Virgil Varvel, distance education guru, presents ongoing commentary and notes on educational research, issues, and publications.February 22, 2007
Can we talk here?
Today, I began my entry into Podcasting with ION's first episode of Frontiers of Distance Education. While the process of recording audio and putting it on the Internet isn't that hard, it still takes a lot of time to edit the audio together, create necessary openings and voice over narrations, and get the audio volume correct. What really takes time though, and what seems left out from presentations is how much time it can take to code the xml for syndicating the feed. There aren't really any good free software packages out there that I could find to generate the xml automatically from a database. Also, I'm still figuring out how to get the podcast into iTunes. So while it is in principle rather simple, don't expect to get everything up in a few minutes unless you are using an external host service and pay software.
Posted by vvarvel at 04:25 PM | Comments (0)
February 21, 2007
Ohio University in Second Life
"Ohio University is the first university in Ohio and one of just a few universities in the United States, including Harvard and Princeton, who have launched functioning campuses in Second Life..."
Posted by vvarvel at 08:28 AM | Comments (0)
January 09, 2007
UCLA chooses Moodle
"the UCLA Faculty Committee on Educational Technology decided that UCLA should converge on Moodle as the single open source platform for its common collaboration and learning environment (CCLE). "
This move represents yet another major campus moving away from course management systems that are costing more and more towards simple systems that get the job done and often done well.
Posted by vvarvel at 08:03 AM | Comments (0)
November 15, 2006
Making the Grade: Online Education in the United States 2006
The Sloan Consortium has released their 4th in a series of online education reports.
"This year’s study, like those for the previous three years, is aimed at answering some of the fundamental questions about the nature and extent of online education.
Questions included:
Has the Growth of Online Enrollments Begun to Plateau?
Who is Learning Online?
What Types of Institutions Have Online Offerings?
Have Perceptions of Quality Changed for Online Offerings?
What are the Barriers to Widespread Adoption of Online Education?
Posted by vvarvel at 08:08 AM | Comments (0)
November 06, 2006
States Should Change Policies to Expand Online Learning, Report Suggests
"States should expand precollegiate online learning by allowing teachers to teach across state lines and removing student seat-time requirements, according to a report that tracks the fast growth of state virtual-learning programs."
Read full story in Education Week
Posted by vvarvel at 08:26 AM | Comments (0)
October 27, 2006
Keeping Pace with K-12 Online Learning
This review of state-level policy and practices is an interesting read and is available as a free online pdf from Learning Point Associates.
Posted by vvarvel at 09:17 AM | Comments (0)
October 18, 2006
Standards opening up online learning
"three dozen academic publishers, providers of learning management software, and others have agreed on a common, open standard that will make it possible to move digital content into and out of widely divergent online education systems without expensive and time consuming reengineering."
Posted by vvarvel at 11:19 AM | Comments (0)
September 26, 2006
Yale Making Course Content Available on Internet for Free
"Yale University is producing digital videos of selected undergraduate courses that it will make available for free on the Internet through a grant from the William and Flora Hewlett Foundation. "
Posted by vvarvel at 04:20 PM | Comments (0)
August 31, 2006
The New University of Illinois
Inside Higher Ed published an article on the upcoming University of Illinois Global Campus today.
Posted by vvarvel at 09:32 AM | Comments (0)
August 07, 2006
University of Illinois moving forward with World Campus
The University of Illinois put out a press release announcing some of their plans for an online world campus. Joseph White stated the need to meet more educational needs in our population as the primary reason for the move. Most interesting was the plan to open it as a for-profit enterprise. Job security limits my ability to enter a complete critique of my feelings in this matter. Still, a planned 15 to 30 million dollar investment shows commitment, and this University is definitely in a position to have an educational impact.
For the complete press release, see the News Gazette.
