Online Education Learning

Stanford put 10 of its most popular computer science and electrical engineering courses online for free a month ago, prompting 200,000 people around the world to log on and download the materials.

The courses include videos of lectures plus downloads of full course materials, including handouts, homework and exams.

No course credit is given, but people have been downloading the offerings through Stanford Engineering Everywhere, YouTube, iTunes and BitTorrent.

People from Canada top the list of hits from foreign countries, followed by Brazil, China, Italy and the United Kingdom.

Gauging the number of students is difficult, Stanford officials say, because the course materials may be downloaded in one visit, while others may revisit the courses.

The courses also encourage online study groups through Facebook and other social sites.

Stanford’s School of Engineering is also encouraging faculty at other universities to use the materials, if they wish.

The materials might be translated after being downloaded. “You might have someone in China translate it,” Andy DiPaolo, executive director of the Stanford Center for Professional Development, said. “We’d be happy for them to do that.”

The students using the course materials include professionals updating their knowledge to teenagers getting a taste of Stanford academics.

There have been thank-you e-mails, too, DiPaolo said. One person thanked Stanford profusely and then added, “You just saved me like 20,000 dollars.”

http://www.paloaltoonline.com/news/show_story.php?id=9683

What does the “e” stand for in e-learning? For many students it stands for “easy” – not in the academic sense but because you can work from home, or anywhere else with internet access. Actually the “e” stands for electronic – students use digital study materials, usually on the internet, and communicate with one another and tutors online, through discussion groups and email.

E-learning is the latest form of distance learning, a type of education normally associated with the Open University. The OU is the UK’s biggest provider of distance learning, which it calls “supported open learning”. That means you study in your own time, with support from a tutor.

But what if you want a purely online course? Perhaps you want to fit studying around work or family, and avoid the cost of attending a campus. “We believe e-learning is the way of the future,” says Frans Coenen, director of studies for online computer science programmes at Liverpool University, the first UK university to deliver an entire programme via e-learning.

The workload was “pretty hard-going”, says Coenen. The students are all part-time, and study one module at a time, which takes 20 hours a week. They are continually assessed, with weekly assignments and discussion questions, and they are expected to log on every day – as are the tutors.

But here’s a thought, what if you’re an online student and you get a friend to do the work for you? Coenen says this isn’t an issue, and that a student could as easily send someone to campus to do their degree for them.

Liverpool’s online degrees are offered with its e-learning partner Laureate Online Education. Students can choose degrees in management, public health, and information technology. The MBA, with 2,000 students, has proved most popular. In the future, courses may be offered in international law.

Online class sizes tend to be small, with a maximum of 20 students, while campus classes can be as big as 200. But do online students really get to know each other? “Surprisingly, yes,” says Coenen. “And because they’re all over the world, there’s a feeling of international harmony.”

The University of Derby, which offers online courses, charges fees ranging from £180 a module for a BA in business studies to £1,035 for an MBA. Initially online students wanted Masters degrees, says Julie Stone, business manager at Derby’s School of Flexible Learning. But now applications to the undergraduate programmes are on the rise. Derby’s website cites satisfied students such as Elly Phillips from San Francisco who graduated in the online BSc in applied psychology. She did the course entirely online except for a residential week at Derby.

What if you’re a British student and you want to study online at an American institution? The University of Phoenix, for example, has a range of online degree programmes with an average class size of 15.

In the UK, Kaplan Open Learning runs online courses in business and management, marketing and sales, and criminal justice. Last year Kaplan launched a business studies foundation degree with Essex University, the first online course run by the university. Essex now has another online foundation degree, in criminal justice.

Business management student Vannesa McGuin likes the flexibility of studying online. “I can email, text or phone tutors when I want,” she says. However, online is yet to take off in the UK in the way it has in the US. Many people still don’t believe an online degree is as credible as a campus-based one, and they worry about being isolated.

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/education/higher/get-a-degree-via-cyberspace-955008.html

An educated and skilled workforce is essential to the long-term prosperity of our country and our citizenry. Evidence indicates, however, that we cannot meet the demands of the 21st century by relying solely upon centuries-old approaches to higher education. New models are needed to expand access, improve quality, and assure accountability in higher education. This need is especially true for working adults whose busy lives don’t fit easily into the strictures imposed by traditional colleges. They need greater flexibility.

When Bill Parisen decided to return to school to complete his bachelor’s degree, he was concerned about how to fit education into a hectic life that already included kids, coaching, and a busy career at Hewlett Packard. “I wanted to complete my degree at an accredited university, but I needed the flexibility to study and continue my work at the same time. I just couldn’t balance my life and professional commitments while attending a ‘brick-and-mortar’ institution,” he explains. He decided to attend Western Governors University online.

