Altilab2005 - Distance Education Blog

Distance education as the name implies is the method of implementing education to students who are distanced from the source of education by space or time and cannot be physically present in the classrooms. The course material for these programs are provided through DVDs, e-mails, print materials etc and the aim is to provide a comprehensive educational experience to the learners. In the recent times distance education is increasingly gaining popularity all over the world. The reason for this is that it is a very convenient mode of study.

The chief advantage of distance education is that you can study at your own pace and take your own time. You can balance your studies alongside other activities. This also saves you from the daily grind of commuting. For people who have to work and yet wish to pursue higher studies this is the ideal method. Distance education also caters to the needs of parents with kids who find it almost impossible to attend regular classes. Moreover with the seats to professional courses in regular colleges being limited barely a few people can get through.

Distance education gives you the opportunity to pursue the course of your choice even if you do not have the qualifying marks to get through in regular courses. There are also students who do not find the environment in a classroom very congenial. This could be because they are overcome by a sense of embarrassment when surrounded by a lot of other people or because they find it difficult to speak up or ask questions in the presence of others. Studying in their own familiar environment and being at ease with themselves give them a better opportunity to perform.

A person might want to take up their studies after being forced to give it up at some point of time under unfortunate circumstances. Such a person would naturally be older than the average college-goers. Usually such a person finds it difficult to adjust in the classroom environment. Distance education is the best instrument at his disposal.

Learning is a life-long process and often we need education to give us the knowledge, expertise and believability to effect positive changes in our lives. Distance education is not just a boon to a person’s career but it is also one of the best options for attaining knowledge.

All articles contributed in full or part by Athens Learning college preparedness resource.

Most of us have viewed the local tv commercials informing us about the millions in cash grant money available for students around the nation. Yes, there may be a grain of truth in that claim, most of us are pretty certain that the Federal government has no intention of handing over millions of dollars in free grant money for college to help pay for our education Still, there are grants available to help college students pay for their college education.

What Types of Free Grant Money For College Are Available?

Federal College Grants: The Pell Grant

Thankfully, the majority of government aid packages don’t look at your credit history when deciding whether or not you are eligible for a grant.

What is Free Grant Money for College and Am I Eligible?

As one of the most well-known grant programs, the Pell Grant program is fairly well-known. Rather than basing your eligibility on credit-worthiness, your economic situation is taken into considerationIf the student and his or her parents are a low-income family, Pell Grants are almost automatic. Almost. As with any form of Federal Student Aid, your economic situation has to be demonstrated through the correct documentation and fall within the proper guidelines.

A Pell Grant does not have to be repaid. Currently, the max Pell Grant amount is $5,350 per year.The maximum value of the Pell Grant is subject to change annually and will depend partially on the program’s funding that year.

What If I Don’t Qualify for Free Grant Money for College?

Since a Pell Grant is dependent on your financial status and cost of education, among other factors, the grant may not cover the cost of your education. For this reason, the majority of college students often consider student loans as a viable alternative to help cover the cost of their education.

Stafford Loans are the most common type of Federal Student Loan program. There are two types of Stafford Loans available and students may qualify for both types (Subsidized or Unsubsidized). And the good news is, Stafford Loans do not take a student’s or the parents’ credit history into account when determining eligibility.

One of the most common student loans is the Stafford Subsidized Loan. A subsidized loan means that the government will pick up the tab on your interest while the loan in not in repayment. That period is typically while the student is carrying a half-time or greater load of classes, and for the first six months after leaving school.

An unsubsidized Stafford Loan, however, requires that college students pay for any interest accrued on the outstanding principle.The good news is, if you are strapped for cash while you are in college, you do not have to pay your interest payments, but they will be added to the loan principle.

Perkins Loans versus Stafford Loans

In addition to Stafford Loans, Perkins Loans are also available to college students to help fund their education. The Perkins Loan is awarded to undergraduate and graduate students with exceptional financial need. This is a campus-based loan program, with the school acting as the lender using a limited pool of funds provided by the federal government.

How Much Am I Eligible For?

For Stafford Loans, dependent undergraduate students can borrow from $5,500 to $7,500 per year. For independent undergraduate students, you can take out from $9,500 to $12,500 per year. Grad students or professional students can get loans of up to twenty-thousand, five hundred dollars each year.

Under the Perkins Loan Program, a student can borrow between $5,500 and $8,000 for each year of study depending on the degree level. The amount you receive under the Perkins Loan program (unlike the Stafford program) will depend somewhat on the funding level at the school, but the loan offers a very low interest rate of five percent.

How to Pay For College

Clearly, each person’s background is unique. Although many individuals will be able to receive free grant money for college because of their economic status, some students will instead have to take advantage of low-rate student loans to fund their college tuition costs and expenses. Though everyone would rather receive free grant money for college… and many people reading this article will receive grant money, others will not qualify. But at the end of the day, the most important goal is to locate a university that offers a Student Aid Package that will enable you to receive your university degree.

