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Asking the really tough questions: policy issues for distance learning
Selecting technology is perhaps the easiest part of developing a distance learning program. Most colleges and universities find an array of available delivery systems ranging from interactive television to sophisticated Web-based asynchronous learning networks (ALNs). As these institutions strive to provide quality alternative instructional delivery and enter the increasingly competitive race for new students, two areas often receive little attention - policy development and planning. Soon the courses are on the air or travelling through cyberspace, and unprepared educators find themselves in legal, academic, fiscal, logistical and union controversies. "Regardless of the delivery system…the technology often precedes planning and policy development" (C.E.T.U.S., 1997, p. 7). Clearly, advanced policy deliberation and development is essential to the success of distance learning programs and their students.
The Technology Source Archives - Online Drop Rates Revisited
Critics of online distance education have alarmed the public recently with reports of severe drop rates and attrition in online classes. The notion that more students will drop out of online classes than traditional face-to-face classes enjoys the widespread acceptance usually reserved for scientific precepts (Parker, 1999; Carr, 2000). More importantly, though, many educators imply that the observed high drop rates should disqualify online education as a high-quality option to traditional education ("Distance Education," 2001).
Best Practices in Online Teaching
Summary: This course provides practical strategies and pedagogical advice for instructors teaching in an online environment. The course includes advice about: preparing to teach in an online environment, managing the teaching of a course, and addressing larger issues surrounding online teaching (e.g. workload, intellectual property, etc.) The course includes interviews from a number of teachers who have taught in an online environment. This course is based on a training session offered to faculty who teach at The World Campus at Penn State University.
Innovate: The Chemistry of Facebook: Using Social Networking to Create an Online Community for the Organic Chemistry Laboratory
Web 2.0 technologies, and specifically social networking sites such as MySpace and Facebook, have a very strong influence on the lives of millions of students (Thompson 2007), leading many educators to wonder what role, if any, social networking could have in education (Joly 2007). The 2008 Horizon Report suggests that educators should develop strategies to utilize social networking for educational purposes (New Media Consortium and EDUCAUSE 2008).
DEOS NEWS Archives
Established in 1991, DEOSNEWS is published monthly to promote distance education scholarship, research, and practice. Publication was suspended temporarily after Volume 12.3, but resumed as of January, 2004 with Volume 13.1.
Volume 14 (2005)
* 14.1 Interview with Tim Stroud, President and CEO of the North American Council for Online Learning (NACOL) (January 2005)
Reflectors as online extraverts? - Educational Studies
Increasingly, online learning is perceived as an effective method of instruction. Much recent educational research has focused on examining the purposes and situations for which online education is best suited. In this paper, students enrolled in two online courses are compared with their peers enrolled in equivalent classroom-based courses to investigate aspects of the relationship between learning style and mode of delivery. Student satisfaction measures are taken from participants in both modes of delivery and compared with student learning style. Feedback from the 'Reflector' learning style demonstrates higher satisfaction levels with the online mode of delivery compared with their matched counterparts following equivalent classroom-based courses. Therefore, whilst 'Reflectors' might be regarded as Introverts in the traditional classroom setting, the additional time for reflection offered by online delivery makes this group more likely to contribute to online discussion, report higher satisfaction levels and generally behave more like online Extraverts.
The Future of Iinstructional Design
Russell T. Osguthorpe
Center for Teaching and Learning
Brigham Young University
Seven Principles - TLT/Flashlight Materials
There are literally hundreds of ways to use technology to implement Chickering and Gamson's seven principles of good practice (e.g., improving faculty-student contact, supporting collaboration among students, enriching active learning, etc.). These subscriber materials can help faculty improve teaching and learning with technology (TLT) in their own courses.
A Comparison of Student Outcomes & Satisfaction Between Traditional & Web Based Course Offerings
With the recent growth of the Internet and other distance technologies, web based course delivery has become an attractive option for expanding the educational opportunities available to students. Our institution, like others, is actively pursuing this means of delivery in order to expand its reach to new students and to facilitate the scheduling of existing students. During a recent academic term, our students had the opportunity to enroll in such a course. Unique circumstances resulted in the simultaneous offering of additional course sections in a traditional lecture/discussion format, as well as a web-enhanced format. This pilot study documents a comparative evaluation of the three course formats.
JOLT - Journal of Online Learning and Teaching
This research explores student perceptions of course quality and instructor effectiveness in a hybrid MPA distance learning program. The MPA distance learning program under analysis utilizes a synchronous computer software program for 21 hours of instruction per course, an asynchronous computer software program for 21 hours of instruction per course, and six hours of on-campus in-person instruction per course.
Survey data from students who have completed eight (8) courses in this distance learning program (repeated samples n = 90) will be compared to the evaluations of students who have taken the same courses from the same instructors in the on-campus program (n=100).
The purpose of the research is two-fold. First, the research will determine if there is a significant difference between the perceptions of course quality and instructor effectiveness between students in the distance learning program and students enrolled in the on-campus program. Second, the research will explore student satisfaction with the use of the synchronous and asynchronous computer delivery methods. It is anticipated that students will express satisfaction levels with course quality and instructor effectiveness equal to, or exceeding, the satisfaction levels expressed by students in the on-campus program.
