Join us at the National Council for Continuing Education and Training (NCCET) annual conference.

Gatlin Education Services will be attending the NCCET national conference in Louisville, Kentucky on Oct. 7 - 10. The NCCET conference is one of the best continuing education conferences of the year. The Council is committed to providing its members with benefits that keep them up to date on new trends, help maintain a personal and professional network, and give access to the latest leading edge programs throughout the country.

The NCCET leadership is active on the national scene, working with AACC Commissions, such as the Commissions on Economic and Workforce Development, and Learning and Communications Technologies. NCCET has actively been contributing to national policy development through our sponsorship of national colloquia on certification and credentialing (2001) and transcripting (2003), as well as our authorship of White Papers on these important topics.

Colorado State Approves Online University.

This post comes from The Chronicle's Wired Campus Blog.

Yet another state university is hoping to strike gold with online education for working adults. Colorado State University’s Board of Governors on Friday approved $4.5-million for the creation of an online university, according to an article Sunday in the Coloradoan.

The online, nonprofit university, to be called CSU-Colorado, is being developed with the Colorado Community College system. It is expected to cost a total of $12-million and be open for business next year.

“We must reach broader student populations, particularly those who are geographically isolated or fall into nontraditional categories because of family, work, and financial need,” said the chancellor of the CSU system, Larry Edward Penley, in a statement posted on the university’s Web site.

Is demand for online education great enough to support another online institution from a state university? The University of Illinois and the University of North Carolina announced their own distance-education spinoffs earlier this year.

More than 15m UK houses now online.

This post comes from the Guardian Unlimited. The number of UK households with internet access has jumped by nearly one million over the past year, with London and the south-west leading the way, official data showed today.

Figures from the Office for National Statistics showed that 15.23 million households now have internet access, equivalent to 61% of all households and an increase of 7% from 2006.

The proportion of homes with broadband access has grown sharply to 51%.

London and the south-west were the regions with the highest level of internet access, at 69%, and London remained top of the list when it came to broadband access as well. Click here to read the rest of this article.

This post comes from Inside Higher Ed. The contentious debate surrounding the regulation of for-profit colleges continues churning in California, where Republican Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger’s administration put forward a five-year legislative proposal Friday to counter a Democratic leader’s stopgap solution. With only three weeks remaining in the legislative session, the parties in the discussion — the institutions, consumer advocates and their respective political backers — are as diametrically opposed as ever. And time to regulate the 400,000-student sector – essentially left unregulated when an earlier law expired this summer – is quickly running out.

“Both parties, both sides, are so far apart, and trying to find a middle ground consensus place for this bill has been incredibly difficult. And it doesn’t seem likely that’s going to happen this year,” says Michael Miiller, a consultant representing the president pro tem of the Democratically controlled Senate, Don Perata, who has sponsored legislation to regulate the for-profit colleges (SB 823) that has been championed by student advocates but stymied by widespread criticism from industry supporters. Click here to read the rest of this article.

The adult education balancing act.

This post comes from Canada.com. Going back to school when you have a job and a family is a daunting prospect. Now, imagine you're also a single parent. Belynda Lee-Tjandra, an admissions officer at the Art Institute of B.C., opted for a distance-learning program with Alberta's Athabasca University that let her work online at her own pace. She was also able to transfer half the needed credits toward her bachelor of administration degree from a college management program she'd previously completed. But she still felt like giving up more than once. "Balancing family, career and studies was taking its toll," she admits.

She stuck it out, becoming part of a growing wave of adult students looking for new careers, advancement or just a personal challenge. The number of full-time adult students more than tripled between 1976 and 1996, and continues to rise, according to Statistic Canada. In 2001, 14% of men and 15% of women were taking courses, the majority earning a post-secondary degree at a community college or vocational school. Click here to read the rest of this article.

Blackboard, competitor reach agreement to end court fight.

