Gatlin Education's Cisco CCNA online certification program has been updated.

Gatlin Education's Cisco CCNA Certification online training program has been updated to map to the newly released CCNA Certification Exam 640-802. In order to prepare students to obtain the most current CCNA® certification credential, this program is comprised of content from both Interconnecting Cisco® Network Devices Part 1 and Interconnecting Cisco® Network Devices Part 2.

No other online self-paced program is as up-to-date or as complete as this package! This Cisco® Authorized program contains elearning and a 24/7 mentor to answer any questions you may have and to provide feedback on your performance. In addition, each student will receive an actual Cisco IOS® simulation to provide students with a playground to practice CCNA®, enabling students to interact with routers and switches just like real devices. This 100 hour course is available now!

Libraries Shun Deals to Place Books on Web.

This post is from The New York Times. Several major research libraries have rebuffed offers from Google and Microsoft to scan their books into computer databases, saying they are put off by restrictions these companies want to place on the new digital collections.

The research libraries, including a large consortium in the Boston area, are instead signing on with the Open Content Alliance, a nonprofit effort aimed at making their materials broadly available.

Libraries that agree to work with Google must agree to a set of terms, which include making the material unavailable to other commercial search services. Microsoft places a similar restriction on the books it converts to electronic form. The Open Content Alliance, by contrast, is making the material available to any search service. Click here to read the rest of this article.

Online Education: Tailoring, Measuring and ‘Bridging’.

This post comes from Inside Higher Ed. As information technology leaders convened for the Educause meetings Thursday in Seattle, they talked about some of the same issues that are attracting attention in higher ed outside of technology circles: links to K-12, making courses more engaging and measuring what students learn.

Looming over the proceedings was the stepped-up pressure from state governments, accreditors and the Department of Education that has led in recent years to a greater focus on assessment and learning outcomes. The implication of the accountability movement on information technology is clear in an example offered by Blackboard’s Peter Segall, the company’s president for higher education in North America: The two-year public colleges in Mississippi have adopted the company’s outcome system to track student progress against specific goals, he said. The reason? To “demonstrate accountability” to the citizens of the state. Click here to read the rest of this article.

Eduventures launches schools of Education Learning Collaborative.

Eduventures, the leader in collaborative research and consulting for higher education, has launched a new member-based research consortium – the Schools of Education Learning Collaborative – designed to help education schools address the challenges associated with recruiting and serving students, demonstrating accountability, and managing faculty and operations.

Members of the Schools of Education Learning Collaborative will be provided with a wide range of collective and individual opportunities that take advantage of shared data. As with Eduventures other Learning Collaboratives, members will have access to custom analysis, implementation support, and networking events.

"In the prevailing climate where critical attention is being paid to public P-12 education, schools of education are facing scrutiny of a great many of their policies and practices," said Eduventures' Executive Vice President Peter Stokes, Ph.D. "The goal of this collaborative research program is to assist deans of Schools of Education in defining meaningful success measures and demonstrating their performance relative to those measures en route to making the right decisions for today – and the future."

According to Stokes, Eduventures analysts are preparing the first collaborative research study for members of the Schools of Education Learning Collaborative – Common Indicators for Schools of Education. The report, which focuses on core program success measures and analyzes productivity at peer institutions, is designed to put the responsibility for defining these success measures back in the hands of the deans of Schools of Education.

Charter members of Eduventures Schools of Education Learning Collaborative include Fordham University, Lesley University, University of Pittsburgh, and University of Southern California.

About Eduventures

Eduventures is the industry leader in collaborative research and consulting for higher education. Eduventures is committed to providing colleges and universities with cost-effective, data-driven research and analysis designed to improve critical operations and practices. More than 300 higher education institutions participate in one or more of Eduventures' six Learning Collaboratives: Continuing and Professional Education, Development, Enrollment Management, Online Higher Education, Schools of Education, and Student Affairs. These collaboratives provide members with research reports on current trends and issues, custom analysis and implementation support, including opportunities to network with fellow professionals. More about Eduventures can be found at www.eduventures.com.

