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by Leena Rao, TechCrunch

Grockit is an online learning community that adds game mechanics to helping high school students prepare for standardized tests such as the GMAT and SAT. The startup, which just raised $7 million in funding, is also moving into general online education for high school and middle school students with impending launch of the Grockit Academy, an online destination where students can learn together and teach each other.

http://techcrunch.com/2010/07/19/grockit-makes-youtube-edu-more-useful/

By Stanford University School of Medicine, Health News Digest

The setting is clearly a simulated operating room, with a robotic mannequin as the patient, but the resident’s anxiety feels all too real. And the scary soundtrack — imagine the ominous music played when the shark approaches in Jaws — only adds to the tension. This is not just entertainment, it’s also educational. This video is part of START, a new 10-month online course from the Stanford University School of Medicine, filled with lectures, video-podcasts, interactive group projects, virtual classrooms and virtual mentoring. The name stands for Successful Transition to Anesthesia Residency Training, and is the brainchild of Larry Chu, MD, assistant professor of anesthesia, and Kyle Harrison, MD, clinical assistant professor of anesthesia. The course was designed to help relieve some of the anxiety that often accompanies the start of the residency.

http://www.healthnewsdigest.com/news/Education_390/New_Online_Learning_Approach_Prepares_Doctors_for_Stanford_Residencies.shtml

by Jennifer Aaker, Andy Smith, Good.is

Stanford Graduate School of Business offers a class called the Power of Social Technology, the goal of which is to arm entrepreneurial business students with online social media tools that create social good. The class has also spurred research on the “ripple effect”—the idea that small acts of goodness can create big change—and has welcomed speakers from Pixar, Facebook, Twitter, FourSquare, Groupon, and Google to talk about how students can harness social good in a way that goes hand-in-hand with profit-making.

http://www.good.is/post/how-do-you-teach-social-good/

By Marc Parry, Chronicle of Higher Education

As more colleges dip their toes into the booming online learning business, they’re increasingly taking those steps hand-in-hand with companies like Embanet. For nonprofit universities trying to compete in an online market aggressively targeted by for-profit colleges, the partnerships can rapidly bring in many students and millions of dollars in new revenue. That’s becoming irresistible to an increasingly prominent set of clients. George Washington University, Boston University, and the University of Southern California, to pick just three, all work with online-service companies. But the new breed of online collaboration can tread into delicate academic territory, blurring the lines between college and corporation.

http://chronicle.com/article/Outsourced-Ed-Colleges-Hire/66309/

by Daniel B. Wood, Christian Science Monitor

A pilot program of 25 to 40 courses this fall would offer the university’s most crowded courses, including calculus, chemistry, physics, and freshman composition. Making it work will require $6 million in private donations, and it comes at a challenging time for higher education in California. It was just a year ago that students took over campus buildings and blocked parking lots in high-profile demonstrations, protesting a 32 percent increase in student fees.

http://www.csmonitor.com/USA/Education/2010/0716/University-of-California-considers-online-bachelor-s-degree

By JEANNIE KEVER, Houston Chronicle

A board advisory committee later this month will recommend ways to cut costs in higher education, and requiring everyone who attends a public college or university in Texas to take some classes online could be up for discussion. Whether online education saves money is up for debate, since schools have to invest in technology and support services in order to deliver it. The most obvious savings comes from not having to provide additional classroom space. Campuses need fewer parking spaces, campus police and other auxiliary services, too. Tuition is generally the same, although some schools charge an additional technology fee.

http://www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/metropolitan/7112203.html

Kathy L. Guthrie & Holly McCracken, The Journal of Educators Online, Volume 7, Number 2, July 2010

The use of reflective pedagogies has long been considered critical to facilitating meaningful learning through experientially based curricula; however, the use of such methods has not been extensively explored as implemented in virtual environments. The study reviewed utilizes a combination of survey research and individual interviews to examine student perceptions of the meaningful learning which occurred as a result of their participation in two Web-based courses that utilized reflective pedagogies. One course focuses on topics related to service-learning and the second on placement-based internships. Both were instructed using online coursework based in reflective pedagogies to compliment on-site placements within local communities.