This post comes from BizJournals. IParadigms LLC has agreed not to sue educational software company Blackboard Inc. to settle a lawsuit.

Both companies sell online learning platforms for educational institutions. D.C.-based Blackboard provides software that universities and high schools use to put course materials and other information online. In July it released a new plagiarism detection feature.

Oakland, Calif.-based iParadigms sells online applications to identify plagiarism.

IParadigms received a patent May 15 related to technology for conducting a peer review process and evaluating the originality of documents.

Blackboard filed a lawsuit Aug. 3 asking a California federal court to prevent a patent infringement lawsuit by iParadigms and issue a finding that the company's new patent is invalid. Blackboard chief legal officer Matt Small said his company began receiving "threatening" letters from iParadigms July 6.

Legal experts said Blackboard would needed to have convinced a judge that the company had a reasonable fear that iParadigms would sue for infringement to secure an order preventing a case before one was ever filed. Click here to read the rest of this article.

Sloan-C Annual International Conference on Online Learning announced.

The Sloan Consortium will be holding their International Conference on Online Learning in Orlando, Florida from November 7 - 9. This conference, which will provide the latest information on asynchronous learning programs, processes, packages, and protocols, is geared to both experienced professionals and interested newcomers to online learning who hail from a variety of work sectors, including higher education, continuing education, business, government, health care, professional associations, and nonprofit organizations. It is especially designed to meet the needs of:

• College-level faculty and administrators
• Instructional technology and media professionals
• Instructional designers
• Trainers in public-and private-sector organizations

Adult scholarships available for low-income women to pursue education, training.

This post comes from District Chronicles. The AARP Foundation has a new scholarship program to help low-income women 40 and above to participate in education and training opportunities. Approximately 100 scholarships ranging from $500 to $5,000 are expected to be awarded in the first round. The process opens August 31, 2007 online at www.aarp.org/womensscholarship. Applications are only available online.

Priority will be given to women who are:

1. returning to the workforce after an extended absence;

2. individuals who are underemployed (in a job with limited pay, limited growth opportunities and limited benefits); or

3. grandmothers or other female relatives raising another family member's child/children (with the ability to demonstrate significant financial responsibility for those child/children).

The application deadline is October 31, 2007. Scholarship recipients will be notified in January 2008 and funds will be made available shortly thereafter.

More students finish School, Given the Time.

This post comes from the New York Times. Faced with 70,000 students or more who are years behind in obtaining the credits needed to graduate from high school, New York City is at the forefront of a movement to recognize that for a significant number, high school might stretch into five, six, even seven years.

David Dorsey, 22, with a diploma, and his mother, Lydia. He said of a counselor, “I just decided to show up to get her off my back.”

In an effort that has expanded across Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg’s second term, the city has spent nearly $37 million to identify and cater to students who are at the biggest risk of dropping out and has already contracted for $31 million more in programs.

The staggering numbers of those who are far behind cover almost a quarter of the city’s public high school population — students like Sunil Ragoonath, who at 18 had passed barely enough courses at John Adams High School in Queens to be considered a sophomore. He routinely skipped school. “All I had to do was walk out the door,” Mr. Ragoonath said recently.

To get younger students who have failed many classes back on track, Schools Chancellor Joel I. Klein has created more than two dozen “transfer schools,” and plans to open as many as 30 more over the next five years. The city also offers them intensive remedial courses.

For students past the traditional graduation age, the city has established special centers to provide counseling, night classes and an environment designed to avoid the stigma of being college age but in class with 14-year-olds. Some students also earn credits through summer school and community college classes.

When the programs began in 2004, they were serving roughly 2,000 students. That number has since ballooned to more than 7,000. Many students will graduate this week, after spending the summer earning final credits.

Mr. Ragoonath, now 19, plans to be one of them. Prodded by a guidance counselor, he enrolled last September in a center that runs night classes and promised him one last chance. Within months, he had earned a year’s worth of credits. This summer, he toiled over economics online and attended a fiber optics class at Queensborough Community College. “At last, I think I can say I am done,” he said.

