Online education trends blog.

New online tool aids literacy programs.

2007-11-07T07:32:00.000-08:00

This post comes from eSchoolNews. Schools, libraries, and other organizations that aim to improve students' reading skills have a new online tool to help them evaluate how well their literacy programs work: the Verizon Literacy Program Self-Assessment Tool (VLP-SAT).

Developed by the National Center for Family Literacy (NCFL) with funding from the Verizon Foundation, VLP-SAT is available free of charge to all literacy programs from one location, the Verizon Foundation's Thinkfinity.org.

"Thousands of people give their time and effort daily to advance the cause of literacy, but unfortunately, despite those great efforts, literacy rates in our country are still not where they need to be," said Sharon Darling, president and founder of NCFL.

"We believe this self-assessment tool can play a tremendous role in improving literacy rates," Darling said. "It provides a roadmap with more scope and depth than any other tool currently available."

This "roadmap" incorporates the latest scientific research on the effectiveness of literacy programs that serve populations from birth through childhood, its makers say. The online tool provides a detailed questionnaire that asks about a literacy program's methods, the education level of its students, parental involvement, and current methods used to assess the program's success.

Based on answers to the questionnaire, the literacy provider is given a grade of 1 to 5 in each of several areas. These grades describe whether the organization is using proven, research-based methods and achieving the best possible results.

For schools and other organizations that receive a score of "3" or lower in any particular area, the tool provides a list of recommended resources created by literacy and education experts. All of these resources are available free of charge at Tghinkfinity.org as part of the Thinkfinity Literacy Network.

Thinkfinity.org is the Verizon Foundation's free online portal, where visitors can access more than 55,000 standards- and research-based educational resources. These include free online courses, K-12 lesson plans, best practices, program assessment tools, teaching and learning tools, model programs that demystify technology for parents, and abundant research highlighting the importance of literacy development.

Ideally, program staff will use the VLP-SAT as a benchmark to evaluate current literacy practices, seek out resources to improve key areas, and return to the VLP-SAT to assess program improvement, its creators say.

The tool was unveiled last month as part of the Verizon Foundation's National Literacy Summit.3, held at Georgetown University.

"We asked ourselves at the last summit where our philanthropy dollars should go, and we answered: to help leverage each other's assets and skills and to start some sort of measurement ... here are some measurements!" said Kathy Brown, senior vice president of public policy and corporate responsibility for Verizon. Click here to read the rest of this post.

Fail-Proof Tips for Adults Back at School.

2007-11-06T15:10:00.000-08:00

This article is from Jobs.Aol.com.Full-time job, family, and friends -- these commitments are challenging enough to juggle without the added education factor. How can you make the school reentry process as seamless as possible? Check out these study tips, college support services, and insider strategies to get you started on your own personal back-to-school transition.

The Art of Time Management
Stephen Gatlin, president and CEO of Gatlin Education Services, which provides online workforce development programs to colleges, considers time management the biggest factor in back-to-school success. He recommends that students determine when they focus best, such as in the morning or at night, before caffeine or after. Then, Gatlin says, "Reserve time to dedicate to your course. Stay committed and treat [that time] like an appointment that can't be budged."

Frank Hilty, a mining engineer, has experienced the back-to-school adjustment twice. He returned to college to complete his bachelor's degree 12 years after starting, and now, eight years after earning that degree, he's pursuing an MBA at Waynesburg College. Hilty, who blocks out two to three hours of study time for every hour of in-class time, advises, "If you are working, you must treat class work as a part-time job with specific responsibilities. Do not procrastinate. Even if you only take one course at a time, you will find yourself quickly overwhelmed if you let the work pile up. Our regular jobs and families have a way, and they should, of commanding our attention."

Jason Yaple, a geologist who has been taking courses at Penn State and West Chester University of Pennsylvania to earn a professional geology certification, echoes these sentiments. "Figure out the amount of time you will need to study and perform the coursework. Then be prepared to invest even more time." Click here to read the rest of this article.

For the Health-Care Work Force, a Critical Prognosis.

2007-11-05T06:40:00.000-08:00

This article comes from The Chronicle of Higher Education.

This The United States faces a looming shortage of many types of health-care professionals, including nurses, physicians, dentists, pharmacists, and allied-health and public-health workers. The results will be felt acutely within the next 10 years. Colleges and health-science programs will all be affected by the demographic, technological, and bureaucratic trends driving the pending crisis. But they can also be part of the solution.

The growth of the American population and the aging of the baby-boomer generation will continue to increase the demand for health-care services and providers. More than 100 million people in America already have chronic illnesses or suffer from degenerative conditions such as cancer, cardiovascular disease, and arthritis, which require long-term management by different kinds of health-care providers — and that number will only get larger with time. It is estimated that over the next decade we will need at least 20,000 more physicians specifically trained to care for elderly patients. Fewer than 8,000 geriatricians are in practice today. The federal Bureau of Labor Statistics also projects that, during that same time period, we will need 3.5 million more workers to meet the increasing demand, in addition to replacements for the two million health-care workers who will leave their positions.

On top of that, advances in fields like genetics and information technology will create additional work-force requirements that we can't even begin to estimate. We will need more and different kinds of practitioners and technicians, be they robotic-surgery operators or new types of radiology technologists. But given the current number of people entering the health-care work force, it will be virtually impossible to meet those projections.

After September 11, 2001, there was a slight uptick in applications and enrollments at many health-professions schools, following a period of decline during the 1990s. This fall the nation's medical schools experienced a 2.3-percent increase in enrollment and an 8.2-percent increase in applications, the Association of American Medical Colleges reports. That is heartening news, but there have not been changes of the magnitude needed to make a difference in our health work force.

Different expectations and lifestyle preferences on the part of today's health-care workers are partly to blame. Thirty years ago, in what was more of a manufacturing economy, young people saw health care as high tech. In today's information age, it is now viewed as more low tech. The messiness and stress of caring for people with complex illnesses may not be attractive to young people who have many career options. The hurdles to degrees in the health professions — including extensive math and science course work, expensive education, daunting debts, and lengthy training — are also likely deterrents.

Other potential problems are related to generational change. The future health-care work force will come largely from Generations X and Y, both smaller demographic groups than the baby boomers. Compared with the boomers, who placed a high priority on careers and had a greater tendency to stay with one career for a lifetime, Xers and Yers appear more interested in work that can accommodate their families and personal lives. They often seek flexibility, telecommuting, family leave, and part-time options — almost none of which can be met by the demands of a career in the health-care professions. Even if the same proportion of individuals was recruited into health-care careers from the two younger generations as from the boomers, however, we would still not have enough people to replace those who will soon retire, let alone expand our capacity.

More bad news: Our country faces worsening shortages of faculty members in the health sciences. In July the Association of Academic Health Centers released a report that said 94 percent of CEOs at academic-health centers deemed faculty shortages a problem in at least one health-professions school; 69 percent thought those shortages were a problem for their entire institutions.

Several factors account for the widespread faculty shortages, including a low level of interest in academic careers among those entering the health-care professions, heavy faculty workloads, disparities in salaries between academe and private practice or industry, and retirements among baby boomers.

In colleges of nursing, for example, where master's or doctoral degrees are required, the mean age of faculty members with master's degrees in nursing is 48.5. Retirement projections for nursing-faculty members show that from 2004 to 2012, 200 to 300 Ph.D.'s will be eligible for retirement each year. We do not have enough nursing educators in the pipeline to stem such losses.

The situation is similar in pharmacy programs. Of the nation's 82 schools of pharmacy, 67 reported in a survey that they had an average of 6.2 vacant faculty positions last year. Thirty percent of the open academic positions had been vacant for at least a year. Most important, 92 percent of those vacancies represented teaching positions that directly affect the number of pharmacy students a school can enroll.

In radiology, a specialty that suffers one of the worst shortages in the health field, the average age of full-time professors is 54. It is anticipated that within the next couple of years, 27 percent of full-time and 80 percent of part-time positions will be vacant, in large part because of retirements — a trend not dissimilar to those in other health-care professions. The shortages in radiology are compounded, however, by an escalating reliance on (and consumer demand for) medical-imaging procedures and a decreasing number of programs for training those health professionals.

The final crucial factor precipitating the health-care-work-force crisis is a lack of comprehensive work-force planning on the parts of academe, government, and the health-care professions. We need strategic direction instead of the current piecemeal approach at the national and state levels; both federal and state policy making has tended to respond to immediate crises or issues related to one particular profession or constituency. Commissions and task forces abound, yet many reports gather dust on shelves; the infrastructure for putting good ideas or new policies into effect is at best uneven.

Shortages in the health-care work force are not local or isolated issues. They require attention at the highest levels of the federal and state governments. College leaders should work together with government officials to make that a top priority on the domestic-policy agenda.

