Nice article from the New York Times about distance learning in our colleges.
BECAUSE of the Internet, distance learning in higher education has come a long way since correspondence courses were sent through the mail. And technology like Web streaming has made online learning more like a real classroom experience.
As colleges increase their Web-based offerings, demand is growing for online teachers. That is bringing new job opportunities but also some concerns.
“The number of online teachers needed has increased because enrollment has increased,” said Jeff Seaman, survey director for the Sloan Consortium, a nonprofit group that studies trends in online learning. Nearly 3.5 million students were taking online courses in the fall of 2006, the most recent data available, Mr. Seaman said. That was up nearly 10 percent from the previous year.
Today, he said, more than two-thirds of all higher-education institutions have online offerings in some form.
Tom Ermolovich, an adjunct management professor at Northeastern University in Boston, gives lectures using streaming video that remote students can view online. “I think the videos make the online experience more interesting for the online student, who may feel isolated,” he said.
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