Serendipity35 - eLearning

Non-Profit Use of Moodle

nospam@example.com (Ken Ronkowitz) — Thu, 09 Sep 2010 00:28:00 -0400

Samaritans is a registered UK charity with over 18,000 volunteers. They offer 24-hour confidential support to anyone in emotional distress.And Samaritans has now developed a series of e-learning courses in Moodle to provide a cost-effective and convenient way for volunteers to be trained in their own homes.

It is interesting but not really surprising that non-profits would turn to open source software for training. Beyond the value considerations, online training gives a way to fit training into volunteers' personal schedules.

The organization isn't doing their training totally free of cost. Moodle Partner HowToMoodle is providing Moodle consultancy, training, customization and hosting for them. Moodle Partners are a worldwide group of authorized service companies committed to financially supporting the open source Moodle project. They provide a range of optional commercial services for Moodle users around the world. I use Moodle to teach my grad courses at NJIT and NJIT uses MoodleRooms as their provider.

You can read a case study about using Moodle to provide e-learning for volunteers - How To Moodle Case Study - Samaritans.

From Moodle used to provide e-learning courses for volunteers from Moodle News by Helen Foster

Call For New Courses For Peer 2 Peer University

nospam@example.com (Ken Ronkowitz) — Sat, 31 Jul 2010 00:24:00 -0400

The Peer 2 Peer University is gearing up to launch its third cycle of courses this coming September, and we’re looking for new faces to join the community. Do you have an idea for a six week course? Whether it’s Physics 101 or Poker and Strategic Thinking, all ideas are welcome. You can propose a course at http://wiki.p2pu.org/Create-a-Course (deadline is August 6, 2010).

If you’ve never designed or run a course before, that’s okay, too. P2PU is running a Course Organizers Orientation

( http://wiki.p2pu.org/orientation) for newbies to introduce organizers to the practice of online facilitation and provide support while they build a new course. The orientation will be three weeks long and will enable future course organizers to:

Experience open social learning first-hand

Distinguish peer-2-peer learning from formal online teaching

Navigate the different features of the P2PU site

Design a course on a topic of their choice on the P2PU site

Learn how to use different synchronous/asynchronous platforms effectively

Review and provide feedback for others; revise and refine syllabi for their course

Weekly video conferences will be held to discuss important aspects of community building, course design, finding and creating course content, open educational resources (OER), and troubleshooting. Conferences will be recorded and posted for those unable to attend. The orientation leader will also post office hours to provide additional support.

Building on the feedback from participants and organizers in the last two cycles of courses, the P2PU community realised that many potential course organizers had reservations about some of the technological and pedagogical aspects of running courses online. This orientation aims to address these concerns, as well as help organizers become an active part of the P2PU community.

The P2PU community consists of a diverse group of people. They are writers, teachers, designers, doctoral and alternative grad students, artists, copyright specialists, scientists, and blues guitar players. Above all, they are learners–peers working together to learn from each other.

More information, including how and where to sign up, can be found on the P2PU wiki: http://wiki.p2pu.org/orientation
You can submit course proposals until August 6, 2010.

reposted from http://blogs.p2pu.org/blog/2010/07/23/p2pu-call-for-courses/

Nixty

nospam@example.com (Ken Ronkowitz) — Fri, 30 Jul 2010 06:57:00 -0400

And now "open" online education has Nixty http://nixty.com.

It is a website that let's you take and create courses for "free."

They are starting with courses available from open-source sources (like MIT's OpenCourseWare Project), but Nixty users will be developing new courses using the site.

The Nixty LMS has tools typically found in systems like a grade book, ways to test and discussion areas. There are already "free" and open learning management systems (like Moodle), so, I suppose what is new here is the combination of offering courses and a way to create one if a topic is missing.

It sounds like Nixty is more open than free though. They have plans to introduce a payment system for courses that would allow a course creator/instructor to charge students who want to enroll. Instructors will pay $4.99 a month for three courses and also a commission of 20% of the "tuitions."

They also plan to partner with some online institutions. No college credits are issued, but they may try to arrange credit using the College-Level Examination Program.

The Post-LMS Era

nospam@example.com (Ken Ronkowitz) — Wed, 21 Apr 2010 21:35:00 -0400

The idea of a Post-LMS Era is a very appealing one.

I have spent way too much time on committees the past 10 years reviewing and considering learning management systems (LMS). They play a big part in higher education and almost take over discussions about online learning.

