Desire2Blog

My one-year stint as Chair of the MnOnline Council begins July 1. Already I'm beginning to think that this is going to be a colossal mistake. My tendency is to speak frankly and try to tackle issues head-on. It is my opinion that this is not a style that is acceptable within the Minnesota State Colleges and Universities. Already I am hearing rumblings that certain people feel the need to squelch my expression of opinions. That is sad, but not surprising. One of the books I'm reading now should be required reading for all higher ed adminstrators. The Cluetrain Manifesto is a brilliantly written treatise on how old-fashioned corporate-speak has no legitimate place in today's society. Here's a quoted passage that speaks to me in my current situation of not being able to tell the truth about what is going on and instead feeling pressure to always speak the "party line." It's taken from pages 66-67 of the book: "Companies will survive employees telling t...

I had a bad taste in my mouth after reading an e-learning article from the Washington Post via the Detroit News by a journalist named Lois Romano. My first thought was to try to find out how big a bimbo she is and then flame her. Instead what I found out was how the Detroit News only printed about 32% of the original article from the Post (435 out of 1430 words). Here's another link to UMassOnline just in case the first one disappears. Interesting how the Detroit editors decided to leave out the rest of the article which was mostly quite favorable to e-learning. They started their story with a reference to student Angela Bostic, but didn't include the paragraph later in the article when she said: "I actually feel like I am learning more," said Angela Bostic, the student. "The dynamic is such that you have to learn how to effectively communicate in the written form. That is actually more of a task than speaking in class." It is also very interesting (and ...

Join Kenneth Chapman, Product Manager at Desire2Learn, on June 28, 2006 at 2:00pm EST (?) for an exclusive webinar event, Measure Your eLearning Success: Desire2Learn's New Teaching and Learning Tools . This webinar event will provide an overview of the tools and enhancements found in these new products. To register for this webinar click here or email them at webinars06@Desire2Learn.com . (My note: I am seeking clarity about whether they actually mean 2:00 EST or if it should be 2:00 EDT. If we get that wrong, we'll miss it by an hour.) The following is a quote taken from the Desire2Learn Community : Desire2Learn is honored by the opportunity to contribute to teaching and learning at your institution. Through your feedback and ongoing collaboration, we are able to deliver eLearning solutions that lead the market in innovation. Desire2Learn is proud to present the release of Learning Environment 8.1 & Learning Repository 3.5 & LiveRoom 4.0. As client-driven pr...

Sally Johnstone of WCET (soon of Winona State University ) was a key presenter on the topic of: Issues and Trends in American E-Learning . Some of her points were: Over 90% of public institutions offer online courses. The online for-profits spend 15-20% of revenue on student recruitment. The Budget Reconciliation Act (12/05) recognizes organizations that grant degrees based on assessments as higher education institutions. This will likely lead to the creation of new educational companies. Over the next three years we expect an 8% increase in high school grads nationwide, but they will not be evenly distributed across the country. Some states win big and others lose big. The Higher Ed Reauthorization Act may still include language that requires us to have processes to assure student identities in distance learning courses . This is an issue that I have been talking about for most of the past year after having an extended c...

About 100 people from across MnSCU gathered today at Bemidji State University for the third annual summer conference of Minnesota Online. The first session I attended was a roundtable discussion about assessment of student learning outcomes in online courses and programs. This is an outgrowth from the Academic Services Workgroup of the MnOnline Council and is just a starting point for gathering information about the assessment projects that are happening in the system. For the most part there haven’t been very many assessment projects completed that specifically collect information about online student achievement of learning outcomes or college-wide outcomes, although LSC has completed three such college-wide projects. The second session that I attended was about the regional consortium in northwest Minnesota comprised of Alexandria Technical College , Minnesota State Community and Technical College , Northland Community and Technical College , and Northwest Technical Colleg...

We visited several universities during our ten-day trip through China. Although I'm having problems locating all of my notes, some of the e-learning numbers were staggering. At Shaanxi Normal University in Xi'an they have only been offering e-learning opportunities to students for the past four years, however they have already grown to 30,000 enrollments in the most recent year. Their largest group of enrollments is in Chinese language and literature, followed by (2) technology and computers, (3) law, and (4) math and physics. East China Normal University in Shanghai actually has a Distance Education College (DEC). The picture below is of the Director of the DEC showing us the IMS that he built for their e-learning courses. They have over 13,000 enrollments per year in e-learning. One thing that struck me about their e-learning is that they don't seem to be concerned about providing interactivity for the learners. My impression was that these courses are largely what I woul...

I was surprised to hear about how many students at Chinese universities take online classes. I was unable to post from there during my trip since Blogger and Wordpress are still blocked by the Chinese government. I'll put together a post or two in the next couple of days (unless the jet lag finally catches me) about some of the e-learning discoveries during our trip there.