Some states — with the help of their university systems — have looked across the professions to confront health-care-worker shortages. In 2005 the University System of Georgia appointed a task force on health-professions education to analyze future needs and inform decision making in response to the needs of the state. In its final report, the Task Force on Health Professions Education cited projected faculty retirements, smaller pools of potential faculty members, inadequate facilities to support expanded enrollments, and a limited number of clinical sites to support the clinical-education needs of students enrolled in the state's health-professions programs as barriers to an effective and coordinated response to market demand. Programmatic integration also was identified as a confounding issue: The report identified a crucial need for the university system to work closely with the state's technical-college system, the primary educator of health-care technicians and paraprofessionals, to ensure transparency and clarity in educational requirements so that students are able to move successfully between the educational systems.

Such collaborations between colleges and states are a good beginning. But higher education and the government must become partners on the federal level as well. The institutions that educate the nation's future health-care professionals must work together to devise innovative solutions to the myriad challenges we face — and must finance them, too.

The federal government should enlist the leaders of academic health centers nationwide as key advisers to tackle the challenges confronting the health-care work force, thus reinvigorating a longstand-ing partnership to support education in the health professions and ensure quality care to the public for the future.

The creation of a national commission on the health-care work force would also be a boon. Such a commission, renewable every 10 years, would serve as the chief advising body to Congress and the president on the subject. While it would have no regulatory power, it would be the independent expert panel to identify issues, analyze policy affecting the health-care work force, examine the benefits and risks of health-care legislation, evaluate the education and research functions of academic health centers and other educational institutions, and recommend ways to resolve problems as well as to plan proactively. The commission would provide a forum for interaction at the national level for groups representing health educators, biomedical scientists, and health-care providers.

Colleges and health-sciences centers must also deal with the work-force shortage issue at their own institutions. They should address the growing shortages of health-professions faculty members by supporting faculty-development programs and expanding accelerated training programs. Continuing education is a key strategy in retaining health-professions faculty members, as are mentorship programs — particularly for retaining junior members of the professoriate and those groups that have been historically underrepresented in the health-care professions.

Offering loan-repayment and loan-forgiveness programs would also be a draw. The high incidence of debt among graduates often drives health-care professionals to the most lucrative employment settings. Forgiving debt or offering generous loan-repayment plans creates more flexibility for colleges and universities in efforts to attract professionals to academic careers. And to augment their core faculty members with nonsalaried, community-based clinicians who can provide valuable field-based clinical experiences, as health-professions programs must do, institutions can offer enticements like discounted or free registration in the continuing-education programs, tuition discounts or waivers, and access to other institutional resources (recreational facilities, for instance).

Colleges and health-science centers must also focus on increasing and improving the applicant pool, not simply in terms of sheer numbers and mix of health professions, but also with regard to diversity.

Alarming disparities in health status continue to plague our nation. A health-care work force that mirrors the population it serves is widely believed to increase access to care and improve quality of care; therefore, increasing the recruitment of individuals from diverse backgrounds to the health professions is crucial in light of the increasing diversity of the American population. Colleges and health-science centers must focus on untapped populations, such as underrepresented minorities and health professionals trained abroad. Accelerated training programs could be offered to ensure that the clinical and language skills of such health-care providers are at acceptable levels. In areas with rapidly growing Hispanic populations, bilingual students could be targeted as medical interpreters, providing invaluable exposure to the health-care system — and increasing the likelihood that they will pursue careers in the health professions.

The health-care shortage we face in the United States is serious. Some experts may argue that there is no cause for alarm, because work-force shortages are cyclical, market-driven, and easily ameliorated. But that perspective is not valid today. The work-force shortfall in health care cannot be resolved in the marketplace alone. It is time for organized action, not only within colleges, but also at our nation's highest levels.

Daniel W. Rahn is president of the Medical College of Georgia and senior vice chancellor for health and medical programs at the University System of Georgia. Steven A. Wartman is president and CEO of the Association of Academic Health Centers.

Gatlin Education launches Cisco® CCENT™ Authorized Certification Online Training.

2007-11-02T07:03:00.000-07:00

We are pleased to announce the immediate availability of our new Cisco® CCENT™ Authorized Certification Online Training. This nationally recognized Cisco® CCENT™ online course and authorized certification training program provides students with the essential knowledge to install, operate, and troubleshoot a small branch office Enterprise network, including configuring a switch, a router, and connecting to a WAN and implementing network security. A student should be able to complete configuration and implementation of a small branch office network under supervision. The program will be mapped to exam objectives and prepare you for Cisco® Exam 640-822. This online certificate program is offered in partnership with major accredited colleges and universities.

Classroom of the Future Is Virtually Anywhere.

2007-11-01T07:29:00.000-07:00

This article comes from The New York Times. The university classroom of the future is in Janet Duck’s dining room on East Chocolate Avenue here.

There is no blackboard and no lectern, and, most glaringly, no students. Dr. Duck teaches her classes in Pennsylvania State University’s master’s program in business administration by sitting for several hours each day in jeans and shag-lined slippers at her dining table, which in soccer mom fashion is cluttered with crayon sketches by her 6-year-old Elijah and shoulder pads for her 9-year-old Olivia’s Halloween costume.

In this homespun setting, the spirited Dr. Duck pecks at a Toshiba laptop and posts lesson content, readings and questions for her two courses on “managing human resources” that touch on topics like performance evaluations and recruitment. The instructional software allows her 54 students to log on from almost anywhere at any time and post remarkably extended responses, the equivalent of a blog about the course. Recently, the class exchanged hard-earned experiences about how managers deal with lackluster workers.

Those students, mostly 30-ish middle managers and professionals trying to enhance their skills, cannot be with her in a Penn State classroom at a set time. One woman is an Air Force pilot flying missions over Afghanistan; other global travelers filed comments last week from Tokyo, Athens, São Paulo and Copenhagen. Dr. Duck cannot regularly be at Penn State, largely because of her three children. Yet she and other instructors will help the students acquire standard M.B.A.’s next August at a total cost of $52,000, with each side having barely stepped into a traditional classroom. To read the rest of this article click here.

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

2007-10-31T10:16:00.000-07:00

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.

2007-10-30T08:46:00.000-07:00

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’.

2007-10-29T09:57:00.000-07:00

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.

2007-10-26T09:21:00.000-07:00

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.

2007-10-25T08:39:00.000-07:00

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.

2007-10-24T09:21:00.000-07:00

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.

2007-10-23T08:26:00.000-07:00

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).

2007-10-22T08:53:00.000-07:00

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.

2007-10-19T11:42:00.000-07:00

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.

2007-10-18T11:10:00.000-07:00

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.

2007-10-17T07:23:00.000-07:00

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.

2007-10-16T09:21:00.000-07:00

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.

2007-10-15T15:31:00.000-07:00

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.

2007-10-12T07:04:00.000-07:00

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.

2007-10-11T12:23:00.000-07:00

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.

2007-10-09T11:21:00.000-07:00

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.

2007-10-08T06:20:00.000-07:00

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?

2007-10-05T08:02:00.000-07:00

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.

2007-10-04T06:55:00.000-07:00

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.

2007-10-03T07:31:00.000-07:00

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.

2007-10-02T07:13:00.000-07:00

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.

2007-10-01T07:32:00.000-07:00

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."

The Intel Ministry of Education.

2007-09-28T07:59:00.000-07:00

This post comes from the New York Times. There’s been a lot of activity on the technology-and-education front this week. First, One Laptop Per Child, the nonprofit project to bring computers to the developing world’s child, announced an innovative campaign to jumpstart its program.

Today, Intel announced a new initiative to rapidly broaden the reach of its program, Intel Teach. The Intel effort, started in 2000, focuses on training teachers around the world to use personal computers as a tool in classrooms. The company announced at the Clinton Global Initiative in New York that its program, up to now based on face-to-face instruction for teachers, would add a hybrid online program. In the past, Intel Teach involved 40 hours of in-class training for teachers. The new online offering will include eight to 12 hours of face-to-face instruction, and the rest over the Internet, at the teacher’s convenience. Click here to read the rest of this article.

Leading Education Industry Solution Providers to Offer Wimba Collaboration Suite Express to K-12 Community.

2007-09-27T08:21:00.000-07:00

This post comes from CNNMoney. Blackboard Inc. (NASDAQ: BBBB) and Wimba today announced a definitive agreement to distribute Wimba Collaboration Suite Express(TM) to Blackboard® K-12 schools and districts in the United States, Canada and Mexico. This strategic alliance will provide new and existing Blackboard Learning System(TM) clients (including Blackboard Learning System -- Basic Edition clients) access to the Wimba Collaboration Suite Express, at no additional cost.

The Wimba Collaboration Suite Express facilitates online access to voice, video and instant messaging tools (among other tools for today's 21st Century learners) for instructors and students to enhance teaching and learning.

