Javon-Demetrius Cogmon's Profile

nline education connects students from all over the world, enriching the learning experience by presenting global perspectives in online discussion groups and chat rooms.

That's the case at Regent University, a Christian-based college in Virginia, where administrators estimate that 50 percent of its 4,400 students now take courses online

Regent currently enrolls students from every state in the United States plus 56 countries

online education has become an increasingly appealing option for active-duty U.S. armed forces personnel,

This 10-year-old online university accredited by the Universities of the Western Association of Schools and Colleges markets directly to military personnel, an increasingly large part of its student body. Gold reports that online education works well for this demographic.

TUI promotes: research, critical thinking and analytical skills.

"We use no textbooks," Gold says. "It's all case-based critical thinking.

I find the richness of teaching online -- both the ability to watch students think as they answer questions and my ability to respond thoughtfully -greatly enhanced," says Dr. Michael Frank,

It's easier for students to make thoughtful, substantive contributions, much more so than in the classroom, where you might get about 30 seconds to talk," says Halfond, who has taught for several years, in both the traditional and online formats. "It encourages students to think more deliberately, and write better."

That's why Frank believes online education is an ideal medium for more mature students, like the graduate students whom he teaches

more than 90 percent of the school's graduate-level classes can be taken online.

While convenience, flexibility and the potential for enhanced student and professor communication top the list of online education's pros, this educational format is not without its challenges.

it takes a certain degree of maturity and discipline to regularly log onto a computer, listen to a lecture, participate in online group discussions and take required tests in a timely manner. Not every student operates well in this self-motivated environment. Many 18-year-old college freshmen, coming directly from traditional high school settings, may not be ready for the leap.

Halfond is quick to add, however, that at BU, faculty members receive ample support to ease the conversion from traditional to online courses. Ancillary support personnel available to BU professors going online include videographers, instructional designers and technical specialists.

The professor is a subject-matter expert, not an educational media specialist," Halfond says.

Students seeking to become educated online in rare subject matters might be disappointed.

prospective student wanting to know if TUI offered paleontology courses featuring uncommon dinosaurs. The student was out of luck.

As with any consumer offering, when it comes to "shopping" for an online education, the phrase "buyer beware" applies. Educational fraud, online education notwithstanding, is a "a huge industry," according to Vicky Phillips, founder and chief educational analyst at GetEducated.com, an online distance learning college directory and repository of information on online education.

"Right now GetEducated.com tracks more fake online MBAs than we do real ones," she says, noting that the Internet has encouraged this fraudulent behavior by allowing anyone with money to advertise unchecked

the underlying assumptions about the role of the

researcher.

objective observer that neither participates in nor influences

researcher can learn the most about a situation

by participating and/or being immersed in it.

some researchers maintain that the

choice between

using qualitative or quantitative approaches actually has less to

do with methodologies than it does with positioning

oneself within a particular discipline or research tradition.

The findings of research projects often guide important decisions

about specific practices and policies. The choice of which

approach to use may reflect the interests of those conducting

or benefitting from the research and the purposes for which

the findings will be applied.

Some researchers believe that qualitative and quantitative

methodologies cannot be

combined because the assumptions underlying each tradition are so

vastly different.

they can be used in

combination only by alternating between methods: qualitative

research is appropriate to answer certain kinds of questions in

certain conditions and quantitative is right for others.

each approach has its drawbacks

Quantitative research

often "forces" responses or people into categories that might not

"fit" in order to make meaning

Qualitative research, on the

other hand, sometimes focuses too closely on individual results

and

fails to make connections to larger situations or possible causes

of the results.

find the most effective

ways to incorporate elements of both to ensure that their studies

are as accurate and thorough as possible

It is important for researchers to realize that qualitative and

quantitative methods can be used in conjunction with each other.

demanded a searching examination of the history of learning

and particularly the mathematical art of astrology—in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries

My conclusion, however, will not bear out Bacon's claims. Despite his frustration, Bacon was only one of many early modern scholars appraising the role of mathematics within history. And he devoted less energy than others to mapping its origins and tracing its transmissions between communities. In fact, Bacon's 1605 proposal for a history of mathematics was already out-of-date.

The evidence that Renaissance scholars inherited was sprawling and inconclusive. Several genealogies for mathematics could be found within classical Greek, Latin, and patristic references. One lineage claimed mathematics began in ancient Assyria, where the priestly caste, the Chaldeans, practiced a form of mathematics that seemed a corrupt admixture of philosophy, medicine, and religion, and relied heavily on observation of the heavens. Other scholars traced the origins to Egypt, claiming that the field developed to survey lands frequently flooded by the Nile. The real problem for ancient, late antique, and medieval scholars had not been the origins of mathematics, but what exactly mathematics were. For some, the term strictly referred to the quadrivium: geometry, arithmetic, astronomy, and music. But for others, mathematics' origins amongst the Egyptians or Chaldeans inextricably linked it to forms of astrological divination, augury, and necromancy that were unsavory to both Latin and Christian traditions. Mathematici were included alongside ghastly lists of Magi, Brahmins, Aruspices, Genethliaci, and other diabolic practitioners of idolatrous magic. These might or might not be distinguished from mathematici such as Pythagoras and Euclid, who were considered philosophers, or from useful practitioners such as Archimedes. The term itself was a source of unending confusion. A mathematician in Aristotle's time, as later generations acknowledged, did geometry and arithmetic; but, by late antiquity, Augustine and Jerome could complain that nativity-readers were vulgarly called mathematici. This confusion and distrust spread in turn to later historical understandings of

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mathematics, and justifies considering the Renaissance histories of magic, mathematics, astrology, and astronomy, as deeply interwoven.⁴

Pico did not construct a thorough account of the fall of magic in his Apologia, but he did towards the end of his life in his Twelve Books Against Divinatory Astrology. Unpublished in Pico's lifetime, this tract was compiled from his remaining manuscripts and published in 1496 under the close supervision of his nephew, Gianfrancesco. This younger scholar was notoriously unsympathetic to the astrological arts and the publication cemented the family anti-astrological reputation by comprehensively critiquing the philosophical, theological, and rational grounds for astrological divination.⁹ In the Twelfth Book, the elder Pico dismantled the historical data with which proponents of astrology supported their claims. Two of his points were particularly effective. According to Cicero, the Chaldean astrologers claimed to found their art on 470,000 years of observation. Since this claim set the beginnings of observation roughly 466,000 years before God created the universe, Pico noted, it was extremely unlikely.¹⁰ Following Ptolemy, the greatest ancient authority on both astronomy and astrology, he instead allotted relatively modern origins to astrology, an effective means of diminishing its legitimacy. Second, Pico argued that astrology's Chaldean origins did not indicate venerable antiquity. Rather the birth of astrology formed a significant part of Babylon's notorious corruption of true religion.¹¹ Pico's devastating exposé grounded astrological criticism for the next century.

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