Taking advantage of what students love: Tech

The online world is here and technology should be able to help (not hurt). We can use it to teach our students responsible behavior. My daughter conducted research regarding phishing. Her objective during this nice summer weekend was to explain three instances where phishing has occurred and identify 5 ways to prevent it. She is in middle school and as technology is used more and more in the classroom, she needs to be aware of the possible dangers and the better ways to approach its usage.

Again, nothing will be perfect, but I would much rather experience this vicariously and maybe even fall a fool for a couple of trick now giving her favorite color and life’s savings away today than when she has much more to lose like a job, real savings, etc. 

This article from CNN shares more about bringing the classroom to our students using technology (but, the technology that 'they' use):

http://www.cnn.com/2013/05/31/tech/innovation/new-tech-high-school/index.html?c=tech    

Shorter Sessions and Moving Entry Points

Someone recently asked me to think about shorter sessions and moving entry points.

Here are my thoughts:

1. We have to identify courses than lend themselves to a modular environment. Or, transition to it.
2. More importantly, we should separate learning events from assessment events. Or at least not tie them to each other. Why does someone have to wait until we are past the unit to be assessed? That’s the thinking behind this.

With these two things in mind (and others) in trying to change a semester model, I would start by

1. Making online courses 8 weeks (period, whether or not they will be modularized). This fits in the current semester model. With this, a student that is two weeks late for the semester can start in 6 weeks. Although, I think 6 weeks is too long, so maybe have 4-week modules in an 8-weeks course, so that the student can start half way without a problem or we can have 8-week courses starting every 4 weeks. 
2. For that last thought and maybe in general, we cannot offer things that give student too many choices at the same time. Why dilute our offerings by having too many choices? So, instead of offering 262 and 263 at the same time and having 10ish in each, we offer 262 now and 263 alternating to it. This is only for those low enrolling courses. Of course, we have classes that we can run all year long and be full (ENGL, MATH, BIOL, etc). 
3. Ok, so now we have, hopefully, been able to create learning events and assessments that can be done in 4-week modules inside an 8-week course. So, we move this to the local environment. Assessments would remain online while learning events happen in the classroom (easy, right?). Well, it would require faculty to follow the same 8-week course schedule that was done already, so we (and students) would know what will be thought each live-session of the 8 weeks. Now, students can either start a course half way or wait until the next one begins. If we can have starts every 4 weeks, then I would do that.

Letting Students Choose their Learning Platform

More than 30% of college students nation-wide take at least one online course (http://sloanconsortium.org/news_press/january2013_new-study-over-67-million-students-learning-online). I’m sure there were several reasons for this (not withstanding that some courses are only offered inline due to declines in enrollment).  Other reasons may fall in line for the purpose of online education such as flexibility, convenience, practicality from the student’s perspective.

What if we were to combine this? The hybrid format comes up where students attend a portion of the class online and the other portion in person.

What if we did it better? We give the student the total option of attendance. The material is delivered in various ways: online and in-person; then, giving the option to the student as to what format they wish to learn from.

It may not be quite just from a learning standpoint to expect a commitment to all-online or all-live for the full quarter or semester without taking under consideration that even within a course material can be best delivered in various ways and people learn things differently depending on the concept. With this in mind, the commitment is then to complete the content of the course and all the required assessments in a certain period of time regardless of where the information came from.

Of course, as higher education, we should create a model example of credible, valid, and reliable sources of information by developing material to be delivered in various ways (and sharing). 

How Online Degrees are Condensed

Distance education has been in existence since the late eighteen hundred as utilized by major universities in the form of correspondence courses. This method of education provided off-campus learning opportunities for millions in the country. Today, distance education has become more accessible and convenient, with a degree of guidance, to take such distance correspondence courses with the use of the internet.

Accredited and legitimate online education provides the student with viable and recognized learning and the ability and flexibility for higher education that is achievable without greatly disrupting life. Online education can be more challenging as is more involving and engaging of the student than the classroom setting were a student can go along without much interaction with others. It requires personal discipline, time management, and other expediency and efficiency skills from both the student and facilitator.

A bachelor’s degree in a traditional school is 4 years or 8 semesters. So look at it in terms of semesters. Eight five weeks semesters can be accomplished in 40 weeks; that’s without a break in between. Generally online degree programs are condense in that it provides the same amount of information while it is accomplished in a short period of time. Why is this?

Well, let’s look at one semester alone: a course, traditionally, may meet hourly three times a week for fifteen weeks. This amounts to 45 hours. I don’t know about you but I may be able to do this in four weeks, dedicating roughly 10 hours a week. I’m not saying that it takes ten hours a week; I’m simply demonstrating the basic rationale behind the condensed distance education courses.

The 45 hours is counting that the sessions last the full hour each time in the traditional setting, but all of us know that classes do not start on time and often end early. We can also take under account the number of people in the traditional course that may ask questions. In a distance education model, you go as fast or as slow as you want within certain parameters depending on the online degree program.

With this condensation of courses, one may be able to accomplish their goal much expediently without loosing the learning experience. I would suggest before selecting or ruling out an online institution to look into these three organizations: The U.S. Department of Education, The Better Business Bureau, and the institutions accrediting body. The accrediting body and importance will vary on degree type sought.

The main reason for researching this would be to establish the programs credibility. Distance education is not for everyone, so be sure to conduct one of the many self-tests available on this matter. In short, it takes management skills, discipline, and computer skills. This is how the condensation of courses occurs, due to the elimination of certain aspects of traditional institutions such as trying to get all parties involved together at the same time.