Under terms of the agreement, Blackboard will distribute the Wimba Collaboration Suite Express, which includes limited versions of Wimba Classroom(TM), Wimba Voice(TM), and Wimba Pronto(TM) to its K-12 clients. The new partnership provides a unique benefit to members of the Blackboard K-12 community who will gain easy, free access to the industry's leading multi-modal solution for virtual and blended classes, professional development, and intercession and tutoring. Click here to read the rest of this article.

The Not-So-Great Fire Wall of China.

2007-09-26T07:28:00.000-07:00

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

China’s attempts to filter Web surfing might well be keeping citizens away from sites about Falun Gong and the Tiananmen Square incident. But even if the Web blockades are working, that doesn’t mean they’re especially staunch.

In fact, researchers at the University of New Mexico argue in a new study that China’s fire wall is surprisingly sievelike. Instead of simply blocking certain Web pages, the nation watches data passing through the Internet and filters out banned words and Web addresses on a case-by-case basis. According to the New Mexico researchers, that system allows Chinese Web surfers to browse freely, at least on occasion, and it causes the fire wall to become “particularly erratic” when a lot of people are online.

Still, there’s little doubt that the online surveillance restricts the flow of information: As the researchers told BBC News, many Web users censor their own searches for fear of the government’s prying eyes. —Brock Read

Get ready for the $40 school computer.

2007-09-25T07:04:00.001-07:00

This post comes from eSchoolNews. One way or another, the idea of ubiquitous, low-cost computer access for schoolchildren, both in the United States and abroad, is fast approaching the point where goals turn into realities. Major technology players, including several large companies and a nonprofit group that is focusing on developing countries, have been working in different ways to advance the cause.

Things are moving along so quickly, in fact, that Stephen Dukker, chairman and CEO of the small, California-based company NComputing, predicts that by 2009 many schools will be able to provide their students with portable, online capabilities for as little as $100 each--and perhaps as little as $30 or $40 per user for non-mobile devices. Wireless capacity, says Dukker, should be a relatively inexpensive bonus by then.

NComputing has just broken new ground with an announcement that the Republic of Macedonia will become the first nation in the world to provide computer workstations for every elementary and secondary school student. Macedonia's Ministry of Education and Science selected NComputing over four other bidders and will use the company's "multi-user virtual desktop software," along with inexpensive terminals, to provide computing for some 400,000 students, most of whom attend school in half-day sessions.

The first 770 student "seats" were installed in three of Macadonia's high schools in August, with about 100,000 more scheduled to be deployed by the end of this year and another 80,000 expected to be ready by the end of 2008. Click here to read the rest of this article.

Military education: Online Education "Mythbusters"

2007-09-24T07:04:00.000-07:00

This post comes from Military.com.

Learn to separate the myths from realities when it comes to online coursework.

Military education counselors have noticed an increasing number of their students signing up for online distance learning courses. A recent report by The Sloan Consortium confirms the rising popularity in online education. The report shows the following substantial increases in online enrollments over the last few years:

2002 = 1.6 million enrollments*
2004 = 2.3 million enrollments*
2005 Fall term = 3.1 million enrollments*

Although the number of students enrolling in online education is growing, some servicemembers and veterans still fear going "online" for their education. One possible cause for student wariness may be the number of "urban myths" that circulate about the online education experience. The following is a list of urban myths regarding online education:

Myth: Students are not as satisfied with online education.

Busted: At least 97 percent of students surveyed said they were "at least as satisfied." According to the Sloan Consortium — this is true for all types and sizes of institutions.

Myth: Online Education is a flash in the pan — It won't be around for the long term.

Busted: According to the number of enrollments noted above the rate of growth has increased. In addition — chief academic officers believe in it. Online education isn't going away anytime soon.

Myth: An online degree is not real.

Busted: An online degree from an accredited school is just as real as a degree you would earn by traditional means. In fact, many traditional education programs allow students to take online or hybrid courses — courses that combine online and classroom time. In most cases your diploma will not even reflect that it was earned online.

Myth: All online courses require students to log-on at the same time every week.

Busted: Most online courses are now offered in an asynchronous format, which allows students to log on when they are able, not all at the same time.

Of the many online education myths at least one has been substantiated:

Myth: Online students need self-discipline.

Confirmed: Online students need to be focused on their goals and need to have self-discipline to do well. Think of online education as a trade-off; what is gained in flexibility must be made up for in personal drive and determination.

In the digital universe of Second Life, classroom instruction also takes on a new personality.

2007-09-20T08:04:00.000-07:00

This post comes from The Chronicle. Despite its image as an all-American city, downtown Peoria, Ill., home of Bradley University, is also a place of strip clubs and violent crime. For undergraduates, it's a risky environment in which to conduct field research. Edward L. Lamoureux, an associate professor in Bradley's multimedia program, saw a better place in the virtual world Second Life.

This fall he is teaching his second ethnography class online in a computer-created environment featuring buildings, lakes, and avatars — digital characters who fly from place to place, chat, and form communities. The program is Bradley's first foray into using Second Life as a platform for education. Students have analyzed, among other topics, online hackers (known as "griefers" in Second Life) and avatar fans of musicians who perform in Second Life. Click here to read the rest of this article.

Online-learning patent dispute with Blackboard heats up!

2007-09-19T08:11:00.000-07:00

This post comes from eSchoolNews. With a lot of intricate back-and-forth on the legal front lately, online-learning enthusiasts might be forgiven for wondering whether a high-stakes patent dispute between Blackboard Inc. and Desire2Learn Inc. (D2L)--two companies that make enterprise software for web-based course management--will be resolved anytime soon.

In a recent development, a magistrate judge in a federal district court in Texas challenged terminology involved in Blackboard's claims in a patent-infringement lawsuit against D2L--invalidating some of the claims, at least for the time being. Some observers saw the magistrate's opinion, which was issued in early August after a hearing and arguments by both sides, as a major setback for Blackboard, but the company disagreed with that interpretation.

In a separate action, the federal agency that originally granted the patent has agreed to re-examine it--a process that takes an average of about two years to complete. Meanwhile, it is far from clear which party, Blackboard or D2L, might hold the upper hand if and when the lawsuit ultimately goes to a jury. A trial is currently slated for February, and the discovery process has begun. Click here to read the rest of this article.

Why many Universities are saying "NO" to Microsoft Vista.

2007-09-18T07:58:00.000-07:00

This post comes from the Greentree Gazette. More often than Microsoft would prefer, universities are simply refusing to upgrade to its new Vista operating system, fearing the switch offers little more than a headache.Margaret McFee, a senior systems administrator for Harvard University’s Physics Computer Services, typifies university IT administrators who are saying ‘thanks, but no thanks.’

”Our bottom line is, 'Do we need this? Is this worth the effort?'” McFee says. “The answer continues to be 'No' each time we re-visit it.”

Such anti-Vista backlash is also in full swing at Princeton, where its Desktop Systems Council has posted a notice on the university website urging its computing community to hold off upgrading to Vista until 2008. Oregon State, Miami University and the University of Pennsylvania, among others, have published similar ‘wait-and-see’ cautions online.

Like many businesses, these and other institutions have given Vista’s initial release a test drive, and have discovered that much of their hardware – as well as many of their software apps – simply don’t work with Vista. Click here to read the rest of this article.

Chief Learning Officers Link Training and Business Goals.

2007-09-17T08:53:00.000-07:00

This post comes from Workforce Magazine. Earlier this year, the medical device company Guidant Corporation decided to promote a longtime employee to the title of vice president, employee development, the equivalent of a chief learning officer, or CLO. The Indianapolis company’s executive staff thought that the time was right to better organize training and developmental opportunities and match them more closely with the business goals of the organization, as well as offer employees a map for reaching their own career aspirations.

"We felt we could be better at telling employees, when they start here, how they can grow and develop professionally," says Barbara Reindl, vice president of the St. Paul-based Cardiac Rhythm Management Group, Guidant’s largest division.

"We get many employees who just got out of college and want to have an idea of what kind of career they can have at Guidant," she says. "We want to be able to say, ‘This is the curriculum if you want to be a manager.’ We’d really love to create a feeling among new hires that they’re joining a learning organization, but it’s not as well marketed here as it is at Motorola and other learning organizations."

Susan Norton, who became head of employee development in August, has begun talking to divisional vice presidents about their training and development needs and how they should be strategically organized to meet business challenges.

One of Norton’s discussions resulted in the creation of a three-day workshop where Guidant managers from around the world had an opportunity to hear senior executives address leadership issues, network among themselves, and spend their evenings informally talking with other managers from all levels of the company. Guidant has held the workshops in Brussels, St. Paul, and California, and has received positive comments from managers about the program. Click here to read the rest of this article.

Smart continuing education produces ROI.

2007-09-14T10:27:00.000-07:00

This article comes from the Business Times.

Question:

I recently read an article about the return on investment (ROI) of continuing education. It was refreshing to see some people talking about learning within the context of business, that learning can be a business driver. What are your views on the relationship between learning and business? What can be done to demonstrate that a positive relationship exists?

