The Online Degree Dorm Room

online degree programs psychology | distance education something of an anachronism

Posted by bposton on December 14th, 2006 — Posted in online degree programs psychology

For a lot of public schools, the scope of the initial step into online education is to serve in-state students who are too distant from a campus or have schedules that don’t allow for regular class time. And most typcially start out as some type of hybrid class that require class time and online time.

Because of this, there are a lot of students taking online classes that live within a short distance from the physical school itself. But once a school decides to offer a course that is completely online, enrollments can come from anywhere.

Of course, isn’t that the point of distance education - that “distance” shouldn’t be the issue?

Once the college is offering 100% online courses and degree programs, they tend to get online students from almost every state - even from other countries.

THe question is how each school serves and how they handle communication with these distance students, Student support staff and advisors normally communicate by e-mail and phone with students, and the tech support line if often available 24 hours per day, or at least is should be if it isn’t.
A lot of schools offer their online students free online tutoring, and they can order textbooks, and have the same online access to library electronic resources that the traditional students do, such as full articles from Lexis Nexis.

However, other library resources are a little trickier to get. Colleges can mail books and materials from their library to students, and some are just beginning to work with publishers to make electronic textbooks available. 

Of course there are now universities that are 100 percent online, but over the years they’ve tended to to get mixed reviews from students. Not to mention the fact that they sometimes are or have publicly traded parent companies.

On the other hand, most traditional schools that are expanding to online and hybrid courses are nonprofits.

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online degree programs psychology | UNT sees the online enrollments soar

Posted by bposton on December 14th, 2006 — Posted in online degree programs psychology

Down in Texas, everything is big, and that includes the growth of online enrollments.

As you know, I’ve been telling you about the fact that nation-wide, the number of people taking online classes or getting their degree online is steadily increasing.

Well here’s more proof of that fact from the University of North Texas.

I read an article the other day that stated a fact about the growth of online classes at University of North Texas that are very much in line with the recent reports of overall growth around the country.

UNT recently released figures that show that one out of four of their students is enrolled in an online or video conference class.

In fact, UNT  is the largest provider of online credit courses among all Texas public universities.

Now that’s saying alot!

Figures show that for the Fall 2006 semester, 9,212 students where enrolled in the University of North Texas. 2,197 of those students were taking only online or video conference courses.

And in a recent survey of all UNT students 75% of the 1,194 respondents had taken online courses.

Of that number, 53% lived in the Dallas-Fort Worth area, and 4% were out-of-state.

Just more evidence to support the fact that online education is growing.

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online degree programs psychology | What do employers think about online degrees?

Posted by bposton on December 14th, 2006 — Posted in online degree programs psychology

So how does the typical employer feel about employees or prospective employees with degrees obtained online?

In everything I’ve read, it appears to me that companies are more concerned about finding people who can perform the function of the position than about distance learning in general.

And with advent of the internet, many organizations today use online tools for in-house training. So you would think that they would accept online degrees. However, there still is a stimga attached to online degrees that come from the media’s attention to diploma mills.

But as long as the college you attend is accredited, it really should make no difference to the boss whether you sat in a classroom or in your living room.

One thing to keep in mind is that most if not all colleges do not specify on a degree how you got your credits. Their degree doesn’t show that seminars, clinical work, or internships earned credits, and doesn’t single out online or hybrid work. Only that you got the work done, which is the most important thing.

Ben

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online degree programs psychology | What are the best things to learn online?

Posted by bposton on December 13th, 2006 — Posted in online degree programs psychology

Another one of my online degree dorm room buddies asked me this question…

What are the best things to learn online.

Well, I don’t think one class is nessecarliy “better” than the other.

But I have to admit that some coursework is easier to manage in an online class that others.

For example, online business degree class tend to be easier online than say subjects like languages, lab sciences or math. But that’s only because those other subject probably require more than just text content when taught online.

But that doesn’t mean they can’t the taught online, only that it’s a little more complicated or require more technology to be put into play.

Here’s an example, a public speaking online class - think you can’t do that online?

If you agree then you’d be wrong. Here’s how it worked:

The students where required to tape themselves addressing an audience, and the instructor posted the audio for student comment.

Cool, hugh?

Then there’s the math and science classes. With video presentations, math equations can be taught, and there are such things as virtual lab specimens.

Another example is computer programming courses. Some classes use tools such as iLinc or Webex, which allows students to have visual, voice and text conferencing capabilities. The teachers and students can share the presentation or the “white board,” demonstrating programming languages, showing and critiquing how students wrote software. This type of technology works for a lot of other classes other than programming too.

I suggest you test drive a college’s learning management systems before you decide.

Ben

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online degree programs psychology | Things to ensure a good online class experience

Posted by bposton on December 13th, 2006 — Posted in online degree programs psychology

Most teachers and students believe that the outcome of an online class is the same as that of a classroom course - Students learn as much in an online setting as in a classroom.

However there is something to be said for face to face classes for some learning styles. The online writing-intense environment might not be for everyone.

Overall all though, the most important thing that can help ensure your success in an online class is a college that has a very good online department, one that spends time updating it’s technology and training it’s faculty.

The main theory is that technology shouldn’t get in the way of learning or teaching. Teachers should be responsible for content, but the college’s instructional designers should be helping to build the courses for easy navigation.

Also look for a place that has alot of support for students. For example, one with advisors that are available and in frequent contact.

And of course a 24-hour tech support line for online students.

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online degree programs psychology | Students and Teachers spend more time with online classes

Posted by bposton on December 13th, 2006 — Posted in online degree programs psychology

An interesting fact about the online class experience is that both students and teachers find that they spend more time with online classes than the do with traditional classroom courses.

