New Podcasting Movement Benefits Online Students

I've written quite a bit about podcasting in education, and it seems that this movement is spreading like wildfire. A recent article from the chicago sun times discusses the many ways podcasting is used in college classrooms:

"At some colleges and universities, students produce their own podcasts as part of their assignments. Students at Duke University in Durham, N.C., have been assigned to demonstrate proficiency in a foreign language via a podcast and create short movies showing scenes they imagine from a Jane Austen novel, said Lynne O'Brien, director of academic technology and instructional services at the Duke library.

Students and faculty who produce podcasts must be patient in learning the new skill, because it can be slow at first, O'Brien said. Yet, she said, students who listen to teachers' podcasts appreciate no longer having to scribble notes on every lecture."

Podcasting is a particularly helpful tool for online learners who benefit from having class material available in a "to-go" format.

Futurelab – An Education Innovator

Where do online teachers come up with some of their unique teaching styles and technology? Non-profit organizations such as the UK's Futurelab spend their time working toward teaching and learning innovation.

Here's what Futurelab spends its time on:

"Futurelab is passionate about transforming the way people learn…A not-for-profit organisation, we work in partnership with others to:

• incubate new ideas, taking them from the lab to the classroom

• share hard evidence and practical advice to support the design and use of innovative learning tools

• communicate the latest thinking and practice in educational ICT

• provide the space for experimentation and the exchange of ideas between the creative, technology and education sectors."

Interested parties can support their innovation projects financially, submit an idea, or work as an education test subject.

No-Cost Mindmapping Browser

A "mind map" is a visual representation of ideas. A lot of visually-oriented students create mind maps to help them organize and remember important information. (If you've never seen one before, a Google image search will reveal some great examples).

Mindmapping can be a useful way for online students to take notes on reading assignments, video lectures, and other material. If you're looking for a way to do this on your computer, check out Mind42. This free mindmapping web browser will open an easy-to-use mind map application with the touch of a button. You can create and print maps instantly, from your computer.

Keep in mind that the application is in beta, so there may still be some glitches along the way.

Teachers Uneducated About Fair Use Copyrights

Fair use laws permit educators to use copyrighted media if they comply with certain regulations. Unfortunately, many teachers don't know what those rules are and err on the side of safety…which means many students miss out on learning experiences.

Ars Technia reports that educators' lack of copyright knowledge:

"Here's how bad it is: not a single teacher interviewed for a recent study on copyright reported receiving any training on fair use.

Copyright confusion is running rampant in American schools, and not just among the students. The teachers don't know what…is going on, either, and media Literacy is now being "compromised by unnecessary copyright restrictions and lack of understanding about copyright law."

Fair use laws make it possible for teachers to use some really great content in their course materials. Hopefully, in the future, educators will receive access to training and copyright laws will be clarified.

New York Times "Reading Room" Offers Book Discussions

If you're a virtual student of the classics, head on over to the New York Time's Reading Room. This blog includes group discussions of classic literature. Here's how they describe themselves:

"In the Reading Room, editors at The New York Times Book Review lead discussions about classic books with a panel of authors, reviewers, scholars and journalists."

Users can check out the expert opinions and weigh in with comments. (The current review book is War and Peace…no walk in the park). The site is also a good example of the way an ideal online class discussion board / blog could be run.

How to Teach Yourself Using the Internet

A friend of mine was recently given the assignment to create a software program using a programming code he had no experience with. The students had no prior knowledge of the code, and they were given no material to help them learn it. Fortunately, he was a wiz at finding information online and had soon gathered all the resources he would need.

If you're an online student, chances are you'll need to know how to find learning material online. The Pick the Brain blog recently published a post about this very topic. Here's a blurb:

"The web is an amazing educational resource. The quantity of information available on any given topic is more than most people will ever need, and probably more than they can handle. This vast amount of information is the web's greatest strength, but also creates major usability problems. If you try to educate yourself online without a clear strategy, you'll quickly find yourself frustrated and misinformed.

Effective online education goes beyond finding answers. It requires you to process numerous information sources, evaluate them based on credibility and relevance, and piece together a Mosaic-like picture of the truth."

Check out the full article for tips on how to locate and comprehend online material.

150 Writing Improvement Links

Most online classes are writing-intensive. Virtual teachers want to make sure that their students have digested the course material. It may be easy for distance learners to peek at a textbook during a non-proctored multiple choice exam. But, it's not so simple to fudge one's way through a specific essay assignment.

If you're drowning in essay assignments from your online classes, check out the Open Education Database's list of 150 Resources to Help You Write Better, Faster, and More Persuasively.

There are websites to help you find information, organize your ideas, cite your sources, improve your grammar, and more.

Concord Law School Merges with Kaplan U

According to Wired Campus, Concord Law School is merging with Kaplan U – combining two large players in the field of online learning. Here's a blurb from the article:

"The new arrangement does have significant impact. Concord students will be eligible for Title IV student financial aid for the first time, including federal student loans and grants. It also brings Concord under the roof of a regionally accredited institution, which is considered more mainstream than the national accreditation Concord already had."

Concord will now be known as Concord Law School of Kaplan University.

The Wikipedia Experiment

I've long believed that writing / editing wikipedia articles is a great way to "study" for an exam. You have an actual audience, so it's difficult to become careless.

One teacher recently took that idea to the extreme when she assigned her pupils to write Wikipedia entries instead of term papers. Ars Technia reports on the unusual assignment:

"34 students in one class and 14 student groups in a second participated; all but one student found it a valuable experience, and many reported that they felt more personally invested in the work. For her part, Groom felt that the quality of the work was superior to the typical in-class assignment.

The Wikipedia community, however, was not as impressed. One article didn't survive for 24 hours following its introduction, and four additional ones were ultimately deleted following extensive discussion, their contents merged into existing entries. Groom also noted that some of the comments in the ensuing discussions "were delivered rudely."

The students seemed to have some formatting issues and it looks like they didn't get a warm reception…but, it was a learning experience. Would you like your online professors to hand out Wikipedia assignments? Do you think the public encyclopedia is a proper venue for a class project? Why or why not?

Online High Schools for Adults

If you want to enroll in a competitive online college program but you didn't graduate from high school, your first step may be to earn a high school diploma or GED. While most publicly funded online high schools limit their enrollment to teenagers and continuing students in their early twenties, a growing number of for-profit institutions are offering online high school programs for adult learners.

My About.com article, Adult Online High Schools, offers step-by-step instructions for finding a reputable school and earning your diploma online. Here's a blurb:

"Many adults realize that finishing a high school diploma can improve their employment prospects and make them eligible for workplace promotions. However, most grown-ups don't have the leisure of spending seven hours a day on a school campus. Online high schools offer the solution. Online high school diploma programs offer adults the chance to schedule school work at their convenience and complete courses at their own pace. It may not be easy to earn an online high school diploma, but the hard work can pay off for years to come."