Using Technology in the Classroom.

This posts comes from The Wall Street Journal Online Edition.

The use of technology in the classroom has changed the way children learn, allowing both students and teachers to unlock their creativity. Tim Magner, director of the office of educational technology for the U.S. Department of Education, remembers the impact a simple computer program had on his eighth grade geography class when computers were first becoming main stream.

"I saw the power it had," he says. "It gave us the opportunity to engage the students in a thoughtful discussion that until that time had been static facts in books." Now as technology continues to evolve and children become more tech-savvy, the computer is an even more powerful learning aid that enables collaboration and communication in the classroom, Mr. Magner says.

We asked Mr. Magner to recommend books on the intersection of technology and the classroom. Here are his picks.

• "Blogs, Wikis, Podcasts, and Other Powerful Web Tools for Classrooms," by Will Richardson
A public school teacher looks at how to take these Web 2.0 tools and begin to use them in the classroom. The book is more practitioner-focused but gives a nice overview of what Web 2.0 and social collaboration models are, how they facilitate types of interactions and how to use them in school.

• "Out of Our Minds: Learning to be Creative," by Ken Robinson

Robinson identifies and explains what he feels is the creation of an unnatural separation between arts and sciences, and creativity and intelligence. He believes this separation is enforced in formal education. He addresses how we need to re-engage with kids in different ways to encourage them to tap into their creativity. Robinson spends a lot of time talking about finding your medium, and we are seeing that digital tools are the medium of choice for a lot of students.

Click here to discover the rest of his recommended picks!

Apollo Group and Private Firm to Invest Up to $1-Billion in International Ventures.

This post is from The Chronicle of Higher Education.

The company that owns the University of Phoenix announced on Monday a venture with the Carlyle Group, a private-equity firm, that will invest up to $1-billion in education institutions and services abroad. The parent company, the Apollo Group, will control 80.1 percent of the joint venture, to be called Apollo Global Inc.

The venture is likely to focus on regions with a profitable mix of robust young populations and government-financed universities that are slow to expand, such as Latin America and Asia. The deal has yet to announce any investments.

The Apollo Group, whose University of Phoenix is the largest university in the United States, has dabbled in international investments before, putting money into a small company called Apollo International that was formed in 1998 (The Chronicle, August 11, 2000). That company has quietly been dissolved, and most of its personnel and investments have been brought into the Apollo Group, said Trace A. Urdan, an education-industry analyst with Signal Hill Capital Group.

Apollo International sought to use Apollo's U.S. model, which is aimed at working adults, and adapt it to full-time students at traditional universities overseas, primarily through preset curricula. One venture in South America created a private college with standardized lectures, in partnership with a Brazilian company (The Chronicle, June 27, 2003).

The new Apollo Global group may operate under a similar strategy, said Mr. Urdan, but it would receive greater contacts and investment discipline from the Carlyle Group, which has experience in structuring successful international deals. The Carlyle Group also has experience in investments involving higher education. In 2005 it acquired the Universidad Latinoamericana, a private university with campuses in Mexico City and Cuernavaca, Mexico.

"The money is more like a headline because the reality is you're only investing it one investment at a time," said Mr. Urdan. "It's going to be a while before they spend $1-billion."

The Apollo Group also announced Monday that Ann Kirschner, dean of the Macaulay Honors College at the City University of New York, will join its board of directors on November 1.

Online Nation: Five Years of Growth in Online Learning.

This post comes from the Sloan Consortium.

Online Nation: Five Years of Growth in Online Learning represents the fifth annual report on the state of online learning in U.S. higher education. This year’s study, like those for the previous four years, is aimed at answering some of the fundamental questions about the nature and extent of online education. Supported by the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation and based on responses from more than 2,500 colleges and universities, the study addresses the following key questions:

What are the Prospects for Future Online Enrollment Growth?

