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View Perspectives in Quality Online Education |
Volume 10 Issue 8 - August 2011 ISSN 1541-2806 Quality, Scale and Breadth |
Issue Contents
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17th Annual Sloan-C Online Learning Conference (Orlando) - Keynote and Plenary Speakers 17th Annual Sloan-C International Conference on Online Learning
This year’s conference theme is "Online Learning, Teaching, and Research in the New Media Ecology". It is clear that we are in the midst of rapid and ongoing changes in the way that we communicate and represent ideas and these changes have profound consequence for how we know, learn, think, and teach in higher education and beyond. The dizzying pace of transformation is seen in emerging means of access, such as mobile and cloud computing, new forms of communication such as video streaming and instant messaging, and innovative modes of participation represented in social media. The 5.5 million college students who currently study online are at the forefront of this rapidly evolving landscape. It is crucial that we understand how to leverage the new media ecology to support student learning. Our understanding needs to be rooted in solid research that can promote best practices. This year’s conference will create opportunities for learning, networking, and sharing that will make this a reality. Our keynote and plenary speakers each have a unique perspective on the promises and pitfalls of the new media ecology. – Peter Shea, Conference Chair Keynote Address
Lee Rainie, Director of the Pew Research Center’s Internet & American Life Project, will discuss the Project’s most recent findings about Americans use the internet and their mobile devices to learn, share, and create information. He will discuss how the changed media environment is affecting learners’ expectations about the availability of information and the ways in which learning takes place. In this new environment, the traditional boundaries between home and school, teacher and pupil, public and private are breaking down and that is affecting the way learning occurs. Lee will describe how Pew Internet has looked at these subjects and the ways in which schools and families are responding to them. Find out more about our Keynote Speaker. Plenary Address
The Internet, increasingly affordable computing, open licensing, open access journals and open educational resources provide the foundation for a world in which a quality education can be a basic human right. Yet before we break the "iron triangle" of access, cost and quality with new models, we need to educate our leaders on the obviousness of open policy: public access to publicly funded resources. Plenary Address
Although not an educator by trade, I've been interested in the potential of online media for learning since I started exploring what I called "virtual communities" in the 1980s. In particular, I was attracted to the ways online media could facilitate collaborative knowledge sharing and exploration. In 1995, I designed a demonstration of a "university of the future" for NEC corporation. In 2006, I started teaching at UC Berkeley and Stanford. I was initially drawn to formal education because I perceived a need to introduce students to the issues of identity, privacy, collective action, public sphere, social capital raised by our increasing use of what are now called social media. It only made sense to use blogs, wikis, forums, chat, and social bookmarking when introducing these subjects. Contrary to popular beliefs about "digital natives," I soon learned that social media literacies are not uniformly understood by today's students. At the same time, by paying attention to what students were telling me about our encounters, I was led to forms of pedagogy that have existed at least since the time of John Dewey, but which have not been practical until the advent of social media -- teaching and learning that is more collaborative and inquiry based and which extends beyond the face to face classroom. Other Conference News
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Are You Prepared to Teach Online in 2011?
Watch a recording of the informational webinar about the certificate program. Learn about the mentors. The Sloan-C Certificate prepares educators to teach and improve online courses using the Sloan-C pillars of quality in online education—learning effectiveness, scale, faculty and student satisfaction, and access. A unique feature of the certificate program is that expert mentors work individually with each certificate candidate to accomplish specific goals. The certificate consists of a 9-week foundation course and a variety of electives and specializations that focus on improving overall competency within a specific area of academic focus. The workshops in each specialization are structured to encourage skill development and practical application within the participants' specific job function. Upon completing the 9-week foundation course, individuals can select 3 individual electives, one specialization, or multiple specializations that best suit professional development objectives.The Sloan-C Certificate foundation costs $1,499 plus three (3) required electives; priced at $345 (10-day workshop) or $495 (3-week workshop). Elective workshops, which should be registered for individually, may be funded by coupons available through Sloan-C membership discounts and the Sloan-C College Pass professional development package. Click here for more details. |
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Call for 2011 Sloan-C Awards Submissions The Sloan Consortium (Sloan-C) has recognized outstanding work in the field of online education through an annual awards process since 2001. The Call for 2011 Nominations for a number of Sloan-C awards is now available on the Sloan-C website:
The submission deadline for all of the 2011 Sloan-C awards is August 15, 2011. Please visit the awards page for more details. |
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Are you Doing Something New that Would Advance Online Education if Others Could Do it Too? Effective Practices submitted by September 30, 2011 will be eligible for awards to be featured at a special session on Thursday, November 4, 2011 at the 17th Annual Sloan-C International Conference on Online Learning - The Power of Online Learning: Stimulating New Possibilities. Submissions will be evaluated by these criteria: innovation, replicability, impact, evidence and scope. Please see Effective Practices for more information. |
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Featured Workshop of the Month - Synchronous Teaching
Teaching in virtual synchronous environments requires knowledge of appropriate practices and skill with the web conferencing tool. In this workshop, you’ll have the opportunity to explore web conferencing tools and techniques for teaching. Specifically, you’ll be able to practice with Elluminate, a web conferencing system that includes all the major features and capabilities of similar systems and you’ll also learn about how to use those capabilities effectively. Click here to register. |
Emerging Technologies for Online Learning Symposium - Contest Winners!
