By Creston News Advertiser, ARA

 A record number of students are heading back to school this year – without ever stepping foot inside a classroom. A growing number of virtual schools (also known as cyber schools or e-schools), combined with booming parent (and student) demand for high-quality online learning, have more students than ever logging on, instead of boarding a school bus, this back-to-school season.

http://www.crestonnewsadvertiser.com/articles/ara/2010/07/27/8049040202/index.xml

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by Leann Zotis, Helium

Distance learning provides opportunities for people who might not otherwise be able to pursue an education. It allows students to access educational formats remotely, from a computer connection in their home or some other location not inside a traditional classroom. It can give traditional students an opportunity to jump ahead in their coursework by taking an online course during their summer breaks. Other potential students who, due to family responsibilities, job obligations or perhaps just the fact that attending traditional college classes on campus is a physical impossibility, are finally able to fulfill a dream of earning a degree or certificate to improve their lives or further their employment goals.

http://www.helium.com/items/1905696-why-distance-learning-requires-you-to-be-self-motivated

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by Scott Olster, Fortune

School has truly been out for the summer this year, as thanks to budget woes, many districts across the country have been forced to cut their summer school programs down to the bare minimum, or cancel them altogether. Schools and state governments have begun to take notice of the potential savings that online learning can provide, with Florida, Arizona, and Alabama even establishing state-sponsored virtual school programs that offer courses to thousands of students a year.

http://tech.fortune.cnn.com/2010/07/27/summer-school-goes-online/

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by Jody Lawrence-Turner, The Spokesman-Review

Washington State University has offered online degrees since 1993. It now has seven bachelor’s degrees, three master’s degrees and several professional certificates available through the Web. Online enrollment has grown about 10 percent a year, said Debbie O’Donnell, WSU director of marketing and recruiting. And starting this fall, freshmen will be accepted in WSU’s online programs, O’Donnell said. Online education “is obviously the educational technology of the future, but it’s not for everyone and it’s not for every content area,” said Gary Livingston, chancellor of Community Colleges of Spokane. “We have to make sure we are maintaining the quality of the content.” Spokane Community College and Spokane Falls Community College are among 11 community colleges in Washington that offer online associate’s degrees or certification programs. Other Washington institutions that offer online degrees include Central Washington University, The Evergreen State College, Gonzaga University, Whitworth University and University of Washington.

http://www.spokesman.com/stories/2010/jul/27/degrees-of-flexibility/

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 By Brian Bullock, Santa Maria Times

Thanks to the rapid growth of online classes, people can earn a bachelor’s degree without ever setting foot on a university campus. Hancock College’s University Programs partners with several area universities to offer its students undergraduate degree Antioch University Santa Barbara, Brandman University, Cal Poly, Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University, Park University and University of La Verne to create bachelor’s degree programs in several fields of study for its students. Brandman, which has a Santa Maria campus, and La Verne, which holds classes at the Souza Center, both offer bachelor’s degree programs in business administration.

http://www.santamariatimes.com/news/local/education/article_212e650a-9877-11df-950f-001cc4c002e0.html

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By Jeffrey D. Wagner, The Herald News

Apponequet Regional High School teacher Bonnie Ferreira recently received an e-mail from a parent. But this wasn’t a typical e-mail. It wasn’t about a student at Apponequet, or even a student from another Massachusetts school. It was from a parent in China, and it was about the Advanced Placement Biology online course Ferreira will be teaching in the fall. The e-mailer’s daughter wants to become a doctor, and she needed a recommendation from a teacher in an AP biology course, which was not offered at any local high school. The will likely get what she needs in Ferreira’s course, part of a Maynard-based program called Virtual High School. Ferreira is the only Apponequet teacher who will oversee a Virtual High School course. She and other school officials are excited about Apponequet’s involvement in the program.

http://www.heraldnews.com/news/education/x1599842659/Apponequet-teacher-taking-her-class-virtual

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Our guests on this episode of Teachers Teaching Teachers were:

• Alicia Blair, Live Oak Writing Project in Southern Mississippi
• Casey Daugherty @caseydaugherty , Ozarks Writing Project in Missouri- @OzarksWP
• Steve Moore - @SteveJMoore , Greater Kansas City Writing Project - @GKCWP
• April Estep - @MsEstep , Coalfield Writers/Marshall University Writing Project in West Virginia - @MUWP
• Paul Oh - @poh , Program Associate, National Writing Project - @writingproject - @nwpsiteleaders

On this episode of Teachers Teaching Teachers, Alicia Blair, a science teacher who lives near the beach in Mississippi, asked us to think of her the next time we pump gasoline into a gas-guzzling automobile. Later in the show her heart went out to an art teacher, April Estep, who lives 20 minutes from the site of Massey Energy's Upper Big Branch mining disaster. Casey Daugherty, a co-director of the Ozarks Writing Project, observed, "We'll think of April every time we switch the lights on."