New York is not unique in the vast number of students who are at risk of dropping out. In many large urban school systems, students, particularly poor minority students, can be as likely to drop out as to graduate, a decision that can have lifelong consequences. The earnings of high school dropouts have declined nearly a third over the past three decades, according to Achieve Inc., a nonprofit group that helps states raise academic standards. For those with no diploma, median family income was $32,379 in 1974, compared with $22,476 in 2004, measured in 2004 dollars.

Portland, Ore., Chicago and Boston are all using grants from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation to study their own dropouts to start programs for students who have fallen woefully behind.

But nowhere is the effort as far along as in New York City. “The first thing we had to understand was how many kids were over age and off track — just to know the real size of the challenge we are dealing with,” said Adam Tucker, a program officer with the Gates Foundation, which gave New York a grant to study dropouts. Most of the city’s programs for dropouts are financed with taxpayer dollars.

New York officials acknowledge that students should complete high school in four years. But they consider every diploma a victory since the city’s four-year graduation rate hovers at 50 percent despite an uptick in recent years. For all students, the efforts end at 21, when the school system is no longer required by state law to educate them.

The push for alternatives came in part because of a lawsuit from a nonprofit group, Advocates for Children, which charged that many lagging students were being pushed out of school against their will. The suit was settled, and schools now conduct “exit interviews” with students who want to leave the system and suggest alternatives.

When officials began studying the problem in detail two years ago, there was only sketchy information about who these failing students were. New York commissioned a $2.6 million effort by the Parthenon Group, a Boston consulting firm, to find out more about those who left without diplomas.

With its data in hand, the officials roughly divide students into two groups. Younger students who are far behind enter the transfer schools, where smaller class sizes allow for personal attention. Students older than 17 who have enough credits to be considered at least a sophomore are sent to “young adult borough centers.” They take classes in traditional high schools, but at night, and with more individual attention.

“If I have a problem in class, I can go to the teacher and talk about it, not just sulk around,” said Monica Lopardo, 18, who transferred to the center affiliated with Lincoln High School in Brooklyn last year and expects to graduate in January.

School officials are convinced that with enough creativity, they can cobble together schedules to give the students the full platter of classes. “The transcripts come in a bit of a mess,” said Michele Cahill of the Carnegie Corporation, who created these alternative programs when she worked for Mr. Klein. “There are some who are missing all their gym classes but have passed three years of math.”

For those who work with these students, one of the most difficult tasks is convincing them that they can, and should, finish high school. “These are students who are really frustrated and ready to be out,” said Edita Volovodovskaya, who runs the John Adams Young Adult Borough Center, which is attached to John Adams High School. “But it takes a lot of work. They weren’t always willing to take a full load; they weren’t always willing to show up to class.”

That was precisely how David Dorsey behaved when he first started at the center. He was already 19 and half-heartedly thought he would have another shot at a diploma. But there were long stretches when he did not bother to show up. Then his phone would begin to ring. His counselor, a social worker from a local community center, called every day that he was absent.

“Finally I decided to pick up the phone, and this woman is on the other end saying, ‘Where are you? Get in here,’ ” Mr. Dorsey said. “I just decided to show up to get her off my back — otherwise she was going to be on my phone bill a lot.” He graduated at 21 and has now finished a semester at La Guardia Community College.

Night school also helps with the frustration of being older than classmates in traditional high schools. “You start to feel like an old man with little kids,” said Christian Alvarenga, who moved from regular school at John Adams to the night program after his fifth year of high school.

The embarrassment diminishes when students attend the borough centers. But they are still keenly aware that they are behind schedule.

Camry Petillo, 21, who finished the John Adams program in June, decided to forgo graduation. “I didn’t feel like I had a lot to celebrate,” she said. “I knew I should have been up there years ago.”

Florida leads growth in virtual schooling.

