Mona Pelkey / Capella University
Tuesday, August 9, 2011
ConnectEDU Selected by Louisiana to Deploy Statewide Customized College and Career Access Web Portal
The Louisiana Office of Student Financial Assistance (LOSFA) today announces a partnership with ConnectEDU, Inc., the leader in developing web-based college and career access solutions. ConnectEDU will collaborate with the State to develop the first Louisiana statewide college and career planning web portal that utilizes student academic performance data. The web portal will provide an integrated, data-driven college and career planning resource for students, parents and counselors.
eLearners.com: The Anatomy of an Online Course
Major Components of Online Courses
Online course are based around the school's learning management system, which is the software system for the e-learning program. "These learning management systems have a tutorial which guides you on how to use the web course and can help a novice person," says Robert Stephens, who is pursuing his Master of Nonprofit Management online at the University of Central Florida.
Students need to know how to get into their school email account and check it daily, says Bob Barrett, who teaches online MBA courses at Franklin University. Students also need to know the typical Microsoft Office products, such as Word, Excel and PowerPoint.
Online courses also have announcement boards and course syllabi, which students should check frequently to stay current on assignments, Barrett says. Courses have a discussion board wherein students post responses, questions and replies to other postings. In online discussion board postings, be sure to follow "netiquette" or "Internet etiquette." "Be respectful of other people's opinions, ethnicity and gender," Barrett advises.
Additionally, there is a grade book in the web course system, as well as a chat area where students can interact with each other for group projects or chat with the instructor. The instructor can also hold live chat sessions with the entire class, Barrett says.
Online courses often have quizzes based on the readings and discussions, says Al Turgeon, a professor who teaches online courses on turfgrass management at Penn State World Campus. "The quizzes demonstrate a balanced approach between the acquisition of knowledge and the use of problem-solving skills." Then, there are mid-terms and final exams, which students complete online within a certain timeframe, Turgeon says.
The web courses also have access to the school's library. Mary Ann Feldheim, chair and associate professor at the University of Central Florida's Department of Public Administration, requires her students to complete tutorials and quizzes on how to access UCF's library online to obtain resources for the course.
What to Expect from Online Courses
"In the online medium, I'm asking more of the students than in a face-to-face class," Feldheim says. "Online courses are more labor intensive than a face-to-face class because it takes longer to type something and edit it, than to say something in a classroom. Also everyone is required to post and respond, with grades attached to these discussions."
Stephens also admits that online courses are more time-consuming than face-to-face courses. "Be prepared to do a lot of reading and writing. Some discussion posts are extensive and require sourcing."
Stephens says he spends 10-15 hours each week during the evenings and weekends on schoolwork. His work includes weekly discussion postings and readings, short quizzes, a mid-term exam, a final exam, and a final project that is due at end of the course.
The material learned in these online courses can also be applied in daily life. "The online course becomes a living thing," Turgeon says. "Most of the students are working in the field and are often times doing things that are applicable in real life."
Qualities of an Online Student
Most online students these days have families and jobs. "If you have good time management skills and are organized, you can do well in an online course," says Stephens, who has a family and works full-time.
"For someone to do to an online class, they must be very self-disciplined," Feldheim says. "Online courses really do not lend themselves to procrastinators." She says with online courses, there are sometimes Internet server errors and technical difficulties, and people cannot wait until the final deadline to turn in assignments.
Online students have to schedule the course into their daily life. "Anything in life worth doing is worth doing well, and anything worth doing is worth scheduling," Turgeon says.
Sometimes what students learn from the course goes beyond the subject matter, he says. " You learn how to discipline yourself, develop problem-solving skills, and learn how to schedule and prioritize your time."
eLearners.com: Why Should I Choose Online Education?
Before you dive into this Guide and all things related to online education, you might still be wondering about the benefits of online education. Why should you study online? What's the advantage? And what's all the fuss? It's hard to separate fact from fiction when it comes to online degrees — especially since so much of the published information comes from schools and students, who are usually biased.
