Distance Learning

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Comment by FacultyRow Director on January 27, 2013 at 1:52pm

Test

Comment by FacultyRow Director on April 19, 2012 at 9:40pm

Minerva Project raised 25M (April 2012) via Benchmark Capital in their largest seed investment ever. Minerva will attempt to compete with Ivy Leagues for half the cost. Minerva launches in 2014 and will not have a centralized campus.

Comment by Julia B. Gibeault on December 4, 2011 at 8:29pm

Distance delivery models will only increase as today's population seeks more options that utilize technology.

I'm hoping to share in the conversation about how we can maintain high expectations and best support genuine student engagement.

Comment by Cheryl Batten on August 10, 2010 at 3:09pm

Cheryl, I do quite a bit of curriculum work with facutly in my college, and have to say the biggest challene to date is not in learning how to use the technology but in how to facilitate / teach on line. We are now beginning to us Online Teaching Competencies developed by our collaborative colleges in Ontario, that better identifies the skills, etc needed for successful online teaching. As a result, my focus is on helping faculty create community in online learning through self and student engagement (i.e. using social presence, etc). There are many great frameworks out there that address the pedagogy first, and the technology second, where community is the means to learning.

Comment by Cheryl Todd on August 10, 2010 at 1:41pm

I work as a Campus Computing Specialist at Meredith College in Raleigh, NC We are about to begin on new adventure at our college- hybrid learning- online & experiential summer courses. We have used BB for many years now and will now expand its usage into this arena.

Presently, our team has been given the task of "training" faculty in various tools that can be used for on-line teaching-we have narrowed it to 5 for the moment: BB/Illuminate/Wikis-Audacity-Google-Voice Thread and a video component. Faculty are required to have 45 contact hours with their students so we are trying to assist them with the most efficient and effective ways to accomplish this through the use of the above mentioned tools. Our team would welcome any comments, recommendations, resources that you are willing to share with us "newbies". Thank You in Advance Cheryl Todd, Campus Computing Specialist

Comment by Timothy H Kelly on August 5, 2010 at 9:02am

Good points, I guess I'm rigid in some respects Here is an interesting blog contribution with some links,
this supports your points and demonstrates how these tools can be used to educate and keep people in the loop

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Leslie Fisher: Thirteen years ago Leslie Fisher parlayed her work at Apple as a K-12 senior systems engineer into a successful education technology consulting firm. “Back then, my specialty was in web development,” Fisher says. “I slowly but surely branched out into the fields of digital photography and web 2.0/emerging technologies.” Today, Fisher is a staple at ed tech conferences around the globe. Her three choices reflect her immersion in professional development.

1) Twitter. Fisher made her first selection without pause: “Twitter—at the top, underlined, with little stars around it and circles.” In fact, Fisher used Twitter to prepare her list, posting a tweet and marking it with the #edchat hashtag so it would be seen by any educator who searched the site for it.

“I’ve been traveling so much for conferences this year, and you sometimes lose track of what’s new and what’s bright,” she says, explaining why she sent out a tweet asking for help.

“Within just a few hours my question started getting placed all over the Twitterverse, with people replying. I ended up discovering a website I had no idea even existed, and someone gave me a list he created in Google Docs to keep track of web 2.0 sites that have been making their way around. In fact, that list has grown pretty decently even from when I got it yesterday, just because it’s working its way around to people collaborating on Twitter.”

Twitter still has to shake off its association with other popular social networking sites such as Facebook before it can be fully accepted as a legitimate collaborative professional development tool for educators. Fisher notes her disappointment with schools that block Twitter, fearing its misuse by students. That’s a move she says is both misguided and counterproductive, since it deprives teachers of a valuable resource.

“Twitter is not an instant gratification tool. It’s really not something that’s very popular with youth. They’re going to do text messaging and instant messaging way before they’re going to do Twitter. Anytime we deal with technology we go through this, where people are very cautious, but blocking Twitter in schools when it’s such a powerful resource for our teachers to get great solutions for the classroom is frustrating.”

Why does Fisher think Twitter is such a great collaborative solution for teachers? “Sending a tweet just gets so many fingers out there so quickly,” she says. “And it allows people to get in touch with people that they would probably never be able to get in touch with any other way. I’ve heard of teachers getting in touch with specialists in the community, specialists in the field, and being able to get someone to talk to their kids in the classroom. It’s just a really great way of having an instant connection in the world.”