http://www.thejeo.com/Archives/Volume7Number2/GuthriePaper.pdf

by The Associated Press

The University of California is moving ahead with a plan to develop a new batch of online courses that could eventually lead to the country’s first highly selective, Internet-based degree program for undergraduates. The UC Office of the president is raising money from private donors so faculty can begin developing 25 to 40 online courses, starting with those in highest demand, including calculus, chemistry and physics. It’s unclear when students could enroll. UC already offers 1,250 online courses, which Edley said could serve as a starting point for a more sophisticated, high-tech approach that gives students easier access to instructors and classmates.

http://www.mercurynews.com/news/ci_15524372?nclick_check=1

by Rosalie L’Ecuyer, Fairbanks Daily News-Miner

As a result of readily available, new communications technology, there is a quiet, revolution in education under way but no one appears to be looking at its long-range impact. Hundreds in the Fairbanks area, perhaps thousands worldwide, are participating. Students at the graduate, undergraduate and secondary level are enrolling in online courses, some taking enough online classes to complete certification or degree requirements without attending a traditional campus class.

http://newsminer.com/bookmark/8767533-Online-courses

by Clayton M. Christensen and Michael B. Horn, Forbes

More than 70% of school districts already offer some form of online learning, and that number is growing among traditional brick-and-mortar middle and high schools. With big budget cuts looming, online learning is likely only to grow, as students increasingly look to it to for courses they want to take and credits they need for graduation. Many of the leading online learning providers have experienced sharp growth over the past few years, and that’s unlikely to slow. The adoption of online learning is much more than just a cost-saving move for school districts. It has the potential to transform schooling more broadly by allowing students access to a wide range of high-quality offerings and teachers, regardless of where they live.

http://www.forbes.com/2010/07/12/education-online-learning-leadership-careers-christensen.html?boxes=Homepagechannels

By Cory Hare, St. Albert Gazette

Summer school used to be just for students who had fallen behind. Now it’s increasingly for those who want to get ahead. “It’s actually a phenomenal trend here in St. Albert,” said Randy Kozak, summer school principal at St. Albert’s Paul Kane High School. Enrolment in that school’s summer program is around 450, more than a third of the student count the school attracts during the year, Kozak said.   The Catholic division offers traditional classroom-style summer school at St. Albert Catholic High School and also online learning through its St. Gabriel’s iLearn centre. The system has 120 students enrolled in the school setting and more than 300 learning online, said summer school principal Cara Mazur.

http://www.stalbertgazette.com/article/20100714/SAG0801/307149968/students-get-head-start-on-high-school

by Christopher Edley Jr., San Francisco Chronicle

The University of California is launching an online learning pilot program. If successful, I hope the university will embrace large-scale online instruction – not to replace the on-campus experience, but to enrich it. More urgently, online learning would enable us to serve the growing number of qualified students for whom there will be no room on campus or for whom a residential full-time program won’t work.

http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2010/07/17/INMJ1EDUFJ.DTL

by Katie Kim, WILX Lansing, MI

Kogut tells us creativity starts with cyber space. Several districts are restructuring their alternative education format to meet the needs of their students. “These children typically don’t want to come to high school,” says Kogut. “They need to have more flexibility in the way they learn and the time that the curriculum is offered.” Districts across Ingham County are incorporating online education one way or another. The Lansing School District is meeting Monday to discuss providing online alternative education to students at their old high schools, instead of at the Hill Center. “It’s new and very different,” says Dan Quisenberry, President of the Michigan Association of Public School Academies. “Teachers become facilitators of learning instead of deliverers of instruction.”

http://www.wilx.com/news/headlines/98266869.html?ref=869

By GAIL SCHONTZLER, Bozeman Daily Chronicle

Starting this fall, high school students in Bozeman and around the state can take free online classes for credit from the state’s new Montana Digital Academy. Bozeman High School students will be able to take online classes that aren’t already offered at the school, like oceanography, Principal Rob Watson told the Bozeman School Board on Monday night. Students who fail a class needed for graduation, like math, will be able to retake the class online to earn credits. That will be especially set up to make it convenient for students in the Bridger alternative program to recapture lost credits, Watson said.

