Please Join Us April 4th for UMassOnline Speaker Series Event: Creating Synergy Between Enrollment and Technology Departments
Posted on March 27, 2012 by Som Seng | Leave a Comment
There is still time to register for the upcoming UMassOnline’s Speaker Series event co-sponsored by the EDUCAUSE Community Constituent Group: Blended and Online Learning, featuring guest speakers, Bill Hampton, Becky Vasquez and John Watret of Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University-Worldwide. Their presentation, The Power of Partnering Together - Creating Synergy Between Enrollment and Technology Departments That Transforms Performance, will be of interest to anyone in higher education involved in optimizing student applications and enrollments and related marketing programs.
The presentation will share Embry-Riddle’s Worldwide Campus’ experience handling the challenge of better engaging student prospects to support higher enrollment targets and a growing number of degree programs. Through the formation of a synergistic relationship between Enrollment Management and Technology Services, a new philosophy for engaging students was implemented using a new Customer Relationship Management (CRM) and communications system, operations/call center, and dashboard metrics to track success. Two years after implementation, applications have increased more than 15% and the enrollment departments stand confident to engage in marketing initiatives with a solid framework and metrics to support student prospecting.
This presentation, which you may attend in person or view online, will be held on Wednesday, April 4th, at UMassOnline which is located at the UMass Collaborative Service Facility in Shrewsbury, MA. See the complete event details and register at:
https://confluence.umassonline.net/display/speakerseries/April+4th%2C+2012+Featuring+Bill+Hampton%2C+Becky+Vasquez+and+John+Watret
[Please Note: For optimal performance, please use Mozilla Firefox browser since some versions of Internet Explorer are not compatible with the registration form.]
If you know a colleague who would be interested in this event, please feel free to pass the invitation along. We look forward to seeing you on the 4th.
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Reading Ability, Learning Ability, and their Correlation to Cultural Literacy
Posted on March 26, 2012 by Som Seng | Leave a Comment
Feeling a little under the weather this past weekend and unable to manage any productive work associated with my marketing role at UMassOnline, I turned to my bookshelf for at least a little quiet-time learning. First I turned to a small volume, originally published in 1954, entitled The Great Crash 1929, by John Kenneth Galbraith. My hope was that it might provide corollaries to the current U.S. economy, which, by the way, it did to some extent. Just 206 pages long, I nevertheless came across no less than 21 words I must admit were unfamiliar to me. For example: usufructs, obloquy, ineluctable, soigne, and recherche. As a habit, I write these words down where space is available at the front of a book and look them up online when there is time, which I have done in this instance. Then something remarkable happened in a most coincidental way and which gets to the crux of this post which I realize is a bit personal… Also, this my be about something everyone else already knows which, if true, I apologize for being late to the party, so to speak.
So I next discovered on my bookshelf a 586-page hardcover volume first published in 1988 entitled, The Dictionary of Cultural Literacy: What Every American Needs to Know, by E.D. Hirsch, Jr., Joseph F. Kett, and James Trefil. Since 1988, updated versions of the book have been published and, in fact, you can learn more about these and see extensive reader reviews at Amazon.com. But here’s my point: While I have barely just begun to absorb its contents, the book, which was written with educators in mind, is revealing to me the important difference, when it comes to reading, learning, and useful knowledge, between vocabulary, for example, and what the authors generally call “common knowledge.”
A couple of examples of the content of the book may be the best way to explain its objective. In the chapter on American history to 1865, the authors highlight the following statement, uttered by an American officer named William Prescott during a Revolutionary War battle in Boston: ”Don’t fire until you see the whites of their eyes.” Anyone who can read and can provide a definition for each word in that sentence still won’t necessarily understand what it refers to or what it means today if the reader doesn’t have cultural literacy. In this instance, as throughout the book, the authors
provide the cultural associations of the information provided. About this statement, they write: Prescott’s command has become PROVERB, meaning “Don’t act before you have some chance of success.” (Words used in all-capitals indicate further understanding of the word can be found elsewhere in the dictionary.)