Answer:

One of the biggest issues facing human resources professionals today is the need to train and develop the organization’s employees. The development of a skilled and educated workforce is seen as an ongoing priority that is being woven into many organization’s strategic plans.

Let’s be clear on this point from the beginning: training and development is big business today. It has been estimated that more than $60 billion is spent annually on training for approximately 50 million employees in the United States. A confluence of events, including global competition, an infusion of information, and rapidly changing technology, has fueled the need for continuous learning in organizations. Many experts have come to believe that learning and competitiveness are now interdependent in this information age. After all, companies are facing more competitive challenges with fewer people, and those people must learn how to work harder, smarter, faster, and better. Click here to read the rest of this article.

New York Times Develops Online Course Content.

2007-09-13T08:39:00.000-07:00

This post comes from the Chronicle's Wired Campus blog.

The New York Times today began to pair its articles, multimedia offerings, and even its reporters with faculty-created course material from about a dozen institutions, letting professors use the new resource for both credit-bearing and continuing-education courses.

The project puts the newspaper’s Knowledge Network on an interactive Web platform called Epsilen Environment, developed at Purdue and Indiana Universities. Epsilen works like an academic version of Facebook, says Felice Nudelman, director of education at the newspaper. “Faculty members can put up profiles, including résumés and important papers, and work they would like reviewed by their peers,” she says. “They can form working groups around topics of common interest.”

They can also develop courses around those topics, and students at different universities will have the chance to participate. Mount Holyoke College, for instance, is developing course work around the art and craft of film; Northern Kentucky University is creating a series of studies on women and entrepeneurship.

The cost for universities to participate varies, Ms. Nudelman says, but can be as low as $1 per student per year.—Josh Fischman

Why Facebook has 40,000,000 users already and growing!

2007-09-12T08:04:00.000-07:00

This article is from the L.A. Times. Mark Pincus may hold a winning hand with his latest Internet venture.

More than 130,000 Facebook users a day play an online version of Texas Hold 'Em that the San Francisco entrepreneur created at his kitchen table while his American bulldog, Zinga, slept at his feet.

This is not the poker of smoky backrooms or illicit gambling sites but a free, friendly game at one of the Internet's hottest hangouts, Facebook. Chips serve as social currency: The more you win, the bigger the swagger. Run low and you can earn more by inviting chums to join.

Welcome to the emerging Facebook economy.

Software developers have built more than 3,000 programs to run on the social networking site in the last three months. The uses range from the practical, such as buying music or scouting vacation spots, to the quirky, including sending virtual gifts or biting your friends to turn them into zombies.

About 80% of Facebook's 40 million users have added at least one feature to their profiles. The most successful applications claim millions of users. Click here to read the rest of this article.

America's 10 Most-Wanted Workers (in demand careers).

2007-09-11T07:58:00.000-07:00

This post comes from Career Builder. A number of the in-demand careers mentioned have online training programs offered by Gatlin Education Services.

As more workers from the baby boomer generation retire, millions of jobs are opening up across a variety of industries; unfortunately, hiring managers are having trouble filling these vacant positions.

The reason? In some instances, there is simply a lack of interest in certain industries, such as manufacturing. Many of today's young professionals are focusing on jobs that require computer and analytical thinking skills, rather than ones that require working with their hands. In many cases, however, especially for hiring managers looking to fill management positions, the problem isn't a lack of candidates, but a lack of qualified candidates.

In order to resolve this problem, some employers are offering incentives to older workers who are willing to delay retirement for a few years. Others are offering hiring bonuses to attract new, more-qualified workers. Still, other companies are going right to the source of the problem, setting up courses with colleges and universities that train skilled workers or to pay students' tuition to prepare them for specialized work. Companies like Exelon and General Electric are providing research grants and scholarships for power engineering programs at four-year colleges. And the Natural Association of Manufacturers recently established the "Dream It. Do It." program to train young professionals and garner interest in manufacturing careers among students. To read the rest of this article click here.

Filipino farmers turning to government sponsored online learning.

2007-09-10T07:21:00.000-07:00

This article comes from the Inquirer.net. GONE ARE the days when Filipino farmers just went about their work with bare feet, looking scrawny in stained, tattered clothes.

As today's farmer starts to ride on the technology wave, he now tinkers with modern equipment and is slowly acquiring knowledge through the information-rich cyberspace.

Various farming technologies have already been made available.

This is evident in some of the 4.8 million farms around the country, covering about 9.7 million hectares of land.

Farmers can also freely make use of the Department of Agriculture's "Open Academy for Philippine Agriculture." Click here to read the rest of this article.

Online courses click with busy students.

2007-09-07T06:38:00.000-07:00

This post comes from the Tucson Citizen. The digital era is helping remove the need for college students to show up on campus. It's become more common for students to log on to the Web to apply for college, register, pay tuition, get tutorials and chat with faculty and advisers.

And more students complete entire programs online.

"There is a lot more interaction going on online," said Pima Community College Chancellor Roy Flores. Just think: No more long lines, scheduling around family and work, prowling for on-campus parking or sweat-breaking attempts to get to class on time.

PCC, as is the University of Arizona, is not only adding online classes, but is also increasing the number of programs entirely on the Web.

"People communicate online now as comfortably as we used to communicate face to face," Flores said. "We're obviously gearing up for online, but we're not making superhuman efforts to increase those enrollments. People just want them." Click here to read the rest of this article.

View on career-focused education

2007-09-06T10:32:00.000-07:00

This post comes from the Opinion section of USA Today's blog. As thousands of eighth- and ninth-graders in Florida, South Carolina and Mississippi head back to school, they are being asked to make a choice that was once reserved for higher education: declare "majors" to pursue during their high school years.

How, you might wonder, can kids who can barely choose their favorite pizza possibly lay out their life paths? After all, many college students — and graduates — struggle with that decision. On closer examination, however, what sounds like an outlandish idea actually makes some sense, as long as it's flexible and doesn't detract from basic studies.

One reason so many students drop out of high school is that they don't see a connection between their school work and life beyond high school. Early matching of talents and interests can strengthen that connection.

Moreover, careers have changed. Many traditional blue-collar jobs, such as mechanic or chef, now require post-high school training. That takes preparation. Many high-level white-collar jobs require students to take algebra as early as eighth grade. That takes planning. Click here to read the rest of this piece.

America's Workforce: Healthy, Competitive and Growing.

2007-09-05T08:11:00.000-07:00

This posts comes from the United States Department of Labor. The U.S. Department of Labor today released America's Dynamic Workforce 2007, a new report highlighting major trends in the American labor market and the importance of education and skills training to maintaining the competitiveness of America's workforce.

"America's workforce is the envy of the world! Despite some recent market uncertainties, the fundamentals of the American economy are strong,
unemployment is near record lows, overall compensation continues to increase, and more than 8.3 million new jobs have been created since August
2003," said U.S. Secretary of Labor Elaine L. Chao. "What our country does face is a 'skills gap.' In a worldwide economy, the competitive strength of
America's workforce lies in its productivity, innovation, creativity and knowledge base. The majority of new jobs created over the next decade will
require more skills, higher education and pay above average wages, so it is important to ensure that workers are able to get the education and training
they need to access these growing opportunities."

Here are some of the current trends that illustrate the state of the economy and importance of education and job training: Many of these figures
were compiled from the newly released "America's Dynamic Workforce 2007,"
which is available online at http://www.dol.gov/asp/media/reports/workforce2007.
        
Highlights of America's Workforce:  Labor Day 2007

In the first half of 2007, the national unemployment rate ranged between 4.4 percent and 4.6 percent. That is a full point lower than the average 5.7 percent unemployment rate of the 1990s.
As of June 2007, more than 8.3 million net new jobs had been created in the United States since August 2003.
Job growth in 2006 alone netted 2.3 million new jobs.
By June 2007, total jobs reached an all-time high of 138.0 million nearly 5.5 million more jobs than the pre-recession high of February 2001.
Through June 2007, the United States experienced 46 consecutive months of job growth.
Unfilled job openings have increased by one million since 2003 and averaged 4.2 million vacancies at the end of May 2007.
Between 2001 and 2006, non-farm labor productivity increased 15.3 percent and real compensation per hour increased 7.2 percent.
Between 2001 and 2006, much employment growth was in industries with above average hourly earnings. Employment in professional and business
services, construction and financial activities (all paying above average) increased 2.5 million.
Between 2001 and 2006, employment in jobs associated with bachelor's degree or higher educational attainment increased 18.8 percent -- faster than any other category.
In 2006, employer-paid benefits such as health insurance, paid leave, retirement savings, life insurance, workers' compensation insurance,
Social Security contributions and unemployment insurance amounted to 30 percent of average total compensation.
The United States leads the world in manufacturing, accounting for 21 percent of worldwide manufacturing value-added, followed by Japan (13 percent), China (12 percent) and Germany (eight percent).
With gross domestic product per hour worked at $48.30 in 2005, American workers are among the most productive in the world.
Between 1970 and 2006, the proportion of persons age 25 to 64 with a bachelor's degree or higher more than doubled.

