EDUCATION BLOG

(and Law, and Politics, and Sociology, and....) (by Robert Bloomfield)

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"Virtual worlds promise to be an excellent venue for research and education in business and related disciplines. This document provides an introduction to virtual worlds, discusses why virtual worlds are so well-suited to the study of real-world business, and describes how a platform could weave together various types of virtual worlds and virtual spaces to achieve a variety of research and educational goals. I close by inviting instructors, students, researchers, textbook authors, publishers, game developers and others to join in a collaboration to make this vision a (virtual) reality."

Author: Mark Oehlert, e-Clippings,  27th February 2008

I've started a new blog with a sharper focus on Top Online Colleges and Degree Progams.

Many people are concerned about the economy and maintaining a competitive edge.  In the upcoming weeks, I'll profile online distance education programs geared towards providing the kind of career training that keeps ambitious professionals one step a head when it comes to job opportunities.

Feel free to visit the website and make use of the free resources and tips available!

Bacteria successful in cancer treatment:

 Bacteria that thrive in oxygen starved environments have been used successfully to target cancer tumours, delivering gene therapy based anti-cancer treatmentBacteria successful in cancer treatment:
Bacteria that thrive in oxygen starved environments have been used successfully to target cancer tumours, delivering gene therapy based anti-cancer treatments, according to scientists speaking today, Sept. 6, 2007, at the Society for General Microbiology's 161st Meeting at the University of Edinburgh, UK, which runs Sept. 3-6, 2007.

New viruses to treat bacterial diseases -- 'My enemies' enemy is my friend':
Viruses found in the River Cam in Cambridge, famous as a haunt of students in their punts on long, lazy summer days, could become the next generation of antibiotics, according to scientists speaking today (Monday Sept. 3 2007) at the Society for General Microbiology's 161st Meeting at the University of Edinburgh, UK, which runs from Sept. 3-6 2007.

Superbugs, shapes and nanotechnology:
A common hospital superbug called Clostridium has a protective coat of armor that can self assemble when put into a test tube on its own, which may have important commercial uses in nanotechnology, according to scientists speaking today, Sept. 6, 2007, at the Society for General Microbiology's 161st Meeting at the University of Edinburgh, UK, which runs Sept. 3-6, 2007.

Bacteria from sponges make new pharmaceuticals:
Thousands of interesting new compounds have been discovered inside the bodies of marine sponges according to scientists speaking today, Sept. 4, 2007, at the Society for General Microbiology's 161st Meeting at the University of Edinburgh, UK, which runs Sept. 3-6, 2007.

New technique producing small things in large quantities:
New fabrication technique capable of producing nanodevices to outdate LCD televisions.

The genes involved in rheumatoid arthritis identified:
The human genome has now been thoroughly screened in the hunt for the genetic causes of rheumatoid arthritis. The results, which both confirms previous hypotheses and turn the spotlight on entirely new genes, are presented in two articles in the prestigious New England Journal of Medicine.

Skin as a living coloring book:
The pigment melanin, which is responsible for skin and hair color in mammals, is produced in specialized cells called melanocytes and then distributed to other cells. But not every cell in the complex layers of skin becomes pigmented. The question of how melanin is delivered to appropriate locations may have been answered by a new study.

Dangerous Liaisons:
A German-American research collaboration discovers how the immune system can drive the formation of new species.

Migrating squid drove evolution of sonar in whales and dolphins, researchers argue:
Sperm whales, dolphins and other "toothed" whales hunt squid so deep in the ocean they must rely on biosonar. UC Berkeley paleontologists argue for a likely evolutionary scenario that explains how these whales developed echolocation. What initially was a rudimentary echolocating ability to find hard-bodied nautiloids in surface waters 40 million years ago was perfected, as nautiloids declined, into a refined biosonar system able to find soft-bodied squid as they migrate downward during the day.

Scripps Research scientists reveal pivotal hearing structure:
A team of scientists made up of two laboratory groups from the Scripps Research Institute and one from the National Institutes of Health has shed light on how our bodies convert vibrations entering the ear into electrical signals that can be interpreted by the brain. Exactly how the electrical signal is generated has been the subject of ongoing research interest.

Physicists establish 'spooky' quantum communication:
Physicists at the University of Michigan have coaxed two separate atoms to communicate with a sort of quantum intuition that Albert Einstein called "spooky."

Princeton engineers develop low-cost recipe for patterning microchips:
Creating ultrasmall grooves on microchips -- a key part of many modern technologies -- is about to become as easy as making a sandwich, using a new process invented by Princeton engineers. The simple, low-cost technique results in the self-formation of periodic lines, or gratings, separated by as few as 60 nanometers -- less than one ten-thousandth of a millimeter -- on microchips.