Find Free Grant Money For College or find universities that offer financial aid packages that better meet your unique needs.

In Learning with Technology this week, we discussed a short story by E.M. Forster titled “The Machine Stops” and an article discussing “The Machine Stops”, “The ‘Imponderable Bloom’: Reconsidering the Role of Technology in Education” by R. Sanders. Written in 1909, “The Machine Stops” is a seemingly prophetic sci-fi about the dangers of technology and its potential to rule our world and separate us as humans.  As a result of these two readings, the theme of our class discussion this week seemed to be the pitfalls of technology and distance learning.  It was very interesting – while I typically would be inclined to agree that “The Machine Stops” is representative of where our society is and is heading, the discussion this week was rather set against online learning and technology, which seemed to make me so defensive for those accessing technology that I am now more inclined to disagree, seeing Vashti, and the story itself, as an extreme case. Stories do not sell if they are not sensational and disturbing.  We have had those living on the fringe of society, fearing human contact since society began – technology in these cases would be the means to the end, not the cause.  I believe that we will always value human connection – why else would technology be so socially driven?  Some classmates also see technology as the “easy way” to do things. While technology can make life simpler, and some may use it for this purpose, it is not reasonable to make blanket statements about those using technology – this is not its only purpose.  If they are true to their own philosophy of human contact, those who fear that technology is taking away human contact must remember to see the humans behind technology. Technology creates access.  It is not always the way to avoid the emotional effort of calling someone, or the easy way to take – or teach – a class, nor is it always a way to foster children when a single parent or both parents work.  It is a way to still keep in touch and acknowledge a person when you may not have the time or money to call, it is the way to broaden the availability of courses – and further diversify the classroom with additional students as an instructor, and it is the way to take children on an exploration of the world when parents can’t afford a vacation.  To me, technology improves the connection between people – granted, it is not the same as face to face, and as humans, we will always naturally crave the human connection, but technology simply improves the opportunities to connect with people.  One classmate asked if a person with 2,000 friends on Facebook would pursue deep friendships with these people in real life.  I think the question to ask is, would that person even have an opportunity to meet, or maintain contact with those people in real life?

People who have lost touch for a number of years are now able to find each other, individuals geographically bound can now earn higher degrees, high school students who are too ostracized to show their faces in a classroom  – or are suddenly teen parents – can now earn their high school diploma in a safe format (thus possibly decreasing the occurrences of dropouts and violence, whether self-inflicted or inflicted on others), and those who have never been able to truly comprehend their textbooks (possibly due to disabilities) are now able to discover the joy of reading with audio books, podcasts and digital readers (e.g. Kindle and Natural Reader).  Sanders stated, “Most of us recall that F2F course in which we felt alone and disconnected, and online learning environments sometimes provide the only means through which students can access higher education” (heading: “Online Learning/Online Worlds, last paragraph). While we must be cognizant of the danger of becoming so steeped in technology that we no longer see humans as humans, and no longer value face to face interaction, we must also acknowledge that technology has made learning and education available to an astounding number of individuals that would not be able to access it otherwise.

The latest version of the video conferencing software Skype (4.1 for Windows, 2.8 for Mac) gives users the ability to share their screens remotely – and for free! Although audio and video are great for communication, they are often insufficient to explain step-by-step procedures, such as inserting a video into PowerPoint 2007. Skype’s new feature allows users to share their desktops instead of using their webcams while continue to talk.

Potential applications for this new feature could be: demonstrating procedures, presenting documents, sharing videos, trouble shooting, etc.  

How to share your screen

Simply call a contact and click Share –> Share Your Screen in the IM toolbar (Windows) or Share –> Share Screen (Mac). If desired, one can either share the complete desktop or just a selection.

For more information, visit http://www.skype.com/allfeatures/screensharing/.

Last week I participated in a seminar organized by JISC in Ormskirk. The focus of the seminar was creating and sharing digital content with emphasis on the promises and pitfalls of Open Educational Resources (OER). Representatives from the CETL on Reusable Learning Objects, SOLSTICE, ROCOCO, Q-ROLO, Open Spires and ReFORM spoke about their projects and took part in discussions about the future of OERs. I came away from the meeting with a feeling that whilst Open Educational Resources offer a lot of promise there is the need for a concerted effort to debate and find solutions to some of the drawbacks that threaten the potential benefits of these resources to the HE sector. Here are a few things mentioned regarding benefits and pitfalls:

Benefits
• Economies of scale in terms of cost benefit analysis
• Improved access and better use of existing resources
• Innovation in the design of teaching and learning materials

Pitfalls
• Copyright issues
• Institutional barriers in terms of existing curriculum processes
• Lack of local content repositories
• OER literacy i.e. the capacity of academic staff to create and share open learning resources

I was quite struck by the discussion on how to engage various stakeholders to maximize the benefits of OERs whilst addressing the pitfalls. What was missing in all the discussions was the role of learners in advancing the vision of the OER movement. The Edgeless University report has emphasized the need to engage students in the design of courses to better understand their needs and also determine when and how teaching and learning should happen in the future. Clearly, making OERs more sustainable will require not just institutional commitment to “openness” in teaching and learning, or overcoming copyright hurdles or changing staff attitudes towards “open learning design” but more importantly how we as OER practitioners draw lessons from student experiences in HE to improve the quality of our materials in order to motivate learners locally and international to use these materials.

