Posts Tagged ‘learning’

Professors Seek Support for Online Education

Monday, September 14th, 2009

Recently, the Association of Public and Land-Grant Universities (APLU) and the Sloan National Commission on Online Learning released a benchmarking study that found that professors are open to teaching online courses, but do not believe they are receiving adequate support to do so. Let’s look at some specific findings:

The consensus from more than 10,700 faculty members and 231 interviews with administrators, professors and students at APLU institutions was that it takes more effort to both develop and teach an online course than a traditional classroom course. Interestingly, a larger number of older professors reported having a harder time teaching an online class than younger professors, but combined, a majority (nearly 70 percent) considered the time-consuming effort it takes to develop online courses as a barrier to teaching online.

In addition, out of eight categories related to online education, respondents rated public universities below average in seven categories including:

* support for online course development and delivery,

* protection of intellectual property,

* incentives for developing and delivering online courses,

* and consideration of online teaching activity in promotion and tenure decisions.

The eighth category, technology infrastructure, was rated average.

As for the future of online courses, the study found that more than 60 percent of faculty think insufficient compensation for the extra work required for online courses is not motivating to developing Web-based programmes. In fact, respondents gave the institution incentives for developing and for delivering online courses category the lowest ranking of all.

Overall, the recent survey data indicates a growing acceptance of online learning among faculty, but this acceptance is accompanied by a number of frustrations. According to a Sloan Consortium survey of online learning, online enrolment in the U.S. alone has more than doubled from an estimated 1.6 million students in fall 2002 to 3.94 million students in fall 2007 and grew by 12.9 percent from fall 2006 to fall 2007, while several times that number is reported for international students and institutions (notably in European countries). There are, however, challenges that universities must overcome (including campus support services and faculty incentives) in order to promote the success of online education.

As the recognised leader in online training and supporter of the worldwide implementation of elearning, Gatlin International understands the needs and challenges of developing quality online programmes. That’s why we offer universities, governments and corporate institutions top certificate courses in a variety of languages, as well as provide the support they need to get enrolments. Gatlin International offers top courses like Six Sigma, Business Marketing Design and Video Game Design and Development . Discover how becoming a partner can help your institution gain support in course development and make online education easy.


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Serious Games Make Learning Fun

Friday, April 3rd, 2009

Irish Times

THE NEXT big web 2.0 phenomenon is tipped to be serious games, online education tools that use games technology and role-play worlds for an interactive learning experience that is already attracting the interest of businesses and the public sector.

Derry start-up Silvertongue Software is an early player in the fast-emerging market and recently won a contract with the Irish Health Safety Authority (HSA) to build an educational video game for teaching young adults about workplace safety.

Still in development, it has a similar look and feel to Sims, the best-selling computer game, but uses the gameplay techniques to teach health and safety rules in a way that makes it easier for 17- and 18- year-olds to absorb.

“We wanted strong graphics that would appeal to the age group, something really gamey with a touch of anime,” said Caroline Anderson, managing director of Silvertongue. “We will also be fitting it with widgets for Facebook and Bebo, so users can compete to get the best score and earn badges.”

The aim is to make dull guidelines more exciting.

“Educational games can be very dry and the big challenge is to make them better than glorified multiple choice,” she said.

“We try and keep it fun and interesting.”

No easy feat when the message is to pass on advice on avoiding dermatitis in a hair salon or how to lift things in a warehouse. Users can wander into different workplace scenarios and embark on a whole range of tasks that will teach them about safety risks with measurement tests to evaluate what they have taken on board. The HSA plans to launch the game in June as a free instructional tool on its website.

Using a game development platform combined with flash software, Silvertongue has created an innovative pseudo-3D graphic style that suits the web delivery platform.

“Delivering full-blown 3D over the internet is very difficult to do; the user has to download software onto their desktop. We spent a lot of time finding a compromise that made it visually strong and easily accessible without having to download anything,” said Ms Anderson.

Run out of an incubator facility in North West Regional College, Derry, Silvertongue has already developed serious game projects for Shell, Coca Cola and the Northern Ireland Business and Innovation Centre.

The two co-founders of the company came out of a Higher National Certificate course in interactive computer entertainment at the college and were attracting interest from traditional game publishers, but it was a learning component in an early game that grabbed the most attention and persuaded them to change direction.

Ms Sullivan said that there had been a significant shift in the last 18 month as more organisations have overcome prejudices about letting games anywhere near the workplace.

“There had been a lot of resistance to serious games, but that’s starting to change. People are even asking us if they can work with social networking sites.”