Sandwiched between these ongoing conversations about how to respond to the BP oil spill and similar disasters such as the Big Branch disaster, we talked about how to raise teacher voice and how to push out audio and video on social networks like Twitter.

This summer our guests brought twitter and social networking to and from their local Invitational Summer Institutes of the National Writing Project. Paul Oh leads us in this discussion of how the face-to-face, intense summer work widens when social networks become part of the mix.

Our guests on this episode of Teachers Teaching Teachers were:

• Alicia Blair, Live Oak Writing Project in Southern Mississippi
• Casey Daugherty @caseydaugherty , Ozarks Writing Project in Missouri- @OzarksWP
• Steve Moore - @SteveJMoore , Greater Kansas City Writing Project - @GKCWP
• April Estep - @MsEstep , Coalfield Writers/Marshall University Writing Project in West Virginia - @MUWP
• Paul Oh - @poh , Program Associate, National Writing Project - @writingproject - @nwpsiteleaders

Learn more from these folks and others on this recent NWP resource page, Tweeting in the Summer Institute and Beyond:

Writing Project teachers have found Twitter to be a serious learning tool. Many sites across the country integrated Twitter into their summer institutes this summer, and teachers have built "personal learning networks"—groups of people who casually join together to communicate and collaborate on common topics—where they discuss serious educational issues.

Story behind the image:

As an ornithologist’s son, watercolor artist Paul Jackson grew up spending Christmases in the park ranger’s cabin on Horn Island, Miss. Over several weeks, he turned his outrage into “Fowl Language,” in which a least tern, stilt, egret, cormorant and other Gulf birds sit atop a dropping-streaked BP sign as an oil rig smokes in the background.

He posted a photo of the painting on his Web site while the paper was still damp. Within two hours, it was selling as a T-shirt on the art-sale Web site Zazzle.com.

The Columbia, Mo., painter has since created his own site, “Art vs. Oil Spill.” About 100 artists from as far away as India and Malaysia have offered works, with all proceeds going to nonprofit groups working to clean up the oil or oiled animals.

Artists find ways to protest Gulf spill | Associated Press | The Portland Press Herald / Maine Sunday Telegram

Click Read more to see a copy of the chat that was happening during the webcast.
44:32 minutes (10.19 MB)

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By N Wilson, Best Syndication

The $35 per piece tablet PC was unveiled by the Union Minister for human Resource Development in India. The goal for India is to have a low-cost solution for educating students. In the long run they hope to reduce the price to $20 each and then in the end offer a $10 tablet PC computer. The education policy of India is access, equity and quality. They believe that this inexpensive technology would help college students gain access to high quality e-content that is free of cost to everyone in their country.

http://www.bestsyndication.com/?q=20100723_35_dollar_table_pc_computer_from_india_offers_free_online_education.htm

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by OzarksFirst.com

Educators and government agencies met in Springfield to improve distance learning. “It can greatly reduce a student’s out of pocket expenses because they don’t have to travel to campus, find childcare or miss work,” says Witt Salley, vice president of Missouri Distance Learning. “So for instance, whenever we saw gas prices soar a couple summers ago, we saw our online enrollment spike in relation to that.”

http://ozarksfirst.com/fulltext?nxd_id=299865

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by Steve Kolowich, Inside Higher Ed

That online education knows no geographical limitations is considered one of the platform’s more disruptive qualities. To entrepreneurs, it means that for-profit educational companies, such as the University of Phoenix or Kaplan University, can grow very large and make a lot of money, very quickly. To regulators, it means headaches. To highly visible traditional universities, such as Pennsylvania State University or the University of Massachusetts, it means an opportunity to take cues from the for-profits and create new revenue streams.

http://www.insidehighered.com/news/2010/07/23/online

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by Janelle Vreeland, College News