U.S. Department of Labor releases are accessible on the Internet at http://www.dol.gov.
regulations.

Interview with the Governor of Louisiana Kathleen Blanco.

2007-09-04T06:58:00.000-07:00

This podcast comes from The Chronicle. In this podcast Louisiana Governor Kathleen Blanco discusses the challenges of rebuilding the Louisiana education system after Hurricane Katrina. Click here to listen to this interesting interview.

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

2007-08-31T08:17:00.000-07:00

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.

2007-08-30T07:49:00.000-07:00

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.

2007-08-29T09:11:00.001-07:00

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.

2007-08-28T08:01:00.000-07:00

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.

2007-08-27T08:20:00.000-07:00

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.

2007-08-24T08:18:00.000-07:00

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.

2007-08-23T10:25:00.000-07:00

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.

2007-08-22T11:01:00.000-07:00

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.

2007-08-21T07:49:00.000-07:00

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.

2007-08-20T07:08:00.000-07:00

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

2007-08-17T14:46:00.000-07:00

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.

2007-08-17T06:53:00.000-07:00

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

2007-08-16T13:05:00.000-07:00

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.

2007-08-16T07:47:00.000-07:00

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.

2007-08-15T07:16:00.000-07:00

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.

2007-08-14T08:16:00.000-07:00

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.

2007-08-13T07:08:00.000-07:00

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.

2007-08-10T07:01:00.000-07:00

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 .

2007-08-09T11:26:00.000-07:00

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.

2007-08-08T07:54:00.000-07:00

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.

2007-08-07T10:26:00.000-07:00

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?

2007-08-06T08:44:00.000-07:00

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.

2007-08-03T09:00:00.000-07:00

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.

2007-08-02T10:19:00.000-07:00

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.

2007-08-01T11:42:00.000-07:00

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.

University of New Orleans to offer classes on Second Life.

2007-07-31T08:00:00.000-07:00

This post comes from Kact in New Orleans. To get an idea of the future at the University of New Orleans, just imagine Barbie, Ken and hundreds of their clones dropped into the world of "The Matrix.

It's a virtual world, populated by perfectly proportioned people with great hair and cool clothes who strut, stroll and even fly through an airy virtual building that is UNO's Internet home.

Whether teacher, student or administrator, each visitor to the site chooses an online alter ego _ an avatar, in computerspeak _ which is assigned a name and can even be custom-designed.

Merrill Johnson, an associate dean of the College of Liberal Arts who showed off the system earlier this month, outfitted his avatar with a bright red tie, hip glasses and a thatch of streaked blond hair.

The system, called Second Life, is tricked out with enough gimmickry to appeal to students who have grown up playing computer games. In a development reminiscent of the movie "Being John Malkovich," users can go inside their avatars' heads to see the world from their point of view as they stroll down virtual brick paths past lush lawns, a gazebo and stark modern buildings alongside a placid lake.

"You have flood insurance?" someone cracked during the presentation.

But there's a sensible side to Second Life, too. If the New Orleans area should be struck by another monster storm that forces students, teachers and administrators to scatter widely for an indefinite period, Second Life will let teachers set up online classrooms overnight, Johnson said _ keeping school functions from shutting down, as they did after Hurricane Katrina, and helping them hold on to students. To read the rest of this great article click here.

Wii + Second Life = New Training Simulator.

2007-07-30T08:12:00.000-07:00

This post was recommended to us by Dr. Ray Campbell of Kutztown University. This article comes from Wired Magazine. Nintendo games have made the Wii controller a satisfyingly realistic controller for pretend tennis, golf and baseball. But how about using it to practice doing surgery, applying pesticides or operating a nuclear power plant?

Real-world simulations like these are perfectly suited to Nintendo's Wiimote, says MIT research fellow David E. Stone. In fact, he claims the motion-sensitive controller is "one of the most significant technology breakthroughs in the history of computer science." Say what?

For Stone, the Wiimote is the key to building realistic training simulators within the virtual world of Second Life. He is helping companies and universities do that through his WorldWired consultancy. Clients include a company interested in training workers for its power plants, a manufacturer of medical devices and pest-control firm Orkin. To read the rest of this article click here.

Senate Passes Higher Education Act Reauthorization Legislation.

2007-07-27T09:00:00.000-07:00

This post comes from the American Council on Education. The Senate today unanimously passed the Higher Education Amendments of 2007 (S. 1642), taking a significant step toward reauthorizing the Higher Education Act of 1965, which has languished in Congress since it was due for renewal in September 2004.

The legislation includes some major modifications in programs important to colleges and universities, including raising the ceiling for the maximum Pell Grant to $6,300 and increasing restrictions on the relationships between lenders, guarantee agencies and institutions.To read the rest of this article click here.

iPod Course Design.

2007-07-26T10:13:00.000-07:00

This post comes from Campus Technology. YOU CAN ALMOST HEAR the sigh of relief today, as more and more students review course requirements and see that they will be learning, creating, and presenting with their iPods, as well as reading text and listening to course content with them. The Apple iPod and its related set of technologies are bringing a freshness, spontaneity, and engagement to learning experiences that we haven’t seen in a while; possibly, ever. Why are these small devices having such an impact? Click here to read the rest of this article.

Maori language teaching to go online.

2007-07-25T09:56:00.000-07:00

This post comes from Stuff.co.nz. Internet-based teaching software is being developed to try to address a shortage of Maori language teachers in schools nationwide.

Maori Affairs Minister Parekura Horomia said he had asked the Education Ministry to investigate ways of dealing with the shortage, with a focus on early childhood and primary education.

He wanted more children to learn te reo at a young age and online teaching software was one way to make sure this happened, given the shortage of Maori language teachers.

"We all know that the younger children learn another language the better it is for them."

Mr Horomia said he believed teachers should be given more training in te reo when they entered the profession.

Maori language commissioner Erima Henare said the online project would be rolled out within the next year. To read the rest of this article click here.

Duke exonerates iPhones.

2007-07-24T07:49:00.000-07:00

This post come from eSchoolNews. Duke University at first blamed and then subsequently exonerated Apple iPhones in statements concerning outages of the universities computer network. The reversal came only hours after the initial claims from a school technology spokesman. The university now says iPhones were not the cause of the problems.

In a swift reversal, Duke University first accused and then exonerated students’ iPhones. A problem with Duke’s wireless network caused outages at the school, Duke officials said July 20—not Apple's new iPhone.

The retraction came only hours after Bill Cannon, a university technology spokesman, said an analysis of network traffic found that iPhones had flooded parts of the university’s wireless network with access requests, freezing parts of the system for 10 minutes at a time. This analysis turned out to be faulty, according to Duke’s most recent statement. To read the rest of this post click here.

’Open Universities’ Try to Bring College to Masses.

2007-07-23T09:04:00.000-07:00

This post is from PBS. A college education in the United States can be one of the most costly in the world. For many young people, college isn’t an option because of the economic strain it represents for their families. And many older people who would like to attend classes must forego studies to make ends meet.

But thanks to the power of voluntary collaboration, technology tools and the reach of the Internet, college-level classes and learning resources are becoming more and more accessible to anyone who has the interest and an Internet connection. But can you really get an education for free online? Yes and no. I set out to try to see what I could learn from two high-profile initiatives, Wikiversity and iTunes U.

When we hear the words “online university,” many of us tend to cringe, thinking of the ads that appear incessantly online for diploma mills promising anyone a Bachelor’s degree in no time with little to no effort. But the term is also becoming used to describe the phenomenon of the open university, which allows anyone with an Internet connection to access courses, media and resources on the topic of their choice, sometimes without a fee. To read the rest of this article click here.

Connecting People, Creating a Virtual Life Sciences Community.

2007-07-20T08:27:00.000-07:00

This article comes from DLib Magazine. To help faculty, researchers, and students in the life sciences discover common interests and make connections, the Cornell University Library has created a virtual life sciences community that uses an entity-relationship ontology model to organize and present information on people, research, and education activities. This single point of access for scholarly activity in the life sciences at Cornell – VIVO (http://vivo.library.cornell.edu) – transcends campus, college and department structure to provide Cornell faculty, students, and administrative and service officials, prospective faculty and students, external sponsors, and the public an integrated view of the life sciences at Cornell. At the request of university administration, the VIVO database is currently being augmented to provide similar content for the social sciences, engineering, physical sciences, international activities, and potentially other areas at Cornell. To read the rest of this article click here.

Student thrives in new career after graduating from online pharmacy technician program.

2007-07-19T10:31:00.000-07:00

This story is the success story of a recent Gatlin Education Services Pharmacy Technician student.

