Faculty Development in Distance Education: Issues, Trends and Tips

Of the many lessons learned from the early years of distance education one of the most persistent to remain, and thankfully so, is the fact that you cannot simply pluck an instructor out of the classroom, plug him into an online course, and expect him to be effective in this new and challenging medium. Some learned this lesson the hard way, while others took a proactive approach to faculty training from the start.

Here’s your chance to learn from the mistakes and successes of those who blazed the distance education trail.

Faculty development for distance educators is a critical component of all successful distance education programs. Well thought-out faculty development weaves together needed training, available resources, and ongoing support, and carries with it the same expectations for quality teaching that institutions of higher education have for their face-to-face classes.

This special report, Faculty Development in Distance Education: Issues, Trends and Tips, features 12 articles pulled from the pages of Distance Education Report, including:

Faculty Development: Best Practices from World Campus

Developing Faculty Competency in Online Pedagogy

A Learner-Centered, Emotionally Engaging Approach to Online Learning

How to Get the Best Out of Online Adjuncts

Workload, Promotion, and Tenure Implications of Teaching Online

Four Steps to Just-in-Time Faculty Training

This report is loaded with practical strategies that can help you build a comprehensive faculty development program, helping ensure that instructors stay current in both online pedagogy and practical technical know-how.

http://www.facultyfocus.com/free-reports/faculty-development-in-distance-education-issues-trends-and-tips/ 

MAPPING A PERSONALIZED LEARNING JOURNEY – K-12 STUDENTS AND PARENTS CONNECT THE DOTS WITH DIGITAL LEARNING

Mapping a Personalized Learning Journey – K-12 Students and Parents Connects the Dots with Digital Learning is the first in a two part series to document the key national findings from Speak Up 2011. This report focuses on how today’s students are personalizing their own learning, and how their parents are supporting this effort. The ways that students are personalizing their learning centers around three student desires including how students seek out resources that are digitally-rich, untethered and socially-based. The key questions being addressed in this report include:

How are students personalizing their learning?

How are parents helping students to personalize their learning journey?

What are the digitally-rich, untethered and socially based learning strategies that facilitate this process?

How can education stakeholders support students as they seek to personalize their learning?

What are the gaps between administrators’ views of personalized learning compared to parents’ and students’ views?

Key Findings from this year’s report include:

Students are adopting technologies and then adapting them to support their own self-directed learning. For example, 1 in 10 high school students have Tweeted about an academic topic. 46% of students have used Facebook as a collaboration tool for schoolwork.

Parents are supporting their children’s personalized learning journeys. 64% of parents report that they would purchase a mobile device for their child’s academic use at school.

There is a gap in offerings between what schools offer and what students want to learn. As a result, students are looking outside of the classroom to meet their personalized learning goals. For example, 12% of high school students have taken an online class on their own, outside of the classroom, to learn about a topic that interested them.

In math and science classrooms where students and teachers direct learning supported by technology, students’ interest in a STEM career is 27%, compared with 20% for students in traditional math and science classrooms.

Parents’ definition of academic success for their children places a strong emphasis on learning the right skills to be successful (73%)- more than any other metric for success, including monetary success or getting into a good college.

The original site:

http://www.tomorrow.org/speakup/2012_PersonalizedLearning.html

Top 7 Web Conferencing Vendors Compared

Get your FREE Web Conferencing Comparison Guide to see who comes out on top

The top web conferencing vendors offer compelling feature sets, from application and desktop sharing to participant interaction tools. How do you decide which is right for your business? This easy to read guide gives you the latest pricing, features and system requirements so you can choose wisely.

See which web conferencing solution should win your business>>

You'll get:

•7 top vendors compared: 8x8, Adobe, Cisco, Citrix, Fuzebox, Microsoft and Saba
•Key features and security details
•Up to date pricing
•And much more!

http://pmlps.hostedwebform.com/PM/LP/InsideCRM/Web_Conferencing_Shootout/Web_Conferencing_Shootout/?tfso=10520

Pedagogical Templates for e-learning

Pedagogical Templates for e-learning.

