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Online Learning News and Research
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Saturday, August 21, 2004
What’s Next: Course Creation Systems - Howard Strauss, Syllabus
Course management and learning management systems already do a fine job of organizing courses and providing the communications infrastructure for them. Portal-like features abound, course content can easily be plugged in, and channels or modules can be added to do just about anything from equation editing to voice annotation. All the major players have good systems that are getting evolutionarily better. While there is still a lot of important and interesting tweaking to be done, learning management systems only manage courses that have already been developed. It’s time to consider a course creation system (CCS); software that will assist in the creation of courses that could be dropped into a learning management system. (0) comments
e-TQM College continues accepting registration for 4th term of its Masters programme - AME Info
The two-year postgraduate course is the first of its kind in the Middle East, launched in collaboration with the University of Bradford in the UK, ranked the 16th top university in the world. It is the only programme at such an advanced level to offer learners in the region the flexibility of distance learning and e-learning. Commenting on the Msc programme, Professor Mohamed Zairi, Dean, eTQM College, said: 'The Masters program was conceived to encourage learners and professionals to delve deeper into the subjects of quality management and quality measurement, through a flexible instructional model. Quality management being a concept that is applicable to professionals in a variety of fields, from business to medicine, engineering or media, the course content has been designed to meet local requirements, while at the same time incorporating globally proven TQM techniques.' (0) comments
Distance Learning Gets an On-Line Storefront - dave watson, Straight.com
Distance education is one of those topics that seems to come into vogue every few years, usually in conjunction with some new technology that promises to revolutionize the delivery of information to inquisitive minds. It happened with radio, television, videotape, videoconferencing, and, most recently, with the World Wide Web. Despite some fanciful predictions, none of these breakthroughs led to the abolishment of face-to-face classrooms. Still, over time, distance education has become more credible and its planners have steadily refined their techniques. Between the peaks of popular interest, universities and colleges continue to develop course-ware materials and design curricula for remote learning. Every major B.C. institution now offers at least some courses on-line, and several are actively pursuing that market. In fact, there are so many on-line offerings these days that the time has come to put some order into the system. That's the mandate of BCcampus (http://www.bccampus.ca/), which aims to provide a gateway to all of the distance education courses and programs offered by 27 postsecondary institutions in B.C., from UBC and SFU to the Justice Institute of British Columbia and the Nicola Valley Institute of Technology. (0) comments Friday, August 20, 2004
In the Classroom, Web Logs Are the New Bulletin Boards - JEFFREY SELINGO, New York Times
AST spring, when Marisa L. Dudiak's second-grade class in Frederick County, Md., returned from a field trip to a Native American farm, all the students wanted to do was talk about what they saw. But instead of leading a discussion about the trip, Mrs. Dudiak had the students sign on to their classroom Web log. There they wrote about learning to use a bow and arrow, sitting inside a tepee and petting a buffalo. The short entries were typical of second-grade writing, with misspelled words and simple sentences. Still, for Mrs. Dudiak, the exercise proved more fruitful than a group discussion or a handwritten entry in a personal journal. "It allowed them to interact with their peers more quickly than a journal," she said, "and it evened the playing field." Mrs. Dudiak said she found that those who were quiet in class usually came alive online. (0) comments
Online Learning Makes Continuing Education Possible For Solders - Webpronews
It is hard to imagine a world without the Internet. Since the mid 1990s, it has revolutionized the way people around the world communicate, shop, entertain and conduct business. Today, at the crest of this global transformation, colleges and universities steadily have added online courses to their curricula -- not only to compete with other schools, but to afford educational opportunities that meet the demands of a student's busy lifestyle. A university's online education offering is often designed with an eye toward the adult learner who may be struggling to balance the demands of work, family and classes. Or as in Peter VanAmburgh's case, unable to attend classes because of a military deployment. VanAmburgh, a graduate of Argosy University/Sarasota, is a Lieutenant Colonel with the Georgia Army National Guard. His unit was mobilized to the war in Iraq in February 2004. At the time he was in the dissertation phase of his doctoral studies and didn't want to put his studies on the back burner, so he took his classwork with him. (0) comments
Distance Learning Closes the Gap - Mica Schneider, Business Week
Net-based enrollment is growing among professionals and execs, though finding the right program means doing more homework. Will McKendree is hoping to finish up an MBA from Indiana University's Kelley School of Business by August, 2005, and then earn a master's of finance the following year. The 26-year-old mid-Atlantic regional assistant for J Crew hopes the two degrees will make him more marketable as he moves up in the retail world. But unlike most MBAs-in-training, McKendree is attending lectures about 520 miles from his professors, in Indiana's Kelley Direct Online MBA program. Were it not for the Net, a master's would be out of reach for McKendree, whose bills include monthly payments on his BMW. "I can't afford to stop living the way I'm used to just go back to school," he says. (0) comments Thursday, August 19, 2004
Innovations in Distance Learning Program Development and Delivery - Schott, Chernish, Dooley, Lindner; DEC
