Associate online degree programs | Indiana reports a rise in online enrollment

Posted by bposton on November 29th, 2006 — Posted in associate online degree programs

Indiana is reporting a rise in online enrollments at the colleges and universities in the state.

First we’ll take Perdue.

Dennis McElhoe, Purdue’s director of continuing education and conferencing, said Purdue began offering online courses in the 1999-00 academic school year with two enrolled students. Now, more than 4,700 students are enrolled in the courses.

Next, there’s Indiana U.

Indiana University had 40 graduate-level online courses in the school of education during the 2005-06 academic school year, the coordinator of student and course support reported. The number of students enrolled were not counted.

The university had 83 undergradate online courses and 44 high school online courses as well.

Last year, 1,917 Indiana undergraduates were enrolled in the courses, compared to 1,734 the previous academic school year.

So, even more evidence that online education is surging.

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engineering degree online : Kudos for Capella U

Posted by bposton on October 30th, 2006 — Posted in engineering degree online

I saw a press release the other day about Capella University, which is strictly an online University.

It stated that the Center for Transforming Student Services had awarded their career services programs as a “best practice” in providing student services online. They focused on the services related to resume development and CV training as “providing models for other institutions to emulate”. 

Julie Ofstedal, part of Capella’s staff that works in this area had this say about the student services they provide.

“Upon making these tools available to our students, we saw an immediate improvement in the quality of resume and CV drafts being submitted for review. They have been tremendously helpful in providing guidance to a large number of students simultaneously,”

In case you were wondering, the Center for Transforming Student Services is a virtual resource for higher education institutions interested in assessing the quality of their student services offered via the Web.

So Kudos to Capella, which is accredited online university and a leader in online education with over 16,000 online students from companies such as Boeing, Johnson & Johnson, Farmers Insurance, and Xerox.

By the way, if you work for any of these companies, you should know that they offer tuition discounts and reimbursement for their employees attending Capella.

Ben

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engineering degree online : No Child Left Behind…in College?? - Part 3

Posted by bposton on October 21st, 2006 — Posted in engineering degree online

Here’s the third and final part of the quote from Eugene Hickok about how the government is trying to making colleges more accountable in how they educate their students.

“Americans should have more information about higher education curriculum and teaching. Higher education in this country differs substantially from elementary and high school education,most obviously in what is offered and how it is offered. The academy responds to the demands of disciplines and faculty. It is a culture that cherishes independence and freedom. And it is a culture seriously out of touch with much of America.

Faculty members decide what they want to teach and when they want to teach, if, indeed, they teach at all. This is particularly true regarding undergraduate instruction, which is something of an afterthought on many campuses. Faculty members typically spend fewer than 200 hours a year in the classroom. That amounts to just five 40-hour weeks.

Take a look at what passes for subjects of scholarly and instructional focus on campuses.
Should taxpayer dollars really go to underwrite courses in such things as the history of
comic book art? Policy makers and tuition payers need to be made aware of what sorts of courses institutions consider appropriate to fulfill core academic requirements, if anything resembling an academic core even exists. And there needs to be a greater emphasis on teaching students what they need to know, rather than what faculty want to talk about.

One of No Child Left Behind’s hallmarks is transparency. Today parents know more about the performance of their children’s schools than ever before. This same principle needs to be applied to higher education. Colleges and universities need to be able to explain why they charge the tuition they charge, what their graduation rates are, what they feel constitutes an educated person and how they propose to get first year students from here to there. the various college rating systems and publications are entertaining and interesting to read, but they don’t provide the sort of objective data tuition payers need to make informed decisions.

For generations, a college education has been a big part of the American dream.
Much of the world has come to America to get a higher education. But nothing guarantees that this will be the case in the future. Indeed, for more and more American citizens, that dream is coming into question. It is time for serious reflection and reform in higher education — before it is too late.
Eugene Hickok, a fellow at the Heritage Foundation, was a deputy secretary of education during President Bush’s first term.
 

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Hi and welcome to my blog!

Posted by bposton on October 13th, 2006 — Posted in engineering degree online

My name is Ben and I’d like to introduce you this blog and tell you why I’ve started it.

Like a lot of other adults, I’m always trying to improve myself and hopefully also improve my career opportunities. One way to do that is to enchance my education.

One of the first things that get in my way is - who has time to go back to school these days? Not to mention the fact that it kinda gets in the way of my full time job. :-)

So I’ve started this blog as a guide to those who, like myself, are looking at way to improve their skills and their career path through an online education. That could mean a college degree or certificate, graduate or undergraduate, whatever. Only difference is it’s through “distance learning” via the internet.

So stay tuned as I explore the world of what at least used to be called “non-traditional” education. I’m sure we’ll both learn a lot in the process.

Here’s to lifelong learning!

Ben

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