Sessions I attended at the conference:

Keynote: e-Learning Myth Busters: Is Conventional Wisdom Wrong?
Barry Dahl
Keynote: Learning From Our Worst Practices
Dr. Myk Garn
Accessible Media in an Online Class
Martie Dixon, Patrick Ryan
Technology, Trends and Collaborative Tools for the Online Classroom
Sherry Piezon, Robin Donaldson
Using an Online Environment to Prepare Faculty for e-Learning
Karen Hesting, Janice Thiel
Keynote: Seeking the Gold Standard
Dr. Patricia McGee
Course Design Bootcamp
Jennifer Sparrow
Developing High-Quality Online Courses with a Team
Jeremy Hall, Michelle Randall, Chris Geinszer, Colette Perugia

I recently attended a conference in Florida. Now, coming from Alaska in February, you'd think I just picked it because of the location. Well, partly. But mainly I wanted to connect professionally with the people that do what I want to do at the job I'm at right now. I am a half-time Education Specialist (travelling to bush villages and providing program support to teams that serve students with significant disabilities) and a half-time Technology Specialist (I run the agency's technology, website, and distance learning system).

One of the great things about the place that I work is the collaboration and cross-training that occurs across programs. For instance, I work in the Multiple Disabilities program, and have learned a ton of stuff from other specialists in other programs (like Hearing Impairments, Autism Impairments, etc.), as well as from those in my own program. There's just lots of opportunities to learn from and teach each other.

However, in education technology, or distance learning, or networking systems, there's just me. Our librarian, the former tech guru, is so busy wiht growing her own program that she has little if any time to focus on the technology areas I work in. The other specialist in the agency with similar techno-passion has left on a leave of absence to go get a PhD in Education Technology.

So, how do I create a sense of collaboration and continued learning in the technology areas I work in? That was the question I've been asking myself since returning from eLearning 2008, full of ideas and plans and hopes and dreams.

This blog is the beginning of that search. I hope it's useful to others, but it's mainly here to be useful for me. Be prepared for lots of ramblings about empowering people with technology, creating robust distance learning experiences, testing out and exploding current open source technologies, and other fancy stuff like that.

Video Games Aren't a Waste of Time: Feb 19, 2008

Brandeis agrees with studies suggesting gamers are social, strategic thinkers, and is using a "serious game" to teach business and tech skills.

http://www.businessweek.com/bschools/content/feb2008/bs20080219_935082.htm 

The fact that Moodle is Free (not free as in no money, but Free as in Free Speech) means that the efforts of the core team are entirely public. You can watch progress in the tracker, download the code they have just written and take part in their conversations in the forums. This means that anyone who wants to (and there are literally hundreds that do) can assist in developing either the core code, custom plugins and modules, integrations and themes, or by reporting bugs that appear. There are over 150 such third party extensions in the modules and plugins database and a quick look at the tracker will show you how effectively the community keep bug reports coming in.

On top of that, many institutions that use Moodle decide to devote some of their own in-house expertise to maintaining parts of the Moodle code, or developing new features. Because Moodle is free, this makes sense. If they were using a commercial product, they would not only be unable to do this due to licencing, but also would have to continue to pay every year to keep using what they have made, so this doesn't really happen with commercial software.

This means that, as is generally the case with Open Source, Moodle develops much faster for a given amount of cash input than commercial software does, where everything must be done by the company developers in house.

Additionally, a commercial company selling a VLE is in a poor position in marketing terms because their product is big, complex and hard to sell to people who know little or nothing about it and don't have the time to invest in learning it and several others so they can make an informed choice. This means a big marketing budget with lots of sales reps, which takes up a large chunk of the licence fee income. Moodle has no such overhead, leaving more money for development in the first place.

The above factors also tend to make Moodle more innovative than other platforms, because when someone wants a feature, they are free to either write it themselves, or pay for a developer to do it. With a commercial VLE you would only get an extension made if you could convince the company it would be profitable for them.

Put together, the stable core and dozens of custom plugins means that Moodle can be tailored to fit your institution much better than a monolithic one-size-fits-all offering.

Mae's Coffee Bar

I am currently enrolled in a Distance Education (DE) class and we use an educational management system called ‘Moodle’*. We participate by typing into discussion threads, and even though attempts are made to reproduce a f2f (face to face) class, I miss Real Life (RL) coffee breaks!

Coffee breaks are a low key, casual time with no supervisor leaning over your shoulder. People are often more honest and open than in class, and though they might use the opportunity to grumble or moan about the class etc, they share lots of information with each other. The assignments get clarification, and tips and resources are shared. And yes, the various quirks of the instructor are analyzed as students look for clues to help them produce pleasing papers! All these dynamics contribute to the learning process of the class, and though less important than the class itself, they are an important component.

Pacific Coffee on Hong Kong Island

My question is how to recreate a ‘coffee break’ experience in DE with students scattered across the landscape? I found an article on Eurogates: Netherlands Educational Portal that suggests to me virtual coffee breaks in Second Life are possible and could provide this missing experience in DE.

Quote taken from Eurogates:

Rebecca Nesson, an instructor at Harvard who brought her Legal Studies class to Second Life in the second half of 2006.
"Normally, no matter how good a distance-learning class is, an inherent distance does still exist between you and your students," she says. "Second Life has really bridged that gap. There is just more unofficial time that we spend together outside of the typical class session."