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his paper examines
the satisfaction levels of distance learning students with
the education that they are receiving with this new
technology. Specifically, the study compares the
satisfaction of distance learning students who receive
their primary instruction using this new platform with
on-campus students in a traditional classroom setting. The
findings, while preliminary, do provide a basis for
drawing initial conclusions regarding the use of this new
platform. -
One of the most vexing problems in
distance learning research is the lack of comparability
between the courses offered in distance learning and
traditional MPA programs. While many programs have
distance learning MPA programs and compile satisfaction
indicators for students enrolled in these programs, it is
usually not possible to compare equivalent classes across
the two student populations. The CSULB MPA-DL program’s
curriculum is nearly identical to the curriculum offered
to traditional on-campus students. Specifically, the core
courses are identical and are often taught by the same
instructors. This study explores the student satisfaction
scores for four (4) core courses that are offered in both
the distance learning and on-campus programs. These
courses include: an introductory/foundations course; a
course in public budgeting and finance; a course in
research methods; and a policy analysis course. - 3 more annotations...
Moving Teaching and Learning with Technology (EDUCAUSE Review) | EDUCAUSE CONNECT
Information technology has been an important part of higher education since the development of the lantern slide in the mid-1800s. However, occasions in which the academy has been transformed by technology are rare. Viewed in a historical perspective, these occasions can be considered as a series of three epochs: the online public-access catalog epoch; the personal computer, Internet, and web epoch; and the enterprise systems (ERP, CMS) epoch. Certainly, developments are continuing, but for most colleges and universities, these three epochs no longer represent technological frontiers. Looking forward, those of us in higher education are now focusing our attention on technology applications for teaching, learning, and research—or what can be viewed as the epochs of teaching and learning with technology, and cyberinfrastructure. In this commentary, I’ll be confining my comments to teaching and learning.
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One measure of an institution’s approach to teaching and learning with technology is the response to two questions: “How many instructional designers does the institution employ?” and “What do they do?”
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if there are a number of instructional designers, if their work consists of developing and delivering enterprise-wide faculty development associated with institutional initiatives, and if they participate fully in project design, then a quite different picture emerges.
Turnitin: Home: Welcome to Turnitin
The following training materials will assist Students, Instructors and Administrators in getting started with your Turnitin account.
Also, many instructors are now using the GradeMark feature in turnitin for online grading. It's a quick way to do summative as well as inline comments. It has some preset symbols for common errors and allows you to apply a rubric.
Angles on learning and teaching at college, university and professional levels
This site is mainly about learning and teaching at college, university and professional levels. It concentrates on underlying principles, values and analytical tools and the synthesis of odd ideas.
Penn State | What to Look for in an Online University | Student Services
What to Look for in an Online University - Penn State Online University perspective
The Theory and Practice of Online Learning: 9. Social Software to ...
This chapter discusses the challenges of developing modes of distance education that afford maximum freedom for learners, including the ability to enroll continuously and to pace one’s own learning, and yet still create opportunities and advantages to working cooperatively in learning communities with other students. To resolve these often conflicting priorities, a new genre of networked-based learning tools, known as Educational Social Software (ESS), is defined, described, and its attributes discussed. These tools have applications for both on-campus and blended-learning applications, but my focus is on distance education – specifically, their use in self-paced, continuous enrolment courses. Finally, I briefly discuss the open-source social software tool, ELGG, and our plans for deploying it with both cohort-based and self-paced continuous enrolment courses at Athabasca University.
Education and the Semantic Web
Recent developments in Web technologies and using AI techniques to support efforts in making the Web more intelligent and provide higher-level services to its users have opened the door to building the Semantic Web. That fact has a number of important implications for Web-based education, since Web-based education has become a very important branch of educational technology. Classroom independence and platform independence of Web-based education, availability of authoring tools for developing Web-based courseware, cheap and efficient storage and distribution of course materials, hyperlinks to suggested readings, digital libraries, and other sources of references relevant for the course are but a few of a number of clear advantages of Web-based education. However, there are several challenges in improving Web-based education, such as providing for more adaptivity and intelligence. Developments in the Semantic Web, while contributing to the solution to these problems, also raise new issues that must be considered if we are to progress. This paper surveys the basics of the Semantic Web and discusses its importance in future Web-based educational applications.
Distance Education: Growth and Diversity - Finance & Development - March 1998
Distance education is becoming increasingly popular as economic forces encourage, and new technologies facilitate, its spread. What advantages does it offer, and what should course providers consider before embarking on new ventures?
Building an Evaluation Plan for Fully Online Degree Programs
This paper describes the research undertaken to develop an evaluation plan for a fully online graduate degree program. Through a review of the literature and consultations with program administration and faculty, a plan was developed with the purpose of assessing the state of the program in reference to its goals, determining a roadmap for program improvement, and providing a framework for future program decision-making. The purpose of this paper is to document the assessment process to assist program administrators in adapting it for use in their own programs. Although data was collected using extant data, surveys, and interviews, and analyzed using quantitative and qualitative analysis, the results of the analyses are not discussed here. The emphasis of this paper is in the resulting evaluation plan. The theoretical framework, process, methodology, and resulting plan for evaluating the online degree program are described herein. Specifically addressed is how an online master's degree program evaluation was developed and translated into a plan for use by other programs.
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In 2000, the Institute
for Higher Education Policy, in association with Blackboard and the National
Education Association, prepared a report titled Quality on the line:
Benchmarks for success in Internet-based distance education .
PEW Internet: Riding the Waves of “Web 2.0”
Riding the Waves of “Web 2.0”\nMore than a buzzword, but still not easily defined\nBy Mary Madden and Susannah Fox\nPew Internet Project\nOctober 5, 2006
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