[ keyword: collaboration - click here to view more articles ]

2) TypeWith.me. Fisher praises the live collaboration opportunities created by TypeWith.me, which, like Google Docs, enables numerous users to work on a single document. Before Google Docs was upgraded this spring, TypeWith.me had an advantage with its capacity to allow for simultaneous, real-time editing by multiple users. Each user’s contributions are color-coded, and a time slider at the top of the page provides a second-by-second timeline of the document’s progress.

“This is great for both kids and teachers,” Fisher says. “If I have a meeting with multiple people and we’re doing outlining, I pop TypeWith.me up. With kids, you could go on and on when you’re collaborating or whiteboarding or brainstorming. There’s a chat window on the screen, so if I want to talk to my students before we actually jump into the document, I can. You could even have a student work on a document and then have the teacher come in at a later time to put in edits, comments, and revisions. It’s really slick.”

3) Ustream. “I’m a presentation geek,” Fisher says. “Video is such an important part of what I do.” Ustream is a free service that allows users to broadcast live video over the internet via their webcam. The video can be recorded and saved on the Ustream website for future use. Fisher says that capacity carries a lot of value for the organizers of professional development conferences.

“I’ve seen a lot of conferences where, if the room fills up, they’ll make a video of that presentation and keep the video on Ustream until the conference is over. So, while you’re at the conference, you can have a chance to sit down and watch some topics that you might have missed.

“Or imagine you want to bring in a rocket scientist to talk to your students, and he is in a different part of the world. All the person needs to do is log on to Ustream, and once you subscribe to his Ustream channel you can see him. There are so many uses for it.”

LINKS

Adobe Connect - adobe.com/products/acrobatconnectpro

Elluminate - elluminate.com

Google Docs - docs.google.com

Ning - ning.com

SchoolFusion - schoolfusion.com

SlideRocket - sliderocket.com

Twitter - twitter.com

TypeWith.me - typewith.me

Ustream - ustream.tv

WebEx - webex.com

About the Author

Jennifer Demski is a Los Angeles-based freelance writer.









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Comment by Farid Farahmand on August 4, 2010 at 10:40pm

Thank you for your insightful comments. However, although Moodle, Blackboard, etc. are all excellent tools, they all require learning and technical administration (IT) support; that translates to money. I see several advantages with using social networks: 1- No IT support requirements; 2- Students are already very familiar with the tools, 3- Education (learning) becomes (theoretically) an integrated part their everyday life. Regarding technical issues such as intruders and distractions, I think there are ways to minimize them. Another issue that we should consider is how to integrate virtual laboratory remote labs into social networks - here is one idea: A LABVIEW-BASED INTEGRATED VIRTUAL LEARNING PLATFORM (search for it in Google, if interested). What I am suggesting is to think beyond "what is out there" and think about "how to modify existing tools in our benefits" Comments?

Comment by Timothy H Kelly on August 4, 2010 at 9:19pm

Farid, Your first question addresses the web 2.0 social networking sites. They are not really for education when compared to the structure and functionality of Blackboard et al. I teach OL in a few different systems, I like the features that make things controlled and focused. As Michael alluded to, intruders and unwanted participants ( non paying customers) can be an unnecessary distraction and derail things.
If you want to find a cheaper OL system, try Moodle rooms, they are remotely hosted, many colleges are abandoning Blackboard in favor of Moodle type OL learning tools.
Welcome to the Forum
TK

Comment by Michael D Kanner on August 4, 2010 at 6:00pm

A problem with free media is keeping it out of the public sector. I tried it with MySpace a few years ago and had a number of intruders.

Comment by Farid Farahmand on August 4, 2010 at 4:20pm

Hello all,
This may be a good place to start a meaning discussion. I am proposing to discuss one or more specific topics in distance learning and receive everyone's input. Here are some of the topics of my interest:
1- How to use "free social media tools" (Facebook, Twitter, Discussion Groups, Google tools, etc) in classroom environment to enhance distance teaching - What are your experiences with these tools?
2- How to use "low-cost" software tools (Adobe, etc.) to enhance distance learning? Compare different tools together (cost, capabilities, learning curve, etc.)
Any suggestions?

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