Featured Book From IAP, Beyond The Online Course: Leadership Perspectives On e-Learning

This came through my inbox on Wednesday…  I see some familiar names, so I’m going to assume that there are some K-12 online items in there.

Published 2016 ORDER ONLINE AT WWW.INFOAGEPUB.COM Paperback 9781681235097 $45.99 Hardcover 9781681235103 $85.99 eBook 9781681235110 Beyond the Online Course Leadership Perspectives on e-LearningEdited by: Anthony A. Pina, Sullivan University System Jason B. Huett, University of West GeorgiaA volume in Perspectives in Instructional Technology and Distance Education Beyond the Online Course: Leadership Perspectives on e-Learning addresses a need for the growing body of professionals who are called upon to lead the online/distance learning efforts at their various organizations. It will also be of interest to those wishing to prepare for leadership positions or who are engaged in research and study of issues “beyond the online course.” The book brings together scholarly and practice-based writings from the pages of the Quarterly Review of Distance Education and Distance Learning for Educators, Trainers and Leaders. CONTENTS: Foreword, Melanie N. Clay. Preface, Beyond the Online Course, Jason B. Huett & Anthony A. Piña. PART I: LEADING INNOVATION AND CHANGE. Institutionalization of Distance Education in Higher Education, Anthony A. Piña. Attributes and Barriers Impacting Diffusion of Online Education at the Institutional Level: Considering Faculty Perceptions, Jason Neben.Barriers to Adoption of Technology-Mediated Distance Education in Higher-Education Institutions, Baiyun Chen. Six Barriers Causing Educators to Resist Teaching Online, and How Institutions Can Break Them, Dana Gutman. Bridging the Divide: Reconciling Administrator and Faculty Concerns Regarding Online Education, Leah E. Wickersham & Julie McElhany. PART II: LEADING COURSE AND PROGRAM DESIGN. Expert Instructional Designer Voices: Leadership Competencies Critical to Global Practice and Quality Online Learning Designs,Marcia L. Ashbaugh. Three Levels of Planned E-learning Interactions: A Framework for Grounding Research and The Design of E-learning Programs, Atsusi “2c” Hirumi. Key Interactions for Online Programs Between Faculty, Students, Technologies, and Educational Institutions: A Holistic Framework, Jomon A. Paul & Justin D. Cochran. Universal Course Shell Template Design and Implementation to Enhance Student Outcomes in Online Coursework,Arthur J. Borgemenke. Knowledge Building in an Online Cohort, Mary E. Engstrom, Susan A. Santo & Rosanne M. Yost. Converting a Conventional University to a Dual Mode Institution: The Case of the University of Botswana, Ontiretse S. Tau. PART III: LEADING THE DEVELOPMENT AND SUPPORT OF ONLINE STUDENTS. Supporting the Distant Student: The Effect of ARCS-Based Strategies on Confidence and Performance, Jason B. Huett, Leslie Moller, Jon Young, Marty Bray & Kimberly C. Huett. Online Instruction: Student Satisfaction, Kudos, and Pet Peeves, C. Eugene Walker & Erika Kell. Assistive Technology: Enhancing the Life Skills of Students with Learning Disabilities, Aries Cobb. Supervision on Site: A Critical Factor in the Online Facilitated Internship, Kaye B. Dotson &.Hui Bian. PART IV: LEADING THE DEVELOPMENT AND SUPPORT OF ONLINE FACULTY AND STAFF. Effects of Staff Training and Development on Professional Abilities of University Teachers in Distance Learning Systems, Shahinshah Babar Khan & Saeed-ul-Hasan Chishti. Maximizing HR Professionals’ Leadership Role in E-Learning for Organizational Effectiveness, Jane Waweru. Off-Site Faculty Perspectives on Online Experiences, Barbara L Stewart, Carole Goodson & Susan L. Miertschin. Pragmatic Methods to Reduce Dishonesty in Web-Based Courses, Newell Chiesl.Assessing Online Faculty, Anthony A. Piña & Larry Bohn. How University Faculty Members Develop Their Online Teaching Skills, Steven W. Schmidt, Elizabeth Hodge & Christina Tschida.PART V: LEGAL AND ACCREDITATION ISSUES. Accreditation, Benchmarks, and Guidelines In Distance Education, Soonhwa Seok. Who Owns Online Course Intellectual Property,Douglas A. Kranch. Intellectual Property and Online Courses Policies at Major Research Universities, Kathryn Ann Loggie, Ann E. Barron, Elizabeth Gulitz, Tina N. Hohlfield, Jeffrey D. Kromrey & Phyllis Sweeney. The Legal Environment of Accessible Post-secondary Online Learning, Kevin L. Crow.

