Learning from Online

http://www.insidehighered.com/news/2009/12/07/online

The article describes the University of Perdue in Calumet’s work on improving course design in their online courses. The university implemented the “Calumet’s Distance Education Mentoring Project” and saw an increase in the number of professors using online instruction. The project mentors faculty members who are interested in using online instruction in their courses. It pairs instructors with little online experience with Instructors who are web-savvy and have experience with online instruction. The article concluded with a variety of comments from professors who participated in the program. One professor started participating as a mentee and after eight months he became a mentor. Another professor didn’t believe in online instruction and after going though the program, incorporated online instruction to improve his courses. In both cases the students improved their performance.

Study Finds That Online Education Beats the Classroom

http://bits.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/08/19/study-finds-that-online-education-beats-the-classroom/

Study Finds That Online Education Beats the Classroom

I found this article from the New York Times very interesting. The article talks about the research done by the SRI International for the Department of Education. The report compared the different types of online instruction to the face to face traditional setting from 1996 to 2008. The report was presented in 2009. The study included the K12, Adult Education and College level. Most of the information is related to College and Adult Education.

The study concluded that the online students ranked 59 % in test performance and the traditional student ranked 50 %. The article also talks about the increasing use of technology in the classrooms and how important it is in learning communities outside the classroom.

Building Learning Communities Online

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mxPyccpa-LU

http://www.ion.uillinois.edu/resources/tutorials/pedagogy/studentprofile.asp

http://chronicle.com/blogPost/New-Carnegie-Mellon-U-Proj/7692/

I found the video sited below, that summarized important points about how to build online learning communities. The key elements mentioned in the video for creating successful learning communities online are: learn how to enhance social presence, foster personalize, create collaborative learning experiences, all this will result in a increase of student success and retention.

In addition, I have included two articles. The first article is from the Illinois Online Network (ION) and offers online students 10 tips for success in any online class. The second article is from the Chronicle of Higher Education and describes a new initiative at Carnegie Mellon University, one of the nation’s best universities. They are planning to collaborate with several community colleges to offer four “high gatekeeper courses” or courses with low retention rates. The Obama Administration is already looking at this initiative. The program has met with some criticism by institutions that are concerned about security and duplicating online courses already developed by universities and colleges.