INSTRUCTIONS - MICHELE

Blog #1, #2 & #3 are all from peer reviewed sources. I have copies of all of the articles and the websites are posted. Blogs #4, #5, & #6 are from informal sources.

Blog #6 - Online Degree Programs Take Off

Blog #6

Online Degree Programs Take Off
As More Schools Embrace Web-Based Courses, More Students Log On to Expand Their Education While They Work

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/05/15/AR2006051501496_pf.html

By Lois Romano
Washington Post Staff Writer
Tuesday, May 16, 2006; A06

SUMMARY

In our ever changing world people are becoming busier. The expenses needed to raise a family have increased. People are learning how to multi-task…even men. Part of this evolution is because of online learning. Distance learning allows people to earn degrees while completing all of life’s other challenges.

Angela Bostic is a perfect example of how a student has adapted to this new world. She has never come face to face with a professor or sat in a college desk. All of her classes have taken place online.

She is one of many students who had adopted this new lifestyle. Numbers say that student enrollment in online courses has jumped from 1.98 million to 2.35 million in one year.

Some criticisms of online learning involve bogus degrees. It is taxing to perform all the research needed to find out if a distance course is actually coming from an accredited institution. Most people just take their chances assuming that something like that would not happen to them.

The University of Phoenix is the winner in the distance education race so far. Heavy advertising has pushed this particular University to the top of the list. Their classes are supposedly no joke. If you want a degree they make you work for it!

The majority of distant students are between the ages of 24 and 50. Most have jobs and families. The supposed mentality of older students involves a “need” to further their education, not a want. Students like these act as if they are not in school because they are trying to please their parents or guardians. Professors claim that students with this idea about learning are wonderful to teach.

The idea of distance learning is slowly being accepted as “real”. It is very important to find out whether the school being attended online is accredited. One program awarded 229 degrees to various students. None of them could take the bar exam because the American Bar Association did not recognize their degrees. Easy come…easy go…

REVIEW

I have a friend who began taking classes out of the University of Phoenix. She saw a commercial and decided that distance learning would be a lot easier than actually going to classes. After the first two classes she dropped out. She said that she did not have the self discipline it took to do that much work on her own.

She has not yet fallen into that “I am doing this because I need to” category. So far, the majority of people I know who have gotten their masters degree are teachers. Most admit that they have acquired their degrees because they had to…not because they wanted to. I agree…

Distance learning supposedly puts self discipline to the test. I am not there yet.

Blog#5 - Diploma Mills

Blog #5 - Ivory Tower Rip Offs - How Online Degree Mills Work

Stacy Schreiber

http://www.elearners.com/resources/diploma-mills.asp

SUMMARY

Diploma mills are apparently a new industry in today’s world. Since the growth of the internet, money hoarders now have a nearly free way to advertise a bogus campus, classes and student population. Our system supposedly lacks regulation in the “university” area. The rules are not specified as to what defines an institution and what doesn’t so people who would probably make better lawyers than crooks, find the loop holes and pull them to their maximum.

There are two types of diploma mills. The first type involves the student attending low quality, disorganized online classes. The other type basically sells the student a degree with his or her name on it.

A diligent student named Margaret Chester found a degree that seemed too good to be true…because it was. She enrolled in a program at Columbia Pacific University. She created her curriculum, her pace and her own assignments. In the beginning she wrote numerous papers and received good grades from her mystery teachers. Eight thousand dollars later, she was up to the point in her degree where she had to write a dissertation. She sent proposals to her fictitious support staff and they were rejected many times. Margaret did a little bit of digging and found out that her school was operating without the appropriate state approval, she withdrew.

Columbia State University was “busted”. The alumni who had received bogus degrees were informed. Some included people who worked in the White House…isn’t that comforting. More than one million dollars per month was being stolen from the student population.

Of the many survival tactics these school use to proliferate, the most popular tactic is the use of religion. Separation of church and state allow the schools to remain unchallenged. Bogus schools claim religious affiliation that often put any questions to rest.

Students can protect themselves from this by conducting thorough research before enrolling in any programs that sound too good to be true. Schools should be accredited by the appropriate officials. Asking lots of questions is also another great way to sniff out any inconsistencies.

REVIEW

For the amount of work I have put into my undergraduate degree and my masters, I think I would have a coronary if someone told me that my degree was bogus. I am still old fashioned in the respect that I do not trust these so called online classes.

I want to see my teachers and know that they are real people. I want to see my classmates as well. Though socially, these aspects can be challenging at times (given that I am a complete introvert), it is still worth it to know that I am working with real people.

Finally, if something seems too good to be true it probably is. I have better faith in the human senses. People know when they are being conned. They just need to be more confident and trust their instincts.

As for those people who claimed to not know that their degree was fake, I don’t believe them. I am sure that at some point, these people were the slightest bit suspicious of what was really going on. Getting a phony degree was just the easy way out,

Blog #4

Blog #4 – How and Why I Chose Kaplan University

Stacy Schreiber

http://community.elearners.com/blogs/kaplan_management_degree/archive/2007/04/05/How-and-Why-I-Chose-Kaplan-University.aspx

Anonymous (This man’s picture is on the website but he failed to mention his name)

SUMMARY

Here is an eyewitness account of a student who went “back to school”. This 30 year old business man (who omitted his name) felt the need to continue his education in order to move forward in his job. Reluctant to go back and attend university classes after never having attended them before, he investigated some online options.