CDW Government LLC—a corporation aiding educators and the government in IT solutions—has released the results of its 21st-Century Campus Report for 2010, and found that, for 63 percent of current college students, technology was an important factor in making their college selection. It also found that it was an important factor for a whopping 93 percent of current high school students. Students also emphasized the importance of wireless networks, off-campus network connections and course management systems in the report. The study showed that students want online learning to take a larger role in the classroom. Three-quarters of the students surveyed believed that their campus understands how they want technology to be used in the learning process, but non tech-savvy faculty members seem to be the biggest obstacle keeping technology out of the classroom.

http://bit.ly/a17k2I

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This week's newsletter, as did the last, features the recent Teachers Teaching Teachers shows where some very interesting conversations are taking place on a series of webcasts related to the Gulf oil disaster with the show hosts. Listen to their ideas for developing curriculum to deal with this tragedy and then plan to join them in a live show on Wednesdays at 9:00pm Eastern to contribute to the conversation.

The Instructional Designers are also staying busy during this summer period with their three shows being recorded and posted.

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This week on IDLive, Shanna Smith-Jaggars discusses her response to the US Dept. of Education's report on online learning. Widely cited as proof that online learning is better, the DOE study fails to address some of the broader implications of online learning. Dr. Jaggars addresses these issues and many more--a must listen.

In May 2009, the US Department of Education issued a meta-analysis and review of online learning studies that compared face-to-face, blended and online delivery modes, and found that: “On average, students in online learning conditions performed better than those receiving face-to-face instruction.” Despite the caveats identified in the research, the conclusion, for some, was still: Online learning is better!Shanna Smith-Jaggars, Senior Research Associate at the Community Colleges Research Center challenges this assertion in her response to the meta-analysis  (July 2010). Jaggars more fully explores the comparison of online and face-to-face instruction and finds only 7 studies out of 51 can be used to shed light on this question. Of these 7, Jaggars concludes that there is no significant difference between learning outcome achievement in face-to-face or online courses for certain student populations. Sound familiar? Time to channel our energies into more rewarding directions, perhaps.. As Jaggars puts it in this interesting interview, “what we really need to be doing is spending more time and effort in trying to figure out what are the most effective instructional practices in both modalities”

31:16 minutes (14.31 MB)

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This week on IDLive, Shanna Smith-Jaggars discusses her response to the US Dept. of Education's report on online learning. Widely cited as proof that online learning is better, the DOE study fails to address some of the broader implications of online learning. Dr. Jaggars addresses these issues and many more--a must listen.

In May 2009, the US Department of Education issued a meta-analysis and review of online learning studies that compared face-to-face, blended and online delivery modes, and found that: “On average, students in online learning conditions performed better than those receiving face-to-face instruction.” Despite the caveats identified in the research, the conclusion, for some, was still: Online learning is better!Shanna Smith-Jaggars, Senior Research Associate at the Community Colleges Research Center challenges this assertion in her response to the meta-analysis  (July 2010). Jaggars more fully explores the comparison of online and face-to-face instruction and finds only 7 studies out of 51 can be used to shed light on this question. Of these 7, Jaggars concludes that there is no significant difference between learning outcome achievement in face-to-face or online courses for certain student populations. Sound familiar? Time to channel our energies into more rewarding directions, perhaps.. As Jaggars puts it in this interesting interview, “what we really need to be doing is spending more time and effort in trying to figure out what are the most effective instructional practices in both modalities”

31:16 minutes (14.31 MB)

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This the fourth week of a summer series in which we have focused Teachers Teaching Teachers on the BP Gulf Oil Spill. Our guests included:

• Matt Montagne, who has been collecting materials, such as: October 28th, 2010 TEDxOILSPILL Talks
• Diana Laufenberg, a history teacher from Science Leadership Academy who joined us on this topic 3 weeks ago will try (from her family’s farm) to join us again.
• Natasha Whitton, one of the three teachers from the Southeastern Louisiana Writing Project two weeks ago, hopes to join us again
• Andrea Zellner, a biology and English teachers from the Red Cedar Writing Project in Michigan will be with us again!
• AND NEW to our webcast: Catherine Tibbs, a former high school English teacher who works for the Live Oak Writing Project in Mississippi joined us. (She is also invited colleagues who will be heard on future podcasts. Catherine wrote on Monday of this week:
   I don’t know if you know this or not, but oil reached the MS beaches this weekend. We had been fortunate so far to avoid this mess. From what I understand from the media, the manpower was not coordinated in the Gulf to skim the oil that is now reaching us. Isn’t that always the case?
  
