Week 4: The Continued Expansion of Blended and Fully Online Learning

Week 4: February 1, 2010


This was a tough week for me. My father passed away and I find it tough to concentrate. I was to assist a peer (Lisa Yoder) with moderating our weekly article /cool resources interactions. I did not contribute one single thing. I would like to personally thank Lisa for her sensitive support and wonderful contributions to the forums this week. Dr. Bonk was also very understanding of my life situation.

Moving on… I truly am a fan of online and blended (hybrid) learning options. I have been a nursing faculty in higher education academia since 1998. I remember designing a Heart Failure certificate course completely online in 2000. The 6 week course was so popular that multiple courses had to be scheduled. Students all over the US and a few world-wide (Saudi Arabia) took advantage of the offering. The program consisted of 6 modules, assignments, multiple visual links from the web and sometimes discussions. The engagement factor was minimal. My how times have changed in 10 years.

One of the articles that Lisa summarized was Allen, I. E., & Seaman, J. (2006). Making the grade: Online education in the United States. The Sloan Consortium (Sloan-C). Retrieved July 4, 2007, from http://www.sloan-c.org/publications/survey/pdf/making_the_grade.pdf



One key finding from the Sloan report that I noted was that many faculty have not accepted the value of online education. I too feel this is also still the case with potential students as well as those in academia. At my campus of IUPUC, nursing is the only department with an entire degree program online. Many of the general education courses that the nursing students need in the online program cannot find those course online and have to drive to campus to obtain those credits so it defeats the ‘online’ advertisement. The faculty teaching the gen ed courses (liberal arts and sciences) are tough to convince because they cannot envision the in-depth learning without the buildings, lectures, face-to-face (FTF) discussions. Many faculty feel that their highest levels of critical thinking were due to verbal exchanges with professors and/or fellow classmates that cannot be duplicated online.

Another comment that Lisa makes is in regards to Dr. Bonk’s book, The World is Open. She notes that in Opener #2 (in his book): this attitude (as noted above) has changed since 2005 and will continue to change as more and more students learn online. The mega-number of online students in Asian universities was mind-boggling. I was blown away by the enrollment growth statistics he provided for the large American online universities:
• University of Phoenix: 330,000 students!
• Capella University: from 10,000 in 2004 to over 20,000 students in 2007
• Walden University: from 2000 in 2001 to 28,000 in 2007


The Opener in Dr. Bonk’s book also states that today online learning represents 10% of the enrollments in higher education in the US, which is an increase of nearly 10% from over a decade ago. It faces many challenges, but one thing is clear – online learning is here to stay and will only improve as it grows. Very interesting….


Additional ‘tidbits’ mentioned in week three that hit home with me include the following:


• http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_A-ZVCjfWf8 You Tube on the vision for K-12 learners today… digitally and socially speaking.
• http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ffRUHKx2zyU blended learning advantages
• http://www.waldenu.edu/About-Us/33393.htm? enjoyed the video from Walden. Makes one want to teach or volunteer in Nepal.
• http://www.jiu.edu/about/e-learning/online-learning-quiz Jones International School quiz to determine if you have what it takes to be an online learner.


Finally,
http://www.mc.maricopa.edu/~johnson/DLMGRSRC.HTM


This is an internet ECG presentation / tutorial that supports and reviews content I taught for a cardiac nursing course. I support my in class face to face content with this online supplement to design it like a ‘hybrid’ type of course. The online content does not last that long and I encouraged the students to take the time to view it. There are also imbedded quiz questions within the online supplement (free ware) that should assist with learning.



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