Examples from faculty teaching online science laboratory courses.

Universities using lab kits and other methods to offer lab sciences at a distance, University of Arkansas Distance Education Task Force Blog

Free online physics, chemistry, biology, earth science and math simulations, PhET project at the University of Colorado.

Home Dissection Kits and More, Inside Higher Ed

Shell and Tube Heat Exchanger Web Based Virtual Experiment, Department Process & Chemical Engineering, University College Cork

Physics simulations with Java, MyPhysicsLab You’ll see them animating in real time, and be able to interact with them by dragging objects or changing parameters like gravity.

No Test Tubes? Questions Arise On Virtual High School Science, New York Times

Interactive, online simulations for the life science laboratory or for earth science field studies, Sciencecourseware

Science Labs: Virtual Versus Simulated, THE Journal

Virtual Lab — Vivid Animations Help Students With Science Experiments, Science Daily

Science Labs of the Future, Converge

Biology Online Labs, McGraw-Hill Higher Education

In 2002, SDCCD Miramar College faculty developed and pilot tested an online biology laboratory course for non-science major students, Innovation Express

It seems to be safe to make an argument that there are at least two important factors that influence adult learners to get motivated or de-motivated to learn via distance education options. The two factors are:

1. Adult learners are goal-oriented; therefore, distance education programs should provide learning environments where they can accomplish their goals.
2. Adult learners are learning-oriented; therefore, distance education programs should provide learning environments where they can acquire interesting and relevant knowledge and skills.

The author has carried out a long-term evaluation study to make a judgment of the effectiveness of the interventions designed based on the above assumptions. The interventions were designed in order to reduce the high dropout rate in an adult online education program and evaluated was the effectiveness of the interventions in terms of the changed dropout rate.
Read more: coen.boisestate.edu

This article identifies characteristics of the adult learner and briefly reviews literature on the attrition and retention of adult learners in higher education programs. A summary of that research shows that adult learners focus on their roles as learners, their ability to balance school with outside responsibilities, and their flexibility in attaining personal goals within the context of educational and institutional goals. Programs aimed at improving the retention of adult learners and lessening attrition rates must take into account these factors.
Read more: Academic Exchange Quarterly | Find Articles at BNET

This review of the literature focuses on three primary dimensions of adult learners in postsecondary education: access, persistence, and success. Within each of these dimensions, there are four broad units of analysis: individual/family/community, institutions, state policies/collaborations, and federal policies/collaborations.
Source: Lumina Foundation

The best way to motivate adult learners is simply to enhance their reasons for enrolling and decrease the barriers. Instructors must learn why their students are enrolled (the motivators); they have to discover what is keeping them from learning. Then the instructors must plan their motivating strategies. A successful strategy includes showing adult learners the relationship between training and an expected promotion.
Read more: honolulu.hawaii.edu

Most of us remember sitting in a lecture listening to an instructor telling us about some subject for an hour or so, taking a short break, and then continuing the lecture for another hour or so. How well did we learn the material covered during this lecture? How much of this material do we remember today? The most likely answer to both questions is “little”.

The situation just described did not take into consideration “how adults learn”. The purpose of this paper is to describe adult learning concepts, relate these concepts to practical adult training, and discuss how lessons can be structured to make good use of adult learning concepts.
Source: NTC Adult Learners

This article provides decision makers with 32 trends that affect distance learning and thus enable them to plan accordingly. The trends are organized into categories as they pertain to students and enrollment, faculty members, academics, technology, the economy, and distance learning. All the trends were identified during an extensive review of current literature in the field.
Source: Online Journal of Distance Learning Administration

Great post from Pat Hensley

I always set up the first couple of weeks with lots of small assignments that I know the students can complete successfully. At first, even they are surprised at these small successes. In fact, I know they are scared to believe in them and expect that this was just a fluke. I spend a lot of time praising them and encouraging them during this step.

As I increase the difficulty of their assignments, I make sure that I am always available to help them. Giving them cues and encouragement will help them succeed during this time. As they succeed more and more, they become more confident and this is so wonderful to see.

I really learned and enjoyed maths at high school only when a teacher gave me support and so many tests to resolve, starting from the easier ones to the more difficult. At the end I had a lot of training in maths and was confident I could be successful in any maths test.

Read More:
Related Posts: Student Motivation to Learn « Onlinesapiens Blog

Jeff Borden blogged about how not to build an online course. These are 2 “must read posts” for online teachers and college administrators.

I saw one of your courses the other day. Whoops! It’s hard to know where to start in trying to explain the numerous problems I saw, but I’ll try to take a stab at it.
Read more: Letter to a Course Author – typically at a State institution like a university or community college.

I saw another of your courses today. Yikes! I’m not completely sure I would consider a course at all, but accreditors don’t seem to know the difference, so I guess you’re covered. Why wasn’t it a course, you ask?
Read more: Letter to a Course Developer, – typically at a private or for-profit school,

Lisa M. Lane posted:

Then I got fancier with my History of England and Western Civ classes. I linked out to websites. I thought, what was the point of a class being web-based if there weren’t any hyperlinks? So I linked to informative, sometimes fascinating, websites from every lecture page. Then, when I recorded the audio lecture, I was sure to note where the links were, for the visually impaired.

