Online courses: A liberating and inspiring ally to residential education

Distance learning courses have been around for a very long time and have often been treated by mainstream academia as the step child to residential face to face classes. However, all of that is changing as advances in technology have made online education an excellent way to learn as well as enhance the residential experience.  The president of MIT recently said, "Online education is not the enemy of residential education but rather a profoundly liberating and inspiring ally." I wrote about this "ally" back in 2007 in the following post, University 2.0 - Online Classes Enhance Universities.  Within that blog entry, I posed the following comment and questions, "Online information and communication is changing the way the world interacts and learns...What are universities across the world doing about this information revolution? How are we demonstrating to our future students that we are not only a part of this human network but that we are leaders in the movement?" Read entire post here.

Now in 2012, we are beginning to see how some of the most prestigious research and discovery universities are answering that question. It will be interesting to see how this effects the current higher education ecosystem.

Here is what Harvard and MIT are doing.

New Blog Design, New Post - Innovation always tops greed and complacency. Always.

It's been a while since my last post, but my new blog design, combined with a thought provoking TechCrunch article inspired me to write a fresh new post. I found this article in TechCrunch to be very insightful regarding disruptive technologies and how they change things rapidly. This particular article, titled- The Full-On Assault On Cable Is Underway is about how the CABLE industry in particular is being shaken up by emerging technology giants such as Google, Apple, Amazon, and Netflix. In a nutshell, the internet can provide people with the ala carte TV viewing experience people have been asking cable companies to give them for a long time. But cable companies have been slow to respond to this demand because they had very little reason to do so. Now that TV's are having wi-fi built in, one can connect to the internet and hook up with Netflix, HULU, Google TV, Apple TV, Amazon On-Demand, YouTube and many other options. The main problem with this model currently is content, but that is changing rapidly. I myself canceled cable last year and elected to subscribe to Netflix for $9/month. I can get over the air HD channels too, which is a nice free option. With increased connectivity and options, Cable companies are going to be forced to innovate or as the article puts it, "...surrender and fall back into its role as a dumb pipe for the Internet. Innovation always tops greed and complacency. Always. The assault is underway." Disruptive technologies change paradigms drastically. "The music industry has already been disrupted. The book industry has been disrupted. The mobile industry has been disrupted" and now the CABLE industry is being disrupted. The writing is on the wall for the CABLE company so they better innovate and compete or simply become Internet Service Providers. As this blog is primarily about emerging technologies and education, I can't help but see connections to Higher Education. Bill Gates sees the disruption in Higher Ed and predicts that "In Five Years The Best Education Will Come From The Web." The Colleges and Universities that will be prepared, unlike the CABLE companies, have already been making strategic plans that take into account the nature of disruptive technology and will leverage the technology for the betterment of their institution and their students' experience.

"People probably never thought the Kindle and other similar devices would lead to a changing of the book industry as quickly as it has — but it’s happening, just ask the Borders down the street from me which is going out of businesses." Does your University think more like Amazon or Borders?

My Interview with McGraw Hill on Distance Education and Online Technologies

This past year I was interviewed in the "Thought Leader" section of McGraw Hill's Principles of Management Newsletter. In the interview I respond to the following questions regarding distance education and online technologies:

• How did you come to do work in distance education?
• What is your favorite distance learning activity or experience?
• How does distance learning enrich your life … your career... as opposed to traditional in-class teaching?
• Describe a “zinger” that unexpectedly challenged you in your distance teaching? How did you address it and what were the results?
• What are your distance learning principles for success?
• Is there one distance learning principle you hold most dear, that you will always do? Is there one thing you will never do, no matter what, in distance education?
• How do you see distance courses changing over the next 5-10 years?
• What are your hopes for the future of distance learning in higher education?

Click Here to Read the Article

How does distance learning, social networking, and other new media enrich your life?

I was recently asked the question, "How does distance learning, social networking, and other new media enrich your life … your career?" and here was my reply:

I define distance learning as any method of teaching and learning that is not dependent on a geographic location. Therefore, most of our world is falling into this category and enriching our lives in one way or another. Online banking, shopping, music, education, etc...The distance technologies enable us to prioritize our lives around the things that matter most to us, such as our families, friends, community, and organizations we are passionate about. Distance technologies facilitate a brand new form of asynchronous communication that enables us to prioritize and schedule our lives more effectively. This is a major reason why distance learning in higher education has spread like wildfire and continues to grow. It's not that online learning is easier or of lower quality (see research), it is that formal education can now revolve around a person's life rather than the other way around. It's only the next natural step. I have seen the growth and increased demand of distance education at BGSU first hand and am very excited about BGSU being chosen by the Ohio Board of Regents as a Center of Excellence for E-learning in the State of Ohio. E-learning doesn't replace face to face universities but enhances them by meeting the new needs of a new generation of students, both young and old.