As Jonathan Mott notes in his EDUCAUSE article, a Delta Initiative report indicates that more than 90 percent of colleges and universities have a standardized, institutional LMS implementation. LMS issues are seen as the "most pressing IT issues."

Those issues break down into adoption and acquisition strategies, adapting the LMS to local needs, managing costs and maintaining system stability and integrity. And with all the considerations lately about changing an institution's LMS - especially with open source products like Moodle growing in popularity - the portability of course content to a new LMS and integrating LMSs with other campus tools and data is a huge concern.

Despite the increased use of other web tools for communication, productivity, and collaboration (like blogs, microblogs, wikis, social networks etc.), the commercial LMS (like Blackboard) still dominates.

Certainly, personal learning networks (PLNs) and personal learning environments (PLEs) do "represent a shift away from the model in which students consume information through independent channels such as the library, a textbook, or an LMS, moving instead to a model where students draw connections from a growing matrix of resources that they select and organize (Weinberger)," but they have not made a significant impact on LMS use as of yet.

The many PLE diagrams collected online show that the "personal" nature of these configurations means that there are many variations.

Is it currently, as Mott suggests, an "either/or" situation for teachers, students, and administrators? Is it possible to strike a balance between the two?

What seems more important than deciding on a platform is avoiding using either just to be "pointing students to data buckets and conduits we’ve already made for them (Gardner Campbell)."

Mott's post-LMS era follows an "open learning network" (OLN) model that leverages the open architecture of the web. It's not the LMS
and PLE working together, but a mashup into a third platform.

Any predictions on when such an era might arrive?

Office Add-In For Moodle

nospam@example.com (Ken Ronkowitz) — Wed, 14 Apr 2010 23:21:00 -0400

I am encouraged to see a company like Microsoft offering a tool to work with an open source product like Moodle.

The Office Add-in for Moodle (OAM) is an add-in for Microsoft Office (versions 2003 and 2007) that allows you to open and save Word, Excel, and PowerPoint documents to a Moodle website.

Currently, you if you use Office and Moodle, you have to switch back and forth between the web browser and Office applications. With the OAM, you can create, open, edit, and save Moodle documents from within the Office applications. You no longer need to use your web browser when working with Office documents stored in Moodle.

OAM does not require anything to be installed on the Moodle server. Any teacher/owner of a Moodle course can install the add-in and access their documents. Once installed, the add-in adds two menu items to your File menu (Office 2003) or the Office Button menu (see illustration).

Requirements: Moodle 1.8-1.9, Microsoft Windows XP SP2 or higher, .NET Framework 2.0 or higher, Office 2003 or 2007 Limitations: Hasn't been tested with Moodle <1.8 or >=2.0; Requires the My Courses module to be visible on course home pages and for it to be showing courses. Does not work with Live Services Plug-in for Moodle.

Blio eReader

nospam@example.com (Ken Ronkowitz) — Fri, 09 Apr 2010 12:30:00 -0400

All the buzz is about Apple iPad, but a new software program also holds promise for education.

Blio http://blioreader.com is free eReader software that presents electronic books & magazines. It includes full-color pages in 3D, and preserves a book’s original layout, fonts, and graphics while allowing you to insert highlights, notes, videos, and even webpages. Selected books also go hands-free with Blio’s read-aloud feature.

There's a Blio Bookstore with access to over one million free books and a library of today’s bestsellers and you can take your library mobile by syncing to your favorite mobile device. (The bookstore was created in partnership with Baker & Taylor, the world’s largest distributor of literary content and value-added services, and the world’s largest publishers.)

Blio was announced at this year’s Consumer Electronics Show (CES). It comes from education technology pioneer Ray Kurzweil, creator of Kurzweil Educational Systems. It is not yet available as of this writing, but it's already getting its own buzz.

Teaching and Learning With Moodle

nospam@example.com (Ken Ronkowitz) — Thu, 01 Apr 2010 00:45:00 -0400

I'm seeing more and more schools in New Jersey exploring Moodle and I suspect that's true far beyond NJ. Word comes from Helen Foster of a new course on moodle.org called Teaching and Learning with Moodle. According to the welcome message, the main aims of this new space are to:

- provide a clear, synthesized and relatively gentle 'intro to Moodle' to new users in education and training environments
- serve as an organized point for great ideas and resources for new and experienced users alike
- become a generator and repository of Moodle-related (in)formal research in the use and design of Moodle

I have been using Moodle for about six years, so the new space is kind of basic - but it would be a good way to begin using Moodle for newbies. All you have to do is register for a moodle.org account (free, of course). It's not really a "course" but a space to access documents and see Moodle in action. The Moodle site allows you to try out spaces and test drive in the role of student, teacher, designer and administrator.