Background: Compound annual enrollment growth rates of over twenty percent are not sustainable. The demand for online among potential students is finite, as is the ability of institutions to grow existing offerings or add new ones. Where can we expect the additional growth to occur?

The evidence: Approximately one-third of higher education institutions account for three-quarters of all online enrollments. Future growth will come predominately from these and similar institutions as they add new programs and grow existing ones.

• Much of the past growth in online enrollments has been fueled by new institutions entering the online learning arena. This transition is now nearing its end; most institutions that plan to offer online education are already doing so.

• A large majority (69 percent) of academic leaders believe that student demand for online learning is still growing.

• Virtually all (83 percent) institutions with online offerings expect their online enrollments to increase over the coming year.

• Future growth in online enrollments will most likely come from those institutions that are currently the most engaged; they enroll the most online learning students and have the highest expectations for growth.

What are the Barriers to Widespread Adoption of Online Education?

Background: Previous studies in this series have shown that academic leaders have consistently commented that their faculty often do not accept the value of online learning and that it takes more time and effort to teach an online course. To what extent do these leaders see these and other issues as critical barriers to the widespread adoption of online learning?

The evidence: Identification of the most important barriers differs widely between those with online offerings and those who do not offer any. Current results replicate our previous studies in identifying faculty acceptance and the need for more discipline on the part of students as the
most common concerns.

• Academic leaders cite the need for more discipline on the part of online students as the most critical barrier, matching the results of last year’s survey.

• Faculty acceptance of online instruction remains a key issue. Those institutions most engaged in online do not believe it is a concern for their own campus, but do see it as a barrier to more wide-spread adoption of online education.

• Higher costs for online development and delivery are seen as barriers among those who are planning online offerings, but not among those who have online offerings.

• Academic leaders do not believe that there is a lack of acceptance of online degrees by potential employers.

To download a free copy of this report click here.

Colorado Technical University Online Launches CTUMobile(TM).

COLORADO SPRINGS, Colo. -- (Business Wire)-- Colorado Technical University's Online campus, a well known degree-granting institution, announced the launch of CTUMobile - an easy-to-use mobile learning channel that delivers elements of Colorado Tech's online educational programs via web-enabled cell phones and other wireless devices. CTUMobile, an extension of Colorado Tech's highly successful virtual campus - CTU Online - brings the classroom directly to mobile phones and other PDAs and personalizes the education experience to an even greater degree. CTUMobile works with most cell phones, and is at its most exciting when combined with Apple's stunning new iPhone. While the topic of mobile learning has generated a great deal of interest in online education circles for quite a while, it is the latest iteration of cell phones and other mobile hardware that allowed Colorado Tech to take its mobile learning platform to the next level.

CTUMobile includes two important capabilities - a live access technology that allows students to access school-related information such as class assignments, instructor directories, campus email, and grades, as well as a video technology that makes it easy to download and view video courseware and podcasts. Combined, the features add up to a "college-on-the-run" experience. CTUMobile-equipped students will now be able to conveniently access CTU's successful virtual campus while away from their computers. It's also more than cool. The new learning technology, combined with a device with the panache of Apple's new iPhone, is all about portable education, and it's all about style.

Dr. Marijane Paulsen, Chief Executive Officer of the Colorado Technical University, offered her own observation about the benefits of using CTUMobile. "We all spend too much time waiting on the many delays in our daily lives. With CTUMobile, at least some of that down time can be put to better use. There are times, too, when transporting a computer, even a small laptop, isn't that convenient - through a large airport for instance. Technology marches on, and CTUMobile will be there as a great alternative." Paulsen continues, "Colorado Tech students are very smart and I suspect they'll jump at a chance to streamline their lives and make their days more productive."

For more information about CTU Online, please phone 800-416-8904 or visit www.ctuonline.edu. For a more detailed description of CTUMobile, or to see a video that showcases the benefits of integrating the new mobile technology into daily student life, please visit www.ctumobile.com.