This post is from eSchool News. The oldest and largest virtual school in the country, Florida Virtual School is still growing. Although some have raised questions about funding and the amount of social interaction that students receive, ed-tech advocates say the potential of FLVS, and other virtual schools, is unlimited, and can help struggling students become 21st century learners.
As a seventh-grader, Kelsey-Anne Hizer was getting mostly Ds and Fs and thought teachers at her Ocala, Fla., middle school weren't giving her the help she needed. She was ready to give up.

But after switching schools for eighth grade, Kelsey-Anne is receiving more individual attention, making As and Bs, and is enthusiastic about learning--even though she has never been in the same room as her teachers. Click here to read the rest of this article.

Gatlin Education Services offers new RFID training course

We are pleased to announce our partnership with OTA Training, LLC to provide the premier product in electronic RFID education, RFID on the Web™.

Developed by the global leader in RFID training and certification, RFID on the Web is a comprehensive training solution built to supply students with the information necessary to implement RFID technology in various settings including supply chain logistics, manufacturing process improvement, health care and pharmaceutical authentication.

"We are very pleased to be working with Gatlin, the recognized leader in online education, to provide our premier e-learning product," said Robert Sabella, CEO and founder of OTA Training, LLC. "Through this partnership, quality RFID training will be made accessible to more than 300 universities worldwide."

OTA Training designed RFID on the Web as an interactive course using flash animated simulations based on real RFID implementation projects to give students a comprehensive knowledge of how RFID is applied in a real-world environment.

“Today, there is a rapidly growing number of uses for radio frequency identification,” said Stephen Gatlin, founder of Fort Worth-based Gatlin Education Services. “The demand for RFID certified professionals is overwhelming due to so many commercial factors driving the adoption of this technology.”

The 70-hour course is now available through Gatlin’s partnership with major colleges and universities. Upon completion of the course, students will be provided with a certification voucher in order to take their CompTIA™ RFID+ certification exam and become RFID+ Certified.

About Gatlin Education Services:
Established in 1989 by Stephen Gatlin, Gatlin Education Services is the largest provider of Web-based, instructor-supported training to community colleges and universities. Gatlin’s courses are open enrollment, allowing interested students to start their desired training immediately. Gatlin’s online career training courses are designed to provide the skills necessary to acquire professional caliber positions for many in-demand occupations.

About OTA Training, LLC:
OTA Training, LLC operates for the sole purpose of educating companies on how to implement RFID successfully. To provide our students with the most in-depth, relevant, and practical RFID training we use the E3 Learning System, a proven methodology that makes our training Effective, Engaging and Easy to Follow. All of OTA’s instructors are qualified RFID professionals and possess the real world knowledge and experience to prepare you for the challenges of implementing RFID technology.

Based in Dallas, Texas, OTA offers RFID training courses worldwide. We take great pride in providing state-of-the-art training tools, with up-to-date content in the best RFID training centers around the globe. Any of our courses can be customized to fit your company's requirements and can be conducted at your location. More information is available at http://www.otatraining.com/

Gatlin partners with Vubiz Ltd. as an eLearning Center partner.

Gatlin Learning, Inc. announced today it has reached an agreement with e-learning provider Vubiz Ltd. that will make learning fun and effective for students. Vubiz will contribute instructional content for Gatlin’s eLearning Center, more than 101 courses in business, finance and personal enrichment online programs.

Winner of the 2005 Canadian Awards for Training Excellence, Vubiz is a full-service e-learning company that produces high quality content for thousands of banks, associations and businesses across the United States and Canada. The e-learning provider will supply Gatlin Learning with courses including Community Development, Customer Service, Financial Basics, E-Commerce, Call Center and Sales and Marketing. Courseware provided by Vubiz includes professionally designed content that is interactive and available in several languages. In addition, each course will incorporate online customer service, project management and program evaluation.