Let's change gears and look at facebook and twitter as two distance technologies that are changing the world around us. Twitter allows me to get news and information from the people and organizations that interest me the most. Therefore, by subscribing to various twitter feeds, I can get the latest deals from amazon, stay on top of the latest technologies from apple, google, and other tech companies, and get words of inspiration from my pastor or other pastors I listen to online throughout the day. This is awesome. I am also able to re-tweet those to my community of followers, and they, their followers. You see how information is exploding there? With facebook, I am able to "keep in touch" with hundreds of friends at a distance. For example, this enables me to see pictures of my niece and nephews right after they were taken, which prompts me to comment on them or call them. You see how this technology interrupts our lives, but can do so in a positive way. Ever wonder what happened to your old high school buddies? With facebook, you can stay in touch with them on a surface level so that if your relationship with them ever re-surfaces when you run into them in person, you will have much to talk about and build on. The technology is not meant to replace relationships, but if used with wisdom, enhance them. RSS feeds, blogs, podcasts, Wikipedia, YouTube has greatly impacted my career in that I am able to subscribe to content all over the internet and have it directly imported to my email inbox or RSS reader. This enables me to stay on top of the latest in the field of distance learning as well as contribute to the conversation with my own blog posts or tweets.

A few of my distance learning principles for success

First, you have to have a passion for learning new things. You can't ever be satisfied with the status quo, especially since we live in the "Information Age." My action steps for this principle are to start subscribing to prominent bloggers in your field today. And if you want to be looked upon as an expert in your field, start contributing to the conversations in your field by starting a blog and writing about issues in your own field that you are passionate about. This will open up a whole new world to you and lead to many new connections. This is one of the reasons I eagerly developed a University-wide blogging system for BGSU (https://blogs.bgsu.edu). Every student, faculty, and staff member can create as many blogs as they want. It has been awesome to see what happens when everyone at the university has a voice on the web. They create, communicate, and collaborate in ways not possible in years past. The day of hording information is over because information is ubiquitous and we have now entered the day of sharing information. It's those that know what to do with all the good information on the internet that will make a difference in the world. If you don't believe me, ask yourself why MIT has uploaded 1900 courses to the internet as well has hundreds of other schools. They understand that information is not the commodity, it is the interaction with experts and peers from a community of learners around that information. Second, if you are an online instructor, communicate, communicate, communicate, with your learners. Many people just entering the world of distance learning may think of it as a glorified correspondence course, however they could not be further from the truth. Online learning actually facilitates many new streams of interaction and communication and the best instructors leverage those streams in their courses (i.e. social networks, blogs, twitter, youtube.) However, they must use these technologies appropriately and with much wisdom, as they may end up just generating noise instead of true learning opportunities. It is for this reason at BGSU that we have an expert staff of educational technologists in the Center for Online and Blended Learning, to work with our online faculty.

The World is Open

News: 'The World Is Open' - Inside Higher Ed

Technology is changing higher education in more ways than can be counted. Distance education has become common. Leading universities are putting course materials or even entire courses online -- free. The Obama plan for community colleges envisions free online courses that could be used nationwide. Curtis J. Bonk, a professor of instructional systems technology at Indiana University, surveys this landscape in The World Is Open: How Web Technology is Revolutionizing Education (Jossey-Bass). Bonk responded to questions about the book in an e-mail interview.

A very fascinating read.  The open access to educational materials and experts is virtually limitless. What role do universities play in such an open educational world.  For example, in years past, one aspect of accreditation for colleges involved access to scholarly journals, but as the article reveals in the following quote, this has changed drastically in the information age, "When I was in primary school in the 1960s and 1970s, I had to walk next door to borrow the Compton Encyclopedia volume that I needed. They were free for me to use when the neighbors were home. Today, Yahoo! Education provides free access to the Roget’s II Thesaurus (260,000 synonyms and cross references), Colombia Encyclopedia (more than 50,000 entries and 84,000 hypertext cross-references between the content), and American Heritage Dictionary (definitions, word spellings, and word suggestions as well as more than 200,000 entries, 70,000 audio word pronunciations, and 900 full-page color illustrations). If that is not enough, there is the Encyclopedia Britannica, and yes, that trusty Wikipedia that is now the seventh most accessed Web site in the United States." After reading the article, "What are a few ways you expect these movements to change higher education in another 10 or 20 years?"