About Colorado Technical University and CTU Online

Since 1965, Colorado Technical University (CTU) - an institution of higher learning that provides career-oriented education by teaching applied industry programs, has given students a pathway towards personal, academic, and professional advancement. Colorado Tech offers degree-track programs at the Associate, Bachelor's, Master's, and Doctoral levels in a wide range of fields of study. For more information on CTU, visit www.coloradotech.edu. Through its web-based virtual campus, CTU Online, the university offers degree programs that are 100% online. For additional information on CTU Online, visit www.ctuonline.edu. Colorado Technical University is accredited by the Higher Learning Commission and is a member of the North Central Association.

Gatlin announces new Administrative Professional with Microsoft 2007 Certified Application Specialist Training.

We are pleased to announce the immediate availability of our new Administrative Professional with Microsoft 2007 with Microsoft Certified Application Specialist Training. This online course and training program teaches the skills that students must acquire to be successful as an Administrative Professional using the Microsoft® Office 2007 suite of programs. Students receive training on the most popular Microsoft Office 2007 programs including Word, Excel, Access, Power Point, and Outlook as well as the new Vista operating system. Upon successful completion of this program students will be prepared to sit for the MCAS certification offered by Microsoft®. An introduction to QuickBooks is also provided.

National Survey Indicates High School Students Preference for Online Learning.

National School Boards Association Annual T+L conference -- Blackboard Inc. (NASDAQ: BBBB) a leading provider of enterprise solutions for the education industry and Project Tomorrow, a national education nonprofit group, today announce the release of Learning in the 21st Century: A National Report of Online Learning. The report underscores the importance and value which online learning plays in increasing student and teacher achievement. Key findings from the report include:

• 47 percent of surveyed students in grades 9-12 and 32 percent of students in grades 6-8 would pursue online learning to secure courses not offered at school.
• One in five student respondents in grades 6-12 have taken an online or distance learning course at school or on their own, and one in three students selected online classes as a component of their ideal school.
• 77 percent of teachers believe that technology makes a difference in learning and 28 percent would like to see online courses offered as an alternative in their district.
• 42 percent of parents believe that online classes are a good investment to improve student achievement and to track their child's progress.

"As schools are exploring new ways to engage today's students, online learning options are crucial," said Julie Evans, CEO of Project Tomorrow. "Increasingly, students, teachers and parents say that online learning is an essential component of the ideal 21st century school environment." The findings of Learning in the 21st Century are based upon data collected as part of the Speak Up 2006 survey conducted from over 250,000 students, teachers and parents representing almost 3,000 schools in the United States. Click here to read the rest of this article.

Online courses increase in popularity.

This post comes from the Pittsburgh Post Gazette.

Al Turgeon knows turf.

The Penn State University professor of turf grass management is world-renown, but students don't have to travel to University Park to learn from him.

Some of his classes are as handy as the nearest computer, whether it's in Pennsylvania or China, at home or in a war zone in Iraq.

Since Dr. Turgeon began offering Penn State's first online course in 1998, the Penn State World Campus has grown from the initial 15 students to more than 5,000 enrollments from all 50 states and more than 40 countries.

Penn State's not the only one with a burgeoning enrollment in online classes. Over the past decade, online education has been growing throughout higher education.

Nationwide in the fall of 2005, nearly 3.2 million students at degree-granting institutions were taking at least one course with at least 80 percent of its content delivered online, according to the most recent available survey by the Sloan Consortium, which helps schools improve online education.

That's nearly double the number doing so just three years earlier.

Two-thirds of the schools surveyed had at least some online programs. Click here to read the rest of this article.

EMS courses to receive continuing education credit.