Helen (from Belgium) is the very busy Moodle Community Manager. She helps with moodle.org admin duties and on some of the other Moodle community sites:
docs.moodle.org
tracker.moodle.org
demo.moodle.net
download.moodle.org
dev.moodle.org
and the new qa.moodle.net for Moodle 2.0 QA testing. That site is running the latest daily build and the database and files are erased and restored to a clean state every hour on the hour - so moodle around with it.

It's Helen!

She also works with Moodle HQ developers.

Her blog is at http://helenfoster.wordpress.com

She is also the joint author of the second edition of the excellent Using Moodle: Teaching with the Popular Open Source Course Management System.

Also check out Moodle recipes for educators - a community cookbook for ideas on using Moodle in education.

Transparency in Online Education

nospam@example.com (Ken Ronkowitz) — Fri, 26 Feb 2010 00:11:00 -0500

Online courses, programs, degrees and institutions have been criticized as less than traditional classroom experiences since online learning first appeared. A few days ago, I posted an SNL parody about online degrees, but its not so far off from the real criticism those of us in education hear.

The study "Evaluation of Evidence-Based Practices in Online Learning: A Meta-Analysis and Review of Online Learning Studies" published by the Department of Education reinforces both sides in the online argument. You can download the 93 page report, but for right now I will point to two findings.

"Few rigorous research studies of the effectiveness of online learning for K–12 students have been published. A systematic search of the research literature from 1994 through 2006 found no experimental or controlled quasi-experimental studies comparing the learning effects of online versus face-to-face instruction for K–12 students that provide sufficient data to compute an effect size. A subsequent search that expanded the time frame through July 2008 identified just five published studies meeting meta-analysis criteria..."

"Students who took all or part of their class online performed better, on average, than those taking the same course through traditional face-to-face instruction. Learning outcomes for students who engaged in online learning exceeded those of students receiving face-to-face instruction..."

Transparency by Design is an initiative, conceived by the Presidents’ Forum, that has its stated mission "to assist adult learners in becoming educated consumers of higher education and lead universities and colleges toward greater accountability and transparency." Members are regionally accredited, adult-serving, distance education institutions. In 2008, the Initiative chose WCET to provide quality assurance on the standards of data reporting.

Last summer, WCET launched the website, College Choices for Adults, to provide adult learners information to better inform their decision-making process. Using program-level learning outcomes, measurements and results, that were more difficult to find online previously is part of that transparency. As the site grows, new data (progress rates and student satisfaction data) is added as well as new institutions and programs.

Transparency by Design institutional members pledge to uphold the "Principles of Good Practice for Higher Educational Institutions Serving Adults at a Distance" that were developed. Those principles contain many of the key concepts of transparency - disclosure, responsiveness, accountability etc.

Trying to promote transparency in higher education institutions delivering distance learning programs is certainly a good idea. Institutions might consider these principles even for a self-serving reason. Transparency to those you serve leads to greater trust in the integrity of the institution.

The current stories about the Toyota auto recalls just won't go away and the company is being hurt badly by them. But as new information emerges that they were not transparent about knowing that there were problems, their reputation falls even more. As I was preparing this post, the television news ran a story about Toyota Motor Corp. President Akio Toyoda's testimony to Congress. Something he said in his prepared statement registered with me as a description of what may be wrong with many online programs right now. "We pursued growth over the speed at which we were able to develop our people and our organization, and we should sincerely be mindful of that." Indeed...

In these tough economics times, many schools look at online courses as a way to grow programs and enrollment without additional buildings and classroom. Hiring additional adjuncts to teach those sections also keeps down the cost. But the rapid deployment and growth is often not supported.

Unfortunately, many of those adjuncts are not prepared. I don't mean they aren't prepared to teach the subject matter; they are not prepared to teach it ONLINE.

