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In spite of the slow down in U.S. and other world economies, there is dearth of Software professionals all over the world. The globalization has a bigger impact on the software industry then any other industry. The Software industry has achieved the highest mobility of human capital in the last 2 decades.

With all these growth opportunities in the sphere, India is placed at the right place w.r.t. to the manpower for the software industry. We churn out the highest number of Software professionals than any other country; still the IT industry seems to be at a shortage of quality software professional. There is an overwhelming flow of jobs for a software professional in the IT industry.

A very common phrase going around among the IT professionals these days is “Which companies do you have an offer from? And which one are you joining”. For good software professionals the trends have changed, it is not the company that selects these guys; they choose the company and the salary at which they want to join.

The MCA course is exclusively designed to meet the IT requirements of IT Trained Students for various organizations. The well balanced course significantly emphasizes on planning, designing and building of complex commercial application software and system software. The MCA program also places equal importance on the functional knowledge in various areas.

The fact that industries in India and abroad have been placing the MCA students on regular basis is testimony to the quality of course and its students. This is just about the right time for any person looking for a career in software to join the band wagon.

A three year MCA course is not just a postgraduate course; it is also a complete professional grooming for students for a successful career in the IT Industry. The programs thrust is on giving the students a thorough and sound background in theoretical and application-oriented courses relevant to the latest computer software development. The program also emphasizes the application of software technology to solve mathematical, computing, communications/networking and commercial problems.

IAIT has partnered with Sikkim Manipal University, Punjab Technical University and the Karnataka State Open University to provide MCA course. There is a lateral entry option available for your benefit. Check out our website or give us a call at 9810505801/011-43055468 for more information.

Students who are not able to make it to technical courses like B Tech in various streams are usually  demoralized that they might not ever make it in the industry as an engineer and eventually changes the course of their career..Although not being able to secure a regular seat counts as a  drawback,   definitely does not spell the end of the world.The Distance Learning program is a good alternative  as it will impart them excatly same knowledge and training as any regular engineering student.

For a  student pursuing BTech through distance, the benefits are equal to his counterpart pursuing a regular degree. Karnataka State Open University offers the distance learning BTech (IT) course through us – IAIT, a premier institute with branches in Delhi and Dehradun.

Distance learning has some benefits which usually remain hidden commonly, but are definitely beneficial in the long run. The student will be able to learn all the nitty-gritties and techincalities of the degree through the medium of comprehensive study material dispatched at regular intervals supplemented with weekend lectures which make up for classroom experience too. The classroom lectures are very exhaustive and the all round training of the student is given prime importance. The students are a given a fair exposure of the industry mechanisms too with regular guest lectures by eminent faculty that ensures the conditioning of the candidate for the job profiles available.

The teaching of the course is kept the same way as is its practical application  in the industrial sectors. The students are prepared in a manner so that they achieve the standards of excellence.The course is set apart with intensive & regular teaching modules and industrial training oppurtunities.

The course has been designed with the objective of coupling excellence with simplicity. It will be an enriching and rewarding experience for the candidates who enroll.

IAIT has partnered with the Karnataka State Open University to provide the B.Tech (IT) and many other Distance Learning courses for your benefit. Check out our website or give us a call for information.

MyMathLab has just rolled out a new forum for instructors to ask questions and share information on all things related to MyMathLab. It’s called the Instructor Exchange, and you can find it at http://instructorexchange.com/. I’d like to encourage you to join.

Over the last 3 years I have had the wonderful opportunity to attend many MyMathLab meetings, speaking about the ways I use MyMathLab and my student contracts. I always leave these meetings learning a great deal from the instructors who are attending the meeting – I feel I learn more from them than they learn from me. Unless you get to attend several of these meetings a year, you are missing out on some top notch information. The Instructor Exchange can change that.

Once you are a member you will be able to share the wonderful things you do with MyMathLab, ask questions of others, and read about the creative ways your colleagues across the country are using MyMathLab. You’ll also be able to keep up with new features that are about to be added to MyMathLab.

I’ll see you there!

-George

I am a math instructor at College of the Sequoias in Visalia, CA. Each Monday I post an article related to MyMathLab on my blog. If there’s a particular topic you’d like me to address, or if you have a question or a comment, please let me know. You can reach me through the contact page on my website – http://georgewoodbury.com.

I have a 2-inch binder that contains every certificate of achievement I’ve earned since the 1st grade. This includes my “Barranca Elementary Young Authors” certificate from my compelling 1994 work: “Bunnies Jump”

Bunnies jump in the air

They jump everywhere

One lands in my hand

Where I quietly stand

It also includes acknowledgment of my participation in Mrs. Herd’s 4th grade “Ticker Tape Rally” in which a bunch of 10- and 11- year-olds blindly chose random NYSE stocks to “invest” in and tracked their progress weekly. My favorite stock was Catepillar ’cause its stock exchange abbreviation is CAT.