“We are very pleased to announce our partnership with Vubiz,” said Stephen Gatlin, founder of Fort Worth-based Gatlin Learning, Inc. “They’ve been around since the beginning of e-learning and have vast experience in the industry. Our students will truly benefit from their expertise in training and education.”

About Gatlin Learning, Inc.
Gatlin Learning, Inc. is the Internet’s foremost resource of e-learning content. Thousands of self-study courses from the world’s leading online education companies have been amassed into one place – theelearningcenter.com – and are available for direct sale to students anywhere in the world. Gatlin Learning partners with businesses and institutions of higher learning to create completely individualized portal Web sites where students have direct access to both certificate and non-certificate, non-credit courses. The result is a comprehensive and user-friendly one-stop shop where students and business professionals can meet their continuing education needs and get on the fast track to a long and successful career.

About Vubiz Ltd. Founded by John Bulloch, Vubiz commenced operations in late 1995 as a not-for-profit company called the Learning Institute for Small and Medium Sized Enterprise (LISME). In 2000, the company was incorporated and changed its legal name to Vubiz Ltd. Vubiz is an approved provider of online training content for the USA Learning initiative (formerly GoLearn) for the US government as well as the VOR for the Canadian government.

Gatlin Education Services goes all in with new casino gaming courses

We are pleased to announce our Casino Poker Dealer course is now available for immediate enrollment. The 100-hour course, supplied by poker industry’s elite high-roller and founder of Johnny Chan Academy, will be offered through Gatlin’s partnership with major colleges and universities.

The online course, offered in both English and Mandarin, will prepare students for a career in the casino industry’s table game environment by providing direction from 10-time winner of the World Series of Poker, Johnny Chan. This highly interactive training program teaches the methods, techniques and mannerisms of professional poker players through the use of streaming multimedia and instructional video e-mails.

Casino Poker Dealer is the first of three courses to be released in 2007 as part of the Casino Gaming program. Gatlin plans to provide Learn to be a Black Jack Dealer and Learn to be a Baccarat Dealer in September.

“We are really excited to have this partnership with Gatlin Education Services,” said Kevin Upton, Director of Distance Learning for Johnny Chan Academy. “A career as a casino poker dealer is not only well-paying, but it’s gaining more interest as the game of poker has increased its popularity worldwide in the last few years. We are happy to provide students with the opportunity to be successful by learning from the best in the industry.”

Casino Poker Dealer is a perfect course for long-time poker fanatics as well as individuals who are new to the game. The course covers basic fundamentals such as shuffling, limits and how to handle cheques in today’s most popular card games including Seven Card Stud, Omaha and Texas Hold ‘Em. Students will have their skill progression critiqued by a professional poker dealer instructor, and after successfully completing the program, the advisors at the Johnny Chan Academy will assist with job placement and support.

Established in 1989 by Stephen Gatlin, Gatlin Education Services is the largest provider of Web-based, instructor-supported training to community colleges and universities. Gatlin’s online career training courses are open enrollment, allowing interested students to start their desired training immediately. Gatlin’s courses are designed to provide the skills necessary to acquire professional caliber positions for many in-demand occupations.

The Johnny Chan Academy offers the only poker school on the Internet that features lessons, tips and insight from poker legend, Johnny Chan. Chan has been described as the world’s most famous professional poker player, holding two World Series of Poker championship titles (in 1987 and 1988) and an impressive ownership of 10 WSOP bracelets. He is a founding member of the World Poker Association and was inducted into the Poker Hall of Fame in 2002.

Online Passes The Test As Avenue For Tutoring.

This post comes from CNN Money. Boston area teacher Eileen Ng does a lot of chatting most nights.

Her chatting is typing online instant messages back and forth with high schoolers, helping them learn geometry and biology. Sometimes they draw out problems and solutions on an electronic white board together.

Ng started online tutoring in February, after going on maternity leave. She had tutored students in-person before, and saw online tutoring as a way to keep up her skills without having to leave home.