Ten years ago when I was much more deeply involved in online course design, I was asked to do some spying on a big, national online university. Actually, I was asked to apply to teach for them so that I could see firsthand what demands they would make, what the content would look like and how I would be compensated. The big revelation for me from that experience was that this "for-profit" was doing a much more stringent job of vetting and preparing instructors and courses than my own traditional university.

Instructors were required to take training and learn in an online environment before ever being allowed to teach in one. The courses were highly structured and far more media-rich than the text-based courses many colleges were offering at that time. There was very little "intellectual freedom" for the instructor - the course you were given was what you taught. Don't get creative. Still, there was continuity and consistency in those sections that does not always exist in online programs.

A recent post on The Chronicle of Higher Education site, "Community Colleges Explore National Collaboration to Fight For-Profit Marketing Machine," points at the inability of smaller colleges (like individual community colleges) to match the marketing budgets of the for-profit institutions.

I understand the need for a "marketing collaboration" led by the American Association of Community Colleges. It has been tried before. A pooling of resources had once created a distance learning effort called the International Community College that after four years of planning was never able to launch.

This new effort is pure marketing - purchasing “leads” on potential students from online portals or an online clearinghouse to showcase programs. For-profit institutions have taken away many traditional students, particularly community-college candidates looking for job advancement.

I would much rather see money being spent on better courses and better prepared faculty.

Here in New Jersey, the New Jersey Virtual Community College Consortium (NJVCCC) is a partnership of the state’s 19 community colleges that tried, with some success, to pool all their courses across the schools and allow a student to pick and choose online offerings to complete a degree. What has worked for them is cooperative purchasing, collaborative professional development opportunities and trying as a group to establish online course quality assurance and inter-institutional communication.

Gates Foundation and Online Learning

nospam@example.com (Ken Ronkowitz) — Fri, 29 Jan 2010 00:09:00 -0500

You probably don't read Bill Gates' annual letter about the priorities of his $34-billion endowment. I wouldn't have clicked the link someone provided on Twitter either except that it said that it was about online learning.

I wrote earlier that Gates' blog (which seems to also have ghostwriters) contains several posts about online courses that he has taken/viewed. Now, he says he is in favor of the open courseware movement to publish course materials free online.

He gives props to systems like the Open Learning Initiative at Carnegie Mellon University that can gauge what students learn and point them in the right direction for a next step.

"So far technology has hardly changed formal education at all. But a lot of people, including me, think this is the next place where the Internet will surprise people in how it can improve things—especially in combination with face-to-face learning."

Some sound bites from the letter on things "we" need to do:

- We need to bring together the video and interactive pieces for K–12 and college courses.
- We should focus on having at least one great course online for each subject rather than lots of mediocre courses.
- A teacher can watch and learn how to make a subject more interesting. A teacher can assign subsets of the material to students who are behind and finding something difficult. A teacher can suggest online material to a student who is ahead and wants to learn more. A teacher can assign an interactive session to diagnose where a student is weak and make sure they get practice on the areas that are difficult for them.
- Self-motivated students can take entire courses on their own. If they want to prove they learned the material to help qualify for a job, a trusted accreditation service independent from any school should be able to verify their abilities.
- There is a lot of online material being developed, but it isn’t organized in a way where it is easy to find the best material that fits what you want to do.
- We need a simple way of taking all of the education pieces and organizing them and then rating them in context.

Lifelong Learning 2.0

nospam@example.com (Ken Ronkowitz) — Fri, 08 Jan 2010 00:15:00 -0500

Continuing with a thread that seems to be running in this week's posts, I found an article on free online learning resources that are largely not part of traditional schooling or degree programs. I found it in the non-academic publication, the AARPBulletinToday, which serves AARP members, a group of people over 50 who may or may not be retired.

The article, "How to Learn Just About Anything Online ... For Free," is a good primer about using resources to learn without enrolling, paying tuition or earning a degree.

They list what they call "smorgasbord" sites that offer a variety of subjects and providers. Those include iTunes U, Apple's online “university” of 100,000 educational video and audio files from universities, NPR stations, museums and other cultural institutions all over the world.

There's also Academic Earth with its thousands of video lectures, and YouTube (not so much for the user-generated contents as for the education “channel” called YouTube EDU), and the ResearchChannel with content from a consortium of leading research and academic
institutions. One that is new to me is the internationally-flavored Videolectures.Net with lectures from conferences, seminars, and workshops.