Posted by vvarvel at 08:12 AM | Comments (0)
August 03, 2006
U.S. Patent Office set for ridicule
In a move that I am seriously unable to understand, BlackBoard has sought and been awarded several patents internationally that patent, well, basically anything to do with learning/course management systems. Is it me, or is the patent office seriously lacking in good judgement here, to award a patent for elearning technology, when originality and other subjects are clearly in question. Furthermore, to market this move on their own Website, http://www.blackboard.com/company/press/release.aspx?id=887622 as if it is a good thing that they are attempting to undermind the online education movement through big business tactics simply may push people away from them. I'm reminded of Acacia claiming patents on just about anything involving streaming or on-demand media. Stephen Downes blog is where I first heard about this move.
First on the Blackboard patent:
http://www.blackboard.com/patent
The actual filing (long link, you may have to reconstruct it):
The story about the suit against D2L:
http://www.theinquirer.net/default.aspx?article=33396
The filing is here:
http://www.theinquirer.net/images/articles/blackboard.pdf
Posted by vvarvel at 08:35 AM | Comments (0)
July 21, 2006
e-learning 1.0 v. e-learning 2.0 presentation
An interactive panel discussion was led during the E-learning Networks Online 2006 Conference, which is now available online. The presentation discusses the shift from flexible learning to the use of social networking as educational form.
Posted by vvarvel at 03:27 PM | Comments (0)
July 13, 2006
iPod Campus at GCSU
There is continual discussion in distance education circles about programs such as a Google Campus or an iPod campus. I have just looked over the iPod campus at Georgia College & State University. You may find it an interesting read. The program is not truly an iPod campus, but they have really integrated podcasting within their WebCT system.
Posted by vvarvel at 09:52 AM | Comments (0)
A Graduate's View of a Campus' Use of BlackBoard
"Two years ago when I wrote my first viewpoint for SmartClassroom (then eLearning Dialogue), I issued my university an “Incomplete,” with the suggestion that faculty spend more time developing their Blackboard skills. Now as a recent graduate of the University of Puget Sound, I am ready to issue a final grade, with one notable change to the primary criterion for the evaluation. For this viewpoint, evaluation is primarily based on how the campus use of Blackboard added value to my education."
Posted by vvarvel at 09:47 AM | Comments (0)
June 26, 2006
Blackboard moves into course evaluation
Blackboard, in what could just be vaporware advertising though, is apparently making plans to make a strong move into course evaluation software.
Read full story at Inside Higher Ed
Posted by vvarvel at 08:04 AM | Comments (0)
June 22, 2006
San Juan College to deploy VBrick
"San Juan College in Farmington, New Mexico is deploying VBrick for on-demand classroom video and streaming presentations across campus. San Juan College is using powerful VBrick capabilities to provide authorized students with video-on-demand access on any networked computer while centralizing digital video management across the college campus, which encompasses nearly one million square feet and 11 buildings."
Posted by vvarvel at 09:13 AM | Comments (0)
June 20, 2006
No to Diploma Mills
A new law in Wyoming is starting to remove the state's reputation as a home for diploma mills.
Posted by vvarvel at 08:29 AM | Comments (0)
June 19, 2006
Origins of Distance Education
What are the origins of distance education? This was a question recently asked on DEOS. Here is the answer that I came up with. These are just excerpts from more complete notes I have from a few references.
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Here is what I have in my notes on the subject regarding distance education in general.
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Distance Education and Training Council - http://www.detc.org/downloads/DETC%20History%20Book.pdf
" Although distance education can plausibly claim its roots in Plato's instruction to Dionysius and St. Paul's letters to early Christian churches, most historians trace the beginning of the modern idea of distance learning to Caleb Phillips of Boston and his "Shorthand by Mail" course first offered in 1728."
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From http://www.degreeinfo.com/timeline.html - No sources cited though.
Circa 50-60 A.D.
St. Paul's epistles provide instruction to church members at a distance.