The Centre for Excellence in Work-Based Learning for Education Professionals has published our report on Pedagogical Templates as one of its Occasional Papers.

You can download it from here :

http://www.lkl.ac.uk/research/benchmarking/?p=119

Learning with Digital Technologies in Museums, Science Centres and Galleries - Report

EXECUTIVE SUMMARY 1 INTRODUCTION AND BACKGROUND with social class the major determinant - digital technologies for learning are available to the majority of UK households and to almost all UK schoolchildren. Museums, galleries and (especially) science centres are among the most enthusiastic providers of digital learning opportunities. Virtual visitors to museum websites already out-number physical (on-site) visitors, and many of these are engaged in dedicated learning activities - as even a cursory glance at the 24 Hour Museum website will confirm. Indeed, so rapid and widespread has been the growth - in both provision and uptake - that the extensive survey of UK museum education activity in 1999 did not include websites and conflated audio-visual guides with printed materials.

http://halshs.archives-ouvertes.fr/docs/00/19/04/96/PDF/hawkey-r-2004-r9.pdf

2011 Horizon Report

The 2011 Horizon Report is made possible via a grant from HP
HP creates innovative technology solutions that benefit individuals, businesses, governments and society. HP’s Office for Global Social Innovation applies HP’s global reach, broad portfolio of products and services, and the expertise of its employees to support initiatives in education, healthcare and communities around the world. As the world’s largest technology company, HP brings together a portfolio that spans printing, personal computing, software, services and IT infrastructure to solve customer problems. More information about HP is available at http://www.hp.com/.

The 2011 Horizon Report is a collaboration between The New Media Consortium and theEDUCAUSE Learning Initiative An EDUCAUSE Program Since 2005, the annual Horizon Report has been the most visible aspect of a focused collaboration between the EDUCAUSE Learning Initiative (ELI) and the New Media Consortium in which the two organizations engage their memberships in both the creation and outcomes of the research.

The New Media Consortium (NMC) is a globally focused not-for-profit consortium dedicated to the exploration and use of new media and new technologies. Its hundreds of member institutions constitute an elite list of the most highly regarded colleges, universities, and museums in the worlds. For nearly 20 years, the consortium and its members have dedicated themselves to exploring and developing applications of emerging technologies for learning, research, and creative inquiry. For more information on the NMC, visit http://www.nmc.org/.

http://wp.nmc.org/horizon2011/

http://www.nmc.org/pdf/2011-Horizon-Report.pdf

2012 Global eLearning Salary & Compensation Report

ELearning salaries worldwide decreased slightly by 0.9% this past year with an overall average global e-Learning salary of $76,351. In the United States (U.S.), the average eLearning salary fell by 1.3% to $78,937.

For the second year, The eLearning Guild is publishing an analysis of global eLearning salary and compensation. The data included in this report represents survey responses from 7,855 eLearning Guild members worldwide.

In this report, Temple Smolen explores the trends in global pay both worldwide and for specific countries. In addition, Temple delves into unique areas of variance across gender, status, designation, and other compensation. She also evaluates average eLearning salaries across employer and employee variables, which are used in a salary calculator to help readers compute baseline salaries with their own unique variables.

It is from http://www.elearningguild.com/ and you can download it from here :

http://www.elearningguild.com/research/archives/index.cfm?id=154&action=viewonly

Enterprise Software Certification Report -LMS - Blackboard Learn 9.1

Blackboard Learn 9.1 is now TEC Certified for online evaluation of learning management systems in the Human Capital Management Evaluation Center. The certification seal is a valuable indicator for organizations relying on the integrity of TEC research for assistance with their software selection projects. Download this report for product highlights, competitive analysis, product analysis, and in-depth analyst commentary.

