Online Education Space

A community organization is trying to increase interest in a Jefferson County Public Schools initiative to help students struggling in class.

The program developed by Louisville Central Community Centers is being called eLearn Olympics.

LCCC President Sam Watkins says it’s an extension of the school district’s Every 1 Learns initiative, which has partnered JCPS with several community sites to provide two online programs called Success Maker and Study Island. 

Those two programs help students develop certain skills like math and reading through interactive platforms. eLearning Olympics will us…………… continues on WFPL

Engaging the Online Learner: Activities and Resources for Creative Instruction
This is a revision of the first title in Jossey-Bass’ Online Teaching & Learning series. This series helps higher education profes…

Distance Education: A Systems View of Online Learning
The most comprehensive and authoritative book on the subject, DISTANCE EDUCATION, Third Edition, emphasizes a systems approach to …

Online Education Trends

Blended learning:
It is unrealistic to expect physical classrooms to disappear in the near future, especially in K-12. However, many teachers are now using a blended learning model to maximize their time and teaching effectiveness. By combining in-classroom learning with virtual learning tools, both students and teachers benefit.

Real-time assistance:
As the tutoring market continues to grow in the United States, students are beginning to demand real-time assistance. Online learners in addition to traditional students need help to fully grasp lessons in virtual classrooms. Now, with access to the web, students can seek out skilled tutors from across the globe to provide assistance and clarification on lessons.

Gamification:
Students are growing up in an increasingly interconnected world. Over 97% of kids ages 12-17 play video games each year. Many institutions are beginning to incorporate gaming into everything from college completion to test prep. Introducing this new way of learning helps students to engage in the learning process and better retain knowledge for tests and overall retention.

Social Media:
Almost 98% of 18-24 year olds use a social media network. Because of its widespread popularity, social media is now being used to facilitate Learning Management Systems and social learning tools. So…………… continues on WGNtv.com

As politicians and academics debate the future of higher education, it is already happening — in dorm rooms, off-campus apartments and living rooms around the world.

Estela Garcia, a working mother from Menlo Park, attends class at her kitchen table after she puts her daughters to bed; Tim Barham, a UC Berkeley senior, takes statistics at home after a day at work; and Oakland teenager Sergio Sandoval studies a college course while in high school.

For years, online classes existed on the margins of higher education. Then Silicon Valley startups devised slick platforms delivering elite university courses, free, to students everywhere. Suddenly, online studies have become central to discussions about the future.

“I think this is the single most transformational thing that could occur in higher education in decades,” said Ron Galatolo, chancellor of the San Mateo County Community College District.

Proponents see online courses containing university costs, making college more affordable and instruction more engaging, r…………… continues on Marin Independent Journal

Two of the emerging providers of online college classes, Coursera and edX, are announcing significant expansions in the numbers of campuses that will join their organizations and offer free courses.

The high-powered competitors, both founded last year, say their academic offerings will have more of an international flavor as a result of additional schools signing on from outside the U.S.

Mountain View-based Coursera said 29 universities are joining the 33 already offering at least one class on the platform of the for-profit group. Among the 13 new U.S. members are CalArts in Valencia, UC San Diego, UC Santa Cruz, Penn State and Rutgers University. The 16 new overseas ones include the Ecole Polytechnique of France, the University of Tokyo, the University of Copenhagen and the Universidad Nacional Autonoma de Mexico. More classes will be offered in languages other than English, officials said.

The not-for-profit edX, which is headquartered in Cambridge, Mass., was founded by Harvard University and Massaschusetts Institute of Technology and was joined later by four other U.S. schools, including UC Berkeley. EdX said it is adding one U.S. campus, Rice University in Houston; two from Canada, University of Toronto and McGill University; the Australian National University; Delft University of Technology inf the Netherlands; and Ecole Polytechnique Federal…………… continues on Los Angeles Times

How to Teach Online Without Selling Your Soul: Build Your Own e-Learning Business, Create Unique Content And Work From Anywhere
“The best book on How to build an online teaching business that I did not write.” – Kirsten Winkler, education consultantThe most …

Guide to Effective Technologies for Providing Online Training
The Guide to Effective Technologies for Providing Online Staff Training provides a practical and user-friendly overview of the com…

Online education is just about the hottest new trend in education these days. In 2007, more than a million K-12 students took an online course; that number was itself a 47 percent increase over the previous two years. And the numbers are increasing rapidly as legislators tout online learning plans as a cost-effective answers to budget woes. But while the jury’s still out on the academic efficacy of online education programs, new research suggests that these trendy education programs may well be exacerbating very old racial inequities in education.