Twitter Contest Winners
Free Sloan-C Online Workshop - Dr. Lora Helvie-Mason, Southern University at New Orleans
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2011 Sloan-C Webinars Webinars typically last anywhere from a half hour to an hour and a half. Most are free to Individual Members. Institutional members and non members pay a separate fee. New webinars will be added soon. Check the webinar site frequently. Sloan-C Institute Certificate Program - FREE - August 16, 2011 2:00 - 3:30PM ET Find out what the Sloan-C Institute Certificate Program is all about and how it can benefit your teaching career. Learn about all of the specialization options available to candidates, and talk with other potential candidates for the certificate program. Cloud Computing Solution for Rural Schools Networks. Project "Rural Schools & Cloud Computing" - September 7, 2011 10:00 - 11:30AM ET This webinar will offer an insight on a pilot project on cloud computing and open source solutions applied to a rural school network in Spain, carried out by Galicia Supercomputing Center in Spain, and financed by HP Labs. Classroom Salon - An Innovative Educational Platform to Support Social Learning - FREE - September 28, 2011 10:00 - 11:30AM ET Classroom Salon, an online platform developed at Carnegie Mellon University, transforms the traditionally isolated act of reading course documents and interpretation into a collaborative enterprise for constructing and sharing knowledge. In this webinar, you will learn how to integrate Classroom Salon into your existing course and make learning much more rewarding when conducted in a social setting. For more information visit http://www.classroomsalon.org. For more information or to register, please go to the webinar page. View recordings of previous webinars. |
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Share Your Views: Another Way to Participate in the Sloan-C Community
Engaging Students in Online/Hybrid Courses with MERLOT
As online education continues to grow there will certainly be many opportunities for individuals to get involved in leadership positions. These leadership positions might become available at the institutional level and could include serving on a curriculum committee, on a faculty senate committee, being a department chair or unit dean, or even leading efforts for a new academic or strategic plan, in which online education is an important component. Click here to read the blog post. What is "Impact Assessment" Anyway?
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The 2011 College Pass Professional Development Package Looking for a cost effective way to give your staff and faculty access to the full range of Sloan-C online workshops? The College Pass Professional Development Package is a membership add-on that includes bulk discounted seats in the widely acclaimed Sloan-C online workshop series for one year. Many institutions use the workshops as a cost-effective and convenient way to improve quality in online education while networking with new colleagues. Online workshops are 2 to 4 weeks long with convenient synchronous and asynchronous delivery. Benefits - 100, 50, or 25 seats per year in over 85 Sloan-C online workshops which cover a variety of key online education topics. - Institutions may share or transfer seats to any individual, not only to faculty and administrators. - Additional workshop seat coupons may be purchased at a discounted rate - The College Pass Professional Development Package is valid for one full year from when payment is received. Click here for more information about the College Pass Professional Development Package.
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2011 Sloan-C Membership - More Benefits, Same Price Please consider joining the Sloan-C community in 2011. The Sloan Consortium is a self sustaining nonprofit and need support from you to keep on offering great resources, workshops, and events in the field of online learning. We continue to institute many new member benefits and options based on input from our members and friends in the community. Membership is rolling (no longer based on a calendar year) and new workshops, free webinars, and practitioner documents are added throughout the year. Membership includes full web access to effective practices, the JALN, discounted/free webinars, practitioner docs, discounts on workshops, conferences and much more. Click here for more details.
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Learn From the Experts - The New Sloan-C 2011 Workshop Series
Click here for the full 2011 schedule. To register for upcoming workshops, click here.
Dynamic Collaboration, Discussion, and Facilitation Practices - Sept 7 - 16
In the online classroom, interaction prompts more interaction by stimulating more perspectives, points of view, ideas, questions, and disagreements. Through collaboration and discussion, both facilitators and students help each other in the learning process.
Click here for details and registration.
Accommodating Students with Disabilities: Leveraging the Online Learning Environment - Sep 14 - 23
Traditional institutions of higher education that have made significant commitments to newly-constituted online programs need to understand how existing disability services unit can absorb the need for serving online students with disabilities. They need to know the legal mandates that obligate them to provide support to online students with disabilities and to understand how to fulfill the obligation to serve this often ignored population.
Click here for details and registration.
Avoiding Faculty Burnout - Sep 14 - 23
As more institutions are offering ongoing degree programs online, faculty burnout increasingly is a concern for faculty, administrators, and instructional designers. Online faculty tend to spend more time preparing and teaching their courses as compared to onground faculty. For faculty, this translates into more grading, a 24/7 access mentality, excessive amounts of computer time, as well as more people pulling and grabbing for faculty time and attention. This workshop will explore the issue of academic management in online learning and ways to ensure that faculty can incorporate online teaching into normal academic life. In addition to learning skills to avoid burnout that derives from multiple sources, participants will be encouraged to share their own institutional practices as part of the conversation.
Click here for details and registration.
MERLOT 101: An Introduction to MERLOT - Sep 14 - 23
MERLOT (Multimedia Educational Resource for Learning and Online Teaching) is a free and open online community of resources designed primarily for faculty, staff and students of higher education from around the world to share their learning materials and pedagogy. MERLOT, in partnership with the Sloan Consortium, presents this webinar to demonstrate some of the many tools and services that MERLOT has to offer. Participants will learn to easily navigate MERLOT pages, and to participate as MERLOT Members. Workshop assignments will allow participants to tailor their work to their own disciplines and courses they are currently teaching. Some of the key MERLOT tools will be demonstrated, so participants can create “play lists” for materials that can be used for both face-to-face classes and online classes.
Click here for details and registration.
Supporting and Engaging Students Through Social Media - Sep 21 - 30
Student engagement is an important goal for all online programs and relevant support is essential to student success. Social Media provides opportunities for educators and service providers to provide a support network across departments and campuses. By exploring examples of these efforts, our programs can identify meaningful ways to engage.
Click here for details and registration.
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The Sloan Consortium (Sloan-C) is composed of institutions and organizations dedicated to continually improving the quality, scale, and breadth of their online programs, according to their own distinctive missions, so that education becomes a part of everyday
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