• Also new to the podcast is Jeff Mason from Penscola, Florida, a biology and technology teacher. We met a Twitter, and we look forward to a continuing connection. (Jeff came on the webcast last week as well, so look for more from him on future podcasts.)

We hope you will be able to join us in this ongoing project. Help us know how to respond as teachers—and with our students—to this monster that will continue to reek havoc for weeks? months? to come!

Join us to talk about what's happening in the gulf every Wednesday at http://EdTechTalk.com/live at 9:00pm Eastern / 6:00pm Pacific USA (World Times). 

This the fourth week of a summer series in which we have focused Teachers Teaching Teachers on the BP Gulf Oil Spill. Our guests included:

• Matt Montagne, who has been collecting materials, such as: October 28th, 2010 TEDxOILSPILL Talks. The Google Doc that Matt can be found at http://tinyurl.com/voicesonthegulf - And stay tuned! There much more to come under the domain: "VoicesOnTheGulf." (We also eventually agreed on the common tags: "voicesonthegulf" and "edoilspill"
• Diana Laufenberg, a history teacher from Science Leadership Academy who joined us on this topic 3 weeks ago will try (from her family’s farm) to join us again.
• Natasha Whitton, one of the three teachers from the Southeastern Louisiana Writing Project two weeks ago, hopes to join us again
• Andrea Zellner, a biology and English teachers from the Red Cedar Writing Project in Michigan will be with us again!
• AND NEW to our webcast: Catherine Tibbs, a former high school English teacher who works for the Live Oak Writing Project in Mississippi joined us. (She is also invited colleagues who will be heard on future podcasts. Catherine wrote this on a Monday late in June :
   I don’t know if you know this or not, but oil reached the MS beaches this weekend. We had been fortunate so far to avoid this mess. From what I understand from the media, the manpower was not coordinated in the Gulf to skim the oil that is now reaching us. Isn’t that always the case?
  
• Also new to the podcast is Jeff Mason from Penscola, Florida, a biology and technology teacher. We met a Twitter, and we look forward to a continuing connection. (Jeff came on the webcast last week as well, so look for more from him on future podcasts.)

We hope you will be able to join us in this ongoing project. Help us know how to respond as teachers—and with our students—to this monster that will continue to reek havoc for weeks? months? to come!

Join us to talk about what's happening in the gulf every Wednesday at http://EdTechTalk.com/live at 9:00pm Eastern / 6:00pm Pacific USA (World Times). 

Click Read more to see a copy of the chat that was happening during the webcast.

50:32 minutes (11.57 MB)

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Jennifer Maddrell and Robert Squires discuss several of the papers being considered this week at the  Association for Educational Communications and Technology Research Symposium  In Bloomington, Indiana. Papers being presented at the symposium are freely available on the AECT website. Look for shows that follow-up with authors in the near future.

In a slight departure from our traditional format, we discuss several research papers that are being presented at the Association for Educational Communications and Technology Research Symposium being held in Bloomington, Indiana from July 20 - July 23. Jennifer Maddrell, presenting on the influence of Backchannel Communication on Cognitive Load, discusses her paper and several others in this 30 minute discussion.
36:19 minutes (16.62 MB)

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Jennifer Maddrell and Robert Squires discuss several of the papers being considered this week at the  Association for Educational Communications and Technology Research Symposium  In Bloomington, Indiana. Papers being presented at the symposium are freely available on the AECT website. Look for shows that follow-up with authors in the near future.

In a slight departure from our traditional format, we discuss several research papers that are being presented at the Association for Educational Communications and Technology Research Symposium being held in Bloomington, Indiana from July 20 - July 23. Jennifer Maddrell, presenting on the influence of Backchannel Communication on Cognitive Load, discusses her paper and several others in this 30 minute discussion.
36:19 minutes (16.62 MB)

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On this episode of Teachers Teaching Teachers -- the third in our summer series on the Gulf oil failure -- Paul Allison and Susan Ettenheim are joined by Chris Sloan and Andrea Zeller. We talk about building curriculum around the Gulf oil spill and other topics, wondering how to keep student self-motivated inquiry at the center of our work while also introducing topics such as the environment, art history, obesity, AP English, or the earthquake in Haiti and other current events.

• Chris Sloan teaches at Judge Memorial Catholic High School in Salt Lake City, and he is a member of the Wasatch Range Writing Project. He teaches digital photography, media studies and AP English. Chris, Paul and Susan and their students have been working together on a school-based social network, Youth Voices for the last six years.
   
