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The Special Supplemental Nutrition Program for Women, or WIC, is offering online nutrition education courses for women to receive WIC checks three months at a time without leaving home.

Nutrition education courses are part of the requirements to get voucher checks for participants of the program.

To help ensure faster delivery of services, the Public Health Foundation Enterprises, or PHFE WIC program, with an office in Irwindale, offers the online courses on healthy food and nutrition information 24 hours a day. This frees the recipients from having to make required office visits for nutrition workshops to receive their monthly checks.

The California WIC program first used lessons developed by Western Michigan University, but the PHFE was dissatisfied with them and how they were formatted, so it created its own. 

PHFE went on to pilot its own program in June 2009 at two WIC centers. By August 2011, the program was such a success that 61 PHFE centers offered it. As of January, 2,500 families utilized the online program monthly.

“I am so thrilled to see more and more participants taking advantage of online education,” said Judy Gomez, director of planning and projects for

Women in Bahrain can now take advantage of a new e-learning programme aimed at helping them improve their IT literacy skills.

The scheme has been launched by Tamkeen and the Bahrain Women Union and the two bodies hope it will help females make a greater contribution to the kingdom’s economy and encourage social development, Trade Arabia reports.

A total of 900 women will be taught basic computer skills on courses that last for 60 hours each, while a further 30 hours will be spent developing career skills.

In addition, around 5,500 women will have access to industry-specific training through the e-learning initiative.

Senior manager of human capital development at Tamkeen Amal Al-Kooheji described the initiative as “ambitious”, saying the aim is to “open new horizons and different opportunities for Bahraini women wishing to enter the labour market”.

She added the move will enable public and private bodies in the Kingdom to benefit from a skilled workforce of women and “help them gain professional experience”.

Tamkeen, which was established in 2006 with the aim of encouraging Bahrain’s private sector to drive economic development in the nation, sees the initiative as a key aspect of economic empowerment in the country, Ms Al-Kooheji concluded. continues on Virtual College

Vivid Vocab, a recently launched New York eLearning company, intentionally uses the most bizarre, unexpected mnemonics possible to trick its users’ brains into memorizing SAT vocabulary words and their definitions.

New York, NY (PRWEB) March 30, 2012

After years of watching SAT vocabulary words “go in one ear and out the other,” a New York City SAT tutor has launched a new firm dedicated entirely to making words stick – by any means necessary. Vivid Vocab, the newest software from Test Prep Authority, forces students to learn SAT words permanently by creating the most unexpected, and at times intentionally ridiculous, associations possible from the most common college vocabulary words.

“Your brain is notoriously bad at memorizing text. Depending on the material, people only remember about 10-15% of what they read. That’s why flashcards are so ineffective,” said

Like death and taxes, reports of America’s education demise have become inevitable.

The latest comes from the Council on Foreign Relations in its report, “U.S. Education Reform and National Security.”

The report makes this observation, which shouldn’t shock anyone: “Large, undereducated swaths of the population damage the ability of the United States to physically defend itself, protect its secure information, conduct diplomacy and grow its economy.”

Tough to argue when one out of every four students isn’t earning a high school diploma, and barely 22 percent of U.S. high schoolers measure “college ready” in all of their core subjects.

Online education is playing an increasing role in the physical classroom. Late Nite Labs is replacing real-life science labs with digital experiments.

Educators and students can access the virtual lab from any computer at any time. If a wrong mixture is made or too much of an ingredient is added, a beaker will explode and the scientist will have to start again — just like a real lab. The platform combines gaming graphics with education principles.

Late Nite Labs works with over 150 colleges, universities, and high schools. More than 20,000 students use it.

The startup has raised $ 1.1 million from Harold Levy of Palm Ventures and the former Chancellor of New York Public Schools.

We went to Late Night Labs’ office to see how it is bringing science experiments to the web.

Late Nite Labs is in a cozy office on W. 30th St. near Broadway.

Check out the beaker shaped stress ball for those late nights in the lab…online.

The virtual lab office has real science materials, like this microscope.

See the rest of the story at Business Insider

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The current technology-driven upheaval in higher education has created new markets of students who cannot or will not commute to and from a physical campus.

It has also created a new market of colleges — particularly small, traditional ones — that sense they must adapt to the rise of online learning and corporate management practices or get trampled underfoot.

Excelsior College, which has focused on distance learning since its founding in 1971, was one of the first colleges to tap the market of far-flung students who want to learn online. Now Excelsior, through a nonprofit spinoff called ESE, is trying to be the first nonprofit institution to tap the new market of traditional colleges that are late to offering online programs and need help.

In the last two decades many companies have emerged to meet the demand for expertise in transposing face-to-face curriculums into the online world. A steadily growing number of firms, such as Bisk Education, Embanet-Compass, 2tor, Deltak, Academic Partnerships, Colloquy and LearningHouse, have successfully tapped into a market of traditional institutions feeling the pressure to take their academic programs — and their brands — global in a higher education economy where scale has become a watchword.