March 20, 1728, Boston Gazette contains an advertisement from: Caleb Phillipps, "Teacher of the New Method of Short Hand," advising that any "Persons in the Country desirous to Learn this Art, may by having the several Lessons sent weekly to them, be as perfectly instructed as those that live in Boston." [I do not have access to this issue in order to verify this information]
1840 Isaac Pitman begins teaching shorthand, using Great Britain's Penny Post.
1852 - Pitman's brother Benn Pitman founds the Phonographic Institute in Cincinnati, Ohio, and teaches shorthand through correspondence courses in the U.S.
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Here are excerpts from my notes from Renée F. Erdos on behalf of UNESCO, (1967). Teaching by correspondence, UNESCO source books on curricula and methods #3. London: Longmans, Green & Co. Limited. United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization
* Could date back to the first letter with directions from one to another such as Plato's epistles to Dionysium and letters of Elder Pliny to the Younger Pliny.
* 1856 - Charles Toussaint, Frenchman teaching French in Berlin and Gustav Langenscheidt, member of the Society of Modern Languages in Berlin - cofounded school for teaching language by correspondence
* 1891 - Thomas J. Foster, newspaper proprietor and editor in Pennsylvania directed course on mine surveying and machinery designed to teach safety measures. Course began International Correspondence Schools of Scranton, Pennsylvania
* 14 July 1891 - Regents of the Univ. of WI approved faculty resolution for development of university extension correspondence study courses
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From Garrison, D. Randy, & Shale, Doug (Eds.), (1990). Education at a
distance: From issues to practice, Malabar, FL: Robert E. Krieger Publishing Company.
Ch. 2: Origins of Distance Education in the United States, Sheila Sherow & Charles A. Wedemeyer, 7-22
Pg. 8 - Mid 1850's "Reverend W. Sewell of Exeter College, Oxford, suggested off-campus study through a series of lectures."
* 1873 - inspired by English "Society for the Encouragement of Home Study", Anna Elio Ticknor started a similar system for women from home in Boston.
Posted by vvarvel at 09:17 AM | Comments (0)
May 22, 2006
Projected 10% of students will be online
Online University enrollment soars, Daniel Golden, The Wall Street Journal, May 15, 2006.
By 2008, 10% of college students will be online according to this article.
See Story.
Posted by vvarvel at 09:11 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
May 03, 2006
MIT pulls course Web page
"CAMBRIDGE, Massachusetts (AP) -- The Massachusetts Institute of Technology took down a history course Web page after Chinese students complained about a 19th century wood-print image of Japanese soldiers beheading Chinese prisoners."
Students were "appalled at the lack of accessible explanations and the proper historical context that ought to accompany these images"
I ask, isn't that the purpose of the class discussion that should accompany a history course. I'm guessing that the image must not have been presented within a discussion context. I wonder how it was used in a way which was considered beyond teaching expression and reasoning enough to kill a site.
In words, MIT seems to be going the right way for free discourse in the statement, "The use of the images as part of the course is not an endorsement of the events. This is a scholarly course. It's the free exploration of ideas." But there must be something going on more than that if the entire Web site was completely removed.
The point...are we at a point where the context must accompany the introduction, thus elimating the ability of this context to be brought out through student-student discourse. The ramifications towards a return to controlled delivery here seem clear.
See http://www.cnn.com/2006/EDUCATION/04/28/mit.chinese.students.ap/index.html for the story.
The story is from April 28, 2006, but I just got wind of it today.
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April 25, 2006
Michigan Requiring Online
Jennifer M. Granholm, the governor of Michigan, signed a bill that will require all high-school students in the state to take at least one course online before they can graduate.
For more information on this topic, see an article from The Chronicle by Dan Carnevale.
http://chronicle.com/weekly/v52/i18/18a04501.htm
Posted by vvarvel at 08:04 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
March 23, 2006
IVC Fall 2005 Enrollment Reports
The Illinois Virtual Campus has releases their Fall 2005 Enrollment report for distance education courses in Illinois.
