|
|
|
RESOURCES
FOR HIGHER
EDUCATION
Newsletters:
In This Issue Current Issue Archives
December 15, 2005
| Distance Education Report - December 15, 2005 - Full Issue … |
| Broadband Internet Reaches Rural Learners By Jennifer Patterson Lorenzetti The digital divide – a division between the Internet haves and have nots – is an enduring problem for distance education. Even though access to the Internet has become increasingly ubiquitous, it is still the wealthy, the well-educated, and the urban populations that enjoy the greatest access. But while wealthier urbanites increasingly consider anytime, anyplace access to high speed Internet a basic human need, their poorer, rural counterparts are still struggling to secure any access at all to the online world. |
| Open University Applies Moodle on Grand Scale The Learning and Teaching Office of Britain’s Open University will begin the largest application to date of an open source course management system. It will invest nearly £5 million (around $8.5 million dollars) to build a comprehensive online student learning environment, using the free course management system, Moodle. |
| Boston U. Orchestrates Groundbreaking Music Program The Boston University School of Music is the oldest degree-granting music education institution in the United States. So when Professor Andre de Quadros, director of the School of Music, started thinking about how the university could better serve music educators, it was in keeping with the school’s tradition of breaking educational ground that he thought of using the internet. |
| 5 Common Fears about Teaching OnlineFact vs. Fiction By Patti Shank, PhD, CPT One thing new online instructors often have in common, whether they feel pressured to teach online or are more enthusiastic, is a great deal of anxiety. Teaching online involves a set of new technical, administrative, and instructional skills. Many are not thrilled about teaching online unless they feel confident that they can do a good job. And they often have fears that make them feel that doing a good job is going to be difficult, or worse. |
| Giving Part-Time Online Instructors What They Need There are many benefits of employing part-time instructors to teach online: they can relieve the instructional workload of full-time faculty; they can provide expertise that is not available within a program; and they can help keep program costs manageable. Along with these potential benefits, relying on part-time online instructors creates new challenges, including high rates of instructor turnover. |