And I like cats.

There’s more useful certificates in here such as my Presidential Academic Achievement Awards from the 5th, 8th, and 12th grade, my Congressional and Presidential Volunteer Awards from middle school, my “Good Job You Passed Junior High Award” courtesy Tina Nguyen with corresponding 8th grade diploma, my Reno Jazz Festival “Master Bass” award for looking and sounding really cool while only having 6 months experience on jazz bass guitar, whatever a “Golden State Seal Merit Diploma” is, and of course my high school and college diplomas.

I like this binder full of papers that prove that I don’t suck. And like I said in my previous post, I’m planning on adding in a few more Associate’s degrees and a Law Degree, heck- maybe I’ll even fulfill my dreams of getting a Master’s degree from every discipline possible at University of Phoenix. But I can’t help but be saddened that as I age, institutions are less willing if not less opportunistic…able… to give me fancy pieces of paper for my participation in an art contest or doing really good on some standardized math test or writing a one-page story about a chick who decides to go fight in some medieval war for King Arthur while showing up her knight husband.

So I’ve set out to find new ways to get fancy pieces of paper, and I would like to share them with you. I think the most important thing to mention is that, like at least 75% of the pieces of paper I earned throughout the first 22 years of my life, you have to actually put effort into a lot of these pieces of paper. Right now I only have a brief list, but hopefully I can come back to this blog later and add on.

Free Online Certificates:

1. FEMA Independent Study

I was introduced to this website when I was a parks and recreation employee– we were required to take a basic Emergency Preparedness FEMA course incase a Boeing 747 crashed in the middle of Covina and I had to help run an emergency shelter… or something like that. On this website, there is an exhaustive list of online courses you can take and receive a certificate of completion for if you score at least 75% on the final exam. It’s probably relatively useless for most people, but if you have a job for the government or for a school or even if you’re in a relatively important managerial position of some sort, this could come in handy when that plane crash lands in your backyard…

Here is an example of a certificate I just got tonight. Fancy, huh?

A lot of the courses can be used as college credit for some random community college in New England. Haven’t looked into that yet, but perhaps that could amount to another random AA or college-awarded Skills Certificate for me…

2. Computer Science Certification

I’ve yet to vet a test on this site, but from the looks of it, you can test in particular computer programming and application proficiency and get a certificate. Cool! Only downfall is that you need to already be proficient– the courses to learn the material for the tests are not free.

3. Study Islam- Why not?

Again, have yet to vet this website, but there is a section that promises a certificate of participation (or one of merit if you receive an A+) upon completion. Not sure if it means one certificate per course or if you have to complete an entire curriculum. There is also a list of free online religion courses: here. I’ve yet to weed through each of them to find any additional certificate-earning opportunities.

4. Typing Certificates (Links below, but in general- google “free typing certificates”)

This one isn’t as high-class as what you can get from more valid typing certificate-issuing institutions. If you are in the Covina area, I suggest heading over to Mt. Sac for a free typing certificate. There are also websites online that allow you to take typing tests for free and then charge to mail you a certificate. Again, I would suggest taking the test in a more professional or school setting if you need a serious typing test certificate for a job. But if you just want another cool piece of paper, have at it:

http://www.freetypinggame.net/free-typing-certificate.asp – allows for double spacebar after periods

http://www.mrkent.com/typingtestwithcertificate/ -works better in Google Chrome than Firefox. May work best in IE but I have yet to try that…

5. Miscellaneous?

Now, it’s just getting late and I’m just getting ridiculous, and I’ll come back to this later but I found another website, alison.com which claims to offer certificates of completion for various online courses but doesn’t specify which ones.

This “Cosmopolitan University” offers free online courses with certificates of completion for only a $5 donation: http://www.cosmoedu.net/completion.html It seems to be mostly academic.

Another with just a few free online tests and certifications for “job skills” (A geography test?): http://www.expertrating.com/freelist.asp

More computer certifications: http://www.brainbench.com/xml/bb/common/testcenter/alltests.xml

Feel free to comment if you know of anything else.

Online colleges are changing the face of higher education and providing a cost-effective and convenient way for more people to achieve degrees and expand their career options. In recent years, online college degree programs have expanded to cover more types of degrees and specialty areas. In fact, nearly 200 different online universities and colleges offer online courses.

Online college courses run the gamut from accredited business, law, and nursing to accredited education, criminal justice, and healthcare degrees. Online graduate programs have also expanded to include MBA degrees and online graduate degrees in just about every subject, including nursing, law, technology, English and education. In addition, there are accredited trade programs and technical colleges that now provide online programs.