This post comes from the Texas Engineering and Extension Service. TEEX's Emergency Services Training Institute WMD/EMS Program has been approved for Organizational Accreditation by the Continuing Education Coordinating Board for Emergency Medical Services (CECBEMS). Of some 80 training providers recognized by the board, TEEX is one of only 25 providers nationwide approved for CECBEMS Organizational Accreditation.

"We can now use this accreditation to review and approve both online and hands-on EMS and other TEEX courses for continuing education credit," said Kathy Wall, TEEX Associate Training Specialist. "We are approved to review a course and see if it meets the standards, and then assign continuing education credits and hours." Any TEEX rescue and disaster medical course may be eligible for continuing education credit, she added.

CECBEMS is a national accrediting body for EMS continuing education courses and course providers. To be approved, TEEX had to meet or exceed criteria established by CECBEMS for educational planning, implementation and evaluation as well as demonstrate a commitment to excellence in EMS continuing education.

NYU to Open Branch Campus in Persian Gulf Emirate.

This post comes from The Chronicle. Cornell in Qatar, Michigan State in Dubai. Now it’s New York University in Abu Dhabi. NYU’s announcement today that it is opening a branch campus in the United Arab Emirates makes it the latest, but probably not the last, American university to plant its flag in the wealthy Persian Gulf region.

“NYU Abu Dhabi,” which was described as a “residential research university,” will open its doors to students in 2010. The university hopes to attract as many as 2,000 of them from around the world, not just the Middle East. NYU says that the emirate is providing land and financing for the campus’s development and operations.

Abu Dhabi has made news lately for its efforts to become a cultural hub, which include establishing branches of the Louvre and Guggenheim museums. —Beth McMurtrie

Washington Post purchases Course Advisor student lead generation firm.

The Washington Post Co. has acquired CourseAdvisor Inc. for an undisclosed price.

The D.C. media company leveraged a small investment it made last year in the search engine marketing company based in Wakefield, Mass. CourseAdvisor, founded in 2004, matches students skills with college and university programs nationwide.

The move comes as The Washington Post Co. tries to regain advertising, readership and circulation at its publications.

The company also has seen positive results from its education business, Kaplan Inc., which helps people prepare for college and graduate school entrance exams.

In August, The Washington Post Co. (NYSE:WPO) reported its second-quarter earnings dropped to $68.8 million in the quarter ended July 1 from $78.7 million a year ago.

However, total revenue moved up to $1 billion from $969 million.

The education segment grew 23 percent to $503 million in the second quarter, up from $409 million a year ago.

The Washington Post Co. not only owns its flagship newspaper, but also publications including Slate, El Tiempo Latino, The Gazette and Southern Maryland Newspapers, Newsweek magazine and Cable ONE.

CourseAdvisor will act as an independent subsidiary of The Washington Post Co.

Time Management For Distance Learning.

This article comes from ArticleCrazy.com. As a busy professional, it is vitally important to manage your time. There are some broad principles, approaches, that you need to learn and apply. The first is to take the view that your time is precious, and should not be wasted. By the way, relaxation time, leisure time, relationship time is not wasted, it’s important, valuable time that you need to plan into your life. These broad principles include, you need to take control. That is, to take control of your time and the way in which you approach the activities that you have to be involved in, such as work activities and family commitments, and ensure that there is also time in your life for the personal activities that you wish to be involved in, such as leisure and relaxation activities. You need to plan ahead. This is vital. Being successful means being busy, and to manage being busy you need to plan ahead. You don’t have to perform at genius level. If you work hard and as efficiently as you reasonably can, you are doing well. You need to prioritise. You need to rank activities into an order where you can see which activities, what work, which tasks, are the most important and need urgent attention or a specific amount of time spent on them, and which activities are less important and can be pushed back, or worked on over a longer period, or delegated to others, or even abandoned. Click here to read the rest of this article.

Gatlin launches rap video on YouTube.

We are proud to announce the release of the Gatlin Rap Video. If your job has you down and out our video will "lift your spirits."

Online learning has opened up wealth of educational opportunities.

