Archive for the ‘Online Education’ Category
Online Education Market in India Worth INR 360 Billion by 2024, Exhibiting a CAGR of ~43% – ResearchAndMarkets.com – Yahoo Finance
Posted: April 23, 2020 at 11:46 am
The "Online Education Market in India 2019" report has been added to ResearchAndMarkets.com's offering.
With the increasing adoption of the Internet and rise in awareness about e-learning, the online education industry is expected to witness promising growth during the forecast period.
The online education market in India was valued at INR 39 billion in 2018 and is expected to reach INR 360.3 billion by 2024, expanding at a CAGR of ~43.85% during the 2019-2024 period. Ease of learning, flexibility, and a wide range of study materials have influenced the overall growth of the industry.
However, the lack of formal recognition and accreditation, and abundance of freely available content presents a critical threat to the growth of the sector. The industry is moving towards the adoption of innovative technologies like Artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning (ML), Big Data Analytics, Blockchain and others to improve the learning experience.
Segment Insights
The online education market is segmented into primary and secondary supplemental education, test preparation, reskilling and certification, higher education language, and casual learning. The online primary and secondary supplemental education segment was valued at INR 11.99 Bn in 2018 and is expected to reach INR 123.65 Bn by 2024, expanding at a CAGR of ~46.48% during the 2019-2024 period. The change in consumer behavior towards detailed learning and surge in demand from tier II and tier III cities are driving the growth of this segment.
The online test preparation market is expected to reach INR 94.75 Bn by 2024, expanding at a CAGR of ~50.84% during the 2019-2024 period. This segment is expected to be the fastest-growing segment in the online education market, owing to growth in career-focused population, enhanced Internet infrastructure and increased penetration of digital payment methods.
The online reskilling and certification market is expected to reach INR 93.81 Bn by 2024, expanding at a CAGR of ~36.95% during the 2019-2024 period. The growing business landscape has widened the skill gap among employees, which is why the demand for reskilling courses is picking up.
The online higher education market was valued at INR 5.01 Bn in 2018 and is expected to reach INR 40.63 Bn by 2024, expanding at a CAGR of ~40.74% during the 2019-2024 period. The conventional education system is insufficient for the growing population, and therefore students are switching to online higher education courses.
Key Market Trends
Gamification is one of the most prevalent trends among online education providers to encourage learning through immersive experiences. Simulation of concepts, level advancement badges and incentive-based learning are driving user engagement on online education platforms. Online learning players, nowadays, are continuously competing to offer differentiated products to the target audience, mostly by offering value-added services with regular courses. Value-added services like internships, live projects, group discussions, and career counselling sessions, offered along with regular courses enhance users' experiences.
Competition Analysis
The Indian online education market is highly fragmented with around 3,500 edtech start-ups operating in the country. Many foreign players are entering the Indian online education industry. BYJU's, Udemy, Coursera and Duolingo are a few prominent players in the industry, catering to the requirements of different target audiences.
Key Topics Covered
Chapter 1: Executive summary
Chapter 2: Socio-economic indicators
Chapter 3: Introduction
3.1. Market definition and structure
3.2. The online education ecosystem
3.3. Stages of development
Chapter 4: Market overview
4.1. Online education market in India - overview
4.1.1. Historical market size
4.1.2. Forecast market size
Chapter 5: Market segmentation
5.1. Online education market segmentation
5.1.1. India online education market share based on category
5.1.2. Online primary and secondary supplemental education
5.1.3. Online test preparation
5.1.4. Online reskilling and certification
5.1.5. Online higher education
5.1.6. Online language and casual learning
5.2. Segment-wise stages of development
Chapter 6: Technology landscape
6.1. Market trends
6.2. Technology landscape
Story continues
Chapter 7: Government initiatives
Chapter 8: Market influencers
8.1. Market drivers
8.2. Market challengers
Chapter 9: Competitive landscape
9.1. NIIT Limited
9.2. Aeon Learning Private Limited
9.3. Coursera Inc.
9.4. Duolingo Inc.
9.5. Individual Learning Private Limited
9.6. Simplilearn Solutions Private Limited
9.7. Sorting Hat Technologies Private Limited
9.8. Think & Learn Private Limited
9.9. Udemy India L.L.P.
9.10. upGrad Education Private Limited
Chapter 10: Website benchmarking
Chapter 11: Recent investments
Chapter 12: Recent development
For more information about this report visit https://www.researchandmarkets.com/r/dkbxph
View source version on businesswire.com: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20200417005258/en/
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Online Education Market in India Worth INR 360 Billion by 2024, Exhibiting a CAGR of ~43% - ResearchAndMarkets.com - Yahoo Finance
Online Education Good or Bad; Here to Stay! – Daily Times
Posted: at 11:45 am
Many educational institutions in the world are offering online courses, and the trend is that more educational institutions will start offering them. Theonline education started nearly30 years ago, mainly in the United States. Online courses and programs are offered as a regular part of an institutions programs. That is, institutions that were initially in class or face-to-face started offering online courses either due to competitive pressure from other institutions or for economic reasons and somedaymay replace the in-class or face-to-face educational system. Online education has become so common that the U.S. News & World Report ranks 345 U.S.online undergraduate programs and 335 MBA programs every year.