Her offline tutoring would cover a lot of bases, Ng says. But online tutoring has turned out to be quite different.

"I feel the sessions are more along the lines of students who are stuck in a particular spot or have a very specific question," she said. "I don't do as much studying for quizzes with them, or reviewing, say, a whole chapter in a book."

A mini-industry has arisen around the idea of online tutoring. It aims to take a chunk out of the overall K-12 tutoring and test preparation market, which consulting firm Eduventures predicts will bring in $28 billion in the 2008-09 school year. To read the rest of this article click here.

96 percent of teens use social-networking tools.

This post comes from eSchoool News. A new survey reveals that creating content and connecting with their peers online is nearly ubiquitous for students ages 9 to 17 who have internet access: Only one in 20 teens and "tweens" surveyed said they have not used social-networking technologies such as chatting, text-messaging, blogging, or visiting online communities such as Facebook, MySpace, and Webkinz.

What's more, students report that one of the most common topics of conversation on the social-networking scene is education--suggesting that schools have a huge, but largely untapped, opportunity to harness these technologies in support of student learning.

Released Aug. 14 by the National School Boards Association (NSBA) and Grunwald Associates LLC, the survey shows that 96 percent of students with online access use social-networking technologies. Nearly 60 percent of these students report discussing education-related topics online, such as college or college planning, learning outside of school, and careers. And half of online students say they talk specifically about schoolwork. Click here to read the rest of this article.

What Low-Income Earners Can Do To Get Off Minimum Wage.

This interesting and detailed post comes from a blog called The Digerati Life. It discusses in detail the challenges minimum wage earners face and some of the solutions they can pursue to increase their income. One of those solutions is to take online career training and use Gatlin's affordable loan program to qualify for financial aid.

"In America, around 30 million workers between the ages of 18 and 64 are minimum wage earners or low-income workers. They earn less than $9 an hour in their jobs and most probably earn the minimum wage of $5.85 an hour. That’s all of $12,168 a year, much lower than what is recognized as the 2007 federal poverty limit of $17,170 for a family of three. I’ve thought about this now and again — how do the working poor survive with such earnings especially in areas where the cost of living is through the roof? The truth is that a lot of them work hard; harder in fact than you and I probably do, employed at multiple jobs and toiling through several shifts in a day." Click here to read the rest of this interesting article.

Congress taking aim at diploma mills.

This article comes from the Post Gazette. When Pittsburgh City Councilwoman Twanda Carlisle came under scrutiny last year for authorizing $27,000 for a controversial study written by her mother's boyfriend, she defended the study and its author saying, "He's a Ph.D. He's qualified."

Lee Otto Johnson, who submitted the 85-page report on city health issues that consisted of reports written by other agencies and an essay on race and religion, does list a doctorate on his resume from Columbia State University. But it's a school that never existed except as a company that sold phony degrees to people willing to buy them.

Columbia State University, which had no campus, no faculty and no class work, has been shut down by federal authorities who declared the wildly profitable Internet company a "diploma mill." Its owner pleaded guilty in 2004 to fraud charges.

"The only thing the buyer is doing is sending in a check or money order. They know what they are buying," said Allen Ezell, former head of the FBI diploma-mill-busting task force. "The diploma mill knows what they are selling. The third party is in the dark." Click here to read the rest of this article.

Rural Education 2.0 - online learning in rural areas.

This post comes from CSIndy and explores the migration of students from traditional classrooms to online classes in rural areas. The man in the Sodbuster Bar walks with a slight limp, the result of old injury.

"I was operating a seismograph rig when it went off a hillside outside Meeteetse, Wyo.," he says. "It fell 382 feet with me inside. I wasn't supposed to make it, but I did. I eventually got a settlement. Made a lot of lawyers rich in the process, though."

The bar is in Springfield, the seat of Baca County. Tucked away in the southeast corner of Colorado, the county is much more closely aligned, both in politics and soul, with Oklahoma or the Texas panhandle than with Colorado Springs. It's flat, windy "tomorrow country," as in, "OK, things are tough, but they'll get better tomorrow."

