Education News: Course Era Offers New Opportunities

This article by Thomas Friedman of The New York Times discusses new developments in online education. Here is a short preview:

Andrew Ng is an associate professor of computer science at Stanford, and he has a rather charming way of explaining how the new interactive online education company that he cofounded, Coursera, hopes to revolutionize higher education by allowing students from all over the world to not only hear his lectures, but to do homework assignments, be graded, receive a certificate for completing the course and use that to get a better job or gain admission to a better school.

"I normally teach 400 students," Ng explained, but last semester he taught 100,000 in an online course on machine learning. "To reach that many students before," he said, "I would have had to teach my normal Stanford class for 250 years."

"The Advantages of Online Education for Professionals"

This article by careerealism addresses three of the most prominent advantages of online education for professionals. Here is an excerpt: 

How many hours are left in the day after work?

Is it enough to go to college?

Maybe not if you have to commute, but if it simply meant logging on to your school’s website, you could complete a simple reading assignment in the amount of time to watch a television show.

An estimated 6.1 million colleges take online courses, according to a report by the Babson Survey Research Center. The flexibility of online school has allowed working individuals to rise ahead, procuring a better position at a current company or even transitioning into a better working environment. Online education has really changed the game for military families and single parents as well. For these students, taking courses over the Internet really saves time and even money.

Click the link to read the full article! 

Strickland Appointed to Online Task Force

This article is from Bainbridge
Dr. Tonya Strickland, Bainbridge College’s vice president for Academic Affairs, was one of eight administrators appointed to a new state Board of Regents task force that will look at how the state colleges and universities currently use online learning.

Strickland’s appointment to the new Distance Education Task Force was announced on Thursday, Feb. 16, by University System of Georgia Chancellor Hank Huckaby.

He said as universities and colleges continue to increase the use of distance education, “There is a lack of consistency in the effort across the state. Our campuses must take advantage of every opportunity to serve their students, faculty and staff. ”