Posted by
in
Uncategorized
Dec 12th, 2004
"Entering the Mainstream: The Quality and Extent of Online Education in the United States, 2003 and 2004" presents the findings of the second annual study, funded by the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation, on the state of online education in over 1,100 U.S. higher education institutions. Questions addressed in the report include:
– Will online enrollments continue their rapid growth?
– Are students as satisfied with online courses as they are with
face-to-face instruction?
– What role do schools see online learning playing in their long-term
strategy?
– What about the quality of online offerings: do schools continue to
believe that it measures up?
The full text of the report is available online here.
Posted by
in
Uncategorized
Dec 9th, 2004
From THE Journal …
Research in neuroscience is providing us with an opportunity to not only design programs that target what struggling readers need instructionally, but also to determine the effectiveness of the instruction. For example, we have learned that targeted instruction designed to develop sound-symbol correspondence knowledge to a level of automaticity will strengthen previously weak functional connectivity in the brain and significantly reduce energy expenditure while reading. Knowing this, developers can design technology-based programs suitable for large group deployments that explicitly target the instructional needs of struggling readers. In addition, educators should demand software that offers instruction which focuses on building the automaticity of sound-symbol recognition.
Posted by
in
Uncategorized
Dec 9th, 2004
From Car and Driver …
(that means you, Shatner!)
(Photo Stephen Gardner, www.euro-correspondent.com)
You get a couple of speeding tickets, you roll through a stop sign, you make a death-defying right turn on red at that intersection with the sign that reads, "No turn on red." It all adds up, and finally, we are told by a judge that if we ever want to see the left side of a dashboard again, we have to go back to school.
Driver reeducation classes differ from state to state and county to county, but whether they are taught by jackbooted troopers or out-of-work stand-up comics, they are, indisputably, not fun. They are simply the only way to avoid losing your license.
Those days are almost over. A growing number of states are approving online driver reeducation courses, which can be taken from the privacy of your own laptop-poolside, or lounging by the fire with your dog.
Posted by
in
Uncategorized
Dec 9th, 2004
From Entrepreneur.com …
"Over the past five years, there's been an explosion of interest [in entrepreneurship]," says Gerry Hills, co-founder and chair of the Collegiate Entrepreneurs' Organization (CEO) and coleman Chair at the Institute for Entrepreneurial Studies at the University of Illinois, Chicago. He credits some of the interest to the dotcom boom-which, despite its bust, had a noticeable effect on entrepreneurial awareness. "It's been a positive factor because it brought to the attention of masses of students that entrepreneurship is a viable career path."
Posted by
in
Uncategorized
Dec 8th, 2004
From the Chronicle of Higher Education, 8 December 2004 (subscription required) …
Kathryn Silcox, deputy attorney general in Pennsylvania, has brought a civil lawsuit against Trinity Southern University, an online university based in Plano, Texas, alleging consumer fraud and illegal e-mail marketing. Silcox brought the suit after her cat received an MBA from the online university. Silcox became involved after Microsoft contacted attorneys general in different states regarding spam messages. She filled out the university's requested self-evaluation and applied for a $299 bachelor's degree using the cat's name. The life experience noted on the form was sufficient not only for a bachelor's degree but also an MBA for an additional $100, according to the university. Silcox paid $99 for a copy of the transcript, which indicated that her cat had taken four semesters' worth of business classes.
Posted by
in
Uncategorized
Dec 8th, 2004
A good listing of education blogs here at E-Learning Acupuncture.
Posted by
in
Uncategorized
Dec 8th, 2004
From the Houston Chronicle, with a hat tip to Stephen's Web/OLDaily …
The nonprofit College board, which owns the SAT college entrance exam, is demanding that its chief critic remove from its Web site data showing that minority and poor students scored lower than white and upper-class kids.
In a letter to the National Center for Fair and Open Testing, also called FairTest, the College Board claims the Cambridge-based nonprofit organization violated copyright law by posting the scores without permission.
FairTest, which opposes what it considers overreliance on standardized tests, posted the Oct. 27 letter on its Web site along with its refusal to comply with the College Board's demand. FairTest argues that the data is widely available in the public domain and therefore not subject to copyright protection.
Posted by
in
Uncategorized
Dec 3rd, 2004
A bit of an economics brief for you from Career Journal … There's no better time to go back to school than in slow economic times, if you can afford it of course. Just make sure you're not throwing money down the drain.
Nonfarm payrolls grew by only 112,000 jobs last month after a revised 303,000 increase in October, the Labor Department said Friday. That was well short of the 200,000 jobs economists had expected, according to a survey by Dow Jones Newswires and cnbc, and the 220,000 that traders had expected just before the report was released. The unemployment rate fell a tenth of a percentage point to a three-month low of 5.4%, as expected.
In its revision, the government said employers created 54,000 fewer jobs in September and October than previously thought. Employers added 119,000 jobs in September and 303,000 in October, down from previous estimates of 139,000 and 337,000, respectively.
Economists say the economy needs to generate at least 125,000 jobs a month just to keep up with new entrants into the work force. The average since August of 2003, when employers resumed hiring after a long slump, has been slightly above that threshold at 152,000.