Newsweek: Online schools are booming

The Newsweek article titled, "The Sound of One Hand Clicking:
Online schools are booming, thanks to their convenience, low cost, and improved quality" accurately captures the shift toward online friendliness in higher education. Universities are recognizing that students and working professionals are asking themselves, why go to college when college can come to us in a convenient, affordable, high quality way? A couple segments from the article:

Once targeted at older, working adults, distance learning has moved into the education mainstream at stunning speed over the past couple of years, as technology allows ever-richer, more-interactive learning experiences online—and as college costs continue to rise and classrooms are packed to capacity.For traditional brick-and-mortar institutions, that has meant a scramble to enter a lucrative market that used to be the exclusive territory of for-profit institutions such as the University of Phoenix and Kaplan University (which, like NEWSWEEK, is owned by The Washington Post Company).

"The stigma is gone," says Phillips (founder and CEO of Geteducated.com, a service that ranks online learning institutions) "Online learning has reached mass cultural acceptance. It's no longer the ugly stepsister of the higher-education world."

Using videos, podcasts, live chats, Webcams, and wikis, educators increasingly see online learning as a way to engage the videogame generation with pedagogy that feels more like entertainment than drudgery. Students in the new homeland-security master's degree program at the University of Connecticut this fall, for example, will have coursework that resembles Grand Theft Auto: dwelling in a cybercity called San Luis Rey plagued with suicide bombers, biochemical attacks, and other disasters.

Another important factor that has closed the prestige gap is the tight integration of online programs into their host institutions. When UMass launched UMassOnline in 2001, it used the same admission standards, the same faculty, the same curricula—and it awarded students degrees indistinguishable from those given to campus-going counterparts. The vision of UMassOnline as a seamless division of the university worked because "it fit with the culture of the institution," says Wilson, who was the CEO of UMassOnline until 2003, when he became the president of UMass. The venture has also been extremely profitable—UMassOnline earned $46.8 million in 2008.

US Department of Education Release Study Indicating Online and Blended Learning to be Most Advantageous

This is something that those of us in the field have known for quite some time. I think what is extremely important about this study is that the source of this study is the Department of Education. It can be quite time consuming trying to convince some people about the quality of online education, so this just adds more credibility to what we have been saying.

News: The Evidence on Online Education - Inside Higher Ed

WASHINGTON -- Online learning has definite advantages over face-to-face instruction when it comes to teaching and learning, according to a new meta-analysis released Friday by the U.S. Department of Education.

The study found that students who took all or part of their instruction online performed better, on average, than those taking the same course through face-to-face instruction. Further, those who took "blended" courses -- those that combine elements of online learning and face-to-face instruction -- appeared to do best of all. That finding could be significant as many colleges report that blended instruction is among the fastest-growing types of enrollment.

President Obama, Community Colleges, and Online Education

I am still processing this article which outlines Obama's big plans to give billions of dollars to Community Colleges; $500 million of which is dedicated to building free online credit based courses. Wow! What a paradigm shift in education. One thing is for sure. People are realizing that information is no longer at a premium. Almost all human knowledge is floating around in the air around us and all one needs to do to access it is download it via an internet connection. However, good teachers that can translate information to knowledge, and especially one's that have adapted to teaching online effectively, ARE AT A PREMIUM. Just because someone is a good brick and mortar teacher, does not mean they are a good online teacher. They should consider questions such as: Do the courses take advantage of the Internet's multiple modes of communication and engagement such as video conferencing, discussion boards, blogs, wikis, etc. Verily verily, building a high quality online courses is less about uploading content and more about organizing the content, and engaging the content, the student, and the community.

My brain is swimming in questions as I ponder what systemic effects big government backing of Community Colleges and Free Online courses will have on our educational system as a whole. Ask yourself, "what is the purpose of our educational systems?" (Feel free to comment below). In the end, my gut feeling is that individual people are the ones best able to choose the learning institutions that best meet their needs AND the learning institutions that flourish will be the one's that are able to identify those needs, adapt quickly to those needs, and meet those needs effectively. This should prompt Universities to work harder at giving prospective students the best "inside look" at the University when students are shopping for their higher ed future. This must go beyond getting a facebook and youtube account for universities. What do you think it will be? (Feel free to comment). Also, one final thought...When a university becomes too dependent on government money for survival, they become less agile to adapt, so those jumping into new monies should do so with razor sharp calculations and a bit of caution. How do you think Obama's proposed plan will affect the Educational Systems in the US? I'm still processing.