Information Age Publishing | P.O. Box 79049 | Charlotte, NC 28271-7047
T: 704.752.9125 | F: 704.752.9113 | E: info@infoagepub.com

Dissertation Research Ideas?

A couple of weeks ago I received the following in my inbox.

Hi Dr. Barbour,

I am a Doctoral learner with the University of Phoenix pursing a degree in Educational Leadership/Educational Technology.  The focus of my doctoral dissertation has been on leader/teacher relationships in virtual charter schools. In my extensive research,I have found you to be one of the top research experts in virtual schooling. I have desperately searching for a problem to guide this study, but find limited data on leaders in virtual schools, especially regarding the impact of the leader/follower relationship.

My question to you is, are you aware of problems that virtual school leaders have been facing? I seem to find a significant amount of literature relating to student performance and best teaching practicies, but limited studies relating to best leadership practices (or difficulties leaders are faced with).

As I know you are very busy, I understand if you are unable to provide me with feedback at this point.

I have enjoyed reading through your articles and presentations.

Now, I’ll be honest and say that I get these kinds of requests about once a month or so. In fact, while this message has been sitting in my inbox, a group of us researchers have been having a discussion with an iNACOL officer about this very issue (i.e., areas of research that we would recommend).  In those discussions, I made a comment that I often make when asked what I think needs to be researched…

I always advise folks to look at the literature…  If you look at the main literature reviews over the past decade, you find:

Blomeyer, R. L. (2002). Online learning for K-12 students: What do we know now? Naperville, IL: North Central Regional Educational Laboratory. Retrieved from http://www.ncrel.org/tech/elearn/synthesis.pdf

“online learning or e-learning isn’t about digital technologies any more than classroom teaching is about blackboards. E-learning should be about creating and deploying technology systems that enable constructive human interaction and support the improvement of all teaching and learning.” (p. 19)

Smith, R., Clark, T., & Blomeyer, R. L. (2005). A synthesis of new research on K-12 online learning. Naperville, IL: Learning Point Associates. Retrieved from http://www.ncrel.org/tech/synthesis/synthesis.pdf

1. interpreting “equal of better’ achievement findings;
2. understanding and improving student persistence;
3. instructional models that lead to student process skills;
4. issues related to student satisfaction and motivation;
5. identifying and remediating characteristics for successful online learning;
6. leveraging the features of online learning systems; and
7. discriminating online learning based upon a variety of educational contexts. (pp. 71-74)

Rice, K. L. (2006). A comprehensive look at distance education in the K-12 context. Journal of Research on Technology in Education, 38(4), 425-448.

• Improve the quality of research that examines the critical components of learning directly related to younger learners.
• Continue and expand on the development of prediction instruments that help identify successful learner attributes.
• Develop organized student evaluation systems to facilitate consistent data collection.
• Investigate the relationship between student supports and at-risk student needs in relation to distance education.
• Investigate the social and cognitive aspects of distance education and the effect of knowledge construction.
• Develop valid and reliable tools for identifying interactive qualities in course design and instruction. (p. 442)

Barbour, M. K., & Reeves, T. C. (2009). The reality of virtual schools: A review of the literature. Computers and Education, 52(2), 402–416.

“This has led many researchers to call for more research into the factors that account for K-12 student success in distance education and virtual school environments that could be explored as design research problems. Others may suggest that a more profitable focus for research in this are a would be on the cost-effectiveness of virtual schools. After all, even if virtual schooling is no more effective than traditional methods, if it is more economical for providers to set up virtual schools or users to access them, then it may be a justifiable replacement for traditional approaches. However, although one of the claimed benefits by proponents has been the cost-effectiveness of virtual schooling, economic issues generally have not been the focus of the substantive research or rigorous evaluation to date. What is clear is that as the virtual school movement continues to grow and thus serves a wider range of students, the need for more and better research that can help ensure all students have the opportunity for success in virtual school environments is increasingly urgent”. (p. 413)

Cavanaugh, C., Barbour, M. K., & Clark, T. (2009). Research and practice in K-12 online learning: A review of literature. International Review of Research in Open and Distance Learning, 10(1). Retrieved from http://www.irrodl.org/index.php/irrodl/article/view/607

“Based on the limited research included in our metasynthesis and in our review of the literature for the preparation of this manuscript, we have identified areas for future research. The first area is to establish best practices for online teaching strategies…. The second area is to improve upon the identification of characteristics that are necessary for adolescents to be successful in online learning environments and to provide remediation for students who are lacking these characteristics…. The third area concerns how virtual school and brick-and-mortar school personnel can encourage more interaction between in-school and online classmates…. Finally, the fourth area is to examine the quality of student learning experiences in virtual school environments, especially those of lower performing students.” (sec. Conclusions and Implications)

It is interesting to note the similarities that you see over this eight years of literature-based suggestions.  It tells me that the published, empirical research hasn’t closed many of the holes that continue to be identified.

