Prices at the pump have forced many Americans to rethink traditional campus-based learning, turning instead to online alternatives.

As gas prices continue to soar nationwide, cost-conscious students are increasingly turning to online programs to fulfill their educational needs. In an article appearing in the Seattle Post Intelligencer on the 23^rd of June, one of the students interviewed noted that due to the high cost of gas, “[S]ome days right now it’s easier for me to miss class and miss work than to drive in.”

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Tags: Non-Traditional Students, Online Education by editor
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The stormy economic forecast, while hardly foreshadowing a crisis like the Great Depression, threatens to raise America’s historically stable unemployment rate

It’s no secret that the U.S. economy has not been the healthiest the last few years. Homes aren’t selling, good jobs are hard to come by, other jobs are being cut and salary increases are at a near standstill. For those looking for jobs during a recession, times can be tough. The general rule is that the best career during a recession is the one you already have – do whatever you can to protect your job and wait out the hard times.

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Tags: Career Education, Non-Traditional Students by Jenny
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For many students, student loans are an inescapable part of being a student. The cost of higher education is rising, and even though some schools are taking steps to reduce the cost of education, the fact remains that education is much more expensive today than it was a decade ago.

And college debt statistics are scary – according to a recent College Board study, 20% of graduates will not be able to make any payments on the average amount of undergrad loan debt of $20,000. So, one of the most important questions students can ask themselves before applying for any loan or any school is – how can I limit my debt?

First, students should educate themselves about the many options for funding which are available to them besides loans, which always have to be paid back (with interest!). There are literally thousands of grants and scholarships available to students of all backgrounds and interests, and none of them require the students to ever pay them back!

Many students do not take the time to apply for these loans and scholarships because they think they won’t qualify due to income requirements, grades or factors like ethnicity or sex. However, the fact that most students don’t bother to research scholarships and loans means the pool of applicants is much smaller than it should be! What’s more, there are scholarships and grants which are completely based upon academics, not income, so virtually every student has a shot at them. Many students find that a combination of grants and scholarships can leave them with a small amount of money to borrow, which means a much smaller debt amount upon graduation.

Another great option for many students is “work-study.” This means that students work a certain number of hours per week in exchange for funding for their education. Some students paying for their own college education simply choose to work while they study; even ten hours of work per week can add up to $2500 per year or more, which can substantially reduce costs, and many students work much more during the year and even more during the summer. There are also loan-forgiveness programs available for certain majors such as education and nursing. Students who decide to teach in low-income districts are assisted with paying back their loans.

Finally, students are advised to not get trapped in to signing up for low-interest credit cards. While it’s a great idea to begin developing credit when you are young, too many students get carried away with credit card spending and then are strapped with extremely high interest rates they cannot afford to pay. Loan consolidation is always a good way to try to reduce payment amounts, and students can look into this option while they are still in college to try to lock in low rates.

Tags: FAFSA, Financial Aid by Jenny
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Assessing the effectiveness of new technology and learning is not very different from assessing the effectiveness of traditional learning that takes place in classrooms. Both informal and formal assessments must be given to the students in order to determine how much they have learned. Teachers must develop clearly

,defined learning goals and then assess how well the learning goals were achieved throughout the course.

Virtual Learning Environments, also called Course Management Systems, provide both teachers and students with many tools they can used to assess the effectiveness of new technology and learning. For example, teachers can administer quizzes and tests online on a frequent basis, the results of which can be immediately tabulated and used to assess the effectiveness of the new technology being use in the classroom. Are the students using the new technology to learn? Are they making use of discussion boards to respond to discussion topics and assigned readings?

Discussion boards can be effective tools for teachers who need to assess whether or not learning has taken place, because whereas in a lecture hall, only the students asking questions may show signs of digesting the material, in a required discussion board thread, teachers can read comments and assess whether or not the material is being understood by the majority of students.

This is especially true of Virtual Learning Environments which require students to compose their own responses before being able to view the responses of other students; original thinking is then encouraged and required.