And even though we at eLearners.com are also vested in the growth of the industry, we are committed to providing useful, informative content, which future students can use to form their own opinions.
The following bullets represent the upsides of online education, traits that are beneficial to various types of learners. If any of these attributes could improve your college experience, you should consider an online degree. Because when all is said and done, the only substantive difference between a campus education and an online education is the building.
Convenience
Online education critics seem to share the idea that "convenient" is a negative word — that anything worth earning should be exhausting and barely manageable. They assume that people who ask about convenience are lazy, or spending all day in their pajamas. But that's far from true.
The Internet makes it possible to unite students and instructors without long commutes or fixed class schedules. Working professionals can study at night. Stay-at-home parents can study during kids' naptime. Military members can study from any new post to which they are assigned. None of these people are lazy or prone to cutting corners. On the contrary, they are busy, ambitious learners, who simply need a better college design.
And because they are all good candidates for employment, employers are increasingly happy to accept their online credentials.
Access for Rural Students
College students who live in major cities might choose to access campus programs. Thousands of other students simply cannot. Unless you live in a college town, the cost of commuting — in terms of time and fuel prices — can be prohibitive. In the state of Wyoming, which covers 97,818 square miles, only 4 bachelor's degree-granting colleges exist. In Nebraska, one high school district is the size of Connecticut state! Rather than accept college as an impossibility, residents of these far-flung communities can log on to online programs and earn their degrees.
Twenty years ago, these students would have had to choose between moving their families, or getting by on a high school diploma. Today, online education is removing geographic barriers.
Access for Students with Disabilities
Most traditional college classrooms aren't designed to accommodate students with disabilities. Online classes, by contrast, can be engineered to support students with intellectual and physical disabilities as well people who are deaf/hard-of-hearing and blind/low vision. Likewise, gifted instructors who lose the ability to teach in a traditional classroom can continue their careers, thanks to online functionality.
Environmentally Responsible
For every 2,500 miles you drive, you release one ton of carbon dioxide into the earth's atmosphere.* That's you, alone. If you lived 10 miles away from a college, and commuted 3 or 4 times every week, you'd create nearly 3 tons of greenhouse gases during the course of a 4-year degree. Along with 20 classmates, you'd be producing 60 tons!
Moreover, campus colleges produce excess pollution in the process of heating and cooling their classrooms, powering their libraries and computer labs, and creating increased paper waste. As environmental concerns heighten, online education is becoming the obvious, earth-friendly choice.
On Pace with the Future of Education
In 2006, the state of Michigan passed a law that all students must complete an online learning experience or an online class in order to graduate from high school. And the federal government plans to invest more money in online charter schools, for K-12 students across the country. So it's apparent that tomorrow's students will be seeing more e-learning technology. And clearly, education authorities are recognizing the value of online learning.
Soon, more and more colleges will develop online programs to help stretch their budgets and expand their enrollments. Already, major names in traditional education — like MIT, Harvard, Stanford, and Yale — are offering online podcasts of course lectures. It may one day be possible for students to choose specific courses from multiple schools, all across the globe, and build their own personalized degrees.
Until then, more than 4.6 million college students are already taking at least one course online.** That adds up to 1 in 4 college students. Experts predict that numbers will continue to grow. With growth, online degrees will be not just accepted, but expected, as a component of tomorrow's college education.