AARP also recognizes that not all learning is academic and includes "How To" sites like the Learning Center with topics like mastering Google Desktop, and Hewlett Packard’s online classes etc. and WonderHowTo, Howcast, and Videojug.

Besides the article being a nice list of resources and primer on eLearning for an older, non-traditional student audience, it's also a reminder of what continuing education and lifelong learning probably will look like in Web 2.0.

Managing Online Education

nospam@example.com (Ken Ronkowitz) — Tue, 01 Dec 2009 00:12:00 -0500

Online Education Programs Marked by Rising Enrollments,
Unsure Profits,
Organizational Transitions,
Higher Fees,
Tech Training for Faculty.

Those are the headlines from MANAGING ONLINE EDUCATION: The 2009 WCET-Campus Computing Project Survey of Online Education from October.

Some results are unsurprising: "Enrollments are up and rising, profits are often uncertain, and organizational arrangements are in transition.

Some are surprising: "The new survey data suggest that students enrolled in online programs may pay higher fees than their on-campus counterparts..."

And other results seem like they might have come from surveys done years ago: "Many campuses have mandatory training on their faculty before sending them “into the web” to teach online courses, and that quality still looms as a large question for online education programs."

What is clear is that campus officials expect enrollments in their online programs to continue to rise in the coming years.

Fully 94 percent of the survey respondents – typically the senior campus officer responsible for online or distance education programs – report enrollment gains in their online programs between 2006 and 2009; almost half (48 percent) report online enrollments rose by 15 percent or more during this period.
Similarly, asked about past year numbers (fall 2008 vs. fall 2009), 95 percent report rising enrollment in their online programs; almost two-fifths (38 percent) report a one-year gain in online enrollments of 15 percent or better.
Finally, when asked to project enrollments in their online programs over the next three years (2009-2011), 98 percent of the institutions participating in the survey affirm enrollment gains: almost half (47 percent) expect online enrollments grow by 15 percent or more over the next three years.

You can download download the survey executive summary, the handout and the video webcast of the WCET conference presentation at http://www.campuscomputing.net/survey/online-education-2009

WIRED into Free Tuition for Future iPhone Developers

nospam@example.com (Tim Kellers) — Wed, 07 Oct 2009 00:11:00 -0400

Have an idea for an iPhone application but don’t know how to make it happen or can’t afford to take a course?

North Jersey Partners has teamed up with the New Jersey Institute of Technology (NJIT) to offer FREE tuition for an online iPhone Application Development course. Taught entirely online by an NJIT instructor, the 10-week course begins on October 19, 2009 and includes the NJIT award of a 3.0 CEU certificate to students upon completion.

The 30-hour online training course teaches computer savvy students the foundation they need to design and implement iPhone and iPod Touch software using the Apple Software Development Kit. They learn how to create and deploy iPhone and iTouch applications on the software simulator and hardware devices. Participants can practice installing their applications and learn the Apple AppStore submission process so their independent developer Apps can potentially be offered by Apple as paid, downloadable commercial software packages. This class also provides enrolled students memberships in the Apple Developer portal.

Those interested in applying via SMS for the free-tuition subsidy for this class can text IPHONE to 35350 and will receive by return text message a link to the application. The application process runs from October 5 - 16, 2009. All applicants must: meet eligibility requirements, have broadband access to the Internet, and have access to a Macintosh computer capable of running the SDK (OS X Leopard 10.5.7 or higher) and an iPhone or iPod Touch.

Fifteen applicants will be selected for the free-tuition subsidy and preference will be given to those unemployed and underemployed in the northern New Jersey region. Applicants not eligible for the tuition subsidy award may still register for the October 19 or November 30th class sections and pay tuition. The schedule of all classes and the course description are available online.

This training program is funded by North Jersey Partners through the U.S. Department of Labor Education and Training Administration’s WIRED initiative.

North Jersey Partners is an innovative regional partnership of public, private and government organizations collaborating to deliver programs, training, and support to ensure the continuity of a skilled workforce to drive economic growth in northern New Jersey. CPE@NJIT, in keeping with its longstanding commitment to provide online education to Graduate and Professional Development students, has provided the instructional resources and the publicly available learning platform to host current and future sections of the iPhone OS training class

Teachers Learning Online

nospam@example.com (Ken Ronkowitz) — Fri, 04 Sep 2009 00:08:00 -0400

Yet another study comparing face-to-face and online learning has concluded that online classes yield superior results to F2F instruction. This one was conducted on behalf of the U.S. Department of Education, and it is available for download in PDF format at the DoE website.

