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Oct 31st, 2006
A joint study by the North American Council for Online Learning (NACOL) and the Partnership for 21st Century Skills led to an exciting announcement: that online learning is not only valuable, but crucial for gaining the skills required in today's advanced work force.
The study refers to both secondary school, and later college education.
"Eighty-four percent of employers say schools are not doing a good job of preparing students for the workplace – not only in mastery of math and science but in a basic work ethic," said NACOL president Susan Patrick. "As a nation we have to do better, and research shows that online learning provides the interactive, collaborative and self-paced learning environment where students can gain the skills needed to succeed in today's jobs."
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Oct 30th, 2006
We're starting our popular Interview series back up, and we want to talk to you.
Do you take, teach, or design online courses? Are you for –or against– the huge rise in the number of degrees obtained online? If any of these sound like you, please contact us through the Comments box or through e-mail for a possible featured interview.
We want to talk to you!
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Oct 30th, 2006
It's a trend that shows no sign of slowing: more and more students, off all ages and educational levels, are signing up for online college courses. Many continue on to earn a completely online degree. The number of online students increased 35% in the last year, which is a huge number…far more than, say, the number of students enrolling in traditional colleges.
The outlook for the future isn't completely rosy, however, thanks to the negative light still cast on this 'new' method:
At the same time, fewer of the administrators at both public and private colleges said their faculty "accept the value and legitimacy of online education," raising a critical obstacle for a method of making college more affordable and more accessible to nontraditional students, the report said.
College administrators "see significant barriers to widespread adoption, and those barriers tend to be things like, 'My faculty doesn't believe in it,' " said Jeff Seaman, a co-author of the report. "That's going to be the tension in the coming years."
Tension or not, it looks like your online educational options are here to stay.
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Oct 29th, 2006
Sometimes an online degree is respected. Sometimes it isn't, especially when connected to suspicions of a diploma mill.
Two Naples, Florida police officers were fired after it was revealed that the degrees they submitted in order to gain pay increases were from a 'diploma mill.' Three months after they began fighting to get their jobs back, they were rehired.
The officers purchased the degrees from Almeda University, an institution that claims to offer degrees based on 'life experience.'
The controversy continues to remain heated. You can read the full details here.
What do you think? Did the punishment fit the crime? Is it not a big deal? How does this affect the future of valid online degrees?
(Image Designed By: Hugh Holub)
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Oct 28th, 2006
One of the many benefits offered by online degrees is the ability to pursue the goal of education, no matter where you may be, whether it's a tiny town without a university, or even on the front lines in Iraq.
Online degrees have been growing in popularity among military personnel the last few years, and universities realize that. Some are going a step further, and developing degrees and courses with soldiers in mind.
Israel Carabello Jr. is a Newark police captain, a staff sergeant in the New Jersey Air National Guard and a single parent of a 10-year-old daughter. In between, he takes online classes offered to National Guard members through Fairleigh Dickinson University.
Castro and Carbello were on hand as the university and National Guard officials and Rep. Rodney P. Frelinghuysen, R-Harding, outlined the college's program to offer National Guard members online graduate certificate programs in global security and terrorism studies, emergency management administration, transit safety, and disaster and emergency management.
University president J. Michael Adams said the programs were developed with the help of the U.S. Department of Defense and funding Frelinghuysen procured.
"You've all heard of the 'Bridge to Nowhere' that was discredited in Congress," Frelinghuysen said. "Well, this is the bridge to somewhere."
Education really is possible just about anywhere.
(Photo Source: Co-Op Living)
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Oct 27th, 2006
Classroom experience, online convenience…and never the twain shall meet? The long-running fight continues: can an online degree compare with the traditional classroom route? Apparently, some people will never think so.
Today, there are programs that can create 'virtual science labs' online, allowing students to mix solutions and even dissect animals from the convenience of their computer desk. But is this to be praised, or scorned?
Now, however, a dispute with potentially far-reaching consequences has flared over how far the Internet can go in displacing the brick-and-mortar laboratory.
Prompted by skeptical university professors, the College Board, one of the most powerful organizations in American education, is questioning whether Internet-based laboratories are an acceptable substitute for the hands-on culturing of gels and peering through microscopes that have long been essential ingredients of American laboratory science.
John Watson, an education consultant who wrote a report last year documenting virtual education's growth, said online schools had faced lawsuits over financing and resistance by local school boards but nothing as daunting as the College Board.
"This challenge threatens the advance of online education at the national level in a way that I don't think there are precedents for," Watson said.
What 'side' are you on? Should there even be sides?
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Oct 25th, 2006
online education is progressing every day, and has recently begun to make strides in the area where almost every student needs it the most: finances.
Financial aid has slowly, but surely, been developing to help online students. The latest program to join the group is the
UW Outreach School.
"This program is viewed as a reinvestment in the university's outreach mission by expanding our knowledge and understanding of the best practices in teaching, learning and support in distance education," Seville says. "The program also will serve to enlarge the community of distance education practitioners sharing their experience and knowledge."
Please see this site for more information.
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Oct 24th, 2006
Online students are finally beginning to receive financial aid, and another award was recently announced that is geared towards the online student: a blogging scholarship. This is the first year of the annual award. Pretty cool! You can read more here.
(Photo Source: Smart Writers)
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Oct 22nd, 2006
It's the Ivy League school of all the Ivy League schools. With a sterling academic reputation, as well as a penchant for traditional educational values, harvard university was a bit slow to embrace the idea of online degrees. But with Harvard's new Extension School, students have the option of taking courses from Harvard professors completely online, with the possibility of two entirely online degrees looming.
This thought-provoking article takes a look at what this development means in the face of current societal and educational trends.
The Extension School seems a hotbed of convenience, but something not totally unique to Harvard. At schools like SUNY-Empire State, students can earn online degrees in several fields, mostly through intensive independent study. These institutions allow motivated, driven students to earn valid degrees in slightly unorthodox ways. Through online courses, students of all ages can take classes at a top university when no other options are available.
This battleground between bona-fide universities and diploma mills could exist only in today's world. The proliferation of technology and information over the past fifty years has allowed whole libraries' worth of information to reach the most remote corners of the earth. As a global society, we are all more closely linked than ever, but the differences between rich and poor, men and women, and the world's many national cultures have never been more apparent.
It is in the intellectual arena that these debates are being carried out most dynamically. Long ago, the world's top universities hosted the best and the brightest, the movers and shakers of the times. These arenas were restricted not only spatially, but also by the extreme scarcity of qualified people … and the relatively tiny number of people able to take part in the academic experience in the first place.
A university is not just a location; for those fortunate enough to attend, it is an experience. Until very recently, the elite schools were bastions of privilege populated mostly by white males groomed to be the players on these fields of expression.
What do you think? Is this a sign of progress, or is it somehow (as some argue) a step back for Harvard's reputation?
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Oct 20th, 2006
Towson University has added four new online programs to its repertoire, four of them designed for graduate students. Students are nothing short of thrilled.
"It's convenient for those of us who work during the day because it would be difficult to drive to campus and then find somewhere to park," she said.
The University offered fully online degrees for the first time this fall. Five are currently available: graduate degree programs in homeland security management and human resource development, two graduate certificate programs in interactive media design and security assessment management, and an undergraduate degree in technical/professional studies in allied health. Additionally, the University's new joint master of business administration degree is offered online.
According to Mark Jacque, Acting director of graduate school operations, 587 students are enrolled in online courses.
Burrier said adjusting to the degree's online format wasn't difficult because her professor is easily accessible.
What type of graduate programs would you like to see more of online?