From motherhood to medicine: student thrives in new career after graduating from online pharmacy technician program. Laura Weaver, 37 year-old mother of four, recently faced uncertainty of starting a new career after being a stay-at-home mom for 16 years. With no prior professional experience, not only did she need to complete a formal education program, but she’d have to do it between carpools and diaper changes.

Ms. Weaver became interested in becoming a pharmacy technician after researching about the position and comparing it to other jobs. The career would offer her versatility of hours and a comfortable work environment, but knowing she needed a comprehensive education in order to be successful, she became apprehensive about fitting school into her busy life as a mom.

“I wanted to have an actual career, make better money and be able to move up, but it would have been extremely difficult to attend any classes.”

Luckily, her mom knew that a local university, California State San Bernardino, offers online courses through Gatlin Education Services, giving her a home-based learning alternative. She decided to enroll in Gatlin’s online pharmacy technician program, a course that teaches students the skills and knowledge that will enable them to qualify for positions in pharmacies as well as prepare for the mandated national certification.

Were it not for the availability of the online courses, Ms. Weaver said she would have encountered trouble completing a program held in a traditional classroom because her kids are all different ages with different schedules.

“With the online class, I could get up at 5 a.m. and start studying, or I could do it when my two-year-old was taking a nap. The fact that I didn’t have to drive and didn’t have to find a sitter was appealing.”

In addition, Ms. Weaver participated in on-the-job training the course offers through Gatlin’s partnership with Walgreens. The 40-hour externship not only gave Ms. Weaver practice assisting pharmacists with prescriptions, but it also provided her with the job she has today.

“It helped because I knew I could get my foot in the door with some hands-on experience,” she said. “I don’t think I would have been hired if I would have just taken the course without the Walgreens externship.”

Because all of Gatlin’s online programs are self-paced and instructor-supported, Ms. Weaver had the peace of mind that she’d made the right decision. And most of all, she gained the confidence she needed to find her place in the professional world.

“The course gave me a very good knowledge base. Everything was covered, so when I went into my externship or work, I felt fine,” Ms. Weaver said. “I would definitely recommend going through the program.”

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 the Pharmacy Technician course

Offered solely in partnership with major accredited colleges and universities, the Pharmacy Technician course teaches the skills needed to gain employment as a Pharmacy Technician in either a hospital or retail setting. The objective of the program is to provide graduates with the skills and knowledge that will enable them to qualify for entry-level positions in pharmacies as well as prepare for national certification. This online program pairs students with an instructor for one-on-one assistance and includes a forty-hour externship. To enroll through a college or university near you, visit www.gatlineducation.com.

About Walgreens Co.:

Walgreens Co. is the nation’s largest drugstore chain with fiscal 2005 sales of $42.2 billion. The company operates more than 5,250 stores in 46 states and Puerto Rico. Walgreens also provides additional services to pharmacy patients and prescription drug and medical plans through Walgreens Health Services, its managed care division, which includes Walgreens Health Initiatives Inc. (a pharmacy benefits manager), Walgreens Mail Service Inc., Walgreens Home Care Inc. and Walgreens Specialty Pharmacy.

Tech jobs on the rise; schools aim to fill demand.

2007-07-18T09:02:00.000-07:00

This post comes from eSchoolNews. Employers across the nation are finding it increasingly difficult to fill information technology (IT) positions, mainly because of a shortage of qualified entry-level and advanced employees, according to industry experts.

Contrary to what many people believe--that available IT jobs are on the decline--businesses throughout the United States say the IT sector offers more job opportunities than ever, and they're struggling to find employees to fill these many openings.

Industry insiders point to a few reasons for the shortage, including the federal No Child Left Behind (NCLB) education law and lingering perceptions from the dot-com bust that occurred earlier this decade. Now, experts are trying to change these perceptions--and they're looking to schools for help.

Part of the reason many people think the IT field holds little promise is they don't understand things have changed since 2000 and 2001, when the IT field took a hit, said Gene Longo, senior manager of U.S. field operations for Cisco Systems' Networking Academy program.

"In 2000 and 2001, when the dot-com bust happened, and then [immediately after] September 11, we saw lots of layoffs in the IT and tech industries," Longo said, adding that many students and professionals shied away from the IT field when they saw jobs were scarce. Click here to read the rest of this article.

The future of Google search technology.

2007-07-17T09:17:00.000-07:00

This post comes from Technology Review. Peter Norvig, Google's director of research, is an expert ace at building machines that answer tough questions. An authority in programming languages and artificial intelligence, he has written an oft-cited book on AI (Artificial Intelligence: A Modern Approach), has taught at the University of California, Berkeley, and the University of Southern California, and was the head of computational sciences at NASA. In 2001, Norvig came to Google to be the director of search quality. Four years later, he became Google's director of research, overseeing about 100 researchers who investigate topics that range from networking to machine translation. Technology Review spoke with Norvig to get a hint of what we can expect from search technology in the years to come. Click here to read the rest of this article.

Web sites introduce preteens to social networking.

2007-07-16T09:01:00.000-07:00

This post comes from eSchool News. An explosion of social-networking web sites aimed at kids as young as 6 or 7 is forcing parents and educators to teach children important lessons about internet safety and online etiquette at a much earlier age.

This past spring, 10-year-old Adam Young joined other tweens on Club Penguin, playing games, throwing virtual snowballs, and chatting with fellow kids who appear on screen as plump cartoon penguins. A few weeks later, Adam asked Mom to pay $5 a month for extra features, such as decorating his online persona's igloo.

Karen Young demanded to learn more about what some have billed as "training wheels" for the next MySpace generation. She spent time on the site with Adam and consulted with her sister, the mother of another daily visitor.

"I said, 'Well, what is it? What does it involve?'" Young recalled. "I wanted him to show me what he wanted and what it was about." Click here to read the rest of this article.

Schools May Not Be Reaching Tomorrow’s Students.

2007-07-13T08:05:00.000-07:00

Wakefield, MA - CourseAdvisor, a marketing and lead generation company that operates one of the top online education directories (OED), and Eduventures, education’s leading research and consulting firm, recently announced results from an online poll of executives representing a mix of more than 75 online and campus-based postsecondary educational institutions. Surveyed during an online webinar, more than 33 percent of executives from the participating educational institutions noted that they were not sure if they were reaching tomorrow’s candidates.

Led by Noah Carp, Senior Analyst with Eduventures, and Greg Titus, founder and CEO of CourseAdvisor, the webinar discussed postsecondary marketing trends, the changing student profile, best-practice ways to reach today and tomorrow’s students, and advanced tools for lead generation and enrollment strategies. As the postsecondary market grows and the student landscape continues to evolve, Eduventures projects school spending on marketing initiatives to grow to almost $2B by 2010 – after topping $1B in 2006. The webinar, “How to Identify Your Ideal Student: Using New Marketing Techniques to Boost Enrollment,” can be viewed at: https://www.gotomeeting.com/register/135484837.

“Data is a key ingredient in postsecondary recruiting, but today’s institutional leaders are still figuring out how to capture the right data, and how to put that data to use,” said Noah Carp, an Eduventures Senior Analyst. “Schools need to leverage data to drive strategic decisions, evaluate objectives against the backdrop of broad market dynamics, craft marketing plans that are targeted, and invest in the technologies to facilitate these initiatives.”

The online poll also found that while more than 60 percent of respondents are implementing traditional advertising and direct marketing programs and/or relying on events to connect with candidates, less than 50 percent are using search engine optimization techniques or buying leads, and 4 percent admitted to having none of those marketing vehicles in place.

“The postsecondary education market is changing, and today’s colleges and universities can no longer rely on reputation or traditional marketing techniques to connect with and enroll the ideal candidates,” said Greg Titus, founder and CEO, CourseAdvisor. “We deliver the mathematical, data-driven way to match the right student with the right school so school administrators can focus on retaining the ideal students from enrollment to graduation.”

Wisconsin study calls for more adult training.

2007-07-12T08:21:00.000-07:00

This post comes from the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel Online. Enhancing adult education in Wisconsin would have the one-two punch of making state employers more competitive while raising the earning power of low-income workers, according .

The report by the Wisconsin Council on Children and Families cites various research and programs in other states to assert that by making postsecondary training more accessible to low-skilled workers, Wisconsin will improve its work force - and its economy.

Short-term, demand-driven, job-focused education is a way to address employer cries for more skilled workers, said Charity Eleson, executive director of the Madison-based organization, and it's also a pathway for low-income workers trying to improve their job prospects.

"We're moving toward a chasm of need here, both in terms of what employers need in order to thrive, but also what families need in order to thrive," Eleson said. "And we have an opportunity to be proactive and address those needs."

The report calls for lower barriers and stronger supports for workers trying to upgrade their skills through Wisconsin's technical colleges and two-year campuses. It calls on the Legislature to take greater oversight and leadership in how low-skilled workers gain postsecondary training. It suggests a payoff for workers who advance beyond high school or a GED. To read the rest of this article click here.

Digital kidsThe ABCs of learning online.