It's the kind of place where used farm equipment is a prized lawn ornament.

In 2004, Baca County ranked as one of the 50 poorest counties in the nation, both in adjusted gross income and in wages. It has lost 10 percent of its residents in the past decade, and its population is about to drop below 4,000.

But, like the man in the bar, the county is a survivor.

In fact, one of its school districts is doing more than surviving. Vilas RE-5 has the highest growth rate of any of Colorado's 178 school districts. Its enrollment is up 405 percent since 2002. It had 3,800 students during the 2006-2007 school year with a projected enrollment of 4,056 for 2007-08 (the final count won't be official until Oct. 1). To read the rest of this interesting article click here.

Congress moves to renew higher-ed act .

This post comes from eSchool News. The last time Congress approved a five-year reauthorization of the comprehensive federal law initially dubbed the Higher Education Act of 1965, the year was 1998. Since then, various hurdles, for the most part political, have emerged repeatedly to prevent passage of a full five-year extension of the law that colleges and universities throughout the country have come to depend on for a massive array of important federal programs, including financial aid to students.

The legislation, often the focus of intense lobbying by representatives of higher education and lending organizations, has never gone away. It simply has received a series of temporary renewals from time to time as senators and representatives have fussed with this or that proposal for a new five-year law that continued to elude final action.

Today, however, with members of the 110th Congress in the midst of a month-long recess, they actually may be poised to do what their predecessors have failed to do for the past several years--that is, enact a new higher-ed reauthorization bill. Poised, that is, if you believe that the war in Iraq, presidential politics, economic uncertainties, and a host of other issues of the day won't once again lead to a delay. To read the rest of this article click here.

Apple Debuts New IMac Computers.

Virtually everyone knows the IMac computer is the choice of most graphic designers and many web designers. This article comes from Forbes magazine and announces the release of the new IMAC computers. Apple Inc. updated its iMac computers Tuesday with a slimmer design, faster chips and glossy screens, hoping to further propel sales that already outpace the rest of the PC industry.

The all-in-one desktop computers now have aluminum casings, replacing the white plastic facade that has defined the computer lineup for years. The new iMacs will come in only 20-inch and 24-inch versions.

With starting prices at $1,199 and $1,799, respectively, the computers are also $200 to $300 cheaper than their predecessors.

Analysts have been anticipating an iMac revamp for some time from the trendsetting company. Apple (nasdaq: AAPL - news - people ) last introduced a new iMac in September 2006 when it debuted the large 24-inch model.

The success of the iPod, Apple's retail stores and the company's switch to Intel (nasdaq: INTC - news - people )-based computer chips have all helped boost the Macintosh maker's computer sales and profits to record levels. In recent quarters, Apple's sales have been growing three times faster than the rest of the PC industry. Click here to read the rest of this article.

World Market for eLearning Projected to Exceed $52.6 Billion by 2010.

This post is from Global Industry Analysts. eLearning has emerged as an imperative tool to impart knowledge in the academic as well as corporate sectors. Given its obvious advantages in terms of cost reduction, simplified training programs, flexibility and convenience, eLearning is poised to become an integral component of information dissemination. Backed by several favorable trends, the world eLearning market is projected to exceed US$52.6 billion by 2010.

With rapid changes in training techniques and nature of workforce, Information and Communication Technologies (ICT) play a critical role in the overall learning process. In a bid to stay in the aggressively competitive environment, the corporate world is sharpening its focus on cutting-edge technologies such as eLearning. Corporate eLearning solutions are increasingly being incorporated in a wide range of informational and training applications. In terms of total time spent (in hours) on training, eLearning emerged as the second most employed method for imparting learning in organizations. The process is fast gaining ground among the K-12 & universities/higher education sectors. Increasing number of offerings from content providers, service providers, and technology providers is widening the choice of learning solutions. However, lack of interoperable standards amongst eLearning solutions and technologies is a major obstacle to growth. Click here to read the rest of this article.