Online education is structured learning, in which the instructor and student are separated by time and space, uses the latest technology to bridge the gap between participants in education (Ham, 1995; McIsaac&Gunawardena, 1996).The World Wide Web made the existence of online education possible. In addition, the phenomenon has further accelerated due to the willingness of students to obtain a degree via the Internet anytime from anywhere. It is further made possible by the desire of the educators to teach anytime from anywhere and make some extra money or being a part of their teaching load.
Edu.gov defines An online course as one in which at least 80 percent of the course content is delivered online. Face-to-face instruction includes courses in which zero to 29 percent of the content is delivered online; this category includes both traditional and web-based courses. Accordingly, the definition of an online course has remained consistent for 30 years. While there is considerable diversity among course delivery methods used by individual instructors, the trend continues. The 2015 Survey of Online Learning, Online Report Card: Tracking Online Education in the United States, conducted by the Babson Survey Research Group and others found that the number of higher education students was taking at least one online course in 2015; it is up by 3.9 percent from the previous year. Growth, however, was uneven; private nonprofit institutions grew by 11.3 percent while private for-profit institutions saw their online enrollments decline by 2.8 percent.
While there is considerable diversity among course delivery methods used by individual instructors, the following is presented to illustrate the prototypical course classifications by Ed.gov:
The proportion of Type of Course Typical Description
Content Delivered
0% Traditional Course where no online technology use-
content is delivered in writing or orally.
1 to 29% Web Facilitated Course that uses web-based technology to
facilitate what is essentially a face-to-face
course. May use a Course management system
(CMS) or web pages to post the syllabus and
assignments.
30 to 79% Blended/Hybrid Course that blends online and face-to-face
delivery. Substantial proportion of the content
is delivered online, typically uses online
discussions, and typically has a reduced
number of face-to-face meetings.
80+% Online A course where most or all of the content is delivered
online. Typically have no face-to-face meetings
Ed.gov stated that in the United States more than 2.8 million (14 percent) of all higher education students were taking all of their highereducation instruction online in the fall of 2014. Almost half (1,382,872,or 48%) of those students learning exclusively at a distance did so at a public institution. For-profit institutions accounted for slightly less than one-third (843,579,or 30%) of only online enrollments. Exclusivelyonline education students are a growing segment of the overall student population. 12.5% of all higher education students in fall 2013 were enrolled in online education.
Ed.gov reports that the number of institutions that have or are planning a Massive Open Online Course (MOOC) has remained relatively steady. That is, in 2012. 2.6 % offered MOOC and 9.4% with plans to offer. In 2013, it increased to 5.0% offering a MOOC and 9.3% with plans to offer. In 2014, it increased to 8.0% offering a MOOC and decreased to 5.6% with plans to offer. In 2015, 11.3% reported having a MOOC and 2.3% with plans to offer.
Despite muted support by faculty, growth has continued. The study reveals that only 29.1% of academic leaders say their faculty accepts the value and legitimacy of online education.60.1% of the faculty with the largest online enrollments and 11.6% of the faculty with no online enrollments accepts the online program. The academic leader considered online program critical to their long-term strategy fell from 70.8% last year to 63.3% in 2015. The 2015 survey found that the number of students increased by 3.9%. 28% percent of the students (5,828,826) were taking at least one online course, a total of 5.8 million students were taking some online courses (2.85 millionwere taking all their courses online, and 2.97 million were taking some not all). 72.7% of the entire undergraduate and 38.7% of all graduate students were taking online courses offered by public institutions.
As a result of the rapid growth of online education, the quality of learning has been questioned. The question commonly asked, Is online learning as effective as traditional face-to-face education. Research by Arbaugh (2000) andVerduin& Clark(1991) found no significant difference between conventional and online learning. Many studies (Russell 2002,Gagne & Shepherd, 2001)alsofound little difference in the quality of education received through online learning versus classroom learning. That is, students taking online courses performed as well as students taking courses via the traditional method.
