Ithaka S+R recently published a report funded by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation and titled, “Barriers to Adoption of Online Learning Systems in U.S. Higher Education.”  I have written extensively on this blog about the economic constraints facing institutions of higher education, issues of student persistence and retention, and the litany of other issues daunting the American higher education system today.  In their report, the authors explore many of these same topics explaining why they believe online education could be a boon for higher education in general and students, faculty, and individual institutions specifically. 

Though the authors state in the Introduction that, “We believe such [online] systems have the potential to improve faculty productivity and lower instructional costs without sacrificing educational quality,” online education continues to face staunch critics.  Fundamentally, the report notes that the onslaught of online education in the higher education landscape has the potential to completely transform our concept of and basic approach to educating the nation’s college students.  The concept of online education is so foreign to many that there is some resistance based solely on it being “different.”  The authors conducted interviews with a variety of institutions utilizing online education in a variety of ways.  Not surprisingly, considering the relatively recent arrival of online education on the higher educational scene, institutions are still working to figure out how best to utilize new technologies to reduce instructional costs, improve student learning outcomes, and maximize faculty effectiveness.

Online education is becoming such a disruptive force (to use Clayton Christensen’s terminology) in education that the authors state, “Online learning is taking place at just about every college and university in the nation.”  In their interviews with administrators and faculty at institutions implementing online education in some way, there were some common themes uncovered discussing the rationale for the introduction of online education.  Many institutions, for example, see online offerings as a revenue generator.  Online education has the ability to reach non-traditional students (adult learners who are not able to attend class in a physical, more traditional setting) as well as students who would otherwise not enroll with the university due to geographic location.  While there are significant startup costs associated with implementing an online environment, many schools anticipate eventually recouping that initial investment through decreased use of facility space, increased enrollments thanks to the online offerings, and more effective use of faculty time.  Interestingly, some universities have seen cost savings as well as increased revenue yet the authors point out, “Very few institutions are using either the savings from online education or the net incremental revenue to reduce the price of education to students.”

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This week, I had the opportunity to attend the American Council on Education’s (ACE) annual meeting in Washington, DC.  The theme of this year’s conference was Reaching Higher, but the underlying theme seemed to be “the winds of change are upon us.”

Sunday’s session for presidents and chancellors had the following topics:  Vision and Change at BYU-Idaho: A Model for America’s Colleges and Universities, Information Technology:  Seize the Day, and a luncheon at which Terry Hartle, SVP of Government and Public Affairs of ACE spoke about the pending Department of Education regulations regarding Credit Hours, State Regulation, Gainful Employment, Accreditation, and Misrepresentation.  Later in the day, Yale’s President Richard Levin spoke about “Why Colleges and Universities Matter.”  I also attended a session hosted by Stan Ikenberry, former president of the University of Illinois and ACE, and George Kuh, Professor Emeritus of Higher Education at Indiana University Bloomington and the founding director of the Center for Postsecondary Research and the National Survey of Student Engagement (NSSE), regarding assessment and ways in which institutions implement it.

Having the conference in Washington provided some benefits.  Eduardo Ochoa, Assistant Secretary of Postsecondary Education at the U.S. Department of Education was an unscheduled speaker at the luncheon and provided a few comments regarding the administration’s position regarding higher education and reminded the group that he had served as a provost at Sonoma State University.  He also stated that he was unable to provide a statement about three of the issues because of a lawsuit against the Department.  Terry Hartle’s major points were that the industry can regulate itself and does not need increased federal regulation at a time when there are many changes occurring as well as innovations required in order to remain competitive.

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The U.S. Department of Education released the findings of a meta-analysis conducted by its Office of Planning, Evaluation, and Policy Development on Friday that confirm what online educators have known for years: “on average, students in online learning conditions performed better than those receiving face-to-face instruction.” 

Online education has gained tremendous momentum in the last several years.  A November 2008 report titled, “Staying the Course: Online Education in the United States, 2008” published by the Sloan Consortium notes that during the fall 2007 semester, some 3.9 million students were taking at least one course online, representing a twelve percent increase over the previous year.  During the same semester, twenty percent of all college students were taking at least one course online.  An Eduventures report from November 2006 predicted this growth; that report found that half of the 2,000 potential students surveyed indicated that they would be interested in completing a degree online.

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I had planned to followup my article about Apple with an article about the differences between my generation of computer users and my children’s generation.  The impetus for my original plan was watching my eight year old daughters search Google the other morning for the term “cute baby animal pictures.”  When I saw that Google was able to synthesize that request and deliver links to some very cute baby animals, I thought about the term Digital Native which I had first heard a few years ago from West Virginia’s First Lady, Gayle Manchin.  Gayle is a former elementary school teacher and is passionate about learning about ways in which technology can be used in education to assist teachers and children with the process of learning. 

The term she referenced originated with Marc Parensky, founder of Games2train and considered to be one of the world’s foremost experts on the relationship between games and gaming technology and the learning experiences of today’s young people.  Parensky holds Masters degrees from Yale, Middlebury and the Harvard School of Business and has been an advocate for the use of technology in classrooms for years.  Parensky has even worked with the Department of Defense to establish an educational program that embraces the use of games as positive educational tools.

The lesson I learned from observing my daughters at play was that children who have access to technology are able to utilize it and to think, act, and learn in ways that are vastly different than the way we learned years ago.

Today’s issue of Inside Higher Ed features an interview with John Palfrey and Urs Gasser, authors of Born Digital: Understanding the First Generation of Digital Natives, which focuses significantly on data collected at Harvard University’s Berkman Center for Internet and Society, where both work.  The two explore the digital context in which today’s young people are learning and analyze the impact of their digital environment on their learning experiences.

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