2007-07-10T09:23:00.000-07:00

This post comes from CNET News. Like many 7- and 8-year-old girls online, Emily and Kayla Strickland are regulars to Barbie.com and the virtual world Webkinz.

But much to their mom's delight, the sisters also have been longtime fans of Starfall, an educational Web site whose star is quickly rising among parents, teachers and kids as young as 2 years old.

Like a Sesame Street program, the free Web site teaches kids their ABCs and the basics of reading through the use of audio and visual phonetics, games and animations. Exercises on Starfall include sounding out vowels ("ah"), reading books like The Little Hen and decorating a virtual character. To read the rest of this article click here.

The Art Institute Online Launches in Second Life.

2007-07-09T12:08:00.000-07:00

This post comes from San Francisco's NBC11. The Art Institute Online, a division of The Art Institute of Pittsburgh, has opened a student campus in Second Life, a virtual online community, which will be the forum for a new Business Communications course. The faculty, realizing the potential for a rewarding learning experience, credits student interest in Second Life as the source for the course's development.

Developed by San Francisco-based Linden Lab, Second Life is a rapidly growing and constantly changing 3D MUVE (multi-user virtual environment) where residents can discover a world of exploration, socializing, creativity, self-expression, and learning. The online society uses real-time 3D streaming technology and runs on proprietary software that students can download from the Second Life web site at www.secondlife.com. Click here to read the rest of this article.

Thomson Completes Sale of Education Unit.

2007-07-06T08:33:00.000-07:00

AP - Canadian financial information provider Thomson Corp. said Thursday that it completed the sale of Thomson Learning assets and Nelson Canada to a consortium of funds in a deal valued at about $7.75 billion.

Funds advised by private-equity firm Apax Partners and Ontario-based pension plan OMERS Capital Partners are buying the higher-education, careers and library-reference assets of Thomson Learning. The funds are also acquiring Nelson Canada, an Ontario-based book publisher and provider of online resources.

Thomson announced it had entered into agreements with the funds on May 11. The company said in October that it would sell Thomson Learning because it did not fit the company's long-term strategic goals. Thomson is selling the assets ahead of its planned purchase of British financial news publisher Reuters.

Morgan Stanley (nyse: MS - news - people ) and RBC Capital Markets acted as financial advisers to Thomson on the sale.

PDA's, laptops, cellphones -- are an ever-growing presence in higher education.

2007-07-05T08:07:00.000-07:00

This post comes from the Chroncile's Wired Campus blog.

The latest issue of The International Review of Research in Open and Distance Learning devotes its pages to a complete discussion of what works, what doesn't, and why.
PDA's, one paper notes, have proven difficult to use. Short battery life and small screens make it hard for students to take electronic notes.

Cellphones get fewer complaints, though they would seem subject to the same problems. But researchers suggest that students are more likely to own cellphones, unlike PDA's loaned out for a class, and are likely to be more comfortable using the phones.

Another paper, taking off on cellphone popularity, looks at the utility of instant text messaging for learning. Though standard text messages are limited to about 160 characters, researchers tested a prototype system that allowed 4000-character messages. That proved much more amenable to educational settings. --Josh Fischman

http://chronicle.com/wiredcampus/index.php?id=2197

Gatlin Education student flourishes in her career.

2007-07-03T09:05:00.000-07:00

Barbara Scott, a 52-year-old professional, recently faced adversity when a job-related injury forced her to choose a new career after years in the educational sector of the beauty industry. Not only did she have to study foreign concepts, she’d have to do it in a manner in which she was not accustomed.

Ms. Scott was interested in learning about freight brokering, a burgeoning home-based business. But the course was only available to her in an online format, and after years of creating training manuals and teaching others how to instruct classes, she was an advocate for the traditional classroom.

She needed a comprehensive education in order to be successful, and she felt that surely a Web-based class wouldn’t suffice. A phone call to course author Brooke Transportation Training Solutions, which offers its freight broker/agent training program online through Gatlin Education Services, quelled Ms. Scott’s initial reservations and introduced her to BTTS President Jeff Roach.

Ms. Scott decided to enroll in the course, which provides students with the skills to become a powerful intermediary between manufacturers who need goods moved and truckers who can move those goods. She completed the program in less than two weeks.

“It surpassed my expectations,” Ms. Scott said. “I was amazed at how the narrative learning program provided all the information I needed to excel in this field.

“If a person is truly sincere that they really want to learn a particular field, it’s phenomenal. If you give it the proper time and attention, there are no interruptions and you’re just able to focus.”

Mr. Roach was so taken by Ms. Scott’s commitment to the material and her overall zeal that he hired her right away, even as she received offers from multiple freight broker agencies.

“Barbara’s work ethic, passion for learning and serving others were very obvious from the start,” Mr. Roach said. “She is by far the perfect demographic for this course – she has a great attitude and loves education, both learning and teaching. In my six-plus years of training, she is one of the most impressive students I’ve ever had.”

Ms. Scott serves as an executive assistant to Mr. Roach, and ironically, one of her initial duties is to promote the online course. She has embraced the role wholeheartedly, a testament to her own experience. She’ll also work on a multi-million dollar shipping project with a freight brokerage company in Houston.

“I take great pride in my work, so I’m always striving to learn and to share what I learn,” she said. “I created follow-up information to review the modules and the major points. I’m really enjoying this, and I appreciate the wonderful opportunity it has brought into my life.”

Were it not for the availability of the online program, Ms. Scott said she would have encountered difficulty attending a class because she is currently undergoing medical treatment. Juggling therapy sessions and doctor appointments with a rigid class schedule would have been stressful.

Because all of Gatlin’s online programs are self-paced and instructor-supported, Ms. Scott had the peace of mind she’d made the right decision. She has developed a good working relationship with Mr. Roach, and she’s both at ease and excited about her new career path. And most of all, she is grateful.

“I highly commend Mr. Roach and Mr. Gatlin,” Ms. Scott said. “The multimedia presentation and the videos are informative and not at all boring. My compliments go out to them for the development of an extraordinary program.”

Gatlin's Freight Broker/Agent Training course is offered solely in partnership with major colleges and universities, the Freight Broker Training Course teaches the practical applications of building up a freight brokerage or agency, from licensing and operations to sales and marketing. Upon successfully finishing the course, students receive a certificate of completion and are ready to join the $400 billion-plus shipping industry.

Freight Brokering is currently one of the top home-based businesses as well as the largest growing sector of the transportation industry, according to Entrepreneur magazine and The Wall Street Journal. It is an ideal business for truck drivers who want to advance in the industry, entrepreneurs in search of a profitable home business and immobile and qualified military veterans, who are provided government subsidies to take the training. To enroll through a college or university near you, visit Gatlin online career training courses.

Online classes keep soldier in touch.

2007-07-02T09:08:00.000-07:00

This post comes from the Miami Herald. Juan Ramos hunkers down in Army barracks just outside Saddam Hussein's hometown, hoping insurgent fire doesn't interrupt his online biology class.

He chats via computer with a professor at Miami Dade College and tells fellow students in an online posting, ''Well, I am not your typical guy or your typical Latino'' before describing the gunshot in the head he survived and the inspiration he finds when he ''breathes'' Pachelbel's Canon. To read the rest of this article click here.

Gatlin Education is attending the annual NCCET conference.

2007-06-29T09:23:00.000-07:00

Gatlin Education Services will be attending and co-presenting at the National Council for Continuing Education and Training (NCCET) annual conference. The conference is being held in Louisville, Kentucky. The conference dates are Oct. 7 - 9, 2007. To view the conference schedule click here.

Exploring the key themes for corporate learning in Europe.

2007-06-28T09:12:00.000-07:00

This post comes from Online Recruitment. Serious games, mobile learning and virtual learning worlds were the key themes at the 'Training in Action. Innovate to Compete' conference, held in Sestri Levante, Italy, and hosted by Giunti Labs, Europe's leading vendor of e-learning and mobile learning content management solutions (LCMS).

Some 150 of Europe's top learning technologies specialists gathered in Sestri Levante, on the Italian Riviera in June for the 'Training in Action' conference. Click here to read the rest of this article.

Online education expands in the Republic of the Philippines.

2007-06-27T09:12:00.000-07:00

This article is from the Iloilo Sun Star. The Department of Education (DepEd) will introduce an online teaching wherein students will listen or download lectures and reading materials for particular subjects as well as take examinations as part of the curriculum next year. DepEd Secretary Jesli Lapus said the program and the computers will be set up by the Xing Hua University, which is the best in distance learning program worldwide.

"Our children cannot afford to wait any longer. We need to provide immediate solutions that can be felt not only by a few but by all Filipino children" Lapus stressed, noting that “this can only be done with the use of technology.” The online education project aims to address the need for the Philippine education system to catch up with the demands of the times to compete globally and respond to the challenge of basic education. Under the program, students will listen or download lectures and reading materials for particular subjects as well as take examinations as part of the curriculum. To read the rest of this article click here.