However, no one should make a blanket statement that all online programs are as good as face-to-face. It is always hard to judge the quality of something wherethere is no universallyagreed-upon metric. Such is the case for education -where there is no singlemeasure of education quality -either for face-to-face or for onlineeducation. Therefore, the only way to measure the quality of education online vs. face-to-face is to ask the academic leader to rate the relative quality of the learning outcomes for online courses vs. face-to-face courses.Ed.gov evaluated the personal perception of the chief academic officer about the relative quality of online and face-to-face instruction. Their perceptions remain important as they makecriticaldecisions for their institutions.The proportion of academic leadersthat rated online education as good as or better thanface-to-face instruction was 57.2% in 2003 that went up to 77.0% in 2012. However, it went down to 71.4% in 2015.
However, academic leaders at institutions with online offerings have consistently held a more favorable opinion of the learning outcomes for online education than those at institutions with no offerings. Institutions with the largestonline enrollments (10,000 or more distance students in fall 2014)have 41.7% consider it superior to face-to-face instruction. Only27.7% of those with smaller online enrollments (5,000 to 9,999) consider it superior, and 14.1 consider it inferior. 23.2% of the institutions with smaller online enrollments (less than 5,000) consider it inferior, 15.8% as superior, and61.0% the same. 51.2% of the no online education enrollments consider it as inferior.
Whether online education is better, the same, or worse, is subject to whom one asks. As shown above, the opinion depends on who is offering online education. However, there is no real data that prove, which is better. Regardless of the question of quality, many top institutions in the United States and other countries are offering online courses at the undergraduate and graduate levels. However, with the pandemic of COVID-19, it seems that not only many more institutions of higher learning will consider it, but also the K-12 (U.S.school system) may find it necessary to start developing online courses. Therefore, the future of online education looks brighter, and those who get on this bandwagon now will grow and make money.
The writer is Ph.D. (USA), Professor Emeritus (USA)
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Online Education Good or Bad; Here to Stay! - Daily Times
Central Washington University music department adjusting to the online education – Daily Record-News
Posted: at 11:45 am
Central Washington University Director of Jazz Studies Chris Bruya jumps on the bike every now and then to get out of the house to clear his head in between outlining his online studies programs.
Director of Orchestral Activities Nik Caoile is in charge of a 75-member orchestra. Caoile is working hard to develop a spring semester, online Band-Aid that will help his department bridge the gap until it can get back to normal, hopefully in the fall.
Fourth-year trombonist Cole Lobdell is from Richland, but continuing his studies here in Ellensburg. He misses that live contact playing in the Jazz Band I, but has picked up a little playing time in a virtual big band collaboration called the Isolation Big Band.
ONLINE EDUCATION
Business as usual at Central Washington University in a COVID-19 pandemic world has become one of creative thought at this point. Between seniors and grad students trying to complete the final quarter; department heads and professors scrambling to put a criterium up online, higher education is finding new ways to make an impact. And, of course the underclassmen are preparing as they settle into their particular field of study.
It is especially challenging in the music department where studies arent exactly an equation that can be posted online. Take away the hands-on exposure of playing or singing together, well lets just say, creativity is the song of the day.
Teaching cannot be replaced by an online format, so this is more of a Band-Aid for the spring and hopefully we get back to normal in the fall. What Im trying to do is make my courses synchronized. When Im giving a common time, Im putting in the material and theyre digesting that material on their own, said Caoile, who received the Outstanding Orchestral Achievement Award from the Washington Chapter of the American String Teachers Association.
Theyre actually finding different motivations as they work their day without a schedule. Theyre learning how to work on that on their own in terms of self-discipline. But what we do is a social art form, and Ive gotten some feedback from the students saying what they really miss is being on stage or rehearsing together, seeing each other every day.
ALL THAT JAZZ
Bruyas jazz department is in the same boat. How does the eye contact and band energy translate to the isolation of education during a stay-at-home pandemic? He said his first reaction was to cancel jazz bands (large ensembles) and combos (small groups) because its just not possible to rehearse online, let alone perform.
It became apparent that cancelling classes would be detrimental to the health of the department, college and university, so I began to think about how we might move in the online direction, he said.
He eliminated rehearsal and playing together in a unified way, but could not eliminate anything else. Playing with proper style, intonation, dynamics, and tone could all be taught and evaluated online.
What Ive come up with is not really earth-shattering or ground-breaking, but it is working and enrollment is at or very near usual in-person classes, Bruya said. What were doing in both jazz bands and combos is asking students to play along with professional recordings, matching as closely as possible what they are hearing on the recording to their own playing. They get a week to master each selection, record themselves, then post their recording for evaluation.
JAZZ BAND I
Lobdell has been the lead trombone in Jazz Band I the past couple of years. Whats going on now is that all three jazz bands have been lumped together and the online structure is for everyone.
Bruya has chosen eight well-known composition/arrangements that have ensemble passages that involve jazz vocabulary, style, dynamics and ensemble playing. It is the kind of playing and musicianship that is consistently taught in the in-person rehearsals.