You can download it from here

Compare the Top 12 Major Web Conferencing Vendors - Report

All in attendance, all online -- it's all possible with web conferencing. Just plug in to application and desktop sharing, video-conferencing, even break-out rooms. But with so many choices, how do you know which vendor offers the right services and value for your company

Compare the pros, cons and pricing structures for each vendor for all available services, including:

• Application and desktop sharing
• Attendee and quiz management
• Videoconferencing
• Whiteboards
• File transfer
• Outlook integration
• Record and playback

http://www.insidecrm.com/land/top-12-web-conf-vendors-BG/?tfso=9028

E-LEARNING 2 - Report

People that read the Guild’s 360° Reports on emerging technologies often express the following fears:

1. The emerging technology will obsolesce what they do now;
2. The emerging technology will be difficult to learn;
3. It will be difficult to convince colleagues and management that they should embrace the emerging technology; and,
4. Not embracing the technology will lead to certain doom.

Our comprehensive research and analysis from industry experts should allay concerns over the first three items. Indeed, the use of traditional classroom instruction is actually *up* from a year ago, so e-Learning 2.0 approaches are not going to replace instructor-lead training or e-Learning 1.0 approaches anytime soon. As for the fourth item, while the language may be somewhat extreme our research shows that organizations that ignore incorporating Web 2.0 approaches for their learning initiatives may be doing so at their own peril (at least according to Guild members’ survey results).

Comprehensive Survey Results – And Answers!

With dedicated e-Learning 2.0 survey data from 1,160 Guild members and learning modality preferences from nearly 3,000 members, Guild Research is able to definitively answer the following questions

• Which approaches to learning are growing and which are receding?
• Are younger workers in fact more adept at Web 2.0 tools and technologies and will they demand these approaches be incorporated into learning and performance support?
• Do members that have implemented e-Learning 2.0 approaches report strong results?
• What do Guild members who have implemented e-Learning 2.0 approaches do to ensure success within their organizations?
• How do results in Europe and Asia differ from those in the U.S. and Canada?
• Are your needs and priorities in alignment with your peers that work in similar organizations

Report and Webinar link is here

http://www.elearningguild.com/research/archives/index.cfm?id=134&action=viewonly

The 2010 Salary and Compensation Report - United States

Total United States compensation and salaries in the e-Learning field are trending upwards. After a small downward dip in 2008, overall compensation is back on the rise. That earlier downward trend correlated well to the economic downturn, but it mainly consisted of a decrease in full-time contractor pay during that turbulent time. Regular full-time employee pay in e-Learning remained relatively steady during the economic crisis, and in fact, even climbed slightly.

In the year leading up to January 2010, the average U.S. e-Learning salary was $79,252. In addition to salary, the average additional compensation, including tuition, bonuses, and continuing education spending, was $7,541 for an average total compensation of$86,793.

Each year, The eLearning Guild publishes a Salary and Compensation Report reflecting the most current data reported directly from members. The data in this report represents the information from over 6,000 members as of January 2010. In addition, since we have collected data for several years now and can show historical patterns, we are pleased to publish overall compensation trend data for the first time.

The sourse site and download link

http://www.elearningguild.com/research/archives/index.cfm?id=141&action=viewonly

The Science of Learning: How Current Brain Research Can Improve Education -Report

In this latest STAR (School Technology Action Report), “The Science of Learning: How Current Brain Research Can Improve Education,” the editors of eSchool Media highlight cutting-edge research from leading neuroscience experts on how various activities affect the brain, and how these activities can help students improve their comprehension and memory.

From understanding how multimedia and physical exercise can affect classroom instruction, to appreciating the influence of art and reading on brain development, to taking the first steps in realizing the mind mechanics of autism, researchers know more today than ever before on what techniques can have the biggest impact on teaching and learning.

In this report, you’ll discover how the brain reacts to:

• Visual learning and memory training
• Physical activity
• Arts and Language Arts
• Gaming
• New techniques for students with disabilities
• Early childhood education

http://www.eschoolnews.com/2011/06/22/the-science-of-learning-how-current-brain-research-can-improve-education/

Emerging Trends: 2011 School Technolog Action Report

With widespread adoption of the Common Core State Standards, the national push for school reform, and a renewed federal investment in education, 2011 just might be the year 21st century innovation finally becomes a reality in our nation’s schools.