Dutchess Community College announces new partnership with Gatlin Education.

2007-06-26T13:49:00.000-07:00

This post comes from Newswire Today. Dutchess Community College has partnered with Gatlin Education Services to provide online career training courses. Online career training courses are in heavy demand. Staying on the cutting edge of this popular educational methodology, Dutchess Community College recently partnered with Gatlin Education Services to provide online career training courses in the fields of healthcare, business, construction technology, Internet, design and technical, networking and CompTIA certification and video game design and development.

Accessible at http://www.gatlineducation.com/dcc, the non-credit courses can help individuals at any stage of their career. Whether the student is interested in switching career paths, obtaining advanced training and certificates, or a first-time job seeker in need of specialized training, DCC and Gatlin provide the necessary resources for workforce, corporate, vocational rehabilitation or individual career training, all from the convenience of your own home or office.Gatlin programs blend various types of instruction in a unique format that provides a logical, comprehensive and effective education. The typical course combines online instructional content, traditional textbook material and instructor-facilitated lessons. Though the courses are self-paced, personal instructors are available to guide every student. This blended learning differentiates DCC and Gatlin courses from ordinary online courses. Each course is open enrollment and takes an average of 90 days to complete.

Web-based instruction is growing in popularity. Gatlin’s enrollments with their partner institutions have increased by 100 percent in the last year. The company has strategic partnerships with more than 600 institutions of higher learning worldwide.“Between juggling a job, a home, a family and a social life, there isn’t always a lot of time left to attend an on-campus class,” said Stephen Gatlin, founder of Fort Worth-based Gatlin Education Services. “Online training offers the convenience of working from your personal computer and at your own pace.

It’s a viable tool right now as evidenced by the growing number of people utilizing it, and is the way of the future.”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.

For program and course descriptions, go to gatlineducation.com/dcc. For enrollment information, contact Lynette Patrice at (845) 431-8913 or patrice[.]sunydutchess.edu.

Gates Foundation Gives WebJunction $12.6 Million.

2007-06-25T08:56:00.000-07:00

This post comes from the American Libriaries Association. On June 21 as the American Library Association Annual Conference in Washington, D.C., was opening, Ohio-based library cooperative group OCLC announced that the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation’s U.S. Library Initiative would give $12.6 million to its online community portal WebJunction. The five-year grant “will help us to sustain the programs that many library professionals are really beginning to depend on,” Bob Murphy of OCLC told American Libraries.

One of the grant’s goals is to ensure WebJunction’s self-sustainability within OCLC by strengthening its revenue-generating activities and creating additional services to assist all types of libraries. “The self-sustaining aspect is important,” Murphy emphasized, “because we want WebJunction to continue on and on, and to be a place that library professionals can count on for their continuing education needs.”

The Gates Foundation will also fund software upgrades that will include new content- and learning-management systems—improvements that WebJunction Executive Director Marilyn Gell Mason said in a prepared statement are part of “the functionality and flexibility that partners and users tell us they need.” Click here to read the rest of this article.

Cameras to watch online test-takers.

2007-06-22T10:12:00.000-07:00

This post is from eSchoolNews. New technology to be used by Troy University's eCampus program starting this fall will place cameras inside students' homes to ensure that those taking exams online don't cheat.

The number of students taking courses online is surging, creating a dilemma for educators who want to prevent cheating.

Do you trust students to take an exam on their own computer from home or work, even though it might be easy to sneak a peek at the textbook? Or, do you force them to trek to a proctored test center, detracting from the convenience that drew them to online classes in the first place?

The quandary is one reason many online programs do little testing at all. But new technology that places a camera inside students' homes might be the way of the future--as long as students (not to mention educators and parents) don't find it too creepy.

This fall, Troy University in Alabama is scheduled to begin rolling out the new camera technology for many of its approximately 11,000 online students, about a third of whom are at U.S. military installations around the world. To read the rest of this article click here.

Where and how to find work that matters in the second half of life.

2007-06-21T11:15:00.000-07:00

This article comes from Dow Jones Market Watch. Many Americans long to work in the job of their dreams after they retire from their first career. But what do these "encore" jobs look like and how does one find one?

Those are the questions that millions upon millions of preretirees must answer if they ever hope to find work that matters in the second half of their life. Or at least so says Marc Freedman in his new book "Encore."

According to Freedman, the founder of Civic Ventures, all is not yet rosy for those who want to keep working after they retire. Age discrimination still exists, there are not enough flexible jobs in the nonprofit or public sectors, and continuing education and retraining is neither commonplace nor affordable.

That said, the best way to find an "encore" job is to ask some basic questions. Those include:

How would you like to spend the next five or 10 or 20 years?

What community or national or global problems motivate you to act?

How much income do you need to earn?

Do you want to stay in the same field or explore something new?

Do you want to start your own organization or work for an existing one?

Are you willing and able to go back to school or get other training?

Freedman says preretirees must consider whether they want to be a career recycler, career changer or career maker. In addition, he says preretirees should think long and hard about their own motivations and what makes them happy. To read the rest of this article click here.

Californian online education bill zips through state senate.

2007-06-20T01:29:00.000-07:00

This post comes from the Santa Maria Times. After unanimous approval by the California Senate, Senate Bill 155 is on its way to the Assembly for a vote that would create an online classroom pilot program for high school students.

No more than 50 schools would be eligible to participate in the program, with courses limited to teachers who are concurrently teaching the same course in a traditional classroom.

“This would allow for a leveling of the playing field,” said state Sen. Abel Maldonado, R-Santa Maria. “This allows more opportunities and access to learning for students in rural schools particularly.”

“This bill would help all students, particularly those with special needs,” said Nancy Meddings, Hancock College director of learning resources. “There are students who need to learn at their own pace. This is a good option to the traditional classroom setting." To read the rest of this article click here.

Eduserv to fund research into eLearning in new Virtual Worlds.

2007-06-18T15:27:00.000-07:00

Eduserv in the U.K. a not-for-profit IT services group, has announced that its Foundation has awarded grants totalling £333,000 to fund four research projects, each of which involve investigations into the use of virtual worlds in learning and education. The Foundation’s grant programme is designed to drive the effective application of IT in education.

The projects, conducted by Oxford University, Kings College London, London Knowledge Lab and University of Paisley, will investigate how educators can develop effective means of incorporating 3-D virtual worlds into teaching and learning.

Diane Carr, post doctoral research fellow in media and education at the London Knowledge Lab, will use the grant to analyse the effectiveness and appropriateness of learning in online worlds such as World of Warcraft and Second Life. Courses will be taught in Second Life and the outcomes assessed.

Daniel Livingstone, lecturer at the University of Paisley’s school of computing, will research and develop pedagogical theories relevant to multi-user 3-D virtual worlds and develop Sloodle (an open source project integrating Second Life and Moodle) to provide the tools required for the support and management of student’s learning.

At Kings College London, Prof. Richard Beacham will also explore learning in Second Life by developing replica models of 19 European theatres from different historical periods and investigating how they can be used in practical teaching situations.

Dr. Kenneth Michael Kahn, senior researcher at Oxford University’s Learning Technologies Group, will focus his research - ‘Modelling4All’ - on developing ways in which creating computer models for use in learning and research no longer has to be limited to those with extensive programming skills.

Andy Powell, head of development at Eduserv Foundation, comments: “It is clear from the recent Eduserv Foundation Symposium, "Virtual worlds, real learning?", that there is a significant amount of interest within the education community in the use of virtual worlds. By funding this research, we are helping to evaluate the potential of online learning and deliver a better understanding of how we can use such developments for education."

Established in July 2003, the Eduserv Foundation develops and supports programmes that drive the effective application of ICT in education. These schemes include research grants, assistive technology licences, tutor guides for vocational education and information literacy initiatives.

The Foundation delivers its mission with a mix of external grants and internal projects through:

*A programme of groundbreaking research> Promotion of best-practices within the community.

*Development of UK and international interoperability standards.

*Development of demonstrator and prototype services and open source software toolkits.

Setting Learning Free.

2007-06-18T00:28:00.000-07:00

This article comes from Tech News World. In the late 1990s, when everybody wanted to take advantage of the moneymaking opportunities offered by the Internet, Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) decided that it too wanted a slice of the action. MIT was, and still is, one of the most prestigious universities in the world. Couldn't it use some of the intellectual property it was creating on its campus to generate some additional revenue?

A committee of faculty members looked at the issue but decided, after careful consideration, that the Internet didn't offer much of an opportunity to make money, after all. Why not, the committee suggested, focus instead on the university's core mission: "to advance education and serve the world"?

That refocus led MIT to a radical new proposition. In the words of Anne Margulies, now executive director of MIT OpenCourseWare (OCW), "They decided that the best way the Internet could be used to fulfill that mission would be to give the materials away." To read the rest of this article click here.