I haven't seen any studies on teachers learning online, but I was thinking about that angle yesterday when I was digging through the offerings from Annenberg Media. They have a lot of material for professional development. Some of their instructional videos can also be used as distance learning courses. (Colleges have a licenses fee for the use of Annenberg Media video courses for distance learning.)

Their teacher professional development workshops and courses are at their learner.org site. The workshops and courses provide content and pedagogical learning and are appropriate for preservice and inservice teachers. They cover curricular areas and grade levels from K-12 and into college level.

Workshop and course resources consist of video, print, and Web components that can be used in three ways:
1. In a study group with a facilitator.
2. As an individual for self-study. (but you can sign up for the teacher talk discussion lists on the site)
3. For graduate credit.

For credit, teachers can do the work individually or with a group. There is a per-credit fee from the institution granting credit.

The video programs are available as streaming Video on Demand (VoD). The print guides are downloadable in PDF format. Videocassettes, DVDs, and print guides are also available for purchase from their catalog.

A few samples include In Search of the Novel for grade 6-12 teachers,Inside Writing Communities (grade 3-5 teachers), Learning Math: Data Analysis, Statistics, and Probability (K-8).

The Habitable Planet: A Systems Approach to Environmental Science was designed for teachers, educators, and adult learners with a science background who want to learn more about current issues in environmental science. College or graduate students, advanced high school students, or even professional scientists may also find this course useful. The materials are designed for various uses. While this is not a curriculum for use in a high school classroom, some materials may be used to supplement existing curriculum.

A new title this fall is "Art Through Time: A Global View" which is a 13-part series that includes a free online text, guide, and coordinated website.

Their Video on Demand service no longer requires you to enter a user name and password to view video on learner.org, so you can check out their online offerings. (They are moving to Flash video.)

Online Students Performed Better

nospam@example.com (Ken Ronkowitz) — Mon, 24 Aug 2009 18:38:00 -0400

According to a new study commissioned by the US Dept of Education titled "Evaluation of Evidence-Based Practices in Online Learning A Meta-Analysis and Review of Online Learning Studies," students who took all or part of their class online performed better, on average, than those taking the same course through traditional face-to-face instruction.

Giving students control of the learning process appears to make them learn better, and it can be further enhanced by giving learners control of their interactions with media and prompting learner reflection.

Of course, these things can also be done in a face-to-face course too, but I do hear these things attached more frequently to online learning for some reason.

The study is 92 pages. Here's the abstract:

A systematic search of the research literature from 1996 through July 2008 identified more than a thousand empirical studies of online learning. Analysts screened these studies to find those that (a) contrasted an online to a face-to-face condition, (b) measured student learning outcomes, (c) used a rigorous research design, and (d) provided adequate information to calculate an effect size. As a result of this screening, 51 independent effects were identified that could be subjected to meta-analysis. The meta-analysis found that, on average, students in online learning conditions performed better than those receiving face-to-face instruction. The difference between student outcomes for online and face-to-face classes—measured as the difference between treatment and control means, divided by the pooled standard deviation—was larger in those studies contrasting conditions that blended elements of online and face-to-face instruction with conditions taught entirely face-to-face. Analysts noted that these blended conditions often included additional learning time and instructional elements not received by students in control conditions. This finding suggests that the positive effects associated with blended learning should not be attributed to the media, per se. An unexpected finding was the small number of rigorous published studies contrasting online and face-to-face learning conditions for K–12 students. In light of this small corpus, caution is required in generalizing to the K–12 population because the results are derived for the most part from studies in other settings (e.g., medical training, higher education).

Read the study http://www.ed.gov/rschstat/eval/tech/evidence-based-practices/finalreport.pdf

Blackboard To Buy Angel Learning

nospam@example.com (Ken Ronkowitz) — Wed, 06 May 2009 18:29:00 -0400

Blackboard Inc. announced today that it plans to buy Angel Learning, a rival course-management software company.

In 2002, Blackboard acquired a competing CMS, Prometheus, from George Washington University, and in 2005, they bought their main competitor, WebCT.

Blackboard will pay a reported $80-million in cash and $15-million in stock for Angel Learning. Both companies have approved the deal, and Blackboard expects the arrangement to become final by the end of May.