In 1996 Western Governors University embarked on a mission to expand access through distance learning technologies. But for the 19 U.S. governors who founded WGU, simply translating a traditional college model to an online environment wasn’t enough. They had an even broader vision.

Because employers were clamoring for better prepared college graduates, the governors insisted WGU require that students develop and demonstrate a high level of competence before they are allowed to graduate. “There is no ‘getting by’ at WGU. If you don’t know the material, you don’t pass the assessments. If you don’t pass the assessments, you don’t graduate. It’s that simple,” said Bill.

Today, over 11,000 online students are enrolled in a WGU competency-based, online degree program in business, education, information technology, or health professions. For each program high standards of learning are clearly spelled out by expert councils, and students demonstrate their competency through rigorous assessments (exams, projects, assignments, etc.).

WGU students have greater flexibility, even compared to other online schools, and may be able to accelerate their time to completion based upon their prior education, existing competencies, and determination to proceed faster.

Bill used his college credit from a previous university, professional experience and current projects at work to accelerate his degree program and finished his undergraduate degree in only 30 months — that’s a four-year degree in a fraction of the time he would have spent completing his degree at a “traditional” school.

Keeping tuition affordable is also crucial. WGU has developed a new financial model that keeps tuition much lower by utilizing existing courses and independent learning resources, supporting student success through personalized mentoring, and controlling administrative overhead costs. Even though WGU is a private, not state-supported school, tuition is competitive with state schools and is much lower than typically found at other online schools.

After graduating from WGU, Bill decided to pursue his MBA at a traditional brick-and-mortar university. Not long into his degree program Bill decided to return to WGU even after six graduate classes with a 4.0 GPA at what is considered a top business school in Southern California. “At WGU, it was much easier to balance business travel, career challenges, and schoolwork,” says Bill. “Comparing WGU to this top-ranked school made me realize just how excellent the quality of education and personalization is at WGU. Despite the fact that it was online, I actually felt more engaged and more motivated to learn at WGU.”

For more information about WGU’s competency-based online degrees, visit www.wgu.edu/CB.

Most nurses are worked in shifts and many of them work in 12-hour shift making them hard to plan for evening class on continuous education program whether they are doing a day shift or a night shift. The advantages of online degree programs that enable students to enter to the classes remotely with flexible learning schedule provide the best solution for nurses to earn a degree for their career advancement.

Many hospitals and medical care centers are encouraging their registered nurses to pursue their academic careers, which are good not only for the hospital system, patients and the community, earning a bachelor or graduate degree helps nurses to enjoy better income and career challenges. The hospitals typically try to give their nurses as much information as possible about the education options, and many of these hospitals are allocating education reimbursement benefit for the nurses to encourage them to earn a higher credential through continuous education program. Hence, the nurses should utilize the benefit for their future career planning.

Prior to the available of online degree program, the key barrier that stop most nurses from continue their education after entering the workplace is they are facing difficulties to find time to sit through years’ or months’ of coursework in a traditional classroom setting. Since the available of online education in nursing or healthcare majors remove the barrier and enable nurses who are interested to advance their career to pursue an academic degree online. They can choose to logon to the online classes whether from their home, workplace or where ever they are, even if they are on travel. Most online degree programs allow a good degree of flexibility that enables students to plan their study schedule based on their own pace.

Seeing the demand of nursing degree programs and the advantages of online education, many traditional campus-based nursing schools have made their nursing degree programs available for online students while other online universities are offering various online nursing programs to those who are interested in nursing careers. Nurses who are interested to advance their career to a higher level can take advantage of the online degree program to purse a bachelor or graduate nursing degree while continue their current work life.

While the demand drives more nursing degree programs being introduced in online education format which provides more choices for students to choose one that best meet their needs, there are a few factors you need to take into consideration when deciding to pursue a degree online; one of them is “diploma mill”. Diploma mills are those who offer fake degrees or degrees that are unrecognized in job market need to be avoided with your best efforts. The best way to avoid yourself being a victim of diploma mills, you are advised to only consider online nursing degree programs offered by national or regional accredited schools.

The bottom line is online degrees provide a better option for nurses to pursue an advanced degree and nurses should take advantage of it to become a better educated health professional that benefit both the community and their own career future.

Source: http://www.bestsyndication.com/?q=20081020_nursing_degree_online_courses.htm