The Online Degree Dorm Room

Associate Online Degree Programs | My Back is Back…

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

Did you miss me?

Sorry I haven’t posted in a while, but this past weekend I managed to pull a major muscle in my back and I’ve been out of commission.

But I’m “Back” in action again, so expect more posts shortly

Ben

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Engineering Degree Onine | Need help learning the language?

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

OUt here in the online degree dorm I see a lot of folks struggling with the foriegn language that they’re taking.

So this news story I came accross might be of benefit. Read on…

Did you know that alot of what we know about our native language is in the sub-conscious?

YOu know how when you want to express something, correct phrases and sentences just come to you? Well that’s how -most of this process is unconscious.
So Stephen Krashen, a professor at the University of Southern California and a linguistics expert, put together a hypothesis to explain how this is possible. And he used that, which is called Input Hypothesis to create what he calls a “natural approach” to learning a language.

Here’s how it works (I think…)

You read and listen to words and sentences - i.e. the “input” If you understand these sentences, they are stored in your brain. More specifically, they are stored in the part of your brain that is responsible for language.

For example, using this hypothesis, here’s how a child learns his or her native language. The child listens to his or her parents and other people. As the child’s brain collects these words and sentences, he or she gets better and better at producing sentences on his or her own. By age 5, the child can already speak quite fluently.

Got it?

So according to Krashen’s theory, the way to learn and improve is to feed your brain with a lot of “input” which are correct and understandable sentences, written or spoken.

Now some cognitive scientists say that watching movies is one of the most natural methods of improving your language skills at any age. Learning English by watching movies is an example of  “learning by input.”

So go get yourself some French language movies and go to town

There’s a company that has taken this theory and put it into practice:

The company is called SFK Media Corp. SFK stands for Specially For Kids. They created a product called ReadEnt Reading Movies.

It used this technique with an innovative tool called “Action Captions.” As a child or adult watches the movie, each spoken word appears on the screen as text directly from the person’s mouth as it is spoken. ReadEnt’s Reading Movies are available as interactive DVD programs for use on the TV, computer, video-game console or portable DVD player.

For more information call (866) SFK-READ (735-7323).

Ben

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Engineering Online Degree | Are men the answer to the growing Nursing shortage?

Posted by bposton on November 12th, 2006 — Posted in engineering degree online

My last post talked about how there’s a growing shortage of nurses in the US and it could get pretty bad by 2020 with over 800,000 nursing positions not filled.

So hospitals, universities and nursing organizations are working to try and end the nursing shortage with help from industry and the private-sector.

One example is the Johnson & Johnson Campaign for Nursing’s Future.

This is a $30 Million public-awareness campaign and it’s goal is to enhance the image of the nursing profession, recruit new nurses and faculty and try to retain nurses currently in the profession.

Andrea Higham is the director of the campaign, and here’s what she had to say:

“Building awareness of the shortage of nurses and nurse faculty, as well as the benefits of a career in nursing, has had a big impact. But concerted efforts must continue if we’re to head off what is predicted to be a huge problem well into the next decade.”

Higham also said that men are a major target of this campaign.

She noted this interesting fact: If the number of men entering nursing each year grew to anywhere near the number of women entering the field, the nursing shortage would cease to exist.

So what’s a man to do but be a nurse?

Come on guys - you know you want to

And you’d be helping the country out of jam, right?

OK, so will the growing number of men entering the nursing profession be enough to eliminate the
shortage in time? Don’t forget about all those baby boomers who’ll be in need of increased medical care.

No one can tell right now. All I know is that it’s up to us men to led the way

Ben

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Engineering Degree Online | Some interesting statistics

Posted by bposton on November 6th, 2006 — Posted in engineering degree online

Here are some very interesting stats for you…

Three quarters of academic leaders at public colleges and universities beleive that online
learning quality is equal to or superior to face-to-face instruction.

In 2003 there were 1.9 million students studying online. In 2004 that number was 2.6 million.

In the first half of 2005, there were 4 million searches per month for information about
earning a degree online and online education.

3 out of 5 colleges offering face-to-face (classroom) undergraduate and graduate courses
also offer courses at the same level online.

44 % of schools offering face-to-face Master’s degree programs also offer Master’s programs online.

Sixty-five percent of higher education institutions report that they are using primarily
core faculty to teach their online courses compared to 62% that report they are using
primarily core faculty to teach their face-to-face courses.
 
The overall percent of schools identifying online education as a critical long-term
strategy grew from 49% in 2003 to 56% in 2005.

Overall online enrollment increased from 1.98 million in 2003 to 2.35 million in 2004.
 
Although online education continues to grow there is still only a small minority of
Chief Academic Officers (28% in 2003 compared with 31% in 2005)
hwo believe that their faculty are embracing online education as valuable and legitimate.

Thats the stat tha bothers me. If we can get acedemia to accept online education, then the
battle is much more than half over.

Ben
 

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