When he began this process, distance education was just starting to spread throughout the United States. Instead of attending classes at the University of Texas, this future student was afraid that committing to a university life would seriously affect his job as well as his marriage. There was no other option than to take a chance with the “new” distance education.

He had heard about diploma mills (so-called universities that cheat students out of their money to give them a bogus degree). Legitimacy was key here. After hearing comments and opinions from friends about how hard they worked for nothing, this man made no decisions quickly.

After sampling online classes in two accredited schools, his opinions were bleak. He described the classes as “fragmented” and “chaotic”. He withdrew from the classes without any credits to show for it.

In this particular situation, this man found that the Kaplan program suited him best. His degree program was planned. The online environment was structured and the classes were well paced. The curriculum was demanding, but orderly.

This student is just finishing his degree with a 3.6 GPA to show for it. The best part about his experience is that he claims to have enjoyed it.

REVIEW

This man claims that structure is the most important factor to any distance learning environment. He said that the first two programs he tried were nationally and regionally accredited, yet disorganized and chaotic. How could this be?

In my opinion, distance learning programs do not receive that kind of accreditation if they are not good. How could a nationally recognized online learning program be this way?

Either this man had to become accustomed to such a change from his previous life and used those programs as ice-breakers or the people who are responsible for giving the programs that kind of credit are not doing their jobs properly.

Blog #3 Online Education for Practicing Professionals

SUMMARY

Computer mediated communication or CMC, offers a new type of learning called distance learning for students. In On-line Education for Practicing Professionals: A Case Study, Heather Duncan takes a deep look into this type of education. CMC comes with a lot of stigmas to begin with. Duncan wanted to determine if these were true or not from her own research.

Distance learning involves a type of communication called asynchronous communication. This means that the students can participate at their leisure. Of course there are deadlines for various assignments and web based conversations, students can enter their data at 3:30 in the morning on a Tuesday if they wanted to.

This study was made up of 8 students’ participants and 1 teacher participant. It took place using a master’s level education course called “Curriculum for Rural, Northern and Aboriginal Schools”. The study was qualitative and included data from different sources. In addition to computerized instruction, data was also retrieved by means of “face to face” interviews.

This qualitative study focused on the types of interaction among the students and the teacher. In addition, the study included the participant’s perceptions of the overall experience.

Interactions between the participants were broken down into task-related instruction and relational posts. Their class was organized on WebCT and the researcher (the author of this article and originally a co-teacher of the course) acted as technical support.

In the beginning of the course, the students were not spending too much time on the relational portion of the class. They prioritized their assignments and though relational reports were a portion of their grades, they all felt that written assignments take precedence over “socializing”.

Positive factors for the study include but are not limited to course content relevance, personal safety, self reflection time and self expression. Students described the course content as “inviting, engaging and thought provoking” (Duncan, 2005). In Fran’s case (one of the student participants), she felt that she was more expressive in the class because she wasn’t face to face with other students. She says this class promoted “risk-taking” in people during her final interview.

Negative factors include withdrawal of students, access problems, lack of computer knowledge and difficulty meeting for group assignments. Two of the original students had to withdraw from the class because they lived in remote areas where they could not get access to the internet. For those students who had never taken an online class before, learning how to use their computers was a class on its own. Finally, getting together for group assignments online was particularly “cumbersome” because everyone has different schedules. Collaborative learning seems to take awake the asynchronous factor from this class.

Duncan concluded that overall, this was a positive experience for the students. They had more positive than negative comments. They came into the class with low expectations and left somewhat surprised.

REVIEW

Personal safety was mentioned as a positive factor of distance learning. In the physical sense, graduate students (who generally take their classes in the evening) were happier to stay in the safety of their own home. Duncan noted that university attacks usually take place at night and on women. The security of being able to go to school at home is “nice”.

Honestly, I was very unhappy to read this. I go to school at night three times a week and I like to have more faith in public safety. Though I have heard of women being raped in various parking lots, I don’t have the same qualms about it yet because it hasn’t happened to me (hopefully it never will). I always walk with another person.

I mention this because I think it’s wrong that an apparent solution to parking lot rapists is women being confined to their homes.

We can’t even go to school anymore because of these sick people? I feel like we are giving in…

Blog #2 Staying the Course

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Staying the Course: A Study in Online Student Satisfaction and Retention

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Michael Herbert, Ph.D.
Chair, Criminal Justice Department
Bemidji State University
1500 Birchmont Drive NE
Bemidji , MN 56601-2699

SUMMARY

Is it really true that being physically present in a classroom will help a student remember what is being taught more so than on online class? In Staying the Course: A Study in Online Student Satisfaction and Retention studies were conducted to find the answer to this question.

