John Martin's Library tagged classes → View Popular

15 Jul 08

Several outstanding colleges offer classes online to high school students. Even middle-schoolers can take advantage of them. According to the Wall Street Journal, the pre-college student category has become one of the fastest growing segments of the distance-learning market.
Students taking classes at Purdue North Central in psychology, for instance, may receive dual credit; one credit for high school and three credits from Purdue.
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- Online learning is also working its way down to the middle schools.
- Parents take note: Many colleges use online classes as a recruiting tool. They help identify potential candidates for admission to their regular degree programs. This gives online scholars an edge when they apply. Listing these classes in the personal statement impresses admissions officers who are constantly looking for innovative applicants. It shows you are ahead of the curve of other applicants and might just be the item that tips the admissions committee in your favor.

Page 1 of NYT article

This is what we need to change. Quality comes first and should be the driving factor for creating online courses, not just revenue. As competition in this area increases, quality will be the thing that sets one institution apart from another.

Step 2, find dynamic and savvy (or at least very willing to learn) faculty to facilitate. Online teaching is not the same as F2F and facilitating the online experience IS an art form. - edventures on 2008-07-15

Colleges from Massachusetts and Florida to Texas to Oregon have reported significant online enrollment increases for summer sessions, with student numbers in some cases 50 percent or 100 percent higher than last year.
the greatest surges have been registered at two-year community colleges,
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- Dr. Drake and officials at several other colleges expressed concern that mounting fuel costs could force some students to drop out of college altogether, especially since only a fraction of courses at most colleges are offered online. Dr. Drake has put Brevard on a four-day week to help employees and students save gas.
- “I don’t feel I get as much out of an online class as a campus course,” Ms. Miller said. “But I couldn’t afford any other decision.”
- Waiting lists for Web-based courses have lengthened at some institutions. At the University of Colorado, Denver, for instance, 361 students are on the waiting list for online courses for the fall term

Page 2 of NYT article

Critical for our higher ed admin to KNOW and UNDERSTAND. Quality of program and faculty are critical to setting an institution apart. - edventures on 2008-07-15
Must remember this - particularly here in NH, connections stlil run the full spectrum with a large number still on dial-up. This puts a serious crimp in courses requiring active, synchronous and virtual learning environments. - edventures on 2008-07-15

Distance education is no silver bullet that can alone solve the challenges posed for higher education by rising gasoline prices, officials warned.
many students, especially in rural areas, lack the high-speed Internet connections on which online courses depend.

John Bourne, director of the Sloan Consortium, an organization in Wellesley that studies online education, said he expects gas prices to bring about "a blended classroom -- half online, half in class."
"Retention in online classes is lower," school spokeswoman Kimberly Haschke said, pointing out that students who do not make the drive to campus may abandon their studies before the class term is over. "I kind of worry about that."
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- Karen Stevens, an early childhood education professor at the University of Massachusetts, said increased demand for online classes is forcing instructors to overcome doubts about the system.
  "They weren't sure it was good education," she said. "If they had their preference, they would teach live. But because of gas prices, that's not practical."

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