This post comes from the Newark Advocate. Jason Hetterscheidt, like many 31-year-old men, has an extremely demanding schedule. He has been married for five years, has a 1-year-old son and works at Ruth's Chris Steak House to support his family. While this scenario might not seem remarkable, Hetterscheidt also is a full-time student in the Associate of Applied Science Registered Nursing Technology Program at Central Ohio Technical College. Hetterscheidt admits that "the only way that he can remain in the nursing program [due to his hectic family life and his odd work schedule is to take online courses whenever possible."

Online courses have come a long way in the last 10 years. The first online courses were nothing more than notes on a Web page. They did little to motivate or engage the learner. Today's online courses are rich with multimedia learning tools such as animations, tutorials, recorded lectures, practice tests and even a set of online flashcards that can be customized to accommodate the individual learning needs of each student. In fact, as the quality of online learning tools has increased, instructors have increasingly incorporated the use of these materials into their traditional courses. To read the rest this article click here.

Is lost luggage a thing of the past with RFID technology?

Las Vegas International Airport is now experimenting with using RFID Technology to track luggage. Watch a video segment about this from the Today Show by clicking here. If you find this segment interesting and you are looking for a new career take a look at Gatlin's RFID Online Training Course. You can get RFID certification in as little as 90 days.

Gone Fishing: A New Sport Makes Waves in College Athletics.

This post comes form The Chronicle.

Many college athletes are used to waking up before sunrise for workouts, but most aren't used to competing at that hour.

Enter the exploding intercollegiate sport of bass fishing, where the biggest catches often come before breakfast.

"Collegiate angling is spreading like a brush fire," said Troy J. Heckaman, commissioner of the Collegiate Bass Anglers Association, which acts as a governing body for the sport.

While Mr. Heckaman admits the sport is "still in its infancy," he said that students from more than 150 colleges and universities have contacted his group with interest in forming a team, or have already started one.

And more growth means more competition. Click here to read the rest of this article.

Online Debates on Education sponsored by The Economist Oct. 15 - 23rd.

The Economist is sponsoring a series of online debates. The first debate will be on education. You can vote on their five education propositions. Judge them carefully. Issues center on education and the role of technology, corporate initiatives, social networking, limits on foreign students and the digital divide. To review the propositions and vote for your favorite one click here.

Bush Administration Spars With Accreditors.

This article comes from The Chronicle.

American college leaders, under growing pressure to prove the value of their product, have been falsely accusing the Bush administration of seeking more federal control over their operations, the administration's top higher-education official said on Friday.

"I can't tell you how disappointed we were" by some allegations about administration intentions, Sara Martinez Tucker, the under secretary of education, told a conference of accreditation officials here.

Ms. Tucker, who was a member of the federal Commission on the Future of Higher Education, faulted critics for arguing that the commission's push for colleges to devise more reliable methods of measuring their success represented a new federal intrusion.

The under secretary's complaint suggested hardening divisions over the administration's effort to make colleges more responsive to American economic needs, even while some higher-education groups are taking tentative steps toward finding ways to meet the administration's overall goals (see article). Click here to read the rest of this article.

UK firm to export education to China.

This post comes from Broadband Finder. "A unique broadband link-up will see British educational establishments supplying Chinese schools with learning aids, it has been announced.

Software firm LP+ has announced plans to build an online learning system which is based in the UK but will be used to teach up to 20 million Chinese school pupils.

The broadband-based teaching materials supplied will be aimed at 20 major Chinese cities, including Beijing and Shanghai. The exporting of the British education system has been welcomed by the government and could see schools in the UK twinned with establishments in China.

Mehool Sanghrajka, chief executive of LP+, said: "As a nation, we recognize the growing importance of the Chinese economy and we need to start working and collaborating with counterparts there. If we can start that collaboration within education, then our pupils will come out fully trained for a global economy."

Other British education organisations have forged links with China, including the University of Nottingham, which has a campus in the city of Ningbo."