The Angel CMS was first developed at Indiana University-Purdue University Indianapolis which started a company called CyberLearning Labs (later Angel Learning) to market it as a product to other institutions. The university is still the largest company shareholder.

The acquisition leaves Desire2Learn as Blackboard's main competitor. Last month, the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office issued a preliminary ruling rejecting all 57 claims in a software patent that Blackboard Inc. had made to successfully sue rival Desire2Learn for infringement. That battle is still not finished and the re-examination process could drag on for years because of the many chances that Blackboard has to appeal... unless they buy out Desire2Learn too.

The Future of E-learning Is Social Learning

nospam@example.com (Ken Ronkowitz) — Wed, 06 May 2009 10:50:00 -0400

My title, "The future of e-learning is social learning," is taken from one of Jane Knight's short, introductory presentations on social learning in organizations. It's a simple enough statement, but I think it is quite true. If any educational results come from the explosion of social sites and tools in the past few years, e-learning is certain to be the first to be affected.

I have to say that the one online course that I amstill teaching addresses all of the tools she talks about in her presentation except for Elgg. (see below)

This introductory presentation covers: What is Social Learning? Social Learning platforms, and the role of Social Learning Professionals.

The future of e-learning is social learning

View more presentations from Jane Hart.

Elgg was started in 2004 and allows you to create your own online community. It is free and open source and powers all kinds of social networks in education, business and for individual hobbyists. It has good features, but since I teach within Moodle, I haven't felt the need to create an outside social network for a class.

More Moodle Books

nospam@example.com (Ken Ronkowitz) — Tue, 21 Apr 2009 13:07:00 -0400

If you're looking for a book about Moodle, try the Moodle Books database,which contains a variety of books and manuals, for both teachers and administrators, written by members of the Moodle community.

Recently added titles include Moodle 1.9 Course Creator Reference Manual by Ray Lawrence and Moodle for Teaching 7-14 Year Olds by Mary Cooch. Both authors are "particularly helpful Moodlers" in the moodle.org Using Moodle course.

When you buy a book from the Moodle Books database,you're helping support Moodle development, as a percentage of all sales
goes to the Moodle Trust.

Get In Line for iPhone Online

nospam@example.com (Tim Kellers) — Tue, 14 Apr 2009 00:01:00 -0400

NJIT has announced the opening of registration for the first iPhone Application Development class available to the general public and conducted entirely online. Taken from the for-credit class-section first offered by NJIT in the Spring 2009, the online syllabus contains development instruction, sample code, multi-media resources, and the documentation of the face-to-face offering. Additionally, this professional development offering awards both CEU's (3) and an NJIT certificate upon successful completion of the class. Students are required to have a Macintosh computer capable of running the latest iPhone Software Development Kit, an iPhone or an iPod Touch. Though not a pre-requisite to registration, participants in the class will also be required to register as an developer with Apple, Inc.

So much for the advertisement.

The goal of this class is to produce independent, entrepreneurial code developers who can use their talents to develop skills that lead them into the realm of code-for-profit without having the developers negotiate the daunting (and recently diminishing) corporate opportunities for application programming, and make some money from their independent effort and dedication. Fostering independent initiatives is a departure from the NJIT instructive model. Apart from the degree-oriented credit courses, even NJIT's non-credit offerings have been targeted at students who use their newly learned skills to get a job or enhance the jobs they may already have. The iPhone application developer comes from an entirely different mold.

Tonight's guest lecturer, Michael Hill of PrimoSpot software, is right out of that mold. Coming from a background of web application development, Michael spent "a couple of months" learning Apple's Xcode and about a year as the only staff in his new company. He developed PrimoSpot --an application that displays car parking zones and parking availability in New York City. Boston is the next target of his app with more cities to follow. As PrimoSpot grows, the plan is to port it to other platforms with the Blackberry clearly in his crosshairs. Automobile GPS units will not be far behind.

For those who want to swim in this new entrepreneurial pool there are opportunities to learn. Stanford University has released their iPhone curriculum for free download on iTunes, but there is more to learning to swim than reading a book about lifesaving. The online iPhone class that NJIT is offering will support step-by-step instructor-lead teaching and evaluation tailored to the student seeking effective professional development training.

The online iPhone class will begin on May 11th and continue for 10 weeks and offer 30 hours of instruction. More information is available via e-mail at: iphone@online.njit.edu. There is an announcement mailing-list available, and a course summary. The main page for the online offering is: http://online.njit.edu/moodle and there is a direct link for class registration.