Will new NCLB reflect 21st-century skills?

This post comes from eSchool News. Proponents of educational technology for years have been saying that schools need to focus more on teaching so-called "21st-century skills," such as problem solving, critical thinking, and collaboration. Now, it appears that momentum is finally building on Capitol Hill to encourage just such reforms: The chairman of the House education committee says he hopes to push legislation renewing the federal No Child Left Behind Act (NCLB) through Congress this fall, and one of the key changes to the law he plans to propose is incentives for states to develop more rigorous standards that reflect the needs of 21st-century learners.

"In so many meetings I have had in my district and elsewhere, employers say that our high school graduates are not ready for the workplace. Colleges say that our high school graduates are not ready for the college classroom. This is unacceptable," said Rep. George Miller, D-Calif., in a July 30 speech outlining his vision for reforming the nation's education law.

"In my bill, we will ask employers and colleges to come together as stakeholders with the states to jointly develop more rigorous standards that meet the demands of both. Many states have already started this process. We seek to build on and complement the leadership of our nation's governors and provide them incentives to continue. This requires that assessments be fully aligned with these new state standards and include multiple measures of success. Click here to read the rest of this article.

Big Illinois Online Degree Program Gets Thumbs-Up.

This post from from The Chronicle. " The University of Illinois Board of Trustees today set tuition and approved financing for Global Campus, the state system’s major program to offer online degrees and professional-development programs.

In January 2008, the university will enroll students in its first four offerings:
• A bachelor-of-science completion program in nursing.
• A master’s degree in education with a concentration in online learning.
• A graduate certificate in foundations of online learning.
• A graduate certificate in technologies for online learning.

Illinois residents taking master’s or graduate-certificate courses will pay $382.50 per credit hour. For the bachelor’s in nursing, the cost will be $616.50 per credit hour. (Nonresidents will pay 10 percent more.)

The board also approved $6.4-million in financing to cover the program’s start-up costs, which will have to be repaid to the state system by 2021.

The university decided to focus on nursing and online-education development because of market surveys showing high demand for those skills. Soon, officials said, it plans to offer 11 more online degree programs in areas such as business and engineering. "

Read The Chronicle for more about Global Campus.—Josh Fischman."

Gatlin Education Gets Another #1 Ranking at Google.

We are proud to announce that our Medical Transcription course is so well known nationally and internationally that we are now ranked #1 on Google for the search term “Medical Transcription”. This new ranking is bringing thousands of visitors to Gatlin Education Service’s website and sending hundreds of referrals to our partner institutions. We even outrank Microsoft Corporation for the search term “Microsoft certification online”.

These rankings, along with hundreds of other top Google rankings, reveal to potential students that Gatlin Education Services is a major player in the online education market. This also demonstrates Gatlin’s commitment to supporting our partner institutions. With over 600 partner accredited colleges and universities, it is a safe bet to get your online career training from the leading online career training company: Gatlin Education Services.

Daryl Clark, Director of Online Marketing, Gatlin Education

Drexel opens Second Life campus.

This post comes from The Triangle Online. The next time you log in to Second Life, the 3-D virtual world run by its residents, you might run in to a Drexel professor teaching a course.

The University bought land on Second Life, May 9. The property has been named Drexel Island and cost about $900 to purchase plus an additional $150 per month for maintenance, according to Jean-Claude Bradley, E-Learning Coordinator for the College of Arts and Sciences.

Bradley said Second Life can help faculty members take their classroom materials to a new level.

"It's a more engaging kind of environment than, say, a message board or instant messaging it's a lot more intuitive, I think, than blind chat," Bradley said.

Currently, the College of Arts and Sciences occupies the east side of the island, and Hagerty Library occupies the west. Click here to read the rest of this article.