options when re-enlisting or can get a different military job. (0) comments Wednesday, June 09, 2004
Ten Tips and Tricks for the Online Student - Mark Evans, techLearning
In the summer of 2000 I began an online Masters program at the University of Phoenix. I wasn't expecting too many bumps in the online road.... During the first course, I had printed every article, Email, group project, student-to-facilitator communication, lecture, and assignment. I struggled to work within a synchronous and asynchronous environment, while juggling my teammate's schedules, multiple assignments, and my day-to-day job. Finally, after the first course, I realized I had to make some changes. Otherwise, I would never make it through the full 20 months of the program. Through that initial baptism by fire, I quickly developed a set of tips that my fellow classmates and I found useful. (0) comments
Inculcate good values along with e-learning - the Malaysia Star
E-learning in schools should not be implemented at the expense of inculcating moral values in students, said Higher Education Minister Datuk Dr Shafie Mohd Salleh. He said the application of e-learning in replacing the traditional method of “chalk and talk” would lessen the burden on teachers. However, he added that strong moral and ethical values could not be inculcated in students without proper guidance from their teachers. “As such, the students' physical and personality development should be taken into consideration when implementing e-learning methods in schools,” he said at the launch of the National E-Learning Conference here on Monday night. (0) comments
Army Space and Missile Defense Command, American Military University Begin Cooperative Master's Degree Program
Army Officers trained to be Space Operations Officers -- called FA-40s in Army circles -- now have an online learning partner for completing a master of science degree in space studies. A cooperative agreement between the U.S. Army Space and Missile Defense Command (SMDC) and American Military University (AMU) was signed May 26. "As we start to develop the space operations officers -- if you think of it in terms of a life cycle of a human being -- how you mature them, how you grow them ... education is the key," says Col. James Pierson, director, Force Development and Integration Center, SMDC. "The online education program with American Military University is a tremendous opportunity," he says. (0) comments Tuesday, June 08, 2004
Concept Maps Discover Digital Repositories: A Look at Tufts VUE - Phillip D. Long, Syllabus
Teaching in a digital environment has brought the traditional hierarchical classroom structure to the online world. A range of tools has emerged to help faculty transfer not only their course materials, but also their course structure for teaching onto the Web. Most course management systems support the uploading of digital objects of many types into courses and sometimes into shareable libraries from which course content can be selected. Typically these systems strive to recreate the structured organization we think about when considering the delivery of traditional course materials online, and they do this well. (0) comments
Reed Elsevier allows academics free web access - Richard Wray, the Guardian
Reed Elsevier is allowing academics to put papers that have been accepted for publication in its print and online journals on to the internet, breaking with years of tradition and reigniting the debate over open access to academic thinking. Until now the world's largest academic publisher has been a staunch opponent of open access, saying it poses a threat to the quality of academic research. But it is now letting academics put a text version of their accepted articles on to their own websites, or sites operated by their institutions. The move could make the 200,000 articles Reed Elsevier publishes every year freely available on the internet. (0) comments
New search service creates 'Google for scholars' - Cara Branigan, eSchool News
Internet searches might become faster and more fruitful for students, scholars, and other academics as early as this year, thanks to a pilot program being developed as a free service spearheaded by Google, the world's leading internet search engine. The initiative, called CrossRef Search, combines Google's popular search technology with the archives of up to 300 leading scholarly publications, allowing researchers to separate Google's typical search results from high-quality, peer-reviewed, scholarly content. "Everybody is using Google, even scientists," said Ed Pentz, executive director of CrossRef, an association for scholarly publishers. "For a lot of people, Google is the first place they check." (0) comments Monday, June 07, 2004
Project-based Distrubuted Learning and Adult Learners - Erkan TEKINARSLAN, TOJDE
Attending a traditional or residential learning environment to gain new knowledge or skills demand major time commitment. For working professionals with family responsibilities, the pursuit of knowledge and training in the traditional manner is gradually becoming unattainable (Atieh, 1998). However, advances in computer and communication technologies have provided new distributed learning opportunities for adult learners. Seidel and Chatelier (1994) define the term distributed learning as “multi-way knowledge dissemination among teams, crews, etc.” (p. 2). In this study I adapt the definition of distributed learning as an educational format that involves multidimensional interactions (e.g., collaborations, discussions, feedback, lectures, etc.) among teachers and learners, at a distance, utilizing a variety of computer and telecommunication technologies. (0) comments
The "Newest Media" and a Principled Approach for Integrating Technology Into Instruction - Susan Ambrose and Joel Smith, Syllabus