Another component which cannot be overlooked when assessing the effectiveness of new technology and learning is student feedback. It is important to give students the opportunity to comment upon whether or not the technology being incorporated in the classroom is helping or hindering the learning process. Students have different learning styles, and it is therefore very important for teachers to get feedback from them in order to modify course content as well as to modify the content being made available to them in Virtual Learning Environments.

Learning assessments are very important; even if the new technology being used is supposed to be effective, if it doesn’t work and the students aren’t learning, then the technology is of no use.

Tags: Learning Technologies by Jenny
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Thanks so much for commenting and reviewing. We added online school reviews to our site about 3 months ago and the response has been overwhelming. From our site metrics and the number of reviews, we can tell that reviews are something that the student community prospective and past students are really passionate about.

Please feel free to add your own review and recommend reviewing a school to any one you may know who attended an online institution. Pass along all the little tips and tricks you or a friend learned along the way to a prospective student.

Tags: Online Education by editor
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Most students know about Wikipedia, and many of them probably use the site as a resource for coursework. But some might not know about the plethora of offshoots that Wikipedia has. All of them are experimental sources of free education, and they are helping to fuel the debate of the value of a free education as opposed to one that you have to pay (a lot of) money for.

One of Wikipedia’s side projects is called Wikiversity. According to the site, its goal is “…the creation and use of free learning materials and activities.” Wikiversity is part of the ever growing free culture movement, a movement which strives to allow people to educate themselves for free using creative works on the Internet and through other sources. It’s a social movement, and it’s one that generally supports much more relaxed copyright laws, or no copyright laws at all. So far, Wikiversity has hundreds of courses in six different departments including Physical Sciences, Humanities and Interdisciplinary Studies.

So far, the project has been a success, and it has recently changed to a different site, wikiversity.org.Learning projects are available for every type of student, from pre-school to post-doctorate. The idea is that the learning process should be collaborative, and the site highly encourages people to contribute to the knowledge presented on the site, not simply use the knowledge.

Sites like Wikiversity are posing some interesting questions about education, the answers to which will define how education of students takes place over the next decades. At the moment, ideas about the free culture movement and open source technology are still in their infancy. How will we define the value of an education in fifty years if students no longer have to pay for what they learn? Should learning be free and open to everyone? Is education a privilege or a right? If a student educates himself on open source sites, and manages to possess more knowledge than a student who attends Harvard University, can that student compete for the same types of jobs as the Harvard student? Why shouldn’t they be able to?

The Internet has opened up an entire new world of learning and education – but how this new world will take its final form remains to be seen.

Tags: Online Education by Jenny
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Preparing for an online class is very similar to preparing for a traditional class; one of the major differences will be that you might have to familiarize yourself with some of the technological components of the class. A course management system of some sort will very likely be used, and students can take in-depth tutorials of these systems before the course begins. Course management systems are used for a large variety of tasks including keeping track of assignments, lectures and readings, as well as for initiating class discussions.

Students will also want to ensure that their computers are in step with the course requirements. Do you need to purchase speakers? Will you need to use Microsoft Word and Adobe? What about a microphone and/or headphones?

One of the key parts to succeeding in any class, online or not, is making sure that you have a desk or work area set up. This will help keep you organized, and it will ensure that when you’re at your desk, you are working on school work as opposed to doing other things such as eating or reading a magazine, etc. Being highly organized is an important contributor to success.

Also, even though your school will be virtual, it’s important to familiarize yourself with the course’s “campus” or layout. You’ll most likely need to have a username and password to access your course’s site, so take care of that early. Where will your assignments be posted? Where do you submit finished work? Where will you participate in online discussions? Bookmark the start page for your courses, and if you’re using a home computer to do your work, have your computer “remember” passwords and login information so that you don’t have to worry about forgetting this key information.

