New Dimension Media provides education, a second chance to over 1,200 “at risk” Illinois students — from eSchoolNews.com
Founded in 1978, New Dimension Media, a division of Questar, Inc., is the premier producer and distributor of original core curriculum media content created for K-12 classrooms. NDM programs have won over 100 of the industry’s most prestigious honors, including the CINE Golden Eagle and the Golden Apple. NDM content is used in over 100,000 schools around the country. More…
Designing e-learning for IMPACT — from Lars is Learning
Creating an engaging, effective e-learning experience can be a daunting task.
Interaction
Multimedia
Personal
Actionable
Challenging
Timing
MICA To Provide 400 Students Online Schooling Tuition-Free — from The Journal by Evan Tassistro
Connections Academy, a private company operating 15 virtual schools in 14 states, has opened enrollment for the Michigan Connections Academy (MICA).
MICA is a tuition-free online public school for grade levels K through 12 and will enroll 400 students this school year with a projection of 1,000 openings for next year (emphasis DSC). In addition to textbooks and other materials, Connections Academy provides a computer, printer, and Internet stipend to participating families. The deadline for application is June 11.
Only a portion of the school day is spent on a computer, the balance used for workbook or other offline activity. Higher grade levels mean more computer time; about 10 percent for elementary grades, 30 percent for middle school, and 50 percent for high school, according to Connections Academy. Part of the online instruction will feature LiveLesson sessions, a virtual classroom where teacher and students interact in real time.
MICA offers a customized curriculum with individual lesson plans for each student based on ability assessment and progress tracking, including a gifted student program in math and language arts for grades 3 through 8, as well as college preparatory, honors, and Advanced Placement coursework for high school students.
The school will ask parents of incoming students to sign a Learning Coach agreement and will offer parents instruction programs to help them guide daily learning. Parents are also invited to become community coordinators who assist with field trips and other special projects. Information sessions are planned for interested parents through the summer. (Dates were not available at the time of this writing.)
More information can be found here.
See also:
Michigan Launches Virtual Charter Academy — from The Journal
Technology brings education to you wherever you may be — from timeslive.co.za [via Ray Schroeder]
Survey: MBA – Now you can do that MBA via your computer
In the face of international competition, technology and the need for flexibility, business schools have adapted their offerings for MBAs.
No so long ago, the very notion of a distance learning MBA would be regarded with disdain, the chief argument being that it lacks face-to-face contact. But as technology has progressed, so too are those perceptions shifting rapidly.
Irving says the perceived lack of personal contact is no longer an issue. “The way our online students engage, build international networks and share knowledge is no different from the way our students on campus do it.”
Once a year, Warwick runs an eight-day residential programme for online students, but Irving says this may have become superfluous. “The way technology has progressed, especially over the past two years, the experience you can get online now is equivalent to an on-campus experience. And it’s cheaper than getting students to travel across the world.”
U of California resuscitates the Master Plan — from huffingtonpost.com by Anya Kamenetz
Yesterday the University of California made a groundbreaking announcement that has the potential to break the tuition cost crisis and finally deliver the crucial benefits of higher education to millions of Americans and to tens of millions who demand it and deserve it around the world. They are putting $5 to $6 million into a pilot project to create online versions of courses with an eye toward eventually creating completely online degree programs.
More than one in four US college students already take at least one online class. So why is this an important announcement?
Because a public university system is declaring that it will innovate its way out of recession, and even more importantly, that it will not cede the banner of innovation to the for-profit sector that is encroaching more and more on public higher education’s territory (emphasis DSC).
And it’s not just any public university system that’s doing this, but the largest public university system in the country and the global template for mass higher education for over fifty years. Clark Kerr’s Master Plan in 1960 introduced the idea that higher education would be a massive, state-run, open and democratic, publicly accessible resource for all.
Also see:
U. of California Considers Online Classes, or Even Degrees — from The Chronicle of Higher Education by Josh Keller and Marc Parry
Proposal for virtual courses challenges beliefs about what an elite university is—and isn’t
(Oakland, Calif.) Online education is booming, but not at elite universities—at least not when it comes to courses for credit.
Leaders at the University of California want to break that mold. This fall they hope to put $5-million to $6-million into a pilot project that could clear the way for the system to offer online undergraduate degrees and push distance learning further into the mainstream.
The vision is UC’s most ambitious—and controversial—effort to reshape itself after cuts in public financial support have left the esteemed system in crisis (emphasis DSC).
Supporters of the plan believe online degrees will make money, expand the number of California students who can enroll, and re-establish the system’s reputation as an innovator.
“Somebody is going to figure out how to deliver online education for credit and for degrees in the quality sector—i.e., in the elite sector,” said Christopher Edley Jr., dean at Berkeley’s law school and the plan’s most prominent advocate. “I think it ought to be us—not MIT, not Columbia, not Caltech, certainly not Stanford.”
Consultant tells educators to embrace online learning — via Ray Schroeder’s blog
by Jennifer Dunnville, Daily Gleaner
An international e-learning specialist says universities and colleges need to do more in the area of online teaching and distance education. Tony Bates, who has written nine books on distance education and served as a consultant on the topic in more than 35 countries, said the post-secondary education system needs to adapt to the changing needs of its students. “If you look at traditional university, it’s a one size fits all where everyone goes to campus to the same classes for the same exams,” Bates said during his visit to Fredericton on Monday. “That traditional model is the industrial model, but we’re not in an industrial world now. We’re in a more flexible world and people are more flexible in when they work and the way they work. (emphasis DSC)
16th Annual Sloan-C International Conference on Online Learning
November 3-5, 2010 | The Caribe Royale Hotel and Convention Center
The Power of Online Learning: Stimulating New Possibilities
Peter Smith, Ed.D.
Colleges for the 21st Century: the New Ecology of Learning
Emerging information technology and Web 2.0 have permanently changed the possibilities and potential of higher education. With the decline of content as the critical determinant of quality, there are three over-arching quality indicators that support “merit for the many”: personalization, customization, and mobility.
Dr. Peter Smith will address these quality indicators in his keynote address. In the talent-friendly College for the 21st Century (C21C), he argues, services will be organized around the needs of the learner, not the habits of the institution (emphasis DSC). Sharing common characteristics, C21Cs will tap into a new ecology of learning that supports personalized and customized learning around the world. Their purposes will include recognizing, creating and then validating merit in each learner and making it portable.
Congress rejected grant, but free online courses growing — USA Today –by Steve Kolowich, Inside Higher Ed
But a foundation-supported effort with similar goals is actually growing. The National Repository for Online Courses (NROC) was hoping for that government money to help expand its existing vault of free courses, says Gary Lopez, the repository’s director. Still, with online education becoming mainstream and many community colleges experiencing enrollment booms beyond their physical capacity, NROC’s membership is on the rise. At the same time, the repository’s reliance on membership fees calls into question how “free” its courses actually are.
Atomic Learning and Don Johnston: Assistive Tech Online Training Collection — from Atomic Learning and Don Johnston
You already have some great assistive technology tools. Many of them have had a huge impact on your students. ?But, are your teachers making the most of them? Don Johnston teamed up with Atomic Learning to solve this problem. We came up with an exclusive bundle of online trainings—some of which you won’t find anywhere else. Subscribers will get unlimited whole-district access to thousands of online tutorials for all of your top assistive technology software and devices.
See also:
GlobalEnglish sees rapid growth for online corporate English instruction — from VentureBeat.com
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