Creating an independent online course for a niche skill. Several months after completing an online course on the topic of Web site indexing, I read a message on a discussion list lamenting the fact that the instructor of that course would no longer offer it. The author of this message was disappointed because she had wanted to take the course. It didn't take me long to decide that I would create and teach my own version of "Creating Web site Indexes"—since there was still a demand for it—before anyone else did. This would be a way to grow my new freelance business. The growing acceptance of online learning has made it possible for anyone to become a teacher, without even being affiliated with an educational institution or a sponsoring organization. The previous instructor of the online course in Web site indexing had created and taught it entirely independently, and so would I.
What follows is a case study in how an individual with a very specific skill can create and teach an online course independently. Instruction in a Niche Skill. Five Factors that Affect Online Student Motivation. Understanding what motivates online learners is important because motivated students are more likely to engage in activities that help them learn and achieve, says Brett Jones, associate professor of educational psychology at Virginia Tech. Based on an extensive review of the literature on student motivation, Jones has developed the MUSIC model of student motivation, which identifies five main factors that contribute to student motivation: eMpowerment, Usefulness, Success, Interest, and Caring. “The primary purpose of the model is to provide instructors with a guide that they can use to make intentional decisions about the design of their courses,” Jones says. In an interview with Online Classroom, Jones explained his model and its implications for online course design.
We’re providing an excerpt of it here. 1. eMpowerment – Students feel empowered when they feel that they have some control over some aspects of their learning. This can involve giving students choices. 2. 3. 4. 5. Online Student Demographics INFOGRAPHIC | Education & Careers. Get free information from online schools on classesandcareers.com Get free information from online schools on classesandcareers.com Copy and paste this code in your site. <a rel=”nofollow” href=” _mce_href=” alt=”student demographics” img src=” _mce_src=” alt=”student demographics” border=”0″ width=”877″ height=”4654″ /></a><br />Source: <a href=” _mce_href=” Colleges</a><br /><br /><br> Distance Education and Training C. Study Finds That Online Education Beats the Classroom. Education's digital future. Best Online Collaboration Tools 2012 - Robin Good... EON Reality, Inc. - The world's leading interactive 3D visual content management and Virtual Reality software provider.
Home. Virtual Reality Simulation E-Learning by Skills2Learn. Training your workforce or students today can pose a number of challenges. Cost expenses, equipment shortages, dangerous situations, people’s motivation to learn are all factors hindering good training. Fail to motivate learners? Leave learners confused and lacking confidence? Test competency? If any of the questions above affect you then Skills2Learns virtual reality may be the solution for you. Skills2Learn use its own award winning technology to create virtual reality simulation solutions that can be used for almost any subject matter. The possibilities of 3D and virtual reality are endless from environments, buildings, equipment to people. DMLcentral. Maria Andersen: Where’s the “Learn This” Button? Coursera.
The Internet will not ruin college. I barged into my son’s room on Wednesday afternoon to ask him when he wanted dinner, and discovered him watching a Khan Academy video to help with his chemistry homework. And I thought: that story I’ve been working on about the backlash against MOOCs (Massive Online Open Courses)? Why am I even bothering? The war is already over. Debating the value of online education at the current moment in history makes about as much sense as questioning the tactics of the losing Roman generals in the great third century B.C. battle of Cannae.
I am not arguing that we shouldn’t be looking long and hard at exactly how online courses are “disrupting” education, with special attention devoted to who plans to profit from new delivery models and how taxpayers will inevitably get screwed. A friend of my son taught himself how to play the ukulele from YouTube videos last summer. In mid-January, Udacity announced a deal, partially brokered by California Gov.
But I’d go a little further. And I loved it. SCORM Explained in under 4 Minutes. Online Learning Pathways. Conventional e-learning relies on the SCORM module (sometimes called the SCO – ‘shareable content object’ by those in the business). The SCORM module is a good concept – effectively an online learning activity that includes interactions and assessment that can be delivered via any SCORM compatible LMS (effectively all LMS’). But there are some serious limitations to SCORM so are there other ways to develop e-learning or online learning that don’t require the use of SCORM?
Yes there are, and they are becoming increasingly popular for a number of reasons. I’m currently working with WillowDNA where we are busy ‘unpacking’ e-learning and creating what we call ‘learning pathways’. This isn’t a new term but there are some nuances to the way we are designing and building learning pathways online. Why unpack SCORM? Online learning pathways allow for a wider range of learning activities organised in a more flexible format. Here’s a graphic that illustrates the pathway approach.