Another entry in this chapter highlights the Salem witch trials. In this case, the authors provide two cultural associations: “When people are quick to accuse one another of serious misdeeds on inadequate evidence, the situation is often compared to the Salem witch trials… A witch hunt is a political campaign launched under the pretext of investigating activities considered subversive to the state.”
The authors acknowledge most readers will likely know many of the cultural references such as these examples above. But they believe the teaching of cultural literacy is in decline and that it has everything to do with the future of America. They write, “When the schools of a nation fail adequately to transmit the literate national language and culture, the unity and effectiveness of the nation will necessarily decline.”
Agree? Disagree?
You can learn more about this book and its authors, see reader reviews,and peek inside the first several pages of the text at this link to Amazon.com: http://www.amazon.com/Cultural-Literacy-Every-American-Needs/product-reviews/0394758439/ref=dp_top_cm_cr_acr_txt?ie=UTF8&showViewpoints=1
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A Pivotal Question about the Potential Impact of MOOCs and MOOSes
Posted on March 9, 2012 by Ken Udas | Leave a Comment
A recent article in The New York Times is bound to provoke a lot of thought on the traditional university campus and by established providers of tuition-based online higher education. Written by Tamar Lewin, and entitled, “Instruction for Masses Knocks Down Campus Walls.,” it spotlights resent developments — and success stories - through MOOCs (Massive Open Online Courses) and a related new model known as MOOSe (Massive Open Online Seminar). In short, the piece summarizes the recent enrollment numbers and positive outcomes of several efforts on the part of leading educators who want to bring more learning opportunities to far more people in more parts of the world using a low- to no-cost model.
The enrollment numbers for these alternative learning options are staggering. Their appeal to U.S. and foreign students is rather astonishing. Student outcomes are remarkable. And the trend has even sparked an interest among venture capitalists. Why? In at least one instance, the financial backers believe there is a potentially lucrative revenue model derived by making the names of successful students learning through MOOC or MOOSe alternatives to corporate recruiters. That point, and one related statement in the article, raise a very provocative question. The related statement is this: While the vast potential of free online courses has excited theoretical interest for decades, in the past few months hundreds of thousands of motivated students around the world who lack access to elite universities have been embracing them as a path toward sophisticated skills and high-paying jobs, without paying tuition or collecting a college degree.
Once again, does this potentially signal a powerful shift in the value proposition that traditional universities and established providers of tuition-based online education have long relied upon, namely the value of that official piece of paper which confirms a student’s level of achievement and value in the workplace? Might this type of learning engagement fuel or at least support prior learning and competency based education assessment providers? The highlighted statement above seems to suggest that a growing number of students have decided that earning — and paying for –the official diploma isn’t as important as it used to be. The statement, as well as the venture capital turn of events, further seems to suggest that at least a few employers are beginning to care more about what an individual knows than whether or not an established institution validates that or not. If this is true, and if the trend continues, how can the traditional tuition-based institution sustain the cost and perceived benefit balance that underpins its value proposition?
It is concerning, too, to contemplate the reasons why this might be happening. Have we, for example, out-priced or overpriced the value of a traditional college education while our main constituencies have decided it is possible, and possibly preferable, to seek alternatives? At this point, the answer seems to be no. Applications are up at many traditional colleges and universities, but will this continue if employers start recognizing alternatives and costs continue to rise at rates more more steeply than inflation?
Your thoughts? You can read The New York Times article at this link.
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A 300-Year Look at Distance Learning
Posted on February 28, 2012 by Som Seng | Leave a Comment
Think distance learning is a contemporary phenomenon? Think again. Thanks to a recent item published by National Geographic, you can scan the history of distance learning in America and worldwide dating back 300 years. The informative infographic provided in the piece begins in 1728 when it was noted that an advertisement in a Boston newspaper offered courses in shorthand to be sent through the mail on a weekly basis.
The graphic, posted by Brian Clark Howard, notes, of course, the impact of phonographic, radio and television technology on distance learning, but he looks ahead as well asking the question, “What will the future hold?”
No one can know for certain perhaps. But from our perspective at UMassOnline, interest in online learning continues unabated. Last month, for example, more propsective learners inquired about UMass online offerings than in any single month in the history of our institution’s online initiative dating back to 2001.
You can see the full infographic at this link.
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