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Open registration for its GIS course - posted on Mar. 10, 2004
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GIS, Geographic Information Science, is one of programs offered online by many colleges, universities and other education institutions. Since the program does not require face-to-face interaction or lab(like physics lab, chemistry lab, etc.), it is easier to offer the program online than other programs. Intergraph Mapping and Geospatial Solutions, a leading geospatial solutions provider, announced open registration for one of its introductory GIS programs online. This is a trend we see in many industries recently. All training courses and programs were offered in classrooms in the past, but many of those courses and programs are offered online if it's feasible today.
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Enabling teachers to provide what's truly needed - posted on Mar. 6, 2004
Online education is often criticized for its lack of direct human interaction. Also teachers often express concern over the current rapid growth of online education because they fear that their role would become less important. Many educators disagree, however, and point out that "Learning has now become highly focused with the teacher acting as a facilitator for interactive education"(Arab News) and online education finally allows teachers to provide what students truly want and need, which is to understand study material.
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IT industry heavy weights to facilitate educators - posted on Mar. 5, 2004
Major corporations such as Sun are putting a lot of time and effort in developing infrastructure to enable online education. Sun, in particular, is gathering more than 40 delegates of ministries of education from 25 countries across Europe, Asia, Africa, the Middle East, South America and North America for a special LifeLong Learning Forum on March 1 in Madrid, Spain. Though it is great to see number of colleges and universities starting offering online distance education programs, learners do not want fragmentation of the education industry; for example, they want accreditation to be defined clearly and be standardized. Major corporations' involvement can be quite helpful to set a certain standard in the industry, at least in Learning Management System technologies. OOEN will be following up on this issue.
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Benefiting Theresa Statuti's social life - posted on Mar. 4, 2004
As the number of online learners grow, we often hear stories like how online education helped a mother of two children to get a certificate and start earning more to have a better life. This is, exactly that, but one of those stories. There is actually nothing new about it, but one thing mentioned in the article is that online learning helped Theresa Statuti, who did her first full-time college semester in 30 years, to meet someone new and engage in a new social activity and it benefited her social life. It is an interesting success story because online education is often criticized for its lack of direct human interaction.
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K-12 education transitioning to online education - posted on Mar. 1, 2004
The Lewisburg Area School District(Pennsylvania) is planning to get in the game and adapt online education to its K-12 education. The primarily motivation appears to be cost-reduction and to raise the quality of education consequently. There will be number of issues to address as the district adapts online education, but this is probably a right step toward raising the quality of K-12 education. Online education itself does not provide any direct human interaction, but because of that, teachers can spend more time with students when they need teachers. Teachers can focus on supporting, tutoring and mentoring students rather than going over text books routinely. Online education should facilitate more efficiency and productivity in education. Fremont County School District(Wyoming) is also proposing to create the first online high school in the state.
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US Education Department to create a list of authentic school - posted on Feb. 29, 2004
There are already number of accreditation bodies; however, there is not an official guideline provided by the US Education Department to distinguish authentic schools from non-authentic schools, often referred to as "diploma mill" yet. US Education Department is currently proposing to create a list of authentic schools. On one hand, it is nice to see the government's stepping up to provide helpful information to online learners and employers who review candidates' education background; on the other hand, we hope that the guideline will not create more confusion by introducing yet another guideline.
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Fleetguard Inc. joins AIU Online's partners program - posted on Feb. 28, 2004
AIU Online(American InterContinental University Online) has announced that Fleetguard Inc. has joined one of its partners program. AIU Online has been already working with leading businesses such as Verizon, Honeywell, Sears, UPS, General Electric, Boeing and Citigroup. The recent trend of outsourcing is observed in the education/corporate training as well as other operations of business(such as IT and Accounting); creating an education/corporation training program is such a costly process, so this is not only about following the trend but also there are good reasons.
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The University of Oregon - posted on Feb. 23, 2004
We've been reporting that the number of participants in online education is soaring, and this is another report from the University of Oregon. According to the report, the number of students enrolled for online courses(offered at the University of Oregon) has been gradually increasing. 331 in Fall 2000, 520 in Fall 2001, 605 Fall 2002 and 750 in Fall 2003. However, the report also mentions that not all subjects can be taught well online, since many online courses are still offered like self-taught courses. Given the advancement of the information technology, it is a rather unfortunate reality; we'd definitely like to see that online courses(and LMS, Learning Management System that power these online courses) will be implementing more advanced features for students and teachers to interact each other online more.
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Arab Open University to create an online library - posted on Feb. 22, 2004
Arab Open University is not the first university to make books, journals and magazines available online, but it's always nice to see that more universities are making their resources more accessible to their students and their community.
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Online MBA Program in Spanish - posted on Feb. 21, 2004
National University(in San Diego, CA) will start offering MBA Program online in Spanish. Given the size of Spanish population(which is still growing) and high demand for online education, it is probably fair to assume that National University will be one of many universities that will be offering online postsecondary education for the Spanish population.
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