Autonomous Social. Technology for Teachers | A blog about technology, teaching and learning. JOLT - Journal of Online Learning and Teaching. Introduction Universities world-wide, backed by a thriving communication and information technology industry and an invigorated field of research in instructional design and technology (Reiser & Dempsey, 2007), currently have at their disposal a technological array of options that completely dwarf earlier means to provide students with distance education (Bates, 2005; McGreal & Elliott, 2008). However, initiatives undertaken by universities, namely in North America, to launch stand-alone, asynchronously-based Web courses (Boettcher & Conrad, 2004), are meeting with mixed results, from a promise of going mainstream (Allen & Seaman, 2004) to a realization of expectations not being met (Larreamendy-Joerns & Leinhardt, 2006; Zemsky & Massy, 2004).
Insufficient reporting may explain some of the discrepancies in these results (OCDE, 2005; Tallent-Runnels, Thomas, Lan, Cooper, Ahern, Shaw & Liu, 2006). Literature Survey: from DE to OL at traditional universities Method Sample population Results. Asynchronous E-Learning Vs. Synchronous E-Learning. Slow Learning: Living with a Sage at Your Side. A number of years ago, I wrote an article (PDF) talking about how we might go beyond our current ‘apart’ learning experiences. The notion is what I call ‘layered learning’, where we don’t send you away from your life to go attend a learning event, but instead layer it around the events in your life. This is very much part of what I’ve been calling slow learning, and a recent conversation has catalyzed and crystalized that thought. Think about the sort of ideal learning experience you might have.
As you traverse the ‘rocky road’ of life, imagine having a personal coach who would observe the situation, understand the context of the task and the desired goal, and could provide some aid (from some sack of resources) that could assist you in immediate performance. Your performance would improve. Let’s go further. One step further would be to have learning trajectories not only about the domain (e.g. engineering) but also about quality, management, learning, and more. I hope this is clear. Clark quinn | Posts. Online Learning: A User’s Guide to Forking Education | Online Learning.
At exactly this moment, online education is poised (and threatening) to replicate the conditions, courses, structures, and hierarchical relations of brick-and-mortar industrial-era education. Cathy N. Davidson argued exactly this at her presentation, “Access Demands a Paradigm Shift,” at the 2013 Modern Language Association conference. The mistake being made, I think, is a simple and even understandable one, but damning and destructive nonetheless. Those of us responsible for education (both its formation and care) are hugging too tightly to what we’ve helped build, its pillars, policies, economies, and institutions.
The discussion forum, currently the holy grail of “engagement” inside most online courses, is particularly problematic. Rather than simply transplanting the Lego castle of education from one platform to another, we need to start dismantling it piece by piece, all the while examining the pieces and how they fit together. [Photo by wizgd] Responding to A Bill of Rights and Principles for Learning in the Digital Age. In December 2012, a group of educators convened to draft an open document to stand for the interests of learners in the digital age. No doubt the sense of MOOC-mania that seemed to take hold in 2012 as well as ed-tech bubble were part of the motivation to stop and see where the learner fits in all this activity. In early 2013, the group shared the document below, available at github and elsewhere, to spark commentary and response.
You can find the list of original signatories here. The document is published under a Creative Commons 3.0 Share-Alike/Attribution license. The group, with leadership of Audrey Waters, has issued this invitation: To join the discussion, visit one of the many platforms where this Bill of Rights and Principles is being published and blogged about (each of us, and each of the platforms, will likely create a different sort of engagement). Read more about the document here at Hack Education, and let's get talking. Preamble I.
The right to access The right to privacy. Co-intentional Education: a #digped Discussion. What Will Higher Education Look Like in 25 Years? While most industries have changed significantly over the years, higher education has remained relatively the same. Students listen to professors lecture in century-old universities and tackle tough philosophical questions the way their ancestors did. But higher education is at a breaking point. Tuition is skyrocketing. State funding is dropping. And online course providers are on the rise. Cost is a major barrier for accessing higher education. A 2011 Pew Research Center survey on the cost and value of higher education found that 75 percent of respondents said college is too expensive for most Americans to afford. “Technology has to be a big part of the solution to access and affordability,” said Ben Wildavsky, senior scholar at the Kauffman Foundation, guest scholar at the Brookings Institution and co-editor of Reinventing Higher Education: The Promise of Innovation.