Students are in touch almost daily online. And this usually means more work for the teacher too. They have to deal with individual communications which could be done all at the same time in a classroom environment. But the individual contact hopefully means the student is getting more out of the class. 

However, some teachers are saying that students are more engaged and excited more when they are in a face to face settng verses online.

Not sure how they can measure that one.

There are many variations of online class setup.

For example - you might have an intensive five-day-per-week live class combined with an all-online class, or a short seminar-type class on the weekend together with online work.

And the online class itself can have many different styles. One example is a class of say 25 students divided up into five virtual discussion groups. Each group has a week to debate the question the teacher posts and then they post a summarized response.

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online degree programs psychology | Even more about the online course experience

Posted by bposton on December 12th, 2006 — Posted in online degree programs psychology

Another learning management system I’ve heard of is called e-college.

Some of the tools that you’ll find if you’re using e-college are things like “Doc Sharing” in which students and teachers can both post to and/or update each other’s files such as spreadsheets, HTML code and images.

Then there’s something called the “Journal” which lets you record notes on the course you’re taking and also lets instructors to post questions to you. You can also see that Chat logs for the course, in which all students and the teacher or teachers have contributed to. A search function is included and the account lists what has changed in the course since a student last logged in, which is pretty nice if you’ve decided to skip the last class

Another cool feature is that you can normally go back to any lecture, discussion or other aspect of the course to review it again, something you can’t do with a live class unless you recorded it on your own somehow.
 
Something else to remember is the issue of “Netiquette”. Some schools offer a page with tips on stuff you might not have thought about, such as - Avoid using all caps. (it’s often interpreted as shouting) and how to Use an inverted pyramid form of writing with the most important statements in the first paragraph.

Ben

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online degree programs psychology | Even more about the online experience

Posted by bposton on December 12th, 2006 — Posted in online degree programs psychology

Ready to hear more about how it feels to take an online class?

I thought so

OK, you may already know this, but most classes are asynchronous. While you might think that this gives you the chance to put off all your coursework until the end of your term, think again.

Most schools report that students and professors check in much more often that with a normal class.

Class length runs the gamit. Some are 8 weeks, others are 12, 14 or even 16 weeks in length. Again, it depends on the class.

If you’re the type that really wants to experience the lecture class; the room with 200 students all seated with the professor on a stage, well you’re in for a rude awakening. It’s not like that at all. And that’s a challenge for the teacher more than the student.

Some teachers have to completely re-think how they teach a class when then move to an online environment. In the past they just had to worry about what to say in the lectures. Now it’s all about complete presentations and multi-media. But in actual practice, this often leaves the teacher with more time to focus on how students are reacting during the course.

And sometimes the teacher is amazed at the lively and intelligent discussion amoung the students and with the teacher as well. One reason for that may be the anonymity about written discussion online allow students to express themselves differently than they would in a classroom.

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online degree programs psychology | More of what it’s like to learn online

Posted by bposton on December 12th, 2006 — Posted in online degree programs psychology

With the advent of broadband (DSL, Cable modem, etc) Many schools have or soon will upgrade the tools they have to produce and deliver online course content.

Professors now have the ability to use more video, audio, and graphics, but I’m not sure that these options are coming online quickly. It depends of the teacher I assume.

Here’s an example of how the new course content. A professor of Finance calls on an associate in Europe to provide an audio about finance in Europe and it was made available for download on the course webpage.

Pretty slick, huh?

A lot of colleges have something like a demo or preview of Blackboard or the other tools that they use to deliver course content. Some even offer classroom orientation sessions for Blackboard.

Some even offer a self-evaluation on their websites to see if you are a good fit for online courses.

When you log into your schools, online site, you’ll most likely see a way to get an overview of the day’s announcements, courses, calendar and tasks. There should also be linkes to announcements, your calendar, task list, grades, school e-mail, address book and personal settings.

It might sound complicated, but it’s really not. Most of the functions should be self-explanatory to you if you know how to send/receive e-mailed, transfer a file, or use a chat program, discussion forum or electronic organizer.

Ben

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online degree programs psychology | A brief review - What it’s like to learn online

Posted by bposton on December 11th, 2006 — Posted in online degree programs psychology

I got another post-it note on the online degree dorm room door last night.

It asked the question - what is it like to learn online?

Well, I’m afraid that one answer doesn’t fit all here.

It really depends on where you go - what institution is hold the class.

It depends because the technology is slightly different, from one college to another. Maybe

For example, many schools use Blackboard as their learning management system. Some use others.

While Blackboard is certainly not the only company that colleges are using to put up their online classes, we’ll stick with them to give you an example of the experience of online learning.

(By the way, Blackboard recently recently merged with WebCT)

Basically Blackboard provides the college and student with a web portal that allows for a lot of sharing.

The professor decides which tools are needed to present material, and they often work with instructional designers to build the course.

How an individual course looks depends on the subject, of course - not too different than the classroom environment. But in general the Blackboard product allows teachers to post questions, and students to submit answers in discussion threads.

Typically, assignments are submitted to an electronic drop box, and tests or exams can be taken online as well.

There is normally a grade book, as well as a syllabus online for review as well.

Most of the time the lessons are text- based, but a few colleges are starting to put lectures out for downloading as MP3 files in addition to the text format.

On thing to note - since a lot of the online courses out there started when dial-up was predominant, many schools have had to re-engineer, or rather re-produce their courses to take advantage of the fact that bandwidth has increased. So if you have your eye on a particular online class you might want to check whether or not it supports both dial-up and broadband, or just one or the other. There are still some classes out there that only support dial-up.

More to come

Ben

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