Family Arguments: No One Wins - the ongoing debate over online vs. face-to-face education

From Inside Higher Ed's Steve Kolowich comes this story about yet another study of online versus face-to-face education.  At risk of offending federal bureaucrats (and I have friends who are federal bureaucrats), this sounds an awful lot like a bureau (Education) vs. bureau (NBER) argument.  Or, put in terms to which we can all relate - it's a family argument where no one is likely right.

So, here's the gist of the debate.  Worth a read, but I don't find anything compelling in the new paper.

News: Seed of Doubt - Inside Higher Ed

...since a Department of Education meta-analysis last summer concluded that “on average, students in online learning conditions performed better than those receiving face-to-face instruction,” many advocates now consider the matter closed.

Not so fast, say researchers at the National Bureau of Economic
Research.  The Education Department’s study was deeply flawed and its implications have been overblown, say the authors of a working paper released this month by the bureau.“None of the studies cited in the widely-publicized  meta-analysis released by the U.S.  Department of Education included randomly-assigned students taking a full-term course, with live versus online delivery mechanisms, in settings that could be directly compared (i.e., similar instructional
materials delivered by the same instructor),” they write. “The evidence base on the relative benefits of live versus online education is therefore tenuous at best.”

And on the other hand...a refutation of the refutation:

Barbara Means, director of the Center for Technology and Learning at SRI International and lead author of the Education Department’s meta-study, says the bureau's paper, in addition to being rife with erroneous claims, draws conclusions that are essentially irrelevant to the debate over online education.
By taking pains to isolate the online-versus-classroom variable while keeping other variables constant, Means says Rush and his collaborators miss a crucial point: that what distinguishes online education from classroom education has little to do
with the fact that one comes on a computer screen and the other does not.
That narrow distinction “is something that most people in the field of technology feel is not particularly interesting,” Means says, That that is not how online education works. To the contrary, most modern online programs expressly try to present course content in a way that is unique to the online environment. If videotaped lectures are included, they are often a small part of a larger package. “The point of using the online technology," Means say, "is to do things that you cannot do face-to-face."

For a look at the new paper by Figlio, Rush and Yin, see this link.   To see the original DOE meta-analysis, check this link.

Is this the biggest news in higher education for 2010?

Did everyone sleep through this announcement?  Did we fail to notice this landmark agreement that has the potential to reshape higher education?  And oh yeah, it's distance education related.  Implications: public private partnerships in a new way; education the 'Walmart way'; reaching an unserved population; expanding educational opportunities; exploring the value of higher education for firms and their workers. 

Some will decry the potential for a 'Walmartization' of education, but hello - what's wrong with a major employer understanding the needs of their workforce and building something that supports it.  Not one thing wrong. 

Watch this one.  Let's see where it goes. It's not a slam dunk but it sure has potential to shake things up for all of us.

Wal-Mart’s Partner in Education Earns High Profile - NYTimes.com

What promises to be a lucrative arrangement between the country’s largest retailer and an education company based in West Virginia started with an unsolicited e-mail message in October.

The retailer, Wal-Mart Stores, was looking for a partner to offer online college courses to its work force in the United States. Might American Public Education — which runs two Web-based universities — be interested?

By January, American Public put together a team devoted to landing the Wal-Mart contract, and last week, the two companies announced an agreement. Wal-Mart committed to spending $50 million over the next three years in tuition and other assistance for employees who enroll.

Mayadas is a funny man: wry observations on the nattering nabobs of negativity at UC

In Crisis, U. of California Outlines a Grand and Controversial Online Learning Plan - Technology - The Chronicle of Higher Education

The University of California's decision to begin its effort with a pilot research project has also raised eyebrows. The goal is to determine whether online courses can be delivered at selective-research-university standards.

Yet plenty of universities have offered online options for years, and more than 4.6 million students were taking at least one online course during the fall-2008 term, notes A. Frank Mayadas, a senior adviser at the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation who is considered one of the fathers of online learning.

"It's like doing experiments to see if the car is really better than the horse in 1925, when everyone else is out there driving cars," he said.

If the project stumbles, it could dilute UC's brand and worsen already testy relations between professors and the system's president, Mark G. Yudof.

As the system studies whether it can offer quality classes online, the bigger question might be this: Is California's flagship university system innovative enough to pull online off?

Women in higher education...make a note

All interested in higher education and education in general should make note of the following:

Census says women equal to men in advanced degrees, yet they still lag behind men in pay | Oregonlive.com

Women are now just as likely as men to have completed college and to hold an advanced degree, part of an accelerating trend of educational gains that have shielded women from recent job losses. Yet they continue to lag behind men in pay.

Among adults 25 and older, 29 percent of women in the U.S. have at least a bachelor's degree, compared with 30 percent of men, according to 2009 census figures released Tuesday. Measured by raw numbers, women already surpass men in undergraduate degrees by roughly 1.2 million.

Women also have drawn even with men in holding advanced degrees. Women represented roughly half of those in the U.S. with a master's degree or higher, due largely to years of steady increases in women opting to pursue a medical or law degree.

At current rates, women could pass men in total advanced degrees this year, even though they still trail significantly in several categories such as business, science and engineering.

"It won't be long before women dominate higher education and every degree level up to Ph.D.," said Mark Perry, an economics professor at the University of Michigan-Flint who is a visiting scholar at the American Enterprise Institute, a conservative think-tank. "They are getting the skills that will protect them from future downturns."

Another reason institutions and organizations must be 'eyes up' in using cloud services or web 2.0

Ning, a great little network creation service, finally moves from free to fully paid.  Nothing wrong with that.  One always wonders how these folks earn a living providing free social network hosting for millions of people anyway.  But the lesson here is for anyone who builds a network:  Better have a backup plan, an escape route, or shell out for the services.  Any of these three options are acceptable.  Expecting free services - not too smart.

Ning Blog » An Update from Ning

As part of this change, we’ll be phasing out our free service. On May 4, 2010, we will share with you all of the details of our new offering, including features and price points, through a series of blog posts, emails, and conference calls. We recognize that there are many active Ning Networks for teachers, small non-profits, and individuals and it’s our goal to have a set of product and pricing options that will make sense for all of them. For Ning Creators using our free service who choose to move to another service, we will offer a migration path and time to make that change.