http://www.bozemandailychronicle.com/news/article_b1710a74-8e30-11df-9a34-001cc4c03286.html

By JACKSON WEST, NBC Bay Area

The initial pilot would include 35 to 40 courses, and require $6 million in private contributions to fund. A description of the project and a slideshow presentation with video is available online, naturally. The courses would focus on basic undergraduate requirements for language and math, which students at the large school have long complained it can be difficult to get into because demand outweighs supply, sometimes delaying graduation. Making the courses available off-campus could also help students at community colleges earn credits ahead of a transfer.

http://www.nbcbayarea.com/news/local-beat/UC-Berkeley-Could-Cash-In-on-Online-Courses-jw-98273339.html

Credence Baker, The Journal of Educators Online, Volume 7, Number 1, January 2010

This study sought to examine instructor immediacy and presence in an online learning environment in relation to student affective learning, cognition, and motivation. It found a statistically significant positive relationship between instructor immediacy and presence. It also found that the linear combination of instructor immediacy and presence is a statistically significant predictor of student affective learning, cognition, and motivation. However, it did not find instructor immediacy to be a significant individual predictor of the aforementioned variables, whereas it did find instructor presence to be a significant individual predictor. The study also showed that students in synchronous online courses reported significantly higher instructor immediacy and presence. Implications for researchers and practitioners of online instruction are discussed at the conclusion of the paper.

http://www.thejeo.com/Archives/Volume7Number1/BakerPaper.pdf

By Crystal Hsing, Daily Bruin

The Office of Instructional Development will launch a pilot program for paperless evaluations fall quarter to increase efficiency and improve campus sustainability. The OID provides the university’s student rating of instruction service, which currently uses a paper-and-pencil method for course evaluations at the end of each quarter. The pilot program will implement online evaluations in several departments and courses, which have yet to be identified, said Joanne Valli-Marill, OID associate director of evaluation and education assessment.

http://www.dailybruin.com/articles/2010/7/12/professor-evaluation-system-to-be-piloted-online/

by American Society of Agronomy, PhysOrg.com

Are online learning modules beneficial to educational programs? The Arizona Master Watershed Steward program used online learning modules to help increase participant understanding of key watershed concepts. Even though the modules were not required, researchers found that participants both visited the sites on their own time and demonstrated an increase in content knowledge.

http://www.physorg.com/news197904560.html

Patricia W. Neely and Jan P. Tucker, IRRODL

Many colleges and universities are expanding their current online learning offerings and creating new programs to address growing enrollment. Institutions often utilize online education as a method to serve more students while lowering instructional costs. While online education may be more cost effective in some situations, college decision makers need to consider the full range of cost implications associated with these online offerings. The unbundling of faculty roles in online distance education programs is one cost consideration that is often overlooked. As the faculty role has become more distributed, so have the costs associated with providing instruction and instructional support. This paper reviews the hidden costs associated with the unbundling of the faculty role and presents a framework for calculating the true costs of the unbundled faculty role.

http://www.irrodl.org/index.php/irrodl/article/view/798/1543

by Nicole A. Marcisz & Sandra Woien, JOLT

This case study describes the journey of revising an online health care ethics course in an accelerated nursing program. The primary goal was to incorporate additional opportunities for fostering online critical thinking along with updating the course design to reflect the university’s learning standard of academic rigor. This required health care ethics course has been known to be challenging from the student’s perspective, due not only to the volume of the work involved, but also to the inclusion of sensitive topics that are addressed such as beginning of life issues and whistle-blowing. The revisions, constructed from student feedback, were aimed at stimulating critical thinking, providing spaces for reflection, and adding engaging activities that could solidify concept acquisition while reducing both redundancy and temptations to participate in academic dishonesty.

http://jolt.merlot.org/vol6no2/marcisz_0610.htm