Now I’m trapped. Many of the links have disappeared, so I’ve asked my wonderful secretary to start Furling them for me. She’s given me pages of links that are nowhere to be found. In one lecture alone (the World War II lecture for England) fully ten sites have disappeared.

Kristina D.C. Hoeppner. posted:

This debacle led me to think about the question “What is the plan B for online sessions?” When we teach or present at conferences, we usually have a “Plan B”, an alternative, in case the technology we want to use is not available or does not work. I still make screenshots of web pages in case the internet does not work and I want to point out something on a live site. Backup copies of the material I need are always stored on a USB stick, sent to my email account and / or uploaded somewhere online. I could even do without the visual support if needed as long as I do not loose my voice.

However, as I have never presented online, I had not thought about what to do when problems occur in the virtual space.

On the Internet Archive I was able to find copies of pages I needed for teaching and blogging and have been removed from the internet:
Educational Conferencing Fundamentals and Matriz de Impacto Ambiental
and also I found some pages I needed for my Linkedin Profile:
Member of Florida Virtual College Faculty and Online Courses I authored for Florida Virtual College: Ciencias del Ambiente y Evaluación Ambiental

If you are teaching online don’t forget to save a copy of any important web pages from other sites you are using on your course. Sometimes web pages and web sites are REMOVED from the web. It happened to me also, at least twice. I was lucky to have a copy of those pages!!

This is a list of Twitter Conversations I had using the Twitter Open Messaging tool:

- Twitter Conversation: Introducing New Learning 2.0 Tools in your Organization
- Using Twitter and Delicious to Teach About Videoconferencing and Online Community Management
- Using Twitter to Teach How to Find New LinkedIn Connections

This is my Twitter conversation I had with my friend Gabriela Sellart about the resistance from students to using new Learning 2.0 tools.

Gabriela asked:

gsellart: how do you convince your students to write directly on the wiki, instead of copying/pasting from word?about 2 hours ago from TwitterFox

emapey2: @gsellart They want to have a copy and backup. They feel their work can be lost
about 2 hours ago from web · Reply · View Tweet

gsellart: @emapey2 I don’t think it’s that, I think it’s a habit. You say write, they think Word.
10 minutes later from TwitterFox · Reply · View Tweet

emapey2: @gsellart I agree also. People don’t want change. Topic of MY presentation at Learntrends
6 minutes later from web · Reply · View Tweet

gsellart: @emapey2 interesting topic. Lots to think about that.
3 minutes later from TwitterFox · Reply · View Tweet

emapey2: @gsellart Let them use the tools they like and are already using
less than a minute later from web · Reply · View Tweet

emapey2: @gsellart Such as lessons, alerts and feeds delivered by email
2 minutes later from web · Reply · View Tweet

emapey2: @gsellart Gabriela I don’t like email myself, too much spam but people use it all the time.
2 minutes later from web · Reply · View Tweet

gsellart: @emapey2 yes, of course, I let them use the tools they want to, but i miss the process, and they miss it too
3 minutes later from TwitterFox · Reply · View Tweet

emapey2: @gsellart At Learntrends my presentation was Selling E-learning in your Organization, Eduardo Peirano. Use the tools they value more
5 minutes later from web · Reply · View Tweet

emapey2: @gsellart It ts not what I like. It’s just a fact
2 minutes later from web · Reply · View Tweet

emapey2: @gsellart By the way I don’t like wikis. I prefer to use Forums for collaborative learning
3 minutes later from web · Reply · View Tweet

gsellart: @emapey2 you can use the discussion pages as a sort of forum.
21 minutes later from TwitterFox · Reply · View Tweet

emapey2: @gsellart I think so. I have never used a wiki. for collaborative learning. I think I don’t need that tool
3 minutes later from web · Reply · View Tweet

emapey2: @gsellart by the way I also hate Word. Whenever possible I write and save .txt files
11 minutes later from web · Reply · View Tweet

emapey2: @gsellart Gabriela, we need to think how to “sell” these new tools in our organization
28 minutes later from web · Reply · View Tweet

This converstion was fun! For both of us our native language is Spanish but here we are having a Twitter discussion in English.

Read more:
Related Posts: My Twitter Conversations

I have reviewed my blog and selected the Onlinesapiens posts more relevant to the Corporate Learntrends Online Conversations Event:

- My PLE for the Corporate Learntrends Online Conversations
- Enterprise 2.0 Examples and Successful Stories
- How to Introduce Innovative eLearning Ideas In Your Organization
- Marketing Elearning in your Organization
- Objections To Using Learning 2.0 and Social Learning
- How to Deal With Elearning Objections
- Why Do We Need a Personal Learning Environment (PLE)?
- PLE – Where Learning on the Web Begins

This is my start page, my Personal Learning Environment, PLE, my list of aggregated resources for the Learntrends event. It is a real example of a PLE, Personal Learning Environment.

For 24 hours starting April 21 Learntrends will host a series of online conversations on boosting the performance of organizations through learning.

- Learntrends April 2009 Event Schedule
- Learntrends Elluminate live conversations
- Learntrends Forum
- Learntrends – Twitter Search
- Learntrends – Google Blog Search
- Learntrends Bookmarks on Delicious
- My Learntrends Bookmarks on Delicious

These 2 useful sites aggregate blog posts from many Learntrends participants:
- eLearning Learning
- Alltop eLearning News