Were doing more of a curriculum thats designed more toward the teachers career part of band education, said Lobdell. Were listening to the recordings for things we can improve. Were not playing in the concert band at all.
My goal is to be a teacher, so Im getting a chance to these exercises of analyzing and fixing things. So, this is extremely helpful.
SETTING A STANDARD
Said Bruya, With the Jazz Harmony & Keyboard, Ive been considering creation of video lessons for quite some time so Im taking the opportunity to develop fairly short how-to demos, focused assignments and clear outcomes, he said. I think it will work out nicely and if successful I may offer the class in a hybrid mode or full asynchronous online, as soon as next year.
If you would like to hear a bit of Lobdells work online, visit https://youtu.be/ZHIv0LehaC8 (Tall Cotton) or https://youtu.be/FzaJrbzg7Ig (Bounce).
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Central Washington University music department adjusting to the online education - Daily Record-News
Everybody Ready for the Big Migration to Online College? Actually, No – The New York Times
Posted: March 19, 2020 at 1:50 pm
One consequence of coronavirus: It will become more apparent that good online education is easier said than done.
Nobody planned for an abrupt mass migration of traditional college courses to the internet.
But because of coronavirus, thats where we are.
Hundreds of thousands of students have been told to clear out their belongings and head home, many through the end of the semester. In nearly every case, colleges have said that instruction will continue online.
Making it work will require much more than giving every professor a Zoom account and letting instruction take its course. Thats partly because not all students will be able to access or benefit from suddenly online courses equally.
Undergraduates at places like Harvard, Stanford and M.I.T. will largely have no problem getting online to complete their work. But one recent study found that roughly 20 percent of students have trouble with basic technology needs. Their data plans are capped, their computers break, or their connections fail. Those with technology challenges are disproportionately low-income and students of color, who are also more vulnerable to dropping out.
Those students need courses that are not just accessible, but also well designed.
In some ways, colleges have been building toward this moment for more than a decade. One-third of all undergraduates are enrolled in online classes now. Thirteen percent are learning exclusively online. Online course-taking has increased for 14 consecutive years, even as overall enrollment has declined.
Colleges have also adopted so-called learning management systems, virtual platforms that help faculty interact with students on campus and off. Like all modern institutions, college now exists in a state of constant electronic connectivity.
Ideally, online education accomplishes at least three distinct things: distance, scale and personalization. All of them will be hard for colleges to manage in the coming weeks.
Tools for communicating at a distance have steadily improved over time. But theyre not perfect, as anyone who has ever participated in a video conference call can attest.
(OK, now I can see you but I cant hear you theres a little microphone button at the bottom of the screen, did you click on that? There! Thats better. Can everyone who isnt talking put themselves on mute? One of you is apparently in a crowded bus terminal of some kind?)
It takes practice and skill to teach effectively at a distance. Colleges have largely let individual faculty members decide whether to participate in online learning, and some have gotten very good at it. Others havent. Now the most traditional and recalcitrant instructors will have to do something difficult theyve never done before.
It also takes practice to learn at a distance. Theres a structure inherent to learning on campus, a rhythm and tangibility that keeps students connected to the academic community. Some students easily adapt to a virtual environment. Others dont. Now students used to learning one way will have to adapt quickly. Research suggests that academically marginal undergraduates struggle the most in fully online classes.
One way to manage the problem of inexperienced online professors is to increase the number of students being taught by the most successful teachers. Scale is currently a big part of online college, because thats where all the profits are. Its why for-profit colleges got into the online game early, and why public and private institutions are rapidly growing their offerings now.
But scale requires time and money upfront. The only way for one professor to reach hundreds or even thousands of students is to embed the learning process in technology. The simplest example is recording a lecture that students can view online. But effective online courses require much more. Many campuses now employ full-time instructional designers who help faculty map out courses and degree programs. They also create learning modules, online exercises, virtual laboratories and assessments.
The designers are good at their jobs and getting better. But its an expensive and labor-intensive process. The reason that many colleges are signing away up to 70 percent of future online tuition revenue to private for-profit companies is that those firms offer the financial capital and expertise needed to convert traditional courses online.
Its impossible to transform a college course into the virtual world overnight. Which means the students currently boxing up their clothes and laptops also wont benefit from the advantages of technology-enabled personalization. Fully online courses are usually, in whole or in part, asynchronous, meaning that students can learn when they need to.
A parent with a job can log on after putting the kids to bed at night, rather than hunt for a parking spot to make a 10 a.m. on-campus lecture. Thats a simple but powerful kind of personalization, particularly if people are caring for loved ones who are sick.