In a working paper by Columbia University’s Di Xu and Shanna Smith Jaggers, they lay out findings from their study of half a million online courses taken by more than 40,000 community and technical-college students in the state of Washington. What they found is that students who have a harder time in traditional offline higher education are no better served by online courses. Xu and Jaggers, who is the assistant directo…………… continues on ColorLines magazine

The Florida Board of Governors has approved a plan to add online learning options in the State University System.

The board’s strategic planning committee has been taking testimony and working with those with a stake in the decision for more than a year on

Physicians who need to fulfill their continuing medical education requirements can now head to their computers to take a new online course from UCSF.

Last summer, UCSF announced a partnership with the online education company Coursera to offer three massive open online courses, or MOOCs, starting last month. This week, the UCSF Office of Continuing Medical Education approved one of the classes – Clinical Problem Solving – to count toward the credits that practicing physicians must accrue each year.

Doctors earning continuing medical education credits from the class pay $ 125, while it is free for the other students. The deadline for those enrolled in the class to sign up to receive credit is Friday.

“This is in many ways an exploration to see if physicians out in practice are interested in taking classes in this format,” said Dr.

The Complete Step-by-Step Guide to Designing and Teaching Online Courses (0)
”A rare book in education: one that is not only highly useful but also intellectually coherent and based on robust, transferable …

Online Education For Dummies
From admission to graduation-your personal guide to studying onlineOnline Education For Dummies explains the ins and outs of atten…

BOSTON, Feb. 20, 2013 /PRNewswire/ — DomainAdvisors, a leading broker of premium domain names and websites, announced today that a select group of category defining education domains including, but not limited to, GraduateSchool.com, GraduateSchools.com, OnlineGraduateSchool.com, OnlineClassrooms.com, Schooling.com and Educational.com have been listed exclusively for sale with their firm. Such targeted and brandable domains present a significant opportunity within the enrollment-marketing sector, companies involved in online lead generation for the education vertical, or to an established educational institution. As a result of the upward trend in the online education market as a whole, premium education domains such as these will only appreciate in value over time.

(Logo: http://photos.prnewswire.com/prnh/20130215/MM61371LOGO )

Just last week, TechCrunch, a leading technology media property, released a compelling article entitled, “Online Education Is Replacing Physical Colleges At A Crazy Fast Pace” stating that, “while educators knew the online revolution would eventually envelop the physical classroom, a torrent of near-revolutionary developments in the past month are proving that change is coming quicker than anyone imagined. In just 30 days, the largest school system in the U.S. began offering credit for online courses, a major university began awa…………… continues on The Providence Journal

The City University of New York (CUNY) is the nation’s leading urban public university serving more than 480,000 students in a wide range of educational programs at 24 colleges and institutions in New York City.
Job ID: 7605

Regular/Temporary: Regular

GENERAL DUTIES

Supports and consults with faculty, students, and others in the use of instructional systems, software, and programs.

- Provides day-to-day support for users of instructional systems

- May supervise a College help desk related to academic technology, supervising and training staff

- Designs, develops, and delivers training and orientation sessions on the use of instructional technologies

- May serve as an administrator and/or account coordinator for one or more systems

- Assists in demonstrating the practical application of computers and communications technology for classes and workshops for faculty or students

- May track problem reports, troubleshoot reported issues, and document resolutions

- Performs related duties as assigned.

Job Title Name: IT Academic Technology Specialist

CONTRACT TITLE

Higher Education Assistant

FLSA

Exempt

CAMPUS SPECIFIC INFORMATION

In addition to the general duties…………… continues on John Jay Online – Inside Higher Ed

Online education startup Quad Learning said Comcast (Nasdaq: CMCSA) is among the investors that participated in its $ 11 million Series A funding round last week.