Students can complete online college degree programs and online graduate programs in as little as two years, depending on the specialty and type of degree. While traditional programs tend to take up a considerable chunk of a person’s life, colleges offering online degrees offer flexibility to work around a person’s full-time job or family time. Most of the online college courses allow students to complete their assignments and sit in on “lecture” on their timeframe.

Colleges offering online degrees include completely online schools, those with campuses, and some very well known larger schools that recognize the changing needs of today’s students, professionals and parents. An online college search does not have to be difficult. To find the right online college, do an online college search by using an online college directory like eLearners.com or through a search engine.

You might even consider searching through a specific college name that appeals to you and see what types of online college degree programs or blended degrees (online and traditional classroom learning) they offer. Also, consider doing an online college search by the type of degree, such as nursing, criminal justice, or MBA.

Applying to an online college is very easy. There are a few forms that can be filled out online and a limited amount of time to wait before finding out if you are accepted. From there, the process of selecting online college courses and beginning a semester is very simple, including four different start-times throughout the year instead of just a Fall or Spring opening. When you are ready, there is an online college waiting for you!

About eLearners.com®
The eLearners.com website is one of several high visibility, high-quality prospecting tools offered by EducationDynamics, LLC.  Since 1999, eLearners.com has been successfully connecting learners to online education, including online degree and certificate programs, specialized career training, and numerous online courses.

Summer weather and a bit of vacation time has gotten me out of blogging mode for the last week or so.

But I am back into it now and not a moment too soon. I tuned into a talk radio show yesterday while driving, and heard some fairly bizarre opinions about online education spurred by the recent comments of Bill Gates (who has recently said that all university education will be online in five years http://thehill.com/blogs/hillicon-valley/technology/113251-gates-technology-can-lower-college-tuition-to-2000). Gates seems to be generating a bit of panic or at least misunderstanding of what learning at a distance can actually involve.

So… time to move on with my thoughts on the chapters in the Veletsianos book.

Chapter Five is the beginning of the second section of the book which focuses on “Learning Designs for Emerging Technologies”. Here we get to some specific examples. This particular chapter, written by The Learning Technologies Collaborative (Aaron Doering, Charles Miller and Cassandra Scharber) from the University of Minnesota, is titled, “Emerging: A Re-conceptualization of Contemporary Design and Integration”. The chapter maintains that how technology is used is what is important. The authors describe adventure learning (AL) as an example of a way of combining technologies to transform online learning, with a strong foundation in grounded pedagogical models and authentic context.  Already such projects have reached over millions of students (e.g. see http://www.polarhusky.com/ ) offering inquiry and experiential learning by connecting students around the globe to each other and to experts in the field.

I hope that descriptions of projects like this will soon reach the mainstream media and help dispel concerns that online learning is taking something away from education. The opportunities provided through adventure learning are disruptive in that they may not fit neatly into a learning schedule that demands regular standardized testing, but if the benefits can be seen by the average parent/citizen, perhaps there will be a call to re-think some of the established testing models.

As the authors mention, the governor of Minnesota has proposed that state and college students should take 25% of courses online by 2015 (not quite the Bill Gates schedule but along the same lines). I personally hope this means opportunities for new ways of learning. And it is exciting to think that even young students can be involved in collaborative knowledge building through projects like those described related to adventure learning.

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This is from the “Elizabeth Tweets” series of chapter-by-chapter blog posts related to the new book “Emerging Technologies in Distance Education“, edited by George Veletsianos and published by Athabasca University Press (including a freely available e-book version).

This semester I am planning on increasing the use of Facebook in my math classes. I am really focusing on increasing the sense of community in my classes, and I think that Facebook can help me to do that. I chose to focus on Facebook because almost all of my students already have an account, and my students will have an easy time connecting with each other outside of class.

I have created a group page for each course I teach. I will post summaries of each topic we cover, tips for success, and homework assignments. Students will have “blogging” assignments that they will post to the Facebook group page, including a daily group summary (Top 5 list) of what happened in class. Students will be able to post (homework) questions to their classmates, and this will give students the opportunity to help each other.

My biggest goal is for students to make connections with each other inside AND outside of class. My belief is that students who feel connected will enjoy greater success in the class. I will keep you updated on the progress throughout the semester.

Next week I will share how I plan to use Twitter this semester.

Your Turn

Do you use Facebook in your classes? How do you use it? Are there any benefits that you have observed? I invite you to share your thoughts – please leave your comment or you can reach me through the contact page on my website .

-George

I am a mathematics instructor at College of the Sequoias in Visalia, CA. Each Friday I will blog about technology, inside and outside of the classroom. Let me know if there are other topics you’d like me to cover by leaving a comment or by reaching me through the contact page on my website.