While the popular idea of individual learning styles has been largely discredited by academic research, people still bring vastly different levels of knowledge, talent and context to the classroom, virtual or otherwise. The long-sought-after dream of technology-enabled education is to build machines that can assess these differences, react to them, and give students a better educational experience personalized to what they know and need.
There are decades of research in this field, and many promising theories and tools, but as of yet no breakthrough technologies in terms of cost and student learning.
What does all of this mean for colleges suddenly forced to move online because of the coronavirus pandemic? The only thing they can create right now is distance, which is important of course for health reasons. They do not have the time or resources necessary to map out the rest of their courses and build online versions on the fly that can accommodate large numbers of students. They will not be able to train their teachers how to teach or their learners how to learn. There will be little personalization.
College professors and administrators care deeply about the health and education of their students. In the coming weeks, they will rally around their responsibilities as teachers and develop many innovative solutions to the sudden challenge the pandemic has created. But in a sense, its a mistake to say that colleges will be moving to online education. All theyll really be doing is conducting traditional education at a distance. That will be hard enough.
Kevin Carey directs the education policy program at New America. You can follow him on Twitter at @kevincarey1. His book, The End of College: Creating the Future of Learning and the University of Everywhere, explores information technology and higher learning.
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Everybody Ready for the Big Migration to Online College? Actually, No - The New York Times
What Is a College Education in the Time of Coronavirus? – The New York Times
Posted: at 1:50 pm
An unwavering commitment to this form of delivery prevented elite schools from using digital media to lower costs for all of their students, or investing in the pedagogical expertise that might have rendered online learning options complementary in practice and commensurate in quality to face-to-face instruction. This is why tens of thousands of students and faculty at some of the wealthiest and most esteemed universities in the world are finishing their coursework in video chat rooms this spring, instead of having the opportunity to take advantage of high quality interactive and pedagogically sound online options. We can only speculate how things might have been different if residential schools had invested as much in online learning platforms as they have in recruiting star researchers, renovating dormitories or upgrading athletics facilities over the last 20 years.
We recognize that residential programs provide a great deal more to students than mere coursework. They are relationship machines, generating countless friendships, intimate partnerships and professional network ties. That machinery doesnt translate easily to digital life, which is why residential-campus students, when told to complete their coursework on computers, feel cheated out of much of the value associated with residential college attendance.
We also recognize that online formats bring their own risks. When poorly designed and bereft of genuine human attentiveness, online delivery can be disastrous for students who are not well prepared for college-level coursework. Inequitable outcomes will almost surely result if the makeshift approaches being used to weather the current crisis continue indefinitely.
Going forward, educators will need to study and compare learning outcomes for different kinds of students in a variety of instructional formats. With prudent investment, careful observation and a commitment to ongoing improvement in both physical classrooms and online, quality instruction can be provided irrespective of delivery mode.
Well-resourced institutions should use their capital and scientific endowments to create and model best practices: building best-in-class online learning platforms and then adopting and promoting research-based approaches to iterate and improve on instructional design. Here the nations esteemed research universities are ideally positioned to serve the entire sector: they have the scale, expertise, and research infrastructure to make signal advances in applied learning science.
Additionally, administrators, faculty and alumni should recognize the costliness of requiring students to leave their homes and physically cohabit with one another for four years. How much of that is really necessary? Might two or three years of being on campus together suffice for four?
This is not a fanciful idea. For example, the University of California system now requires that one junior transfer student be admitted primarily from the states community college system for every two traditional entering freshmen students. Students admitted this way receive most of the benefits of a University of California education while enjoying substantial savings on tuition, room and board charges during their initial college years.
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What Is a College Education in the Time of Coronavirus? - The New York Times
OPINION: What’s different about online education tools in an emergency? – The Hechinger Report
Posted: at 1:50 pm
The Hechinger Report is a national nonprofit newsroom that reports on one topic: education. Sign up for our weekly newsletters to get stories like this delivered directly to your inbox.
As U.S. colleges and universities are working to deal with the public health and logistical implications of the coronavirus in a global emergency, were seeing a rushed move to use online education tools, often from private, for-profit companies.
As someone who works in higher education, I am confident that most schools are doing the best they can in a tough situation, but I also have concerns about the possibility of dangerous precedents emerging for higher education.
The online courses were creating right now are ways to survive in uncertain times, not to thrive in online education.
I have taught online courses in introductory biology and in-person human anatomy and physiology courses, both for biology majors and non-majors. While having more options for students to access higher education is good, these hasty shifts to online teaching may become an excuse to further inject privatization into U.S. higher education.
Most American universities are run by a process of shared governance, or the practice of recognizing faculty, administrators, staff and students as integral stakeholders in a universitys success, and the success of the individual members of that university community.