Previous studies have shown that college students have a 20% to 50% chance of not being able to retain the information they have learned throughout their semesters. Professors who teach online classes believe that this failed retention rate increases by 10% to 20% for online classes.

Since accountability has now officially become the responsibility of the institution providing the education, this failing retention rate has to drop. So far, students who take online classes have not reported having the most positive experiences. In this case, the colleges are responsible for fixing this problem.

First, getting students to stay enrolled in an online class seems to be challenging. One idea that explains this problem involves two factors. An older study suggested that organization and students satisfaction will ultimately lead to their commitment or withdrawal from an online class. Alternate influential factors mentioned by other models that affect commitment, withdrawal and general participation in online classes included general feelings toward the learning institute and the need for positive reinforcement.

The purpose of this study was to determine the variables significant for retention in online courses (Herbert, 2005). The study was conducted by using an online course survey. Surveys were sent to students who had enrolled for online classes. Surveys were sent to participants two times throughout the semester.

Three important variables that were being looked at were personal, institutional and circumstantial variables. The specifics of these variables were defined in this article (Herbert, 2005)

1. Personal variables . These include demographics that encompass age, gender, and martial status; as well as variables such as academic skills and abilities, motivation, commitment and locus of control (Rotter 1966, Parker 1999, Kember 1995).

2. Institutional variables . This category includes variables such as academic, bureaucratic and institutional social variables (Willis 1994, Alexander, McKenzie, and Geissinger 1998).

3. Circumstantial variables . These include socio-economic variables, academic interactions, social interactions and life situation.

Approximately 75% of the participants reported they had completed the online courses they had enrolled in. The remaining 25% reported that they had not completed the online courses. Some of the results indicated that responsiveness to the needs of the students, online instruction quality, timely responses, frequency of interaction, financial aid and student interaction were factors that affected those people who did not complete their online classes.

It is worth noting that although 25% of the participants did not complete their online classes, they still reported back to the researcher. This means that they want to be heard.

A t test showed that there was a significant difference between completers and non-completers. It also showed that the student expectations of the classes were significantly lower among the students whom had not completed the online classes.

The following conclusion can be made for this study. First, students with lower expectations will not perform as well in online classes as students with higher expectations. Second, universities need to take responsibility to improve the online classes.

REVIEW

In my opinion, distance learning is much more difficult than non-distance learning. It’s not the actual presence of being in a physical classroom that influences student grades. It’s the participation and the “give” and “take”. Though in theory the same idea is supposed to be accomplished through online learning, somehow it’s just not the same. On one hand, people might be shy about their real opinions on certain matters since they are actually typing their thoughts. Whatever a student says is “set in stone” so to speak. That’s a level of commitment I think most people don’t want to make. On the other hand, people may be more likely to express themselves to a degree that is borderline mean since they never actually have to see their classmates face to face. Its great to have a debate but the presence of visible mediator is a comfort for some students. So far…I am not a fan of distance education.

Blog #1 Spring 2007

Encouraging Online Participation

By: Lam Wing

SUMMARY

Have you ever felt like “ditching” class and staying home in your pajamas on a rainy day? The new wave of technology allows people to do this 100% of the time. Online discussion forums are just part of a distance learning education.

Encouraging Online Participation discusses methods to ensure that student posts are meaningful. To begin, Wing recommends that the students introduce themselves. This will help students avoid feeling isolated. He suggests that every student should post an introductory message at the start of the class to become acquainted.

Wing mentions a supposed advantage of online discussion forums. Speaking in front of others is a common fear. Many students prefer not to share their own opinions in a class full of people. Online discussion forums provide a comfortable environment for students. Teachers should avoid the “sage on stage” idea so that the new found voices won’t suddenly become quiet. Wing refers to it as being “the guide on the side”.

From the lazy student’s perspective, online discussions are easy. As long as he or she posts a message, who cares what’s in it? Wing calls this a low quality post. Features from a low quality post are posts that provide little new insight, show little evidence of critical analysis and repeat what has already been stated, have little relevance to the main line of discussion and are factually incorrect (Wing 2004).

In order to prevent low quality posts students must follow guidelines. Teachers must direct the students in a very specific manner. Students should also be reminded that online discussion participation counts for part of their grade.

When starting an online discussion forum, teachers should be able to answer the following questions: How often should students check the discussion forum? Which postings are voluntary and which ones are mandatory? What kind of assessment is being used to evaluate the meaning of the posts? Are students required to lead any discussions? Have you used any yes or no questions without asking why?

REVIEW

One particular aspect mentioned in this article got my attention. Online discussion forums are advantageous. Students who would not usually speak in a live classroom now have a voice. Are we giving those students a “crutch”? Many students already have an appreciation for stay-at-home-communication. Why make a phone call when we can send instant messages? Why buy music when we could get it for free from the internet? Today people don’t even need to go grocery shopping at the supermarket. Peapod.com is available 24 hours a day 7 days a week. Physically, sitting on our behinds all day is not good (though I really enjoy my pajamas). Mentally, this kind of lifestyle leads to antisocial behavior. Are we making a mistake by throwing school into the sedentary mix of at-home activities?

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