"Blended Learning" More Effective than Face-to-Face

"Blended Learning" More Effective than Face-to-Face (Source: Education Week, 2009)

source: United States Distance Learning Association (USDLA)

Download Report:Evaluation of Evidence-Based Practices in Online Learning
http://www.ed.gov/rschstat/eval/tech/evidence-based-practices/finalreport.pdf

A new report http://www.ed.gov/rschstat/eval/tech/evidence-based-practices/finalreport.pdf released today by the U.S. Department of Education, which analyzed 46 studies comparing online learning to face-to-face education, concluded that "blended learning," or programs that include elements of both face-to-face and online learning, is somewhat more effective than either approach by itself. The study also found that, by itself, online learning was more effective at raising student achievement than face-to-face instruction exclusively.

"This new report reinforces that effective teachers need to incorporate digital content into everyday classes and consider open-source learning management systems, which have proven cost effective in school districts and colleges nationwide," said U.S. Secretary of Education Arne Duncan in a statement. "To avoid being caught short when stimulus money runs out, school officials should use the short-term federal funding to make immediate upgrades to technology to enhance classroom instruction and to improve the tracking of student data."

I'm sure online education advocates are thrilled at the conclusions drawn by this report. But while it does put online education, especially in a blended environment, in a favorable light, there are a couple of significant disclaimers.

Researchers found that blended learning environments often included additional learning time and incorporated more instructional elements, which "suggests that the positive effects associated with blended learning should not be attributed to the media, per se," said the report. Also, the analysis found very few studies conducted specifically with K-12 schools, therefore "caution is required in generalizing to the K-12 population because the results are derived for the most part from studies in other settings (e.g., medical training, higher education)."

In fact, the report goes so far as to say, "the most unexpected finding was that an extensive initial search of the published literature from 1996 through 2006 found no experimental or controlled quasi-experimental studies that both compared the learning effectiveness of online and face-to-face instruction for K-12 students and provided sufficient data for inclusion in a meta-analysis."

That's a pretty sad statement on the amount of research, or lack thereof, on K-12 online learning

Download Report: http://www.ed.gov/rschstat/eval/tech/evidence-based-practices/finalreport.pdf

Very Cool BGSU Blackboard Video Tutorial Resource

My team at BGSU developed the following cool resource for the university, which was highlighted by the Ohio Learning Network today - check it out - http://www.oln.org/rss/rotd.php?id=269

The New Learning Landscape; The Future of Education

I highly recommend all teachers watch this video of Michael Wesch at the University of Manitoba on the Future of Education. In addition, you should show this to to your students and have some solid discussion about it. If you teach online, simply post it on a discussion forum and have at it.

Michael does a good job of giving you the BIG picture regarding the current state of education and technology and what he is doing with his class to improve the learning landscape. This video is a very good companion to my University 2.0 blog post. At the core we find that the collective body of knowledge is all around us in the air via the internet so why are we still emphasizing memorization as the primary form of education. Almost any question that can be asked on a test can be looked up in minutes, even seconds on a phone, so how is our educational system adapting? How are they preparing students to think critically, creatively, collaboratively, and communicate digitally? The Internet and specifically the more evolved web 2.0, is moving culture and education from an authoritarian one-way download of information to a collaborative upload/download/interactive experience. Because so much information is readily available, teaching students how to ask good questions, critique ideas, and disseminate quality information from bunk is quite central to the new learning landscape.

University of Manitoba: Information Services and Technology - Michael Wesch and the Future of Education

During his presentation, the Kansas State University professor breaks down his attempts to integrate Facebook, Netvibes, Diigo, Google Apps, Jott, Twitter, and other emerging technologies to create an education portal of the future.

Take a free online course from George Siemens and Stephen Downes

George Siemens and Stephen Downes are going to attempt what some have called a MOOC - Massively Open Online Course - and so far some 1200 participants have signed up. The course will focus on the connectivist theory of learning http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Connectivism_(learning_theory) and in some sense will be an experiment testing the theory itself.

Connectivism - LTCWiki

Connectivism and Connective Knowledge is a twelve week course that will explore the concepts of connectivism and connective knowledge and explore their application as a framework for theories of teaching and learning. It will outline a connectivist understanding of educational systems of the future. George Siemens and Stephen Downes – the two leading figures on connectivism and connective knowledge - will co-facilitate this innovative and timely course.

Distance learning and gas prices

I thought the results for a Google search I performed on "distance learning + gas prices" was pretty interesting. What do you think? Since most subjects can be taught online effectively and driving to class is becoming more $$$ for students and teachers, people are looking for online options. I have always said that online courses and programs add immense value to the traditional brick and mortar university (See University 2.0) and this is just another example. Online courses can be flexible, accessible, engaging, interactive, and very personal. As students continue to discover both the monetary and educational benefits of online learning, they will continue to look for the option as they hunt for the right university. Those universities that are paying attention to the needs of modern day students will benefit. BGSU, my university, which has been around since 1910, seems to get it as they have been adding more online courses every year since 2000. Check out our online degrees

A Bridge Between Blackboard and Open Source?