But some institutions, particularly those that have hesitated until now to pull the trigger, are nervous…………… continues on Inside Higher Ed

By Josh Lipowsky · March 29, 2012

NEW YORK (JTA) — The nondenominational Pre-Collegiate Learning Center of New Jersey doesn’t have a math teacher. The East Brunswick school instead relies on experienced math tutors who help students work through an online math curriculum relying on outside sources.

At Baltimore’s Ohr Chadash, a Modern Orthodox primary school in its first year, students receive iPads beginning in the fourth grade to do more online and group work.

“The things the teachers ask us to do for work are fun,” said 9-year-old Nili Hefetz, a fourth-grader at the school. For example, using Adobe Ideas, Nili and other students draw pictures on the iPads inspired by the Chumash (Bible) lessons.

“The idea was to incorporate technology into the school in a seamless way,” said the school’s president, Saul Weinreb. “It became a way of doing things both in education and administration.”

It’s also a way to save money.

With tuition that can reach $ 30,000 or more per student, the day school tuition crisis has spurred a search for new options and given rise to a new breed of day schools where technology and blended learning — mixing traditional classroom learning with online education — are reducing costs.

“In the general world, onli…………… continues on Jewish Telegraphic Agency

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An Education
This offbeat coming-of-age drama is set in a London suburb in the early 1960s, where a 16-year-old girl (Carey Mulligan) on the fa…

An e-learning system that can be used by both primary and secondary schoolchildren has been launched in Zimbabwe.

Around 100 schools in the country are to participate in the National e-Learning Programme, which has been introduced after the conclusion of the Presidential Computerisation Programme, a drive to encourage computer use at secondary schools across the nation.

Zimbabwean newspaper the Herald reports local communities will be involved in the implementation of the e-learning initiative, which is part of the government’s Public Sector Reform and Modernisation scheme.

Announcing the project, President Mugabe said the aim is to make every child in the country computer-literate.

“Encouraged by the Presidential Computerisation Programme, the first successful step of transforming Zimbabwe into an information society, we have now decided to go a gear up and add value to the initial programme by introducing a new dimension to it, this time, in the form of an e-learning programme,” he stated.

The programme is also expected to extend to government departments and result in the development of web-applications enabling online registration of students and exam management.

Mr Mugabe added it is time for “all public institutions” to move online in ord…………… continues on Virtual College

Will great free courses drive down applications to places like Stanford? That’s doubtful. It’s more likely that these offerings will help build a stronger university brand. 

Reuters

Writing about the success of a Stanford online computer science course in the Wall Street Journal, Holly Finn implies that free Web-based education is about to or should replace elite universities:

It’s a thrilling collegiate coup. Last fall, a couple of hundred Stanford students registered for Sebastian Thrun’s class on artificial intelligence. He offered the course free online, too, through his new company Udacity, and 160,000 students signed up. For the written assignments and exams, both groups got identical questions — and 210 students got a perfect overall score. They all came from the online group.

I agree that the experiment has been a smashing success, and it’s wonderful that people all over the world have been able to benefit from the course and in some cases to excel enrolled Stanford students, already an elite group. But doesn’t all this really prove not the obsolescence of the traditional academic model but its newly enhanced value? If there’s any newspaper that has stood for the Heinlein prin…………… continues on The Atlantic

Image Courtesy of Flickr, skillshare

College theoretically ends after graduation. Between job rejections, an anemic bank account, and weekly ‘what am I doing with my life’ meltdowns, there are plenty of reminders signifying that the idyllic days of college are gone.

But from a learning standpoint (because that’s what college is really about), our education is far from over.  The World Wide Web is a modern-day encyclopedia, filled with lectures, podcasts, videos, and hybrid tools combining all of the above, which enliven our traditionally static ways of learning.  With the surge in online education, we have all become lifelong learners.

Skillshare…………… continues on NextGen Journal

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E-learning is being embraced by the Australian government as it looks to improve the methods it uses for staff training.

According to Government News, several departments, including the Australian Bureau of Statistics, the Department of Climate Change and Energy Efficiency and the Australian Electoral Commission, will begin using the method for educating their employees.

The administration has enlisted the help of consultant ILX Group to assist with the training programme and country manager for Australia and New Zealand Michelle Phillips said using e-learning for training purposes has many advantages.

It can be tailored so it is unique to each department and the fact that staff can learn remotely will cut the travel and accommodation costs associated with traditional training sessions.

“Research by ILX highlights that departments can save up to 40 per cent on training programme costs by using e-learning techniques over traditional training methods,” she stated.

Using e-learning enables staff to progress through sessions at their own pace and at a time that suits them and Ms Phillips explained staff are likely to be more receptive to it than they are to the “‘text-on-screen’ approach” to learning, which leaves workers “uninspired”.

“Learners ar…………… continues on Virtual College

The University of Minnesota ranked number 2 out of more than 200 colleges and universities across the nation in the not-for-profit category for online education, according to the recently-released 2012 rankings by Guide to Online Schools, a leading college education website.
     While the ranking was given to the U of M system, the Crookston campus provides ten online undergraduate degrees, and these degrees were included in the overall ranking by Guide to Online Schools.  These ten online degrees represent the majority of the U of M system’s online undergraduate offerings. 
     Divided into for-profit and not-for-profit categories, schools were evaluated and ranked on criteria such as accreditation, tuition and cost of books, graduation and retention rates, student feedback, and student loan repayment rates.  The statistics used in the rankings were gathered from the National Center for Education Statistics (NCES).