Related: Already stretched universities now face tens of billions in endowment losses
Unfortunately, amid the rush to address public health concerns, many universities are functioning on a more top-down model of management than the shared governance that is standard in U.S. higher-education institutions.
Again, in times of emergencies, this model of strong, decisive leadership can be critical. It is not, however, the way that educational systems should ideally operate, and the coronavirus doesnt change the need for shared governance.
Faculty and staff are co-equal partners with the administration in the running of a university, and their experience, expertise and relationships with students shouldnt be discarded or downplayed. We all contribute to the mission of a university, and we all must continue to have seats at the table for the university to continue to thrive.
In-person classes facilitate an active learning atmosphere and participation in service-learning or other more interdisciplinary and holistic educational opportunities.
Online classes are great for non-traditional students, students with mobility issues and students who are geographically tied to family or jobs. While higher-education tools like online program managers (OPMs) have benefits to faculty and students, the contracts with for-profit companies raise concerns about the privatization of U.S. higher education. Buried in these contracts are problems for shared governance, academic freedom, educational quality, student privacy, and the reputation and sustainability of the institution.
Faculty should review carefully any contract their institution has with OPMs and revisit their institutions instructional Intellectual Property policy. They should make sure any contracts protect facultys intellectual property rights and instructional materials.
There are plenty of standard restrictive agreements in such contracts, such as mandatory arbitration clauses and nondisclosure agreements. The American Association of University Professors has created a model letter of agreement defining the scope of OPM contracts for faculty, as well as other material to help faculty watch out for numerous pitfalls in these contracts.
Related: COLUMN:Tears, confusion and financial woes as colleges abruptly end semesters and send students home
If these online tools are seen by university administrators as a way to justify less-autonomous classrooms, this will damage innovation in teaching and could lead to more homogeneity in classrooms across the United States, as well as an increased reliance on for-profit institutions.
A more uniform experience in higher education may sound like a good idea, but this is detrimental to the ideal of academic freedom, both for instructors to teach how they feel works best and for students to learn in ways that benefit them most. While there is nothing wrong with online education in general, such decisions including contracts with online education companies must have as much faculty oversight as classes taught on campus do.
At the same time, creating something in a rush to address a short-term and organically evolving situation is not ideal. Necessity is the mother of invention, as the saying goes, but those innovations may not be the best practices outside of that time of necessity. We must remember this.
Put another way, the coping mechanisms that we develop during a traumatic event, such as a pandemic, are not the ways we should cope under normal circumstances.
We are in unusual times right now, and that fact requires unusual measures to make it through. Our task once the acute conditions subside is to not let those unusual measures become business as usual.
This story about online instruction in uncertain timeswas produced byThe Hechinger Report, a nonprofit, independent news organization focused on inequality and innovation in education. Sign upherefor Hechingers newsletter.
Lis Kenneth Regula is a lecturer in the Department of Biology at the University of Dayton in Ohio. Regula conducts research in zoology and ecology. His current project is LGBTQ+ concerns in early education and home-school-community partnerships.
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OPINION: What's different about online education tools in an emergency? - The Hechinger Report
Coronavirus pushes Bay Path, Elms to online education – MassLive.com
Posted: at 1:50 pm
Bay Path University and Elms College announced on Wednesday that their classes and instruction will be done online for the remainder of the semester, though Elms president Harry Dumay left open the possibility of reviewing the situation in upcoming weeks if an opportunity presents itself.
Bay Paths commitment was final. President Carol Leary said the transition caused by the coronavirus outbreak demands university staff and students to rise to the challenge of continuing their quality education by different means.
"Theres one point Id like to especially underscore: this is not a time for any of us to shy away from the work at hand. While we may not be conducting every aspect of our normal duties, this may give us a chance to work on projects that have been back-burnered, Leary wrote.
Working remotely will present opportunities to function in new, collaborative ways. You may even be asked to assist another area where additional resources are in demand. Embrace and learn from these opportunities.
The Longmeadow university initially set a tentative target date of April 5 to resume traditional classes, but that was dropped.
Similarly, Dumay said Elms, located in Chicopee, would go online for the remainder of the semester. He said if conditions drastically improve in the next few weeks, campus leadership may revisit the decision and could transition classes back to campus after ample notification to faculty, students and staff.
While that remains possible, it looks highly unlikely.
The health and safety of our students, faculty, and staff are our highest priorities. As this unprecedented crisis and state of emergency continues to unfold, campus leadership has determined that the best course of action to ensure the safety of Elms College constituents and the wider community will be to move all classes completely online for the rest of the spring semester. This change is for all programs and all locations, Dumay said.
