Archive for the ‘Online Education’ Category
Data Vault Overview: EDW Challenge – Video
Posted: February 16, 2012 at 5:24 pm
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Data Warehousing Today – Video
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ILScorp Insider: March 2012 Edition – Video
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TUNA INDUSTRY The Helicopter Pilot Whistle Blower – Video
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Growing number of college students choose online courses
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For students focused more on earning a degree amid competing demands than on enjoying the camaraderie of campus life, online higher education has become an increasingly popular option.
Colleges and universities around the country have been adding programs and classes to their online rosters, opening university doors to many students who don't have the time or flexibility to commit to a traditional class schedule.
More than 6 million students -- nearly a third of total enrollment at degree-granting postsecondary institutions --were taking at least one online course in 2010, the most recent year available in a 2011 study by the Babson Survey Research Group at Babson College in Wellesley, Mass.
That's an increase of 560,000 students over the prior year.
One school that has experienced significant growth is California University of Pennsylvania.Total enrollment for the online program has ballooned from 300 students in graduate programs in 2005 to about 2,000 undergraduate and graduate students in 2012, said Millie Rodriguez, executive director of the school's Office of Web-Based Programs. The university's total student body is about 10,000, she said.
At Cal U, professors teaching online classes have the same standards and expectations as they do for on-campus students, Ms. Rodriguez said.
Online students still have weekly assignments, readings, lectures, class discussions and even group projects, she said.
"A lot of students don't have an opportunity to quit working to earn their degree," Ms. Rodriguez said. "This way, they can earn their degree after they're done working and having dinner and playing with their kids and putting their kids to bed -- as long as you have access to the Internet, you can take our programs online."
Cal U was ranked the No. 1 program in the nation for 2012 for its online degree and certification programs in the SR Education Group's Guide to Online Schools.
The education group, based in Kirkland, Wash., examined accreditations, tuition rates, student-to-faculty ratios, student feedback, graduation and retention rates, and the rate at which students repay their college loans on time in determining its rankings.
Nationwide, the growth in online enrollment has been larger than that for the total higher education student population in every year since 2003 when Babson began the annual reports.
The growth between fall 2009 and fall 2010 was 10 percent, compared with 0.6 percent in total enrollment at degree-granting postsecondary institutions.
The 10 percent rate of growth of online enrollment was smaller than in some earlier years, leading the authors of the report to wonder whether this "may be the first sign that the upward rise in online enrollments is approaching a plateau."
Meanwhile, researchers found what they called a small but noteworthy increase in the percentage of academic leaders who rated the results of online education as the same or superior to those in face-to-face classrooms.
In their first report in 2003, 57 percent of academic leaders rated online education as the same or better, while 67 percent gave online education a thumbs-up in the most recent survey.
At Chatham University, Michael Finewood, an associate professor who began teaching an online class in sustainability in early January, has found that while some materials and methods are different from on-campus courses, the results appear to be about the same.
"For some people, it's probably great, while others are not learning all they should be, but the same thing could be happening if they were learning on the ground," Mr. Finewood said.
Chatham, like many colleges with online courses, uses an online teaching program called Moodle that allows professors to post articles and videos -- including recordings of their own lectures -- and communicate by email. It also allows students to respond to the material and to discuss it with each other.
Mr. Finewood said his class isn't lecture-driven, so the few videos he has posted are meant to add depth to the main material: readings of about a book a week, essays, online class forums and field assignments such as attending municipal and community organization meetings.
Mr. Finewood said he tries to email his students every day with questions about the material and related news articles.
Still, he wonders if his message is getting through via information sent by email and posted online.
"One thing that often comes to mind is whether students are getting out of it what I want them to," Mr. Fineman said. "Are students picking up on the themes I want them to, are they learning what I want them to?"
Educators say the success of online education depends in part on students' level of focus and sense of responsibility. It's not for everyone, Ms. Rodriguez said.
"You have to be the one to initiate getting online to check your work and make sure you're meeting those requirements, which not everybody is ready to do," she said. "In that case, they might need the greater structure of a campus-based education."
Bill Holland, who finished his bachelor's degree with online courses at Cal U and now is pursuing the school's online graduate degree in exercise science, said he initially was skeptical of online education. But he was caring for his children, 5-year-old Troy and 4-year-old Bella, and Cal U's online courses gave him the flexibility he needed, he said.
Taking classes online saved money on child care and allowed him to enjoy his children's early years, said Mr. Holland, who lives outside Glendale, Ariz.
"For my wife and me, it was the fact that we wouldn't have to put the kids into day care," said Mr. Holland, a former personal trainer who wants to become an NFL strength and conditioning coach. "It's worked well for us."