When and how should new media be incorporated into instruction? Two leaders in instructional technology and cognitive science from Carnegie Mellon University offer concrete suggestions from their experience, illustrated by applications of new media by the Open Learning Initiative at CMU. “New media in instruction?” Déjà vu. Didn’t we write that article more than a decade ago? Wasn’t it about HyperCard and JPEGs and Internet resources for teaching and learning? Isn’t that “old media” yet? Some of the “New Media Centers” originally sponsored by Apple Computer are still here, but now they are populated with “iLife.” The “new” in new media is ever-changing. There will always be novel opportunities and technologies, but there will also be not-so-novel questions about the integration of new media in education. As Clark and Mayer (2003) remind us, “What we have learned from all the media comparison research is that it’s not the medium, but rather the instructional methods that cause learning.” This is a reflection on the enduring question of the relationship between the “newest media” and instructional methods. (0) comments
A fast emerging learning concept - the Hindu
Aimed at bringing together consultants from the field of education, from both public and private sectors, researchers and policy-makers to address key issues related to the concept of e-learning, an international conference titled "e-Learning India 2004'' will be held in the Capital on June 10. With the emergence of Internet as the prime form of global communication and information exchange, e-Learning is one concept that is gaining importance among students, educationists, researchers and all those related to the field of education and computers. Experts feel, e-Learning can establish itself as a critical form of knowledge production and circulation only when it is constituted as an independent field by opening up its own space of operation, developing a coherent methodology and logical procedures for creating and delivering knowledge objects. (0) comments Sunday, June 06, 2004
When the Cows Come Home: A Proven Path of Professional Development for Faculty Pursuing E-Learning - Gary W. Kidney, THE Journal
University faculty who have braved the transition from the traditional classroom to an e-learning instructor role report many changes. Most describe the knowledge gained from the e-learning world as making them better teachers in all delivery venues. Some describe how their educational philosophy changed from being the dispenser of knowledge to becoming learner-centered. Many others, however, swap horror stories of e-mail boxes full of 300 urgent messages from students or servers that went down right in the middle of a midterm. As higher education continues the rush to embrace technology-delivered learning opportunities, one imperative is to find ways to prepare faculty for what life will be like on the other side of the transformation. Independent of how great a teacher, scholar or researcher an individual may be, he or she needs to have accurate expectations of how roles change, a modicum of technological mastery, and a set of instructional strategies appropriate for the new domain. Some institutions push faculty over the precipice with little help or support, while a few have teams of support staff that guide and coach faculty. However, most have turned to professional development as a way to train faculty in the values and uses of instructional technology. (0) comments
Let’s Build More “Learning” into Even Basic IT Tools - Terry Calhoun, Syllabus
In the past year, I’ve become a big fan and user of what University of Michigan members of the Sakai Project called WorkTools, which then became Course Tools the Next Generation (CTNG), and now is CTools. For those of you who have not experienced the nifty tools that are coming out of that project, I find it easiest to explain to people that it is “sort of like Yahoo! Groups, but without the ads.” Lately, I’ve been wondering if maybe that tool and some of our other IT tools on campus shouldn’t have more advertisements built into them. By “advertisements” I mean “ads” that could provide regular learning experiences for users in how to become better, more efficient, and safer users. Not something like “This e-mail communication has been brought to you by the Diet Cola Company of America” inserted as a footer in each message your e-mail server transmits or receives. Well, I do mean the “inserted as a footer” (or header) part, but my suggested “educational messages” would read something like, “If you think you detect a security or privacy breach in University of XYZ online data, notify security@syz.edu, and do not tell anyone else.” (0) comments
The 21st Century Chalkboard: Distributed Collaboration in Higher Education - Syllabus
Technologies for presentation and collaboration in the classroom are expanding the geographical boarders of the institution and helping to break cultural boundaries. Here, Syllabus speaks with James Oliverio, a professor and director of the Digital Worlds Institute at the University of Florida, about that institution’s pioneering work in distributed collaboration. Syllabus: In your work at the University of Florida, you’ve incorporated new media into a distributed collaboration model. What is the basis for the multi-faceted collaborative environment at the Digital Worlds Institute? What is your core operating principle for telecollaboration? James Oliverio: ...I’ve found that the basis of collaboration is what goes on between people, whether they’re building a house with a hammer or trying to create a dance from around the world over a computer network. In an ideal situation, our technology would be so evolved that it would be totally transparent, allowing us to communicate using all the non-verbal, non-text cues that have evolved over thousands of years. (0) comments Online Learning News Blog Archives OTEL - Ray's Home Page - Notebook - UIS Online - U of I Online - UIS Home Fair Use |
Online Learning Update 