Joe Sanchez, a researcher at the University of Texas at Austin evaluated the use of Second Life in education in an interactive qualitative analysis, finding that once students overcome the technical and interface difficulties with Second Life. They "indicate a preference to social learning activities and find it enjoyable to interact with other avatars while learning in this space".

Pacific Coffee on Hong Kong Island

Pearly Gates Coffee Shop

*There is a Second Life version of this for educators who are already delivering classes from within Second Life. This version is called SLoodle

Distance learners have to gain special the characteristics, duties, and expectations which are not required by the traditional classrooms. I think the learning experience that an online students should have is offered by the teachers and should be used by students. They are like the two sides of the same coin. However, it is not necessary that all the learners have the same learning experiences, it is better to be equivalent. In the real life, instructors usually like to consider what media they can and want to employ and than to think about the course content, the most important part in a distance learning – learners – is ignored or become the less important. In fact, the more the instructors know about learners, the better the distance learning experience will be for all involved, also the better outcome will turn out, the higher effectiveness. I agree that knowing learners is the first step of designing an online course.
I think the skills of operating the systems through which the materials is delivered should be countered as one of the traits the distance learner need to posses. As we all know that different learners have different purposes of distance learning. However, all the learners should have the capabilities of operating the delivering system for improving the learning effectiveness.
I think if students can be successful in traditional classrooms study may not be successful in distance learning settings. As we all know that learners have more freedom in distance learning, such as learning pace, schedule and study time, these are different form the traditional study. However, more freedom also means more responsibilities, for example, learners have to arrange their time to meet the deadline of all the assignments. Even, students can control their learning pace, but they have to get everything done before the deadline. This is not like traditional classrooms that the teachers may remind you to submit assignments on time and/or some of the assignments maybe done in class.
Generally speaking, distance learning needs learners have more of the self-study abilities than the students in the traditional classrooms.To design an online course or distance course, the first thing need to do to begin distance learning is to know the learners. Instructors need to gather the learners’ information in order to decide what media and teaching strategies need to be employed for the course that is delivering to them. That the learners decide anything related to the process of teaching and learning. Second, I think the teaching method need to be chosen based on the learners’ characteristics. And the course settings should dictate the appropriate choices for instructional methods. During the structure of a distance course, instructors should pay attention to the syllabus which is supposed to guide learners through the whole learning process. Furthermore, the syllabus is also supposed to provide some framework for contacting the instructor, assignments guideline, and also provide the students with alternatives.
I think all the policies for distance learning should be based upon the purpose of facilitating the teaching and learning process and the real situation. So there is no doubt that policies should be made based on the real situation in a area. Another principle or thoughts about making policies is that all the policies should be flexible. The policies should be changed according to the real situation, such as new technologies, new teaching methods, and/or other aspects of teaching and learning changed.
I do not think the policies are always active to the education, especially nowadays, because all the policies are based on today’s situation. However, when the policies are posted the situation may already change. So usually the policies are behind the real situation or at least cannot represent the new situation. Especially, some policies makers are not currently teaching and the low effectiveness of finished the policies. But, the policies really can facilitate the areas which are behind the average development in education. Policies are standards which can push some schools, teachers, courses and/or areas to move forward.  

Working on your online degree at home enables you to learn in your own way and will allow you to decide just how quickly you want to earn your degree. One survey some time back, found that 55 percent of employers preferred traditional degrees over online degrees. In 1996, the University of Colorado at Denver expanded its metropolitan campus with the formation of CU Online, creating one of the first fully accredited online education programs offering online university degrees.

Today, you can easily learn a bachelor's degree, master's degree or graduate degree online from a major university without ever having been in any one of their classrooms. Many of the long-time established colleges and universities are now offering online courses and online degree programs. The term online degrees refers to college degrees (sometimes this includes high school diplomas and non-degree certificate programs) that can be earned primarily or entirely through the use of a computer connected to the Internet, rather than attending college in a traditional on-campus setting.

Your reading skills should be above average to be a good online degree student. Of the many types of online degrees available today they include: interior design degree online, "online law degree, education, engineering, paralegal, computer science degree, nutrition, mechanical engineering, music, nursing, animal behavior, and online history degree".

It has been reported that employers think that an employee receiving an online education degree compared favorably, in terms of the knowledge learned, to someone who has a resident degree. Make sure that any online credits you earn are transferable; ask the institution directly or in person if possible because most schools vary from course to course and with individual school policy.

And do make sure you know that your credits will be transferable into the college or university you plan to attend if you plan to transfer in the future. Check and double-check this with the counselor at both schools. Whether you want to earn an associate degree online, a bachelor's degree online or even a master's or doctorate degree online, know that most online programs are fully accredited, but make sure to check this out before you commit to any program. Today if you want to earn a degree while you're working or you're just a busy person with a busy schedule and don't have to go to school on campus, know that getting an online degree just isn't as hard as it used to be.

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