At times, Mr. Holland said parts of some classes felt rushed: "There was some stuff I would have liked to focus on more intensely instead of shoving it all in."
And while professors were available for questions, he said, the medium of email and the Internet sometimes made it difficult to have indepth conversations without getting behind on other work.
But as in on-campus classes, improving his time management skills seemed to improve his performance, Mr. Holland said.
With multiple readings and papers and projects assigned at once instead of scattered over a semester, online classes allowed him to work ahead when he had some extra time -- if he used it properly, that is.
"I wasn't always a person who used time wisely, who was as structured as maybe I should be," he said. "It's almost like the freedom you have with online classes is either going to bring out the best or the worst in you."
Amy McConnell Schaarsmith: 412-263-1719 or aschaarsmith@post-gazette.com.
First published on February 16, 2012 at 12:00 am
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Growing number of college students choose online courses
Recognia Fills Education Gap with the Launch of Education On-Demand™
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OTTAWA, Ontario--(BUSINESS WIRE)--
Recognia, an industry leader providing independent investment research for online brokers and self-directed investors, announced today the launch of its education platform, Education On-Demand™.
In May 2011, Recognia fielded a survey completed by self-directed investors to determine their needs, requirements and uses of investor education. They found that investors greatly value education yet are not satisfied with their broker’s offering. As a solution to the need to provide brokers with valuable education, Recognia created Education On-Demand™. The first module within the product delivers objective educational content produced by well-known educator and technical analysis expert Martin J. Pring in the format of video lectures, self-evaluations, text tutorials and glossaries.
“We’re extremely pleased to roll out our Education On-Demand™ product today,” said Recognia CEO Rick Escher. “The product is a perfect solution for brokers and end users alike. Our aim is to make trading knowledge attainable and accessible to all investors, and to empower them to gain confidence in their trading decisions.”
“This partnership to create the Education On-Demand™ product has been a great opportunity share my trading knowledge and provide highly focused, professional and objective education to brokers and their account-holders,” said educator Martin J. Pring.
Lightspeed Trading will be the first broker to offer Education On-Demand™ beginning this month and will provide one of the education modules, technical analysis, free-of-charge to its clients. Additional modules can be added to Education On-Demand™.
“Trader education remains one of the most important elements of our offering,” said Michael Sedek, managing director, Lightspeed Trading LLC. “We have a longstanding partnership with Recognia and are eager to work with them to bring Education On-Demand to Lightspeed and help give our clients on-demand access to some of the most effective educational services available.”
The technical analysis education module will feature beginner, intermediate and advanced content designed to increase self-directed investor knowledge which can be accessed at the user’s own pace. The module includes video and text tutorials and offers users the ability to test their progress along the way.
About Recognia
Recognia (www.recognia.com) provides intuitive, easy-to-use investment research for both institutional traders and self-directed investors. Founded in 2000, Recognia today has more than 20 million provisioned accounts worldwide, with products servicing the largest and most successful institutions, stock exchanges and online brokerage firms, including Bloomberg, NYSE Euronext, Saxobank, Fidelity, Charles Schwab, TD Waterhouse, ICICI Direct, Lightspeed Trading, and many more.
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Recognia Fills Education Gap with the Launch of Education On-Demand™
Gazette.Net: Online education company opts for Landover
Posted: at 5:24 pm
2tor �2tor is changing the way people think about post-secondary education,� says CEO Chip Paucek.
A fast-growing online education company has picked Landover for its headquarters and plans to hire 100 people over the next year.
2tor partners with universities to offer online degrees. The company has grown from 15 to 350 employees, with 250 in Maryland, since it launched four years ago.
�2tor is changing the way people think about post-secondary education,� said Chip Paucek, the company�s former COO and recently named CEO.
Unlike primarily online schools such as DeVry University and the University of Phoenix, 2tor�s model offers graduate programs from major universities. It has partnerships with the University of Southern California, the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill, and Georgetown University in Washington, D.C. Graduates receive their degrees from the university.
�Today, we�re happy to be breaking that ice,� Paucek said.
2tor also has locations in New York, Los Angeles, Chapel Hill and Hong Kong. Its headquarters previously were in New York.
Backed with $70 million in venture capital investments, including funding from Bethesda�s Novak Biddle, 2tor plans to hire 100 people in Maryland over the next year and announce new partnerships, Paucek said.
The privately held company would not disclose its annual revenues.
2tor works with the universities to develop its online curriculum and then presents it to students through a combination of social networking and video conferencing, Paucek said.
Typically, 10 students participate in each course and converse with each other and their instructors through a multimember Skype-like system. 2tor�s main interface also functions similar to Facebook, with notifications for assignments, walls and a �friending� system.
