Fueling Online Learning - Does Gas Pricing Really Drive Students to Online?

Ray Schroeder's Fueling Online Learning blog.

"This blog is to chronicle a linkage between the rising cost of transportation - notably cars and public mass transit - and the rising interest in online and blended learning."

I wonder aloud whether the price of gas is that much of a factor. Instead, does the price of gas give voice to the overall trend toward the juggling student - working, family and struggling to do a bunch of things? When it all shakes out, the older truism that bad economic times drives students to higher education is probably the real causal factor. Gas prices - yes - clearly a factor - but more as a great excuse for the types of individuals who are ripe for change and less as the cause for growth in online learning. Let's wait a year and see if the growth in online learning changes and if it ties to increased gas prices (i.e. shaky economic situation).

Oldie, but Goodie

Sometimes we run across information that is old for everyone else, but new for us. That's the case with this excellent article from the Online Journal of Distance Learning at West Georgia. This is a 2003 document but it fascinates me how relevant, accurate, and eerily predictive the 32 trends are/were.

Thirty-two Trends Affecting Distance Education: An Informed Foundation for Strategic Plannning

"Recent issues in this journal and other prominent distance-learning journals have established the need for administrators to be informed and prepared with strategic plans equal to foreseeable challenges. This article provides decision makers with 32 trends that affect distance learning and thus enable them to plan accordingly. The trends are organized into categories as they pertain to students and enrollment, faculty members, academics, technology, the economy, and distance learning. All the trends were identified during an extensive review of current literature in the field."

DLA Conference - UWG

Blogging from the DLA conference in Georgia:

DLA Conference - UWG: "DLA symposiums are specifically designed for those involved or interested in the administration, management, planning, and evaluation of distance learning programs."

Interesting Sessions....
Chris Cook's V-Brick session on how his company has evolved from point to point video appliances to a web-based service and product combination. www.vbrick.com

Ken Pisel's military background made for an interesting presentation on the required orderliness of strategic planning. His ingredients/recipe/chef analogy makes some sense. Anyone can collect ingredients...some people can follow recipes, but chefs master both by experience.

Melanie Clay's discussion of the new e-tuition policies at UWG. Really just distance learning fees, but the fee split and planning process discussion hit home.

Justin Johansen and colleagues led a small, but spirited and thorough discussion of the BYU indepedent studies, self-supporting fee structures and how it was achieved in the overall context of academic department needs and demands. Not applicable to most public universities but the overall formulas BYU came up with for splitting the development and delivery of courses is instructive.

Also of interest...Decade Consulting's updated course evaluation product for evaluating academic courses.

Testing Scribefire in Firefox 3 - A Blogging Tool

ScribeFire: Fire up your blogging

ScribeFire is an extension for the Mozilla Firefox Web Browser that integrates with your browser to let you easily post to your blog: you can drag and drop formatted text from pages you are browsing, take notes, and post to your blog.

Early testing of the features on this tool bring good results....

Ning in Education

Ning continues to explode onto the scene with more networks, specific focuses, and relevant content.

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