Delivering high-quality instruction requires innovation in program development and delivery. This essay examines the use of merging technologies in the delivery of learner-based instruction, the development of collaborative teaching environments that maximize the efforts of faculty content experts, and the implementation of databases to manage electronic course materials at two large public universities. It also identifies effective strategies to develop more holistic teaching-learning communities and efforts to document learning outcomes using alternative forms of assessment. (0) comments
Flexibility, technology key to e-learning - Greg Botelho, CNN
With your pajamas snug, your feet clad in bunny slippers, and a tub of ice cream on the desk, your computer glows in front of you. The clock reads 2 a.m. In other words, time for class. This isn't a dream, but a reality for hundreds of thousands of students. Although brick-and-mortar institutions still dominate the educational landscape, a new form of schooling -- called online or e-learning -- has skyrocketed in popularity in recent years. The Peak Group, an education technology research and consulting firm, expects that more than 1 million students will take advantage of "virtual schools" this school year. Another research firm, Eduventures, predicted the online distance learning market will grow more than 38 percent in 2004, taking in $5.1 billion in revenue. (0) comments
Slight dip in Hancock enrollment, fees up - Michelle Hatfield - Lompoc Record
Nearly 8,000 students started school at Allan Hancock College Monday despite a 44 percent increase in per-unit fees. Based on head count, enrollment was down 5 percent compared to last year as of Friday, according to spokeswoman Rebecca Alarcio.... While head count numbers were slightly down, the community college's distance learning enrollment skyrocketed by 30 percent when compared to last year. "The growth is out of control," Alarcio said about the instruction that utilizes Internet, video and audio for instruction and interaction. "This has been the strongest segment of our enrollment for some time." During the 2003-04 school year, distance learning offered 79 sections with 2,046 students. So far this school year, there are 103 sections with 2,492 students, Alarcio said. (0) comments Wednesday, August 18, 2004
Elements of Quality Online Education: Into the Mainstream, Introduction - Sponsored by the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation
The workshop brought forward many issues facing the online education community. These issues include defining a common language, combining online and traditional education, achieving scale, managing costs and sharing resources, identifying best practices and understanding new roles. The workshop papers that make up this volume address major challenges with respect to student satisfaction, learning effectiveness, assessment and evaluation, and blended learning. In the ten years since the inception of the Sloan Consortium and the tenth anniversary of the Web browser, the field of online learning has entered the mainstream of higher education, making online learning a core ingredient of tomorrow’s educational paradigms. In fact, now that digital natives are coming of age, on-ground and online education can no longer stand apart. The blending of the two delivery modes is continuous and unstoppable. Moreover, increasing demands for wide choice suggest that the blended agenda presses rapidly into new realms of inquiry. Thus, the title of this collection, the fifth volume in the Sloan-C series on quality is Elements of Quality Online Education: Into the Mainstream. (0) comments
Quality Distance Education: Appropriate Interdependent and Collaborative Environments - Joel Levine, DEC 2003
Educators throughout the country, and the world, are seeking to find “best practices” for providing students with high quality distance education courses. The current focus seems to be on how to use the distance education technologies, not on the strategies for integration and use. This paper fosters an understanding that faculty and students need to recognize the importance and impact of interdependence and collaboration on the quality of distance education courses. A more significant focus needs to be on “Communities of Learners” and “Communities of Developers and Implementers”. (0) comments
Online Classes Benefit Full-time Students - WTOC, Savannah, Georgia
Andrea Bailey uses computers a lot as she studies sound design full time at the Savannah College of Art and Design. But she says it's really about the art. Circumstances left her with no other choice. "I actually ended up having to take an online course because I received a scholarship from the school as well, which means that I had to maintain full-time status, taking three courses...the third course that I needed conflicted with one of my prerequisites that's being held on campus that's not being offered online." Now, she has this to say: "But it's really turned out to be what should have been my first choice." (0) comments Tuesday, August 17, 2004
University of Illinois offering online degrees
"Knowledge is exploding so rapidly that people need to keep training to keep their job or to get their next job," says Dr. Burks Oakley II, director of U of I Online and associate vice president for academic affairs at the University of Illinois. "We're trying to have the breadth of the entire course list online, from engineering to medicine to liberal arts to healthcare. That's a very different commitment. That sets us (U of I Online) apart." ....All three campuses of the University of Illinois offer online degree programs, professional certifications and courses. "In 2003, University of Illinois at Springfield (UIS) ranked number one in enrollment in online courses of all public four-year institutions in the state." ....The University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign (UIUC) offers online graduate degrees in agricultural, consumer and environmental sciences, engineering, education, library and information sciences, and socialwork.... University of Illinois at Chicago (UIC) offers online graduate degrees in business administration, engineering, and health professions and related sciences, and the doctorate in pharmacy. (0) comments
Maximise learning with email - Eric Wilson, the Age, Australia
One of e-learning's greatest bugbears is maximising the participation rate of online courses. Sending students to a website doesn't guarantee they will enrol. The problem of participation becomes paramount when e-learning is expected to deliver compliance education, such as where it is mandatory for professionals to study new regulations for their industry, as was recently the case in the financial services sector. The fundamental issue is that as a content delivery mechanism, web pages are pulled in by a user at will, while compliance training really needs to be pushed into the user's face. (0) comments
Capella University Awards Third League for Innovation Ph.D. Scholarship
Capella University, an accredited online university headquartered in Minneapolis, and the League for Innovation in the Community College based in Phoenix, Arizona, announced today that Juanita Zapata Flint is the recipient of the university's third League for Innovation Scholarship. The League for Innovation Scholarship recognizes the innovative accomplishments of educators in community colleges across the country and awards three years of tuition in Capella University's Ph.D. program. The scholarship is valued at $50,000 and also includes residential colloquia. (0) comments Monday, August 16, 2004
Predicting Learning from Asynchronous Online Discussions -Dezhi Wu and Starr Roxanne Hiltz, JALN
ABSTRACT: Online discussions play an important role in student learning. Currently, asynchronous learning courses and some primarily face-to-face courses at New Jersey Institute of Technology require asynchronous online discussions. Does this requirement improve the students’ perceived learning? An exploratory study designed to investigate this issue was conducted in Spring 2002. The questionnaire drew responses to a post-course questionnaire from 116 students in two undergraduate courses and one graduate course. A set of items designed to measure perceived learning from online discussions formed a reliable, unidimensional index for this construct. The results indicate that online discussions do improve students’ perceived learning. Variations among instructors or courses are associated with differences in perceptions of student motivation, enjoyment, and learning from online discussion. Open-ended questions identified some student concerns about online discussions. The concluding section of this paper presents some implications for improving online discussions and for future research plans. (0) comments
Online learning can revolutionise companies - AME Info
Introducing e-learning into a company can revolutionise training methods , according to Abdulqader al Khaja, CEO of knowledgenetwork (knet), the Dubai-based training and learning consultancy. 'Online learning is not just about using electronic words instead of text books: practice environments, intranets and performance support systems all fall into the e-learning category. E-learning is using technology to assist learning, and should ultimately result in improved performance,' explained Khaja. (0) comments
NSU gets a much-needed e-xpansion - Aberdeen News
There was good news for Northern State University's groundbreaking e-learning school Friday as a 30,000-square foot addition to the center was approved by the Board of Regents. The e-learning center enables distance learning for 69 school districts across the state, many of them in rural areas. With the technology, students in far-flung locations can watch web broadcasts of teachers leading a class. This allows some of the poorer districts to offer classes in subjects they otherwise would not be able to afford. Better still, the classes are offered free of charge. (0) comments Sunday, August 15, 2004
The Blended Librarian Web Site
Blended Librarianship is a relatively new idea having first emerged as a concept developed by Steven Bell and John Shank in January 2004. In April 2004 Bell and Shank delivered a three-session workshop on Blended Librarianship that was sponsored by the TLT Group and ACRL. With support from the LearningTimes Network, the Blended Librarian Online Learning Community also became available in April 2004. As of August 2004 the community has approximately 80 members. The seminal article on Blended Librarianship appeared in the July/August 2004 issue of College & Research Libraries News. Here is the definition from our C&RL News article: An academic librarian who combines the traditional skill set of librarianship with the information technologist’s hardware/software skills, and the instructional or educational designer’s ability to apply technology appropriately in the teaching-learning process. (0) comments
Online courses growing by degrees - DEREK SANKEY, CanWest News Service
Judy Adams of the Southern Alberta Institute of Technology says online access to courses is improving, with most technology schools offering at least five per cent of curriculum online. Online training and education programs are enjoying phenomenal growth, driven by corporations looking to cut costs and improve skills training. And the boom is expected to continue as technology evolves, say distance-education experts. Judy Adams, manager of business education at the Southern Alberta Institute of Technology, says accessibility continues to improve and the campus has gone from offering two per cent of its curriculum online to 25 or 30 per cent in the past four years. "That ability to be able to go online and create that type of (virtual) community really creates a rich learning environment not unlike (what) you can create in a face-to-face classroom," Adams said. (0) comments
Capturing and Disseminating What Happens in the Classroom - Hubert Daugherty, Julie Cohn, and G. Anthony Gorry, Educause Quarterly
Universities increasingly employ information technology to distribute elements of their educational programs beyond campus borders and to find new uses for the intellectual capital they produce. Some faculty, with varying support and success, are moving course materials—and sometimes courses themselves—to the Internet to reach wider audiences. Institutions may record selected presentations—formal lectures by prominent visitors and other special events—to digitize and serve over the Web. For many outside the university, however, the quintessential campus experience is the interaction of a good teacher and bright, eager students in a classroom. Many would welcome the chance to observe this interaction, even if they could not participate directly. Although instructors commonly put reading lists or papers on the Web for wider audiences, such postings do not convey this important, but ephemeral, classroom experience. (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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