Paucek said Landover was chosen as 2tor�s headquarters because of its proximity to Metrorail and Amtrak transportation, which not only take executives to the New York offices but provide mass transit for most of 2tor�s employees in Maryland. Most of 2tor�s senior executive staff already worked in Maryland and 2tor also plans to hire a new chief of revenue for the office, he said.
�It�s a great place to populate the business,� Paucek said.
County officials have met with 2tor and say they are excited by the announcement.
�The good fortune of having a technology-based company that is connected to the local work force and higher education is a big win on all fronts,� said David Iannucci, assistant deputy chief administrative officer for the county�s economic development team. �Higher education is a vital part of economic development and strengthening the work force.�
A November survey of 2,500 colleges and universities nationwide showed that 65 percent view online learning as a critical part of their long-term strategy, according to Babson Survey Research Group of Babson College in Massachusetts. This is a 2 percent increase since 2010. More than 60 percent of these institutions are in the for-profit sector.
About 6.1 million students took at least one online course during the fall of 2010, although the 10 percent rise since 2009 represented the second-smallest enrollment growth since 2002, according to the survey.
Georgetown had long considered launching an online program and was encouraged to do so, given the current state of the available technology, Jeanne Matthews, interim chairwoman of the nursing department, wrote in an email to The Gazette. 2tor helps guide prospective students through the application process and provides the university with a learning management system, she said. The company also helps market the program, which started in March.
�2tor remains at the forefront of online learning technology, and we are excited by the opportunity to utilize the company�s dynamic platform to bring our longstanding graduate program to life in an online format,� Matthews said. �A major reason we launched this online format was to bring our values-based, academically rigorous nursing program to students throughout the country, especially to those in rural and underserved areas.�
To date, 320 students have enrolled in Georgetown�s online graduate nursing program, with the first graduates expected this fall.
2tor offers programs in nursing, social work, education and business, and plans to expand to areas such as public administration and engineering, Paucek said.
�We�re one of the highest-funded education startups in the U.S. and expect to grow aggressively in the next 24 months,� he said.
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Gazette.Net: Online education company opts for Landover
Why I Chose Online Education: David Gowel
Posted: at 5:24 pm
David Gowel is pursuing a master's degree from the Harvard University Extension School.
College education takes all sorts of shapes these days, as students more often choose nontraditional routes to a degree. Many people of different ages, backgrounds, and career goals are now looking to online education programs. Here's why one person chose an online degree.
Former platoon leader David Gowel used to be leery of the value of online education. "Especially being a military leader, the face-to-face interaction, I felt, was always very important in teaching and training," the United States Military Academy graduate says.
But after serving in Iraq and Germany, Gowel found himself stationed in Fort Knox, Kentucky, weighing the value of a graduate management program offered through the Harvard University Extension School. In addition to being able to start courses remotely, the program offered the flexibility to switch between online and on-campus courses, an attractive option for the on-the-move Gowel.
Since enrolling in the management program, he cofounded RockTech, a software company that offers LinkedIn training to corporations, and currently serves as its chief executive officer. Gowel also authored The Power in a Link: Open Doors, Close Deals, and Change the Way You Do Business Using LinkedIn, moved to Massachusetts, and has graduation from Harvard on the horizon.
Age: 31
Online program: Harvard University Extension School (part online, part on-campus)
Degree pursued and graduation year: Master's in management, expected December 2013
Why an online degree: "I felt that, basically, I was going to need an advanced degree to be able to compete in the job market coming out of the military, not having the skills I felt were translatable enough to the business world," Gowel says. The flexible course selection options at Harvard were an added bonus; after he moved to Massachusetts to complete his active service as an assistant professor of military leadership at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, he also switched to taking on-campus, evening courses at Harvard.
Degree impact: Though he hasn't graduated yet, Gowel says his future degree has already impacted his life and career. "I basically used the degree and the courses to help me figure out what I wanted to do," he says. "It helped me realize that starting a business was something I felt comfortable doing." One of his favorite parts of the program, he says, was the flexibility to select courses that coincided with the growth of his business, allowing him to tackle real-world problems with the help of his professors and classmates.
Biggest challenge of earning an online degree: "I was really skeptical about how valuable [an online degree] would be; I didn't know if it would be worth it to invest the cost, and if it would be good enough," Gowel says. "In retrospect, I wish I had started this in Germany, because it was very valuable."
Advice for future online students: "I think the key bit of advice I'd give would be to think what your specific goals are—what the outcome you want is," he says, "and then tailor the courses as best you can."
Searching for an online program? Get our complete rankings of Top Online Education Programs.
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Why I Chose Online Education: David Gowel
The Wheel for Successful Business – Video
Posted: February 15, 2012 at 6:44 pm
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Go For Greater! Day, Evening
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