At Bay Path, commencement is scheduled for May 17, and with university officials aware that state and federal guidelines for large gathering are currently extended through April, no change in the graduation schedule has yet been made. That could change, depending on the situation and developments, Leary indicated since, as she said, the coronavirus situation is changing hour by hour.
Leary said a final decision on commencement will be made by April 8, giving families and students adequate planning time. The Elms announcement did not address commencement.
Leary is one of three local university presidents who are retiring, and whose final academic year at their institutions is being tested by the COVID-19 outbreak. Westfield State president Ramon Torrecilha and Western New England president Anthony Caprio are also retiring.
In a message to students and staff, Leary emphasized that the challenge of the crisis does not detract from Bay Paths determination to provide quality education and services.
"We are being called upon more than at any other time in our history to work creatively, boldly, and with each other in mind. Lets show the world just how brightly the Bay Path community can shine,'' Leary said.
Some employees will work remotely, but others will be required on campus. A remote-working model is being put into place to cover procedures through Tuesday, April 7.
"We will, to the best of our abilities, keep all of our operations functioning ... "business continuity for the sake of our institution and especially for our students, is critical,'' Leary wrote.
Residential students will be contacted about the procedure for retrieving their belongings. Where applicable, students will receive a credit on their student account, based on the number of room and board days that are cancelled. A refund check will be issued prior to the end of the semester.
At Elms College, all academic, athletic, and co-curricular on-campus events have been cancelled for the rest of the academic year. Students who have off-campus educational activities, including nursing clinicals, student teaching, social work field placement, CSD practicum, internships, etc., will receive specific updates from their dean or division chair.
Students with campus employment as a graduate assistant or a student employee, are asked to contact their supervisor for further guidelines and instructions.
Residence halls will remain closed for the rest of the academic year. Students who have been allowed to remain on campus due to exceptional circumstances will continue to do so. Resident students will be expected to move out by April 1.
The college will transition most non-essential staff members to work remotely, with select staff members on campus. Access to the library will be made available to the Elms College community in a limited way.
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Coronavirus pushes Bay Path, Elms to online education - MassLive.com
The Effects of an Online Education The Albion College Pleiad Online – Albionpleiad
Posted: at 1:50 pm
The spread of COVID-19 has halted face-to-face lecture-style education for many universities. Students at Albion College began online classes on Monday (Photo by Connor Robertson).
COVID-19, commonly referred to as coronavirus, is undoubtedly the biggest issue in the world right now. Due to the virus, many organizations are halting operations across the United States. These organizations, ranging from professional sports leagues to universities, are reacting to the pandemic with great caution.
U.S. colleges and universities are taking caution by trading face-to-face lectures for online-based instruction. This week, Albion College announced their switch to online classes, officially starting this past Monday.
In a generation defined by technological innovation, it is important to analyze the effects that online instruction has on learning. These effects, which are controversial in the educational realm, must be understood in order to best serve students during the unusual and unfortunate circumstances of COVID-19.
An MIT study, completed in 2012 by David Pritchard, MITs Cecil and Ida Green Professor of Physics, found that online learning may actually have benefits that exceed face-to-face learning. In this study, students who were taking an online physics course learned a greater amount than students who took the class in a traditional, lecture-based format. Furthermore, the study found that improvement among the online physics students was equal to or better than 65 previously studied traditional lecture-based classes.
While perhaps students learn more in online format, some educators are resistant to the change to online instruction.
I do think theres something very detrimental about taking a generation of students raised with a crippling technology addiction and putting them in a situation where the ability to resist that technology addiction drops to essentially zero, said assistant sociology professor Matthew Schoene.
For a generation born into the internet revolution, the effects of online instruction might be profoundly different.
I would predict that academic performance declines across the board, said Schoene.
While professors have some concerns, students have their own worries.
I dont think I am going to like online classes, and I feel like it will be harder to find motivation, said Cole Nelson, a first-year from Saline, Mich.
For students, finding this motivation may be key to success in online classes. Because COVID-19 is so dangerous, online classes are necessary. Motivation during this time will be imperative to the success of the online alternative.
Despite worries about the online format, Schoene is still optimistic that this is the best option going forward.
In the spirit of social distancing, it seems that online classes are a prudent option, and perhaps the only option available to us, said Schoene. If students trust that their professors will do their best, and professors trust their students to take the online environment seriously, I have faith that well make it through the semester together.
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The Effects of an Online Education The Albion College Pleiad Online - Albionpleiad
HCC starts online education due to virus – Kosciusko Star Herald
Posted: at 1:50 pm
Spring semester classes at Holmes Community College started back today in an online format as Holmes does its part to help fight the spread of the coronavirus (COVID-19).
The College has moved 788 academic and career technical classes to an online format which includes 3,555 traditional students. Currently, 5,210 Holmes students are being taught and are receiving instructional support. Plans are being made to host individual training for career and technical students in addition to their online content.