View the complete report:
Posted by vvarvel at 09:13 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
October 19, 2005
Outside Accessibility
When developing an online course, much care is often taken to insure that the materials are accessible. Usually, such items as screen reader readability, colors, size, transcripts, etc. are taken into account. When reading through some survey responses this morning, I thought of something that I have not really been taking into account. The readability of external links within my courses. I have many external links as I try to put all of my readings online. Sometimes there are on pages that utilize a css style not allowing for easy resizing of text or initial readability. There is nothing that we can really do about the other sites, but I just wanted to blog this as something to keep in mind when evaluating resources to include in a course.
Posted by vvarvel at 09:24 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
October 12, 2005
IVC 2005-2005 Enrollment Report
Iris Stovall, Director of the Illinois Virtual Campus, recently announced the availability of the latest enrollment reports. I include the majority of her announcement below.
The Illinois Virtual Campus has just released a report entitled "Distance Education Enrollments at Illinois Colleges and Universities - Summer 2005/Academic Year 2004 - 2005", and online course enrollments show no signs of slowing.
View the complete report:
HTML version:
http://www.ivc.illinois.edu/pubs/enrollment/Summer_05.html
PDF version:
http://www.ivc.illinois.edu/pubs/enrollment/Summer05.pdf
The executive summary of this report includes the following:
"Illinois colleges and universities reported offering 4,628 online class sections that generated 76,875 student enrollments during the Summer
2005 term. This is an increase of 21,532 enrollments (39%) from the
55,343 online enrollments reported for the Summer 2004 term."
You can find enrollment reports from previous semesters in the "Publications" section of the IVC Web site, http://www.ivc.illinois.edu/pubs/enrollment.html.
Posted by vvarvel at 09:38 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
September 27, 2005
Student Privacy Issues, Ethics, and Solving the Guest Lecturer Dilemma in Online Courses
Although it is a bit shorter than I would prefer, thus leaving out some discussion, I discuss privacy and ethical issues involved with the use primarily of guest lecturers in an online course in an eLearn Magazine article recently published. See http://elearnmag.org for more. The direct link, which wasn't working when I just tried it is http://elearnmag.org/subpage.cfm?section=articles&article=28-1.
Posted by vvarvel at 09:13 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
September 22, 2005
Privacy or lack thereof in an Online Course
I recently wrote an article on complying with privacy laws such as FERPA and COPPA for online instructors. But these legal requirements are more about protecting privacy from those outside of the course. What about providing for some level of anonymity among students when appropriate or desired.
Despite lack of a good comparison study and the fact that most of the research is anecdotal or philosophical, we are consistently told that one of the most important aspects of an online course (of course assuming that an online course is instructor-paced somewhat) is community or the creation of a community of learners or practice. There are so many ways to define a community of practice that I won't get into that here. However, mutual disclosure seems to be a common aspect of effective community formation discussed in the literature. I find this interesting in that I don't know 3 verbs that my neighbors would use to describe themselves in my own community, but I may find that out through an ice-breaking activity in an online course.
Honestly, I enjoy getting to know my students, and I enjoy getting to know others in my class. I look at that as a positive for me in an online course that follows this communal approach. At the same time, I don't like all of the additional work that is related to the use of group projects that supposedly increase this community. They probably do, but there are many negatives too. Maybe I'll discuss that someday.
So where am I heading with this line of thought. Here is my question. If we support this paradigm and accept it as true, are we narrowing our effective audience to those that fit into a mold? I hear often about the advantages of the communal approach, but I would love to hear more about the disadvantages. I think it is time for a truly critical meta-analysis of the research that is out there to try and develop some guidelines for active community formation and it appropriateness given a number of criteria such as audience, information delivery, etc. Any analysis phase of instructional design could be reintegrated with this knowledge to better meet the needs of the students at hand.
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