Here's to an interesting and innovative Spring and Summer of iPhone code.

Authenticating Online Students

nospam@example.com (Ken Ronkowitz) — Tue, 24 Mar 2009 00:24:00 -0400

We had a meeting recently of our college's Online Issues Workgroup to discuss the Higher Education Opportunity Act language that requires authenticating online students. It states that accrediting organizations, like Middle States, must require that institutions offering distance education have processes to establish that the student who registers in a distance education course is the same student who participates in and completes the program and receives the academic credit.

Last summer, I wrote briefly about a WCET briefing paper that considered this issue. The HEOA requires changes that appear to be costly and complex for online programs. The people who run those programs are somewhat fearful and definitely confused. The part that seems to get the most attention focuses on academic integrity and student authentication.

It is not a new concern. It is one that teachers have expressed for years. How do you know that the person at the distant keyboard is the registered student? Maybe someone else is taking the test. Maybe someone else is taking the entire course.

Of course, in a traditional class setting, you don't always know that the paper submitted was written by the student who submitted it. Depending on the testing conditions, you might not even know that the student sitting there taking the exam is the registered student.

What the HEOA actually says is:

"...the agency or association requires an institution that offers distance education or correspondence education to have processes through which the institution establishes that the student who registers in a distance education or correspondence education course or program is the same student who participates in and completes the program and receives the academic credit."

You can access the full text of the Higher Education Opportunity Act of 2008 at ed.gov

The current practices in place at most colleges and universities usually require secure student login credentials, possibly proctored testing for online students and institutional policies concerning student use of network resources and academic honesty. And, for right now, nothing else is probably required. The concern is that there is also an expectation in the HEOA that as technologies get better and more affordable that institutions will take greater steps to insure who is taking your online course.

That expectation is leading schools to explore software/hardware solutions (like Acxiom, Kryterion & SoftwareSecure) that provide authentication using video, fingerprinting, and verification questions (similar to those used by financial institutions to verify your identity before allowing access to information). To some of us, those solutions seem overly expensive and technically overwhelming for students.

No one is quite sure what is expected now and what will be expected in the future. Most of us are monitoring what our accrediting agency (or agencies) might say about the HEOA. For now, institutions should focus on policies, best practices and course design strategies that promote academic integrity in their online courses now. There is a draft document from WCET that is a good starting place for discussions on your campus.

More
http://www.chea.org/ia/IA_2008.10.30.html
http://www.nmc.org/nmctab/authenticating-students

Text eLearn for Education

nospam@example.com (Tim Kellers) — Mon, 23 Mar 2009 00:23:00 -0400

Beginning this week, the Adult Education initiative at NJIT will supply undergraduate and graduate class information and course offerings using text messaging to cell phones and SMS capable devices. Need to burnish that resume in this chaotic economic climate? Need to find a program that will let you finish an undergraduate degree that is tailored for working adults? Need to enhance some graduate classes by organizing them into a graduate certificate? Don't spend hours that you don't have searching through schools and programs looking for that combination of instruction that will broaden your learning horizon. Simply send message to 35350 (a number to be listed on the adultlearner.njit.edu website) and you can get a phone call from a customer service representative armed with the answers to the questions you might have.

Don't have time for yet-another-phone-call? Simply browse to the adultlearner mobile page, enter your phone number, check off the programs (present or future) that interest you, and details of those programs will be sent via text to your phone or e-mailed to you so you can consider them during your ever-diminishing leisure time. If you decide that the track is not for you, text QUIT to the service, and your SMS door will not be darkened again.

Once you sign up and as the programs offered change, you can be notified immediately of updates, changes and enhancements to the offered programs. If you register for one of the offered courses, you can even study the class materials in the micro online environment. Classes (and entire graduate certificate programs), offered in Moodle will require only a mobile browser (and the usual hard work and study) to complete the entire curriculum. If eye-strain isn't a concern or problem, the mobile nature of the information and courses allow complete portability of the learning environment and the virtual classroom merges into our personal living space wherever we define it.

One of the first class exercises in the iPhone Development course I teach was the development of a web app that accessed this blog in a mobile device format, so if the information you seek isn't inside of a degree-oriented curriculum, you can still read Serendipity35.

And, who knows, once in a while, you might even make a telephone call.