Samuel Nikoi ( 24 July 2009)

As with other professional groups, many educators have integrated Twitter into their digital lifestream and in some cases, their classrooms. But Paul Hudson’s article in techradar makes a good case (as part of a larger argument urging more thought and caution about ostensibly free web apps) for considering Identi.ca as your microblogging platform. In addition to cloning your Twitter stream, he explains that it operates on the OpenMicroBlogging standard and supports OpenID. Essentially, this openness gives you access to your data whenever you need it.

Like Twitter, you can use Identi.ca through the web or a dedicated client. As a Mac user, I like Nambu.

Technorati Tags:
Identi.ca, Nambu, techradar, Paul Hudson

Today’s post is a bit of a plea for help with a couple of things that I’m working on.

Firstly, I’ve been taking a look at what other universities offer on their web sites in the way of pre-entry guidance - particularly for those who are considering studying through distance education.  If you are a distance education student, or are considering becoming one, it would be useful to hear your views on issues such as:

• resources that you’d like to see on a web site to help you choose a course and/or papers
• the issues that you face, or think you’ll face, as a distance student
• resources that might help with these issues

Secondly, I’m also looking at the support offered to those studying for a PhD.  In particular:

• what support has been – or would be – useful for you as a doctoral student?
• what are some of the obstacles you’ve faced or are worried you’ll face?
• what might you – and your university – do about these? 

Any views on the above gratefully received!  Thanks.

This week in Learning with Technology we discussed two articles – “Global Competition: U.S. Students vs. International Peers – Are U.S. students’ tech skills keeping up with their international peers?” by Kathleen K. Manzo, and “A Retrospective on Twenty Years of Education Technology Policy”, a report by Culp, Honey and Mandinach.  Many of my classmates discussed the incorporation of technology in their classrooms.  Most seemed to concede that technology is frequently a simple form of technology used so that the teachers can demonstrate integration (e.g. a PowerPoint in teaching).  I was thrilled to watch this discussion topic – while many have resisted technology in the past, they now realize its full potential and believe that teachers must adapt to make technology more than a background tool, but rather a component of learning.  They recognized the need for thinking outside the box in order to incorporate technology.  I was very impressed by their ideas, especially ideas for incorporating technology into less-expected areas, such as physical education – I could certainly see the usefulness of technology and its possibilities as I read their ideas. I hope that educators in this subject area are able to bring awareness of the potential of technology for their students!

Technology has opened up amazing academic possibilities for research, especially at my college in rural Oregon, where research has not been accessible in the past.  Effective research is essential to my students if they are going to transfer to, and be successful in, a university.  The article “A Retrospective on Twenty Years of Education Technology Policy” states on p. 23: “…the steady growth of distance learning, particularly within rural schools, has had a significant impact on what used to be an insurmountable challenge – delivering a broad range of professional development opportunities to rural teachers, and providing rural students with the same diversity of coursework available to students in other settings”.

Beyond distance courses, technology and distance education has brought about a substantial change in the access of information to rural college students – students now have so many types of information at their fingertips, including online and electronic journals, wikis, blogs, government documents, and magazines and newspapers. This does, at times present a challenge – the sheer amount of valid and less valid information available can be overwhelming.  We have workshops and work one on one with our students to teach them research techniques.  We teach them what constitutes valid research and when to use what type of sources, how to cite their sources (keeping a working bibliography), and how to find sources and documents (Standards 3.2 & .3).  A lot of what we teach is done through online, interactive tutorials so that our students can become comfortable with using computer applications before beginning their research and papers.

There was considerable discussion among my classmates concerning filters and blocked sites in K-12 schools.  I know that filters can be frustrating, but they exist for a reason.  Sometimes the reasons are administrators, and other times, parents.  One classmate wondered if sometimes the resistance on the part of parents is just a “control issue” – I wonder if, rather than control, it could be fear, and a lack of understanding. Those without technological literacy may not feel comfortable releasing their students into the great unknown without any moderation.  Also, beyond the typical legal concerns, there are the concerns that various sites are not being used for academic purposes.  On the note of research, there was repeated mention in discussions this week that we want our students to use academically appropriate sources in research, but we struggle with helping them understand what is appropriate.  We want them to have access to all sites in an academic environment, and we frequently endorse various sites that are not academic in nature, and then we want them to understand that some sites are not valid as academic sources – aren’t we sending mixed messages?