As the competition heats up in the land of Learning Management Systems (LMS), Blackboard is offering to partner with Syracuse to develop an open source plugin that will send data back and forth between Sakai and Blackboard. Some see this as Blackboard's way of trying to put everything under 1 roof (their roof). Others see it as being good for the community at large as one might be able to choose which technology to use for various scenarios. For example, a school might have blackboard as their portal and LMS, but maybe they would like to use Moodle as the LMS and keep Blackboard as the portal. It sounds like this plugin may offer that solution. Personally, I think most major Learning Management Systems are capable of performing quite similar functions these days, so one must accurately count the cost of each system at their institution. I think more and more of the LMS market is moving open source because of its high quality, low cost, and intelligent community, which might be frightening if one is trying to sell a product that others are giving away for free. Just my take. What is yours?

A Bridge Between Blackboard and Open Source? :: Inside Higher Ed :: Higher Education's Source for News, Views and Jobs

A Bridge Between Blackboard and Open Source?

Blackboard, the dominant player in course management software, has the ability to inspire devotion and, for the more fervid open-source adherents, not a little contempt. So today’s announcement may cause a stir among those more apt to liken Blackboard to the devil than a gentle giant: The company is partnering with Syracuse University to develop a way to integrate Blackboard with Sakai, one of the primary open-source alternatives.

Looking into oovoo for video chat and conferencing

I am downloading oovoo as I write this blog post from scribefire. I am a fan of skype so I am curious to see how oovoo compares. As a person constantly on the hunt for the best educational technology to enhance distance learning, I look forward to checking it out. A few things I am looking for include, ease of use, set-up, functionality, and how seamlessly it can be integrated into an LMS. Group work is a big deal at the university and if oovoo makes it easy for a group to have a free video conference online, then that would be helpful. Currently Skype only allows 1 to 1 video chatting and a 10 person audio only conference call feature.

From the website:

Free Video Chat and Video Conferencing from ooVoo

ooVoo is the next evolution in online communication — a remarkably easy way to have a face-to-face video chat with friends, family or colleagues, no matter where they are in the world.

ooVoo Video Chat is remarkably easy to use: easy to download, easy to install, and best of all:
it's FREE!

[screenshot of oovoo]

How to integrate Small Worlds into Blackboard and other LMS's

Check out my Jing Video Here to see how I integrated Small Worlds right into my Blackboard Learning Management System. It's nice that Small Worlds provides a unique URL for each account. Usually stuff built in flash doesn't have unique URL's. Very web 2.0! I could use the same technique with other LMS's too, I assume.

Voices of Learning Video

This is video from some of the "voices of learning" at the Learning events in Orlando, and contains some solid nuggets of information regarding the application of technology to enhance learning, retention, and production.

How would you describe online teaching and learning to faculty that are curious but skeptical about quality?

I posed the following question in my online teacher training course, and thought the answer given by Dr. James McKean from Ohio University, would be beneficial to share, with his permission, on the blog. How would you respond to this question?

After participating in this course, how would you describe online teaching and learning to faculty that are curious but skeptical about quality. What advice would you give the faculty about how to best prepare to teach online? What advice would you give students to help them become successful online learners.

I will describe online teaching to other faculty who are skeptical about quality in the same manner that a qualitative researcher explains the underlying theoretical construct of naturalistic inquiry in a qualitative research project--there is more than one path in our quest for knowledge. Quality in online classes like quality in traditional classes is dependent upon sound pedagogical practices, development of learning outcomes and appropriate learning assessments. Students learn when they are actively engaged and online teaching offers a variety of pedagogical aids to facilitate learning. For those faculty who as Parker Palmer stated possess the "courage to teach," I would encourage them to embrace online teaching as another means to the same end--learning.

The best advice I would give faculty is to broaden their knowledge of course design and online teaching by completing an online teaching and learning course. Experiential learning is powerful as I have discovered over the past two weeks. I would advise students to shift their learning paradigm and understand that online learning requires them to devote the same or an even higher commitment to the learning process as a traditional class--or as my statistics professor used to say, "junk in, junk out." In the final analysis, online teaching can be a rewarding and satisfying experience for both students and faculty.

BGSU Online shout out

I wanted to share this video testimonial about Becky Tirabassi's experience as a distance learning student at Bowling Green State University. I am the Assistant Director of Distance Education at the university so if anyone has questions about our program, feel free to contact me or visit our site: