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Online Learning News and Research
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Saturday, April 02, 2005
Online SEIs save time, money - Katherine Dodson, The Lantern
Ohio State has been spending $40,000 annually to print 1 million Student Evaluation of Instructor forms. Now, in an effort to save time and money, the university is trying to phase out the paper forms by offering an online version. Although administrators cannot track how much is being saved with the online forms, they are saving a lot of money on printing and labor costs, said Alan Kalish, the director of faculty and TA development. Kalish said many courses that first used the form were online distance learning courses. The university then began offering the online forms to the larger departments with the largest amount of students. Using larger classes allows for more students to begin using the online form and become accustomed to it, Kalish said. (0) comments
Internet allows time-pressed adults to mentor young readers - Ann Therese Palmer, Chicago Tribune
Because Bengi Selcukoglu works 50 hours a week, primarily out of town, the Chicago electrical engineer had trouble finding volunteer work when she moved here four years ago. Then, 18 months ago, she received an e-mail that solved her problem. Her employer, the Chicago office of Canadian information technology company CGI-AMS, was soliciting volunteer pen pals for In2Books, an Internet-based reading and writing mentoring program for pupils in 2nd to 5th grade. It's the brainchild of Nina Zolt, a Skokie native and non-practicing lawyer in Washington, D.C. (0) comments
Distance learning: Making a connection - Lauren Williams, Hampton Roads Daily Press
Dennis Cannon's favorite class - pre-veterinary medicine - is also his hardest. He submits assignments to a teacher he's never seen and does group projects with classmates he's never met.Unlike the rest of his classes at Heritage High School in Newport News, Cannon, an 11th-grader, can attend this class anywhere he wants - as long as he's in front of a computer."People in my class are from Connecticut, Virginia, Washington, Massachusetts," he said. "Everywhere."The use of distance learning - courses conducted through video or audio conferencing or the Internet - as a supplement to traditional classes is growing here and across the country. Most recently, Internet classes have generated a renewed interest in distance learning, education officials here say. (0) comments Friday, April 01, 2005
Preparing Instructors for Quality Online Instruction - Yi Yang and Linda F. Cornelious, Online Journal of Distance Learning Administration
With a growing number of courses offered online and degrees offered through the Internet, there is a considerable interest in online education, particularly as it relates to the quality of online instruction. The major concerns are centering on the following questions: What will be the new role for instructors in online education? How will students' learning outcomes be assured and improved in online learning environment? How will effective communication and interaction be established with students in the absence of face-to-face instruction? How will instructors motivate students to learn in the online learning environment? This paper will examine new challenges and barriers for online instructors, highlight major themes prevalent in the literature related to “quality control or assurance” in online education, and provide practical strategies for instructors to design and deliver effective online instruction. Recommendations will be made on how to prepare instructors for quality online instruction. (0) comments
Distance education courses to be offered to soldiers - Michael Harrington, the East Carolinian
ECU will offer distance education courses to the soldiers stationed at Fort Bragg in Fayetteville beginning in August. The soldiers will be able to choose from a variety of courses and work toward a major, while serving the country. Another great feature of the distance education program is the flexibility it offers to the soldiers. "When they deploy, we can go along," Duncan said. A high number of soldiers from Fort Bragg have and will be deployed, but with distance education courses offered online, the soldiers will in most cases be able to take their coursework with them when they travel overseas. (0) comments
Online learning goal is to increase student opportunity - Beth Bily, Grand Rapids Herald-Review
A mid-March grant by the Blandin Foundation of $525,000 will kick start online learning for the four Itasca County School districts, as well as other partners, Remer, Hill City, South Koochiching, and Floodwood. What exactly will online learning do? According to Deer River School District Superintendent Mark Adams, it will provide opportunities for advanced learning, catch-up opportunity for those who need extra help and allow the participating school districts to retain students in an era when not only declining enrollment poses threats to funding, but technological offerings elsewhere do as well. According to Blandin Foundation Grant Director Wade Fauth, the online learning project is both an economic as well as an educational opportunity. "Rural school districts are suffering. A number of districts have had a hard time getting enough students together for specialized classes," he said. "Basic education is an important consideration for the local community as we go forward in the future." (0) comments Thursday, March 31, 2005
A Triangulated Support Approach in Transitioning Faculty to Online Teaching - David Covington, Donna Peterbridge, Sara Egan Warren, OJDLA
The English department at North Carolina State University faced a rapid, large-scale transition of a number of its professional writing courses from traditional classes to online courses. Recognizing that numerous barriers, including unresolved administrative issues, faculty resistance, and lack of training could impede this process, administrators and faculty members collaborated to ensure that appropriate resources, peer support, and adequate professional development were available for the success of this endeavor. This transition became an opportunity for professional development activities and for carefully orchestrated administrative and peer support. As a result, twenty of forty-two professional writing classes were delivered online in the fall of 2004, and twenty of forty classes are being delivered in spring 2005. (0) comments
Logged on to learning - Holly Martin, the Parthenon
Interim President Mike Farrell unveiled Marshall University's newest campus, Marshall University ONLINE, at Higher Education Day at the state capitol yesterday. The day's events also included Senator Robert Plymale's announcement of a bill designed to specifically benefit Marshall. "We started with a welcome by Governor Manchin where he continued to proclaim the need for higher education in the state and the need for it to succeed," Farrell said."By expanding access and resources to our most rural populations, Mars-hall University is meeting educational needs in a cost effective, scalable and quality centric model," Farrell said, according to a news release. "The online program features real interaction with outstanding faculty members in a collaborative, high-touch environment." (0) comments
Conference On Distance Learning Planned - The Nambian
NAMIBIA'S major institutions of learning are combining to hold a joint conference on open and distance learning later this year. Organised by the Namibian Open Learning Network Trust (NOLNet), this first conference of its kind is to strengthen ties between the institutions and to raise public awareness about the opportunities distance learning offers. President Sam Nujoma formally launched the private support trust in 2002. (0) comments Wednesday, March 30, 2005
Planning and Implementing a Public Health Professional Distance Learning Program - Cam Escoffery, et al ; Online Journal of Distance Learning Admin
Training of public health professionals through web-based technology is rapidly increasing. This article describes one school of public health's effort to establish an online Master's program that serves students nationally and internationally. It examines the critical components in the design and implementation of distance education, including curriculum and instruction, management, facilities and finance, school support, technology services and support, student services, learning resources, and evaluation of the program. Focal components for the development of successful online programs recommended from the literature are administrative support, allocation of time for planning, provision of faculty and learner support, and matching technology to the needs of the learner. This article (0) comments
University of South Florida, St. Petersburg First to Offer Courses With Portable Media Centers
Taking advantage of cutting-edge technology, USF St. Petersburg is offering a new pilot course on autism that will enable students to take classes anytime, anywhere. The university course will use the hand-held Microsoft Windows' Creative Zen Portable Media Center, just released September 2004. This hand-held device can show videos, TV programs as well as music - much like an iPod with video. V. Mark Durand, PhD, an autism expert who recently received a nearly $900,000 research grant to investigate the best ways to help parents assist their autistic child, converted his autism course to Windows Media Video files for students to watch regardless of their location. "We believe we are the first in the world to use this new technology for teaching," Durand, dean of the College of Arts at Sciences said. "We are exploring innovative ways to educate our students and this brand-new technology should make learning even more accessible, particularly for parents of autistic children who are always on the go." (0) comments
Students to enjoy flexible studying - Daniel Thomas, IT Week UK
Leicester's De Montfort University is introducing a personalised web portal allowing its 27,000 students and staff access to relevant study information and messages from any location. Students using the system, based on Novell technology, will be able to sign in securely and access university resources and computer networks from internet cafes or home PCs, outside normal working hours.... 'After looking at IT requirements we decided we needed a new learning and teaching environment which can service not just full-time students, but also ones on distance learning courses and at other remote colleges, without discrimination,' said De Montfort IT director Roy Adams. (0) comments Tuesday, March 29, 2005
Beyond PowerPoint: Visual Presentation Tools for Online Learning - Bruce Howerton, Innovate
In the mid-1990s, the University Of North Carolina (UNC) School of Dentistry entered the digital era by publishing curricula, syllabi, and modules on the Web. The School took this step in part to give students greater access to materials that supplement the lecture-based courses in the program, and in part to help students prepare for examinations more thoroughly than they would have been able to otherwise. By the late 1990s, the primary medium for visual delivery in the classroom shifted from traditional carousel slideshow presentations to Microsoft PowerPoint presentations. One of the primary advantages of the latter was that they could be reproduced and easily posted within online course modules, such that students could review the presentations outside of class at any point during the semester. Soon afterward, the dental school began to explore other forms of multimedia content delivery for their potential value as instructional tools and as further enhancements to the online component of various dental courses. (0) comments
IU Kokomo mixes online, traditional format - Erin Shultz, Kokomo Tribune
With four children younger than 5 and three jobs, Martha Bugher said she barely finds time to breathe. Sleep? She forgot about that long ago. “Speedway makes really good coffee,” she said, sitting in a cushy chair at Indiana University Kokomo. Yet the 27-year-old manages to juggle six classes, in part, she says, through a new type of course that pairs online instruction with traditional in-class learning. “It didn’t matter what time it was,” said Bugher, the mother of a4-month-old who wakes up at 2 a.m. “This has been heaven sent. It’s been a great advantage.” The English and education major recently wrapped up one class – administrators are calling them hybrid courses – in the ACCELerated Evening College. (0) comments
Grambling's Internet program wins award for hooking up households - JORDAN BLUM, Associated Press
In the last year, Erica Sawyer, a single mother of two living on a teacher's salary, has grown closer to her children and seen them blossom in their schoolwork. What difference does a year make? Sawyer, a Farmerville resident, was one of 50 low-income, black households selected to participate in a Grambling State University Internet program studying the "digital divide" that residents like Sawyer must fight to bridge in rural areas. "The program is a great blessing to my family. I've never been able to afford a home computer on my own with kids," she said. "On Saturday mornings, instead of my kids just watching cartoons, we're all on the Internet together learning." (0) comments Monday, March 28, 2005
Faculty and Administrators Collaborating for E-Learning Courseware - Brian C. Donohue and Linda Howe-Steiger, Educause Quarterly
In October 2003, the Network for Academic Renewal of the American Association of Colleges and Universities convened a conference in Cambridge, Massachusetts, to explore “Technology, Learning, and Intellectual Development.”1 A key issue at this conference concerned low participation by faculty in the use and development of digital, online, and other new technologies for teaching and learning. The reluctance by some faculty to explore these options appears especially puzzling when compared with the eagerness which many of the same faculty seized upon these technologies for research, writing, and publication. (0) comments
USF-St.Petersburg launches autism course for distance learners - Tampa Bay Buisness Journal
The University of South Florida St. Petersburg is offering a pilot course on autism that will enable students to take classes anytime, anywhere. V. Mark Durand, dean of the College of Arts and Sciences, received nearly $900,000 in grant money in Sept. 2004 to investigate the best ways for parents to help their autistic children. He converted his autism course to Windows Media Video files. Using the hand-held Creative Zen Portable Media Center, students can watch the lessons regardless of their location. (0) comments
Math help for U.S. kids may come from India - Scott Stephens, Cleveland Plain Dealer
The failure of some American students to master math is adding up to big bucks for tutoring companies in India. A little-known provision in the federal No Child Left Behind law allows federal taxpayer dollars to flow to online tutoring services thousands of miles and several times zones away in places like New Delhi and Calcutta. Those services typically contract with U.S. tutoring firms, which provide them the computer software and set the lesson plan. Few would begrudge using public money to give struggling students extra help.... But some U.S. teachers decry the offering of instruction to Indian firms that pay full-time, college-educated tutors as little as $230 a month. They also complain that while the law requires teachers to be fully certified, private tutors have no such requirement. (0) comments Sunday, March 27, 2005
Leveraging LMSs to Enhance Campus-Based Student Engagement - Hamish Coates, Educause Quarterly
We need to better understand the influence of learning management systems (LMSs) on student engagement in order to use these powerful technologies to improve campus-based education. Over the past 10 years, online learning management has been adopted by many campus-based institutions, becoming almost ubiquitous in many parts of the world. These systems have profound yet uncertain implications for university education. They have the capacity to influence the management of academic programs, teaching practices, and the way students engage with key aspects of their university experience. This article suggests an approach for monitoring how the systems may influence students’ engagement with their study and how they might be used to improve campus-based education. (0) comments
WebSurveyor Grant Program
The WebSurveyor Academic Grant Program is an opportunity to expose your students to a leading online survey technology for research and class projects. Faculty will have access to WebSurveyor for their own research as well. All at no cost to you, your students or your university. Grant recipients will receive computer software applicable for collegiate level instruction and practical use of online surveys. Instructors at universities, colleges, community colleges and business and trade schools are eligible to apply. The two-year renewable software grant is valued at $60,000. (0) comments
100,000 words in your pocket - Michael Simon, SpyMac
When the iPod was unveiled in November 2001, there were at least a few visionaries who accurately predicted it would change the way we listen of music. When the iTunes Music Store was launched, many said it would change the way we buy music. When GarageBand was demoed, at least three people wrote that it would change the way we make music. However, when the shuffle dropped, no one said it would change the way we listen … to books. But maybe it will. (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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