Students should also take the time to read – really read – the syllabus. Familiarize yourself with course expectations and requirements. Make a note of big deadlines, and add them to your calendar right away. If you have questions about any of the information in the syllabus, email your instructor right away for clarification.

Finally, take advantage of any and all opportunities to introduce yourself to your classmates and your professor. This will help humanize the course and it will make you feel as though you are part of a family. It’s much easier to ask for help and to discuss a course with those who are familiar to you.

Remember to take all of these steps at least a week before the course officially begins. If you do, you can be relaxed once your work starts and you won’t have as many questions hanging over you as you begin to focus on your assignments.

Tags: Learning Technologies, Online Education by Jenny
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For many students today, especially those under 30 years of age, the Internet is the end-all when it comes to locating information for papers as well as for general knowledge and news. Libraries have taken somewhat of a back seat over the past decade, even though most public libraries offer (free!) Internet services, as well as an absolute wealth of knowledge and resources, much of which cannot be duplicated online. It’s almost as though the fact that libraries contain books, those “old” sources of information, today’s students are hesitant to step foot in libraries except for when they have a research paper due that requires actual book sources (though these books can often be found online, now).

The amazing thing about libraries though, and something which many students don’t know much about, is that many of them have excellent online resources which can be very helpful when it comes to writing papers and completing research projects, as well as locating hard-to-find pieces of information that can’t be found anywhere else except in libraries. And often times, libraries will have information that specific to its own city or county, and its online resources will help direct users to this information. Old journals, magazines and newspapers are all cataloged at libraries, and they can be searched for using libraries’ internal online databases. And, libraries often times have entire pages devoted to collections of encyclopedias and almanacs which contain treasure troves of information. And university public libraries often times have online exhibitions, which are wonderful ways to access unique collections of historical information students would not be able to access anywhere else.

For online students, a trip to a physical, local public library might be just as much help with their schoolwork as a virtual trip online. Much of the information a student might need could already be organized for them in a library’s online database, and this makes researching much quicker and more convenient.

Tags: Learning Technologies, Online Education by Jenny
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For many students, the Internet is an amazing learning tool that has the capability to open up entire new worlds of learning for them. These students have virtually (and virtual) instant access to knowledge about almost anything they wish to learn about, and they can learn anywhere they are connected to a computer with an Internet connection. Similarly, online classes afford students a tremendous amount of flexibility. They don’t have to commute to school, they can take classes at their own pace and they can juggle busy work and school schedules. All of this has been made possible because of the Internet.

This all sounds wonderful, and it is – but there are many students who still do not have easy access to the Internet. Not all families can afford to have Internet connections in their own homes, and many adult students work full-time jobs to pay the bills, and for them an Internet connection is a luxury that they cannot yet afford. But shouldn’t these students be exactly the type of students who should have access to the Internet? The ones who are less fortunate and who need the extra help and assistance?

This situation has become known as the Digital Divide, and while it’s not a new idea, it’s becoming an increasingly important one as more and more schools require, due to No Child Left Behind, that all students be “technologically literate” before they reach the 8^th grade. An 8^th grader keep up with his or her peers in this department if his or her parents can’t afford to have an Internet connection at home? There are libraries, of course – but this means finding a ride to the library, which can be tough with two parents working full-time. And most public libraries don’t have enough computers to accommodate all of the students who need to use them. And most schools nowadays have computers connected to the Internet – but it’s not cheap for them to do so, and the poorest schools often don’t even have computers to begin with.

There are many good thinkers out there proposing solutions to this problem. For example, there’s a federal e-rate program on the table that would subsidize Internet access for low-income schools and for libraries. And, MIT has come up with what they call the “$100 laptop,” an attempt to make computers accessible to as many people as possible.

The Digital Divide is a problem that’s not easily solved, but it is a problem that needs to continue to be discussed – and action needs to be taken. Otherwise, our less fortunate students are going to miss the Internet wave that’s sweeping into our schools and homes.

Tags: Learning Technologies, Non-Traditional Students, Online Education by Jenny
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