During this 75-minute webcast, industry experts will clarify the language in Part H of Title IV: Accrediting Agency Recognition, offer insight on how and when this new requirement may be translated into practice, and provide a brief look into various different approaches to address student authentication. The objective of this webcast is to help you formulate responses tailored to your administrators, faculty and students about this issue.Access the Webcast

YouTube, Podcasting, Blogs, Wikis and RSS are buzz words currently associated with the term Web 2.0 and represent a shifting pedagogical paradigm for the use of a new set of tools within education. Read the Full Article

Although the foreign-language profession routinely stresses the importance of technology for the curriculum, many teachers still harbor deep-seated doubts as to whether or not a hybrid course, much less a completely distance-learning class, could provide L2 learners with a way to reach linguistic proficiency, especially with respect to oral language skills. In this study, we examine the case of Spanish Without Walls (SWW), a first-year language course offered at the University of California - Davis in both hybrid and distance-learning formats. The SWW curriculum includes materials delivered via CD-ROM/DVD programs, online content-based web pages, and synchronous bimodal chat that includes sound and text. Read the Full Article

Although online courses at postsecondary institutions promise adults access, flexibility, and convenience, many barriers to online learning remain. This article presents findings from a qualitative case study, which explored the phenomenon of undergraduate and graduate women learners’ persistence in online degree-completion programs at a college in the Northeast of the United States. Research questions asked why women learners persisted or failed to persist, and how factors supporting or hindering persistence influenced learners. Interviews with a purposeful sample of 20 participants revealed the complexity of variables affecting learners’ persistence to graduation. Findings suggested that multiple responsibilities, insufficient interaction with faculty, technology, and coursework ranked highest as barriers to women’s persistence. Strong motivation to complete degrees, engagement in the learning community, and appreciation for the convenience of an online degree-completion option facilitated persistence.Read the Full Article

This article details the development of new courses and programs offered through a university distance learning initiative. These innovative courses build on national research and policy recommendations regarding the mathematical education of teachers. Course material, course evaluation, and student interview data are presented to shed light on two important themes: (a) How teacher content and pedagogical knowledge can be developed within courses and across a degree program and (b) how these teacher education goals can be met via distance learning. Students (classroom teachers) reported that the integration of content and pedagogy was a valuable feature of the program. Overall, students thought the program helped them be more effective teachers and would recommend the program to others. They especially appreciated the flexibility and convenience the distance programs provide.Read the Full Article

The concept of virtual reality—of humans interacting in computerized, digital environments—has been in existence for over twenty-five years now. The cult-classic movie Tron, perhaps the first movie to explore the concept, was released in 1982, and by the early 1990s, “virtual reality” was the buzzword du jour. Films like Lawnmower Man (1992) provided visions of people entering digital environments through the assistance of external devices worn on their bodies—goggles for seeing, special gloves for touching, and so on. The idea was that at some point in the future, these devices could be miniaturized and worn naturally, allowing people to interact simultaneously with an augmented physical reality as it exists and an immersive virtual reality in whatever form or shape we imagined it.Read the Full Article

I've used blogs in my classes for five years with university graduate students. I've found them to be extremely helpful in certain circumstances but only when there is clarity for students in their use. Students who object to the inclusion of blogs in a course are usually objecting to what they perceive will be just one more task on top of a myriad of others or simply some busy work that will not benefit their learning. Older students can also reject the notion of "publication" that is inherent with blogging.Read the Full Article

The recent development of a market economy in higher education has resulted in the need to tailor the product to the customers, namely students, employers and commissioning bodies. Distance learning is an opportunity for nurse educators and institutions to address marketing initiatives and develop a learning environment in order to enhance continuing professional development It provides options for lifelong learning for healthcare professionals - including those working in community settings - that is effective and cost efficient Development of continuing professional development programmes can contribute to widening the participation of community practitioners in lifelong learning, practice and role developmentRead the Full Article

Vijay Kumar, senior associate dean for undergraduate education at MIT and director of MIT's Office of Educational Innovation and Technology, gave the opening luncheon speech at the recent Campus Technology Conference in Boston. Afterwards, I interviewed Vijay in depth about one of the topics that he covered in his speech regarding distance learning and open education.Read the Full Article

Vint Cerf, one of the pioneers of the Internet and now Google's vice president and chief Internet evangelist, ahs backed European telecommunications commissioner Viviane Reding's vision for the future of the Internet.Read the Full Article

An Australian educator's decision to let students use cell phones and the internet during exams has prompted a global dialog about the nature of 21st-century assessment--and whether the definition of cheating should be changed in light of ubiquitous technology use. Students at Presbyterian Ladies College (PLC), a private girls' school in Sydney, Australia, are participating in a pilot project in

College officials nationwide are concerned about the number of recent high school graduates in need of remedial math courses, and some schools have turned to online programs that could preserve shrinking operating budgets. The problem affects colleges of all types, but community colleges seem to be particularly hard hit. More than 60 percent of students in community colleges need some kind of

Educational technology advocates are hoping a new national ed-tech research center will spur the development and use of technology to improve instruction. The higher-ed law signed by President Bush on Aug. 14 authorized the creation of a National Center for Research in Advanced Information and Digital Technologies, which would allot federal funding for research on technology and its impact on

Distance education students at the University of Wisconsin-Stout are enjoying the personal touch in their online technical communications program thanks to deployment of lecture capture from Echo360. The university creates a dynamic learning environment for their on-campus and remote student body. UW-Stout was designated by the UW System Board of Regents in 2007 as Wisconsin's Polytechnic

High school geometry teacher Lynn Bogan gave up on dated pull-down charts, marker boards and 1960s-era overhead projectors. She traded them for a digital screen that lets her surf the Web, play DVDs and tailor lessons like never before. The screen, known as an interactive white board, is about 6½ feet wide, about the size of a standard classroom chalk board. Teachers use them to scan worksheets

Mark West says he constantly hears the sound of students typing on computer keyboards in his class. "Clackity, clackity, clackity, clackity - all day long," said the University of Michigan Law School professor who's banning laptop computers in his classrooms this school year. "Lawyers ought to be talking," he said. Professors like West increasingly must decide how to balance the benefits of

Community college rolls swell as the economy withers -- a cycle that brings to mind displaced factory workers going from textiles to high-tech in a computer classroom. This year, state community colleges are reporting unusually large growth. But a newer group also is driving the increase: high-school graduates hoping to earn a four-year degree for less money.

Truth be told, information and communication technology (ICT) makes the world go round these days. However, not all have been taking advantage of these tools of learning – specially people with special needs.... "Only a few realize the great benefits that computer-based technologies can afford students with disabilities," says Dr. Felina P. Espique of Saint Louis University (SLU) in Baguio City

A new out-of-hours service that allows pupils to receive homework tips from "virtual teachers" is being piloted in Scotland. Pupils from Alva Academy in Clackmannanshire will trial the so-called vodcasting system, with teachers of subjects including maths, music, and home economics recording videos recapping key points from lessons to help with homework. The videos will be posted on the school

Equations or graphs can explain what happens when atoms bump into each other, but a technology called haptics could help students know how it feels. A Purdue University researcher says haptic, or force-feedback, technology can be used in a variety of classroom subjects, especially in the sciences. Haptics involves the use of devices, much like joysticks, that allow the user to scan over objects