*Source: "Emission Facts: Average Annual Emissions and Fuel Consumption for Passenger Cars and Light Trucks" (2000), U.S. Environmental Protection Agency
**Sloan Survey of Online Learning, "Learning on Demand: Online Education in the United States in 2009"
Spelman College News: SPELMAN IS NO. 1 CONTRIBUTING SMALL COLLEGE TO TEACH FOR AMERICA 2011 TEACHING CORPS
August 2, 2011
Contact:
Terrilyn Simmons
(404) 270-5822
tsimmons8@spelman.edu
Kaitlin Gastrock
(646) 315-1396
kaitlin.gastrock@teachforamerica.org
NEW YORK CITY
The nation’s top colleges and universities will contribute more than 2,300 of their graduating seniors to Teach For America’s 2011 teaching corps. The University of Michigan-Ann Arbor is the No. 1 contributor among large schools, with 119 graduates beginning their two-year Teach For America commitment this fall. Harvard University tops all medium-sized schools, contributing 66 graduates. Among small schools, Spelman College ranks highest, with 36 graduates joining the corps. All three schools have appeared on the top contributors list since it was first released in 2008, and each year Michigan and Spelman have been among the five largest contributors in their size categories.
Teach For America corps members are top college graduates and professionals who commit to teach for two years in underserved schools and become lifelong leaders in the pursuit of educational equity. Teach For America recruits on more than 1,500 college campuses, seeking seniors and graduates from all academic majors and backgrounds who have demonstrated achievement, perseverance, and leadership.
“For over 20 years, Teach For America has recruited exceptional young leaders from Spelman and colleges and universities across the country to join the movement for excellence and equity in education,” said Dr. Beverly Daniel Tatum, president of Spelman College. “Spelman strives to cultivate leadership and service among our graduates, and we are proud that so many Spelman women have joined Teach For America to create educational opportunities for underserved students.”
Admission to Teach For America this year was even more selective than in previous years, with a record 48,000 individuals applying to join and an 11 percent acceptance rate. Because of the enormous number of highly qualified candidates, Teach For America was able to increase the size, strength, and diversity of the entering corps. Incoming corps members earned an average GPA of 3.6, and 100 percent have held leadership positions. Twenty-two percent are the first in their family to graduate from college, and nearly one-third received Pell Grants. More than one-third are people of color, including 12 percent who are African American and 8 percent who are Hispanic.
Following are the five colleges or universities contributing the highest number of graduates to the 2011 corps in each of the three school-size categories (as defined by the Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching):
Large Schools
University of Michigan-Ann Arbor (119 graduates to serve in the 2011 teaching corps)
University of California-Berkeley (89)
University of Texas at Austin (87)
University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill (80)
University of Florida (75)/University of Southern California (75)
Medium-Sized Schools
Harvard University (66)
Boston College (56)
Georgetown University (54)
Duke University (53)
Brown University (49)/Northwestern University (49)
Small Schools
Spelman College (36)
Wellesley College (24)
Barnard College (21)
Amherst College (18)
Claremont McKenna College (17)/College of the Holy Cross (17)
View a complete list of the top contributors at: http://www.teachforamerica.org/press-room/media-coverage/2011/top-colleges-and-universities
A growing body of rigorous research demonstrates the effectiveness of Teach For America corps members in the classroom. Recent studies from Louisiana, North Carolina and Tennessee found that corps members have a positive impact on student achievement. The Tennessee study identified Teach For America as the most effective of the state’s 42 teacher-preparation programs, with corps members demonstrating a greater impact on student achievement than the average new teacher in every evaluated subject area.
This fall, some 9,300 first and second-year corps members will reach 600,000 students in 43 regions across 34 states and the District of Columbia, including new sites in the Appalachia region of Kentucky, Oklahoma City, Seattle, and the Pee Dee region of South Carolina.
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Spelman College:
Founded in 1881, Spelman College is a prestigious, highly selective, liberal arts college that prepares women to change the world. Located in Atlanta, Ga., this historically black college boasts an 83 percent graduation rate, and outstanding alumnae such as Children's Defense Fund Founder Marian Wright Edelman; former U.S. Foreign Service Director General Ruth Davis, authors Tina McElroy Ansa and Pearl Cleage; and actress LaTanya Richardson. More than 83 percent of the full-time faculty members have Ph.D.s or other terminal degrees, and the average faculty to student ratio is 12:1. More than 2,100 students attend Spelman. For more information, visit: http://www.spelman.edu/
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