The stage is set for a shift in how higher education operates — the question is, how exactly will it evolve? Two Roads. David Touve: On MOOCs, MOODs and the Future of Higher Education. Are university faculty destined to be rock stars? And if so, what sort of rock stars are we? A recent commentary from New York University's Clay Shirky, "Napster, Udacity, and the Academy," linked the potential, or perhaps the pending disruption, of higher education by massive and open online courses (MOOCs) to what the music industry faced in the advent of file-sharing networks.
Anyone who follows the news in higher education who has also followed the news in the music industry over the past decade likely feels as if the headlines, the hype and even the hyperbole look familiar. Shirky's article substantiates that feeling of déja vu. The consequences for the music industry attributed to the file-sharing phenomenon -- of which Napster was only a part -- have been a bit more complicated than Shirky argues. In particular, the recorded-music and live-music sectors have experienced very different outcomes since the turn of the century. Data from the U.S. The Future of Higher Education: a #digped Discussion. This Friday, December 7 from 1:00 – 2:00pm Eastern (10:00 – 11:00am Pacific),Hybrid Pedagogy will host a Twitter discussion under the hashtag #digped to consider the future of higher education. The conversation curated and archived via Storify. Over the last twelve months, Hybrid Pedagogy has published 74 articles by 16 authors. It’s no surprise for us to report that the articles we’ve published about MOOCs have been some of our most-read articles of the year.
The MOOC is not a bandwagon, though, but something needing careful interrogation with “discernment but not judgment.” Cathy Davidson argues in Now You See It, “Learning is the constant disruption of an old pattern, a breakthrough that substitutes something new for something old. We’ve seen headlines all year indicating that the “business” of education has become, sometimes, an emaciated shadow of its former self.
Not every issue facing higher education makes headlines, however. Where is higher education headed? The Future of Higher Education: Open Online Courses Aren’t Legos. What Higher Education Will Look Like in 2020 [STUDY] In 2020, students may be able to travel to faraway continents, and attend a school halfway around the world. Experts predict technology will facilitate distance learning outside of traditional classrooms, according to a survey published by the Pew Internet & American Life Project. In the study, 1,021 education experts and stakeholders including technology researchers, university directors, venture capitalists and Ivy League university professors, relayed their predictions about the future of higher education.
About 60% of respondents believe higher education will look completely different from the way it is today. While, 39% of participants think the traditional college structure will not change drastically aside from a deeper integration of in-classroom technology. For now, class attendance, in-person participation and on-campus commitment are key factors of college success. In the future, that may all change. SEE ALSO: How Higher Education Uses Social Media [INFOGRAPHIC] Change Magazine - May-June 2012. By Gary W. Matkin In a 1974 report presented to the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD), Martin Trow laid out a framework for understanding large-scale, worldwide changes in higher education. Trow's essay also pointed to the problems that “arise out of the transition from one phase to another in a broad pattern of development of higher education, a transition—underway in every advanced society—from elite to mass higher education and subsequently to universal access” (Trow, 1974).
The movement from elite higher education (where up to 15 percent of the graduates of secondary education go on to higher education) to mass higher education (16 to 50 percent) is so evident that today it is hardly noticeable as a defining concept. Yet in 1974 the changes in almost every aspect of higher education and its institutions were considered relatively independent objects of study and concern.
The Era of Universal Access Free or Inexpensive Education Social Imperative. Infographic: 5 Things People Want from Higher Education. Shaping the future of higher education. Americans believe higher education must innovate. The College of 2020 | Future of Higher Education. Moody's Gives Higher Education Outlook Downgrade, Now Seen As Negative. Further Thoughts from Rebooting CA Higher Education. 'Clicks' Could Be Future of Higher Education. Internships for Credit, Merited or Not.
Connecting as humans in an online world. Virtual Internships. Consortium of Colleges Takes Online Education to New Level. John Chubb and Terry Moe: Higher Education's Online Revolution. Revolution Hits the Universities. TEDxVillanovaU - Michele Pistone - The Future of Higher Education. Massive Open Online Courses Meet Higher Ed - Education - Online. 6 Ways Digital Is Changing The Face Of Education. Online Courses and the Future of Higher Education. For the Future Student, Higher Education Will Be Redefined. Teachers Embrace Digital Learning Strategies.
Jing, screenshot and screencast software from TechSmith. Moodle.com - We give you powerful free tools to help you educate the world. How online education is influencing university redesign, innovation. Meet the kids who were paid to drop out - 60 Minutes Overtime.
Dropping out: Is college worth the cost? - 60 Minutes. Higher Education's Future: Discuss!