In this edition of STAR (the School Technology Action Report), “Emerging Trends: 2011,” eSchool Media, Inc., presents the five emerging trends we believe will take root this year, due to the large amount of attention these trends received in 2010, as well as the positive results they produced in student achievement and administrative effectiveness in schools, districts, and states.

In this report you’ll find the latest news on:

• Classroom instruction trends
• Mobile devices trends
• eReading technology trends
• Virtualization trends
• Bullying trends, and much more

I hope you find it useful.

http://www.eschoolnews.com/2011/02/03/emerging-trends-2011/2/

eLearning in education and training - Report

eLearning in education and training: Report from the Digital Agenda Assembly

The workshop participants discussed the current position of ICT in education and training in Member States, the potential obstacles to full scale adoption of eLearning, and the necessary pre-conditions to mainstreaming it in formal, non-formal and informal learning (ICT infrastructures, teachers' competencies, etc).

The workshop outcome is presented in a set of priorities and actions encouraging Member States to innovate in their education and training systems through effective adoption of ICTs. The report also includes recommendations to the Commission on how to support the Member States in this endeavour

The source is  here

Games-Based Learning Experiences report

Games-Based Learning Experiences: Testing the principles with teachers and students

This paper outlines the findings from three workshops with teachers and students in which they:

• give feedback on the relative importance of key learning elements identified in digital games
• explore how these elements could be used to support the creation of games-based learning experiences in formal education settings.

 The workshops were designed to explore how the previous research within this project which identified learning elements from digital games (Bober 2010) could be applied in formal education settings and used as the basis for games-based learning experiences that did not have to include digital games. The teacher workshops identified tools through which these principles could be applied. However, teacher availability meant they did not use these tools to create a games-based experience.

 

The paper describes: the participants, the workshop activities, the findings of the workshops, and in particular teacher and student attitudes towards each of the key learning elements and which they felt were most important to include if creating games-based learning experiences for the classroom.

More Info and download link :

http://www.futurelab.org.uk/resources/games-based-learning-experiences-testing-principles-teachers-and-students

Games-based experiences for learning Report

This report provides:

• an overview of what makes a digital game a motivating and engaging learning experience
• a taxonomy of learning elements of digital games
• a set of design principles for digital games-based learning experiences.

 

The report is based on a summary review of the available research literature on digital games-based learning and interviews with eight experts, including game developers, researchers in the field and teachers.

 

More info and download link here :

http://www.futurelab.org.uk/resources/games-based-experiences-learning

Learning Technology Manager Salary Survey 2010

I foud this report  at ALT Open Access Repository

The salary survey was conducted from 16 to 23 September 2010 with the support of the Association for Learning Technology (ALT) by ALT member, Dr. Rich Ranker, at Lancaster University. The purpose of the survey was to determine: 1) The salary ranges of those who report themselves to be managers of learning technology organisations in HE and FE in the UK; and 2) The factors affecting the salary of LT Managers. The survey was initially constructed by the author but, upon consultation, modified, implemented in the web-based survey tool Survey Monkey, and distributed by ALT, with ALT’s assurance that it would protect the identity of the participants. A copy of the request for participation was also distributed by the Heads of eLearning Forum (HeLF). The target population was managers of learning technology units in FE and HE institutions in the UK. The survey consisted of 12 questions and received a total of 75 responses.

Here is the link :

http://repository.alt.ac.uk/881/

Learning 2.0 for Associations

Learning 2.0 for Associations 2nd edition

It is a free Report

It delivers an easy-to-read primer on how to leverage social media tools to expand the learning value that associations deliver. It’s a must-read for all association educators.

http://www.tagoras.com/learning20

Download Link:

http://www.fileserve.com/file/NTCUtR6

http://www.tagoras.com/docs/Learning-20-Associations-2ed.pdf

2011 Global e-Learning Salary & Compensation Report

This is a report from elearningguild about Learning salaries .It says that the Learning salaries grew 2.0% this past year .

 http://www.elearningguild.com/research/archives/index.cfm?id=148&action=viewonly