Operating without a license

From the Technology Review, via Distance Educator.

An online college is still operating a Web site and has renewed its corporate license — but has no education license eight months after a state law required it to get one or shut down.

"They haven't taken any students through that Web site since July of last year," he said.

U.S. student programers falling behind

From ZDNet …

At this year's association for Computing Machinery International Collegiate Programming Contest, the University of Illinois's tie for 17th place was the best result for any U.S. team, representing the worst performance for U.S. institutions in the 29 years of the competition. Many observers believe the result is indicative of a variety of factors that have resulted in a striking shift in
technological preeminence away from U.S. schools and companies. As recently as 1997, the United States came out on top, when a team from Harvey Mudd College won the competition. David Patterson, president of the Association for Computing Machinery and a computer science professor at the University of California, Berkeley, noted, "The U.S. used to dominate these kinds of programming Olympics." Others pointed out that applications from outside the United States to computer science and other technology programs at U.S. graduate schools have dropped lately.

More on this at Between the Lines.

Digital Community College Top 10

From MarketWire, via DistanceEducator, a ranking of the top digitally connected community colleges in the U.S.A.

Here is the list:

Top 10 Digital Community Colleges

Small/Rural:
1st Place: Tompkins Cortland Community College, Dryden, N.Y.
2nd Place: Lehigh Carbon Community College, Schnecksville, Pa.
3rd Place: Patrick Henry Community College, Martinsville, Va.
4th Place: Kirtland Community College, Roscommon, Mich.
5th Place: Panola College, Carthage, Texas
6th Place: Aims Community College, Greeley, Colo.
7th Place: Western Iowa Tech Community College, Sioux City, Iowa
8th Place: Minnesota West Community and Technical College, Granite Falls, Minn.
9th Place: Blue Ridge Community College, Weyers Cave, Va.
10th Place: Lake-Sumter Community College, Leesburg, Fla.

Bridging Rural Gaps in South Dakota

From the Chronicle of Higher Education.

A distance education program in South Dakota is having to deal with the difficulties of being perhaps too popular. The Center for Statewide E-learning was set up to provide college-prep courses–which are required for a state financial aid program–to high school students at schools that do not offer them. Many districts in the state are located in very rural areas and cannot afford to hire faculty to teach such classes. The popularity of the program, operated at Northern State University, has led the state's legislature to pass a bill assigning
levels of need to various schools. According to Erika Tallman, director of the center, registration begins at 9:00 a.m., and five minutes later "we have about 1,000 registrations." Tallman said no students have so far been left out, but some are put on waiting lists.

Making leaders in technology

From Technology Review, this story on education for technology leaders.

The certainty of lightning-quick change is one of the few things CIOs can count on in the enterprise today. For most corporate IT executives, the past few years have only continued the nearly wholesale renovation of how businesses continue to communicate, innovate, and bring products to market. Global economies continue to adjust to the chaos and confusion of todays world, while the U.S. economy slowly marches back from a technology meltdown that began four years ago.

But in spite of the continuing uncertainty and chaos, the drumbeat of business goes on. Companies continue to build and market new products, while new services remain competitive and innovative, and organizations reach out and connect to partners, customers, and employees in new and creative ways.

Failing grade for computer security on campus

At the New York Times …

A recent spate of computer-security incidents at colleges and universities has drawn attention to the apparent tension between concerns over academic freedom and the need to protect sensitive information. Stanton S. Gatewood, chief information security officer at the University of Georgia, which suffered a security breach last year, noted that higher education is "built on the free flow of information and ideas," saying that college and university networks are designed based on that ideal. The result, however, is a tempting target for
information thieves. According to the Office of Privacy Protection in California, colleges and universities in that state have accounted for more data incidents since 2003–close to 30 percent–than any other group. Although some states now prohibit using Social Security numbers as identifiers in many databases, their continued prevalence makes changing structures difficult. The University of Michigan, for example, spent seven years weaning itself off Social Security numbers. Because testing agencies and other organizations continue to use them, however, the university finds it still has to track them.More on this story at Concept and Emerging Technologies.

Why online teaching turned me off

A contrarian view at the Washington Post …

Three years ago, I agreed to give online teaching one last try — a composition class that met in person for three hours every other week, with the intervening week used for online discussion and exercises. We call these hybrid classes. It seemed like an interesting compromise.

If a student missed a classroom week, then a month intervened between our face-to-face contacts, and I would forget the student's name; sometimes I thought the student had nearly forgotten mine, too. If a student failed to do the online work — a common occurrence — I would have to spend part of the classroom time teaching what was supposed to have been learned earlier. We didn't cover much that semester. Class members never really got to know or trust one another.

Quite a mess, really, if you read the whole article. But not so surprising, and a lot of these things aren't alone online course problems (students being non-responsive, miscommunication, etc.), but I think a lot of the problems lie in how the courses were structured. Workshop styles may work better for these types of online writing programs and facilitate discussion more than hitting points on a required syllabus with the students teaching each other as much as the teacher is guiding them to learn.

More comments at The Fish Wrapper.

I think Downes is probably on to something in his short commentary that speculates the fault may have been more with the tools she was using than the inherent nature of online learning. I feel pretty strongly that our typical CMS's make it difficult for teachers to connect with students on a personal level–and hard for them to create immersive, compelling online spaces for learning and thinking (spaces that might naturally prompt deeper interaction without a teacher having to "prompt" for it).

This blog, LearnAndTeachOnline seems like a good source for information on the subject as well.

Dept. of Ed watching for disreputable programs

From Buyer Beware at the CarolinaChannel.com. Something I've been trying to say for the past few months is watch out for the unaccredited programs out there. All the ones listed here are reputable companies offering quality online education.

Many schools offer online degrees now, tapping into a market of busy professionals who don't have time or access to structured local programs.

So the U.S. Department of education has created an online search engine for online educational programs. Plug in the name of the school, and the site will tell you if it's an accredited program.More useful information at the Online Learning Update.

U.S. troops spending down time getting schooled

From the Prudent Press Agency …

Top-Colleges.com, a Salt Lake City education marketing company, announces a new marketing partnership with Saint Leo University, a major online University with over 150,000 enrolled students, many active military personnel. Top-Colleges provides additional web presences for over 150 career colleges, technical schools and online colleges nationwide. Visit Saint Leo University on Top-Colleges.

Saint Leo University online offers Associate's degrees and Bachelor's degrees in programs like accounting, Business Administration, Computer Information Systems and Criminal Justice. Saint Leo programs are also offered to active service members in the armed forces as well as the Army University Access Online program – eArmyU. Saint Leo University is fully accredited and U.S. News and World Report recently called it a "Leading Southern University." Saint Leo University is based in Florida.

Health tips for students

From Distance Educator, e-mailed health tips from Syracuse University.

Last week Syracuse University Health Services launched a pilot project dedicated to educating both graduate and undergraduate students at SU and State University of New York College of Environmental Sciences and Forestry.

Orangehealth-e started e-mailing the campus community weekly "health tips" last Monday. The pilot program will continue for the rest of the semester.