Desire2Blog

Don't let all the news about budget cuts and layoffs scare you away. Here at Lake Superior College we are hiring adjunct faculty for as much as $545,000 annually. Here's the catch. You won't earn all that because it is only a part-time job (so you might earn 1/2 of the $545K if you teach half-time) and it clearly states that there are no benefits included with this position. (Click to view enlarged photo) A hat tip to @bergjj for the heads up on this one.

During a recent 2-day eLearning Quality Workshop in North Dakota we again had a brief discussion about student evaluations for online courses. Part of the discussion centered on the overall validity of student responses on course evals and part of it centered on the evaluation surveys themselves; particularly how long should they be and how can you get good response rates on a voluntary submission basis. (Flickr CC photo by kodomut ) A few years ago we (Lake Superior College) redesigned our end-of-course survey rather dramatically, from 32 questions to 10. We were hoping that the response rate would go up significantly if the students could see at a glance that the survey would only take a couple of minutes to complete. The response rate did go up, but only by a few percentage points and it still is less than 20% overall for all online courses combined. Near the end of each term, we set up separate course shells within D2L for each online course and then enroll all the students but no...

This new video (Oct. 23, '09) about net neutrality is very well done. Progress appears to have been made to convince the U.S. Congress to NOT screw up our (short, but important) tradition of network neutrality. If you are not yet familiar with this issue, this video would be a good starting place. Just a few other quotes about the importance of net neutrality: "Net neutrality is fundamentally important to allowing universities fulfill their educational mission." ( Educause ) "A simple principle that means internet providers, such as cable and phone companies, should not block or discriminate against legal content on the web." ( CommonDreams.org ) "the fundamental concern is that the provider of broadband service not be able to take advantage of that to act in an anticompetitive fashion against others that are trying to provide competitive applications using the same broadband facilities." ( Google's Vint Cerf ) All is not perfectly rosy just yet....

Yesterday I served as moderator for two hours for an online discussion forum about President Obama’s American Graduation Initiative The "Jam" was organized by the Knowledge in the Public Interest , the Brookings Institution , the Education Commission of the States , and Jobs for the Future . Community college educators from all around the country joined in the conversation. My topic was one of six different discussions and was titled "Accessing Online Education: Funding to Create Free, Web-based Courses." Plan is for $500 Million ($50M each year for 10 years) H.R. Bill 3221 should be voted on this week. Senate bill in earlier stages. UPDATE: 3221 passed right before I posted this . Senate bill still coming.) Here's the text from Obama’s speech in July about the proposal to “…build a new virtual infrastructure to complement the education and training community colleges can offer. So we're going to support the creation of a new online, open-source clearinghou...

Looking for your thoughts about the $500 Million ($50M per year for 10 years) that President Obama announced for the "creation of a new online open-source clearing house of courses" during his appearance at Macomb Community College on July 14, 2009. The relevant part of his speech is snipped and shown below. There seem to be very few details about this project at this time. It seems like a reasonable strategy for experienced distance educators to try to provide some guidance for how this initiative is developed. Please share your thoughts about how this should be crafted.

Inside Higher Ed's BlogU recently posted the following article: 5 Reasons Microsoft Will Buy Blackboard . While reading the story I couldn't help but think how different the article might have been if I'd written it. A little something like this ... The top 5 reasons why we WON'T see Microsoft buying Blackboard by the end of 2010: 1. Because they suck! (they = Bb of course) 2. Because Microsoft is trying harder not to suck so much. 3. Because buying Blackboard would only prove that Microsoft is more evil rather than less. 4. Because most of the people in the education space (including lots of Blackboard users) think that Blackborg is a terrible partner for education. Not exactly the best way for Microsoft to become more relevant in the education sector. 5. Because they suck! Please let me know if I've missed anything.

In previous posts, I highlighted part A and part B of the information from St. Petersburg College about their expectations of and for online students . Today I'll take a look at their part C - Academic Civility and Freedom of Expression. This is what St. Pete has to say about this: Expectations: Students may expect that: They will be able to pursue their studies in a stimulating, open environment where the pursuit of truth, free expression of ideas, responsible criticism, and reasonable dissent are recognized as basic to the educational process. Students have the right to exercise their academic freedom within the responsible confines of the course material. A process exists for students to express and document concerns they may have about specific action, inaction or behavior by any member of the College faculty or staff. Responsibilities: Students have the responsibility to: Act in accordance with standards of reasonable behavior, respect and civility. This standard w...