Holmes Community College President Dr. Jim Haffey is proud of the effort his instructors and administrators have made to keep students on track to finishing the spring semester in a timely manner.
We take a lot of pride at Holmes at being flexible and responding to our communities needs quickly, Haffey said. That is a culture that our instructors and employees embrace.
Holmes has invested in the Canvas Learning Management Platform, which has become the most widely adopted LMS in North America, benefitting millions of students and teachers globally across 70 countries. The eLearning Department at Holmes embraced the use of Canvas and many other innovative activities to enhance online education.
We were fortunate to have invested heavily in online learning over the last decade, Haffey said. A large percentage of our classes are usually delivered online to students across the state and country. I would not say that it has been an easy process to convert everything to online, but most of our classes already had a lot of online resources tied to them, so we have been able to expand those. I am extremely proud of our instructors for jumping in with both feet to help get our state and country back going.
Director of eLearning Tish Stewart said her staff was eager to help the on campus instructors convert their classes to online.
Since our eLearning program has 20 years of experience, we have a wealth of information that we are able to share with instructors and students, including basic instructions, training manuals, and tips for the online classroom, Stewart said. We are doing all we can to help all those involved with this transition to be prepped and ready for what the weeks ahead may entail.
Vice President for Academic Programs Dr. Jenny Jones said once she knew a transition from on-campus to online, her staff and instructors went to work getting this accomplished.
Our instructors were able to take their face-to-face courses and start converting them to fully online within days, Jones said. Of course none of this would have been possible without the outstanding support from the eLearning Department, they have been the backbone to this massive undertaking. We want to ensure that our Holmes students to know that we are all here for them and will support them in the days ahead. No Place Like Holmes! has never been more evident than now.
Vice President of Career Technical Education Dr. Amy Whittington said her classes have made a move to online as well which has made her instructors embrace new technologies along the way.
I am proud to say that our face-to-face CTE courses went live today with online content to ensure that we are continuing to provide those skills necessary to gain employment upon completion of a CTE program, Whittington said. The eLearning Department has been vital in the success of our push to online with program content. Our highly-skilled instructors are continually searching for new technologies to train remotely.
Collaboration and team work across divisions have been key in this transition, she added. While these may be challenging times, I am confident that our CTE team will use this time to find ways to make our programs even stronger.
As schools and universities close or otherwise prepare for coronavirus (COVID-19), the Instructure (Canvas) team is here for you, according to the Canvas website. Were committed to the health, safety, and success of students, educators and administrators everywhere. And we want to make sure you can continue to teach, learn, and succeed from anywhere.
Holmes has also identified several areas at each location where students can park and work on their assignments in their vehicle if they have limited access at their homes.
Wifi is available to students in the following areas of our campuses: Goodman Campus, along Montague Street; Ridgeland Campus, parking lot in front of Adcock Library; Grenada Campus, parking lot on Avent Drive near the Phillips Building; and the Attala Center, in the big parking lot.
Hours available will be 8 a.m.-7 p.m.
Students need to be aware that signal strength is determined by the numbers of users so the strength may fluctuate as more people take advantage of the service.
Continued here:
HCC starts online education due to virus - Kosciusko Star Herald
Derby Board Of Education To Meet Online Tonight – Valley Independent Sentinel
Posted: at 1:50 pm
DERBY Members of the Derby Board of Education are scheduled to meet 6:30 p.m. tonight (Thursday, March 19) using Zoom, a videoconferencing center.
The public will be able to join the meeting.
Here is a link to the Zoom meeting:
zoom.us/j/348011559
The image below contains the meeting ID, and the numbers needed to dial-in if you choose to join in that matter.
The meetings agenda is posted at the bottom of this post. It is also available as a PDF from the Derby city website. Click here to download it. https://evogov.s3.us-west-2.amazonaws.com/meetings/79/agendas/13299.pdf
The school board is scheduled to review the district distance-learning plan since students are out of school due to the COVID-19 virus until the end of March (as of this writing). The school board is also scheduled to receive an update regarding the virus, presumably with information coming down from the state. If youve never used the Zoom videoconferencingservice, here are some short instructional videos that could help.
This YouTube video is from a third party. It explains how to join a Zoom meeting from your smart phone.
In addition to checking the Derby City website, meeting notifications are also being posted on Derby Town/City Clerk Marc Garofalos Facebook page.
Here is a supporting documentation included in an agenda packed for this evenings meeting.
Derby BOE Info 1 by The Valley Indy on Scribd
Derby BOE March 19 2020 Meeting Agenda by The Valley Indy on Scribd
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Derby Board Of Education To Meet Online Tonight - Valley Independent Sentinel