In addition to the MSO’s Comcast Ventures subsidiary, the Bethesda, Md.-based company said it received investments from New Atlantic Ventures, SWaN and Legend Fund and New Enterprise Associates.

Quad Learning said it is focused on helping students at community colleges transfer to four-year programs at colleges and universities. The company said it has developed a “virtual classroom” in which each student has his or her own live video tile on their computer screen.

For more:
- Washington Business Journal has this story

Related articles:
Comcast leads $ 11M investment in fantasy sports operator FanDuel

by Alex Friedrich, Minnesota Public Radio

February 19, 2013

ST. PAUL, Minn. — A state senator has proposed allowing colleges to offer large not-for-credit online classes in Minnesota if they remain free of charge.

The Massive Open Online Courses, known as MOOCs, enable one professor to teach tens of thousands of students online at the same time. But Minnesota requires private and out-of-state colleges offering online courses to register with the state and pay a fee, regardless of whether the classes are free or offer no credit.

It was meant to protect consumers from low-quality schools. But online-education supporters say it has impeded providers of the courses. Online-education company Coursera has said the process is burdensome. The bill’s sponsor, Republican Jeremy Miller of Winona, says it’s time for the law to go.

“It’s ridiculous that Minnesota is trying to regulate a free online educational course,” Miller said. “That’s why we’re working to eliminate this barrier, and make sure that these free courses can be offered in our state.”

Miller acknowledges his bill could change to account for growing college acceptance of the courses.

“This legislati…………… continues on Minnesota Public Radio

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First, student attrition rates — around 90 percent for some huge online courses — appear to be a problem even in small-scale online courses when compared with traditional face-to-face classes. Second, courses delivered solely onl…………… continues on New York Times

StateImpact Florida and WLRN are holding an online education chat in advance of our WLRN-Miami Herald News Town Hall, where you’ll get the chance to ask lawmakers about their education priorities this legislative session.

We’ll talk about issues like proposed teacher salary increases and 

LONDON — What if they held a MOOC and nobody came?

Ever since the German computer scientist Sebastian Thrun sent out an e-mail in 2011 announcing that his “Introduction to Artificial Intelligence” course at Stanford University in California would be available free online, the education world has been both enthralled and terrified by the advent of massive open online courses, or MOOCs.

The size of the potential audience was a revelation: More than 160,000 students from 190 countries signed up, prompting Dr. Thrun to quit his day job and start his own online learning company, Udacity.

Udacity; Coursera, founded by two other Stanford professors; and edX, formed by Harvard and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, are the three big names in online learning.

Of the 248 students who received a perfect score in Dr. Thrun’s course, not one came from Stanford, prompting some to wonder whether elite American universities were missing out on potential talent. And universities that did not have thei…………… continues on New York Times

It’s hard to scan the news on a given day without running across several stories about online learning. But it’s often a narrow range of questions being asked: Can online learning reduce college costs? Will it destroy universities as we know them?

Stanford faculty are aggressively exploring the emerging opportunities in educational technology. Perhaps the most important lesson thus far is that “online

People learn in different ways and have widely differing educational needs throughout their lives. One size does not fit all.

Happily, educational technology does not require a cookie-cutter approach. Quite the contrary: Online education, as it develops, should allow us to customize and personalize the student educational experience to a greater extent than ever before.

Stanford professors were behind some of the massive open online courses, or MOOCs, that generated headlines over the last two years as they enrolled hundreds of thousands of students at a time. But our faculty’s activity in the online space is much more varied, and we…………… continues on San Francisco Chronicle

Distance Education: A Systems View of Online Learning
The most comprehensive and authoritative book on the subject, DISTANCE EDUCATION, Third Edition, emphasizes a systems approach to …

Creating a Sense of Presence in Online Teaching: How to “Be There” for Distance Learners
How can faculty create a strong e presence for their online classes? This volume highlights the need for creating a presence in th…