This is the VOA Special English Education Report.

Last week, we talked about Massive Open Online Courses, also called MOOCs. Tens of thousands, or even more, people can take these classes all at once. You can be anywhere in the world to take a MOOC. All you need is a computer and a network connection.

MOOCs add to a tradition of what is known as distance learning. For years, many colleges have offered classes that are taught partly or mostly online. MOOCs are available in subjects like computer science, engineering or mechanics. Can MOOCs in subjects like arts or the humanities be as effective?

Scott Anderson teaches philosophy at the University of British Columbia in Canada. He sees both good and bad sides to MOOCs.

SCOTT ANDERSON:  “There are parts that will be fine, insofar as mostly when students listen to a lecture, there is no special reason why they need to be physically present to hear and get it. There is certainly no reason why they need to be physically present to get the readings and to think about these things.”

Mr. Anderson says increased numbers of students in MOOCs can mean less communicati…………… continues on Voice of America

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BATTLE CREEK Kellogg Community College’s Lifelong Learning department is offering the following courses in an online format through their partnership with Ed2Go, an online education company.

Anyone interested in the below courses can find out more information or register at www.ed2go.com/kellogg.

Certificate in gerontology course

Kellogg Community College’s Lifelong Learning program is offering an online gerontology certification course for individuals seeking to specialize in working with older adults and for health professionals who wish to broaden their professional education. This online course will provide the necessary multidisciplinary skills needed to meet the needs of a growing population of aging adults and help individuals find work in this field. ALLEGRA Learning Solutions, LLC is accredited as a provider of continuing education in nursing by the American Nurses Credentialing Centers Commission on Accreditation. Register online at www.ed2go.com/kellogg.

Online GMAT preparation course

For those planning on applying to graduate business and management schools, Kellogg Community College offers a GMAT (Graduate Management Admission Test) preparation course online. Students in this course will learn test-taking…………… continues on Battle Creek Enquirer

Wired Magazine put an embed in the online educational shift touched on by Cloudline’s cloud and education watcher, Kyle Johnson. Steven Leckart writes in The Stanford Education Experiment Could Change Higher Learning Forever of taking part and finishing CS221: Introduction to Artificial Intelligence, a graduate level class offered simultaneously for free in a cloud-based class taught by Stanford professors Sebastian Thrun and Peter Norvig:

Last fall, the university in the heart of Silicon Valley did something it had never done before: It opened up three classes … to anyone with a web connection. Lectures and assignments — the same ones administered in the regular on-campus class — would be posted and auto-graded online each week. Midterms and finals would have strict deadlines. Stanford wouldn’t issue course credit to the non-matriculated students. But at the end of the term, students who completed a course would be awarded an…………… continues on Wired News

US-based enterprise software company Blackboard Inc. has acquired Adelaide company NetSpot for an undisclosed sum, but NetSpot will continue to operate independently.

NetSpot provides eLearning technology services to education organisations, and is an official Moodle partner.

Moodle is an open source learning management system, used as an enterprise-level application by higher education institutions, including more than a third of Australian universities.

In July last year, NetSpot unveiled a $ 200,000 fund at Australia’s annual Moodle conference, designed to support eLearning innovations in the higher education sector.

Now NetSpot has been acquired by Blackboard Inc., a Washington-based company primarily known as a developer of education software, in particular learning management systems.

Blackboard was founded by chief executive Michael Chasen and chairman Matthew Pittinsky in 1997, and became a public company in 2004.

In addition to NetSpot, Blackboard has acquired Baltimore-based company Moodlerooms, which is also an official Moodle partner.

Moodlerooms primarily serves clients in North America, while NetSpot serves a client base in Australia, New Zea…………… continues on StartupSmart

By IANS,

Thiruvananthapuram : Kerala Education Minister P.K. Abdu Rabb Tuesday launched Amrita University’s Online Gurukul – a free tution – programme here Tuesday, noting it would enhance students’ employability skills and thereby help them to secure better job opportunities.

“Usage of advanced technology in education sector is always a helping hand and Online Gurukul would be able to bridge the gap between education and employment,” said Rabb.

The free online tuition programme is an ideal platform for college students to learn, share and enrich their knowledge, and is specifically meant to assist and empower needy students who are keen to learn.

The weekly sessions are held between 3 and 4 p.m. every Tuesday. It is being transmitted through Amrita University’s, E-Learning platform A-VIEW (Amrita Virtual Interactive ELearning World), developed by Amrita E-Learning Research Lab.

The pilot phase of the programme is been conducted in Kerala and is soon going to be extended to other states also shortly.

Union Science and Technology Minister Vilasrao Deshmukh had announced the programme during (Amrita University Chancellor) Mata Amritanandamayi’s 58th birthday in October last year.

Amrita University had developed this project in collaboration with IIT-Mumbai with active support of the union human resources development minist…………… continues on TwoCircles.net