• Andrea Zellner has been a frequent guest on TTT this summer, we are delighted to say! Andrea is a former high school teacher in Michigan, who taught both English and Biology. Currently Andrea works for the Red Cedar Writing Project.
   
• Susan Ettenheim teaches at Eleanor Roosevelt High School in New York City. Susan and Paul have been doing Teachers Teaching Teachers together for almost five years. Susan teaches computer arts, art, and digital photography, and she is the librarian as well. This year Susan is also teaching a Caribbean Art History course for the Virtual High School.
   
• Paul Allison teaches at the East-West School of International Studies in Flushing, Queens. He is also the Tech Liaison for the New York City Writing Project. Paul teaches English and he started a school/community garden this spring.

We hope you enjoy this conversation between four veteran teachers. Just as we build on each others ideas, we hope you build on ours and let us know what you are thinking in the comments below.

On this episode of Teachers Teaching Teachers -- the third in our summer series on the Gulf oil failure -- Paul Allison and Susan Ettenheim are joined by Chris Sloan and Andrea Zeller. We talk about building curriculum around the Gulf oil spill and other topics, wondering how to keep student self-motivated inquiry at the center of our work while also introducing topics such as the environment, art history, obesity, AP English, or the earthquake in Haiti and other current events.

• Chris Sloan teaches at Judge Memorial Catholic High School in Salt Lake City, and he is a member of the Wasatch Range Writing Project. He teaches digital photography, media studies and AP English. Chris, Paul and Susan and their students have been working together on a school-based social network, Youth Voices for the last six years.
   
• Andrea Zellner has been a frequent guest on TTT this summer, we are delighted to say! Andrea is a former high school teacher in Michigan, who taught both English and Biology. Currently Andrea works for the Red Cedar Writing Project.
   
• Susan Ettenheim teaches at Eleanor Roosevelt High School in New York City. Susan and Paul have been doing Teachers Teaching Teachers together for almost five years. Susan teaches computer arts, art, and digital photography, and she is the librarian as well. This year Susan is also teaching a Caribbean Art History course for the Virtual High School.
   
• Paul Allison teaches at the East-West School of International Studies in Flushing, Queens. He is also the Tech Liaison for the New York City Writing Project. Paul teaches English and he started a school/community garden this spring.

We hope you enjoy this conversation between four veteran teachers. Just as we build on each others ideas, we hope you build on ours and let us know what you are thinking in the comments below.

We invite you to join us each Wednesday this summer to listen to teachers from the Gulf and to hear how teachers are planning to bring these issues into their classrooms this fall.

Join us at http://EdTechTalk.com/live at 9:00pm Eastern / 6:00pm Pacific USA Wednesdays / 01:00 UTC Thursdays World Times

Click Read more to see a copy of the chat that was happening during the webcast.

41:57 minutes (9.6 MB)

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The use ofcase studies in online courses has been shown to promote critical thinking skills and the ability to transfer these skills to real-life situations, but there can be real challenges with using case studies online. As Joni Dunlap puts it: "My students -- in a professional preparation graduate program -- really push back against case-based exercises. Their position is that they prefer to work on projects from their workplace." This week, Xiaojing Liu discusses her research into designing and facilitating effective case studies. She identifies a number of practices from a review of 27 online MBA courses at the Kelley School of Business, University of Indiana.

Xiaojing Liu, Senior Research Analyst at Kelley Business School, Indiana University, joins us this week to discuss how to design effective online cased-based learning courses.  Drawing on her research into cased based-learning startegies used in an MBA program, Dr. Liu considers the benefits and challenges of case-based learning from both a student and faculty perspective.
39:05 minutes (17.89 MB)

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by the University of Texas at Dallas

What does it take to make online learning as engaging and effective as traditional classroom teaching? Dr. Rebekah Nix, a senior lecturer in the School of Interdisciplinary Studies, knows. Nix, who teaches science education courses through the University’s Teacher Development Center, has been honored with the 2010 Innovations in Online Learning Teaching Award, given by the UT System Innovations in Online Learning Conference. The award is given to an outstanding UT System faculty member or teaching assistant who has made innovative contributions to the field of teaching in online education. Recipients must have taught an online course within the past year and used inventive techniques in presenting learning materials and/or teaching their online course. Nix used her experiences as an online student and as a teacher to create a student-centered learning environment that would be useful and engaging, whether online or face-to-face.

http://www.utdallas.edu/news/2010/6/28-4091_Faculty-Member-Lauded-for-Online-Course-Approach_article.html

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