Another suggestion I often make is that students should to search the ProQuest Dissertation database. Every dissertation written about virtual schooling (and any topic for that matter) has a section at that end that basically tells the reader, after studying this particularly topic for the last year or two of my life here is what I would recommend the next person study.

In the case of this specific student who contacted me, when I follow this advice and search for “virtual school”+leadership I get the following results:

1. The purpose and potential of virtual high schools: A national study of virtual high schools and their head administrators by Brown, Rachel Anne, Ph.D., University of Minnesota, 2009, 168 pages; AAT 3387248

2. Characteristics leading to student success: A study of online learning environments by Crawford, Deborah L., Ed.D., Texas A&M University – Commerce, 2006, 119 pages; AAT 3245225

3. Online schooling for United States Catholic high school students: Promise and practice as perceived by selected high school principals by Heidlage, Rebecca M., Ed.D., University of Kansas, 2003, 92 pages; AAT 3126062

4. Virtual school learning environments in Kansas’ K–12 public schools: Leadership perspectives and policy issues by Augustine-Shaw, Donna M., Ed.D., Wichita State University, 2001, 322 pages; AAT 3026596

Now, without looking at any of these individual dissertations, I’d start with reading the Conclusions and Implications chapter of each of these dissertation.

What about you?  Any advice that you would share?

FLVS Game: Conspiracy Code

About a month ago I first posted an entry about a presentation at the 2009 Games, Learning & Society conference about a game created for the Florida Virtual School (FLVS) called “Conspiracy Code” (see K-12 Online Learning And Games, Learning & Society 2009).

So, a week or two ago, I noticed that Scott McLeod had posted an entry entitled “NECC – My adventures with Horse & Hound magazine: Florida Virtual School, Achieve3000” on his blog Dangerously Irrelevant.  In this entry, he describes his experiences with an interview he conducted with Julie Young and Andy Ross of the FLVS about this US-history game that they use to teach the year long course.

Take a look at Scott’s entry – and the Vimeo video (which you can access by clicking on the image too), and tell me what you think.  In addition to the video, Scott has also posted this printed material:

• Conspiracy Code Product Overview
• Conspiracy Code Press Release
• FLVS Consipiracy Code web site
• FLVS Presskit
• Education Next article about FLVS

In my earlier entry about this I mentioned that I thought the Academic ADL Co-Lab at the University of Wisconsin–Madison may be involved in this project – but have later found out that they were approached, but decided they weren’t interested as the project began to move forward (and I’d be interested in hearing some of the reasons why if anyone wanted to comment here or e-mail me privately).

Finally, after posting his original entry Scott has had some additional thoughts about gaming in education – see Do most educational games suck?

Note that I have used both my own tags and all of the tags that Scott used for his original entry as well – which accounts for the higher than usual number of tags and categories.

Related Webinars In The Next Two Days

I saw this in an entry entitled An amazing lineup of Classroom 2.0 events that was posted by Dangerously Irrelevant and wanted to make my readers aware of it.

Steve Hargadon over at Classroom 2.0 has an amazing set of webinars lined up for us this week. Here’s the relevant portion of Steve’s recent e-mail message:

[Tuesday event deleted]

Wednesday, May 6th, at 5:00pm Pacific / 8:00pm Eastern / 12am GMT: Don Tapscott, the author or co-author of 13 widely read books, including Wikinomics, discusses with me the future of education, Grown Up Digital (his latest book), and the Net Gen Education Project.  Log-in and other details at http://www.futureofeducation.com/forum/topics/don-tapscott-talks-about

Thursday, May 7th, at 5:00pm Pacific / 8:00pm Eastern / 12am GMT: Michael Horn, co-author of Disrupting Class:  How Disruptive Innovation Will Change the Way the World Learns, and the co-founder and Executive Director (Education) of Innosight Institute, a non-profit think tank devoted to applying the theories of disruptive innovation to problems in the social sector.  We’ll discuss his book, Web 2.0, and more.  Login and other details at http://www.futureofeducation.com/forum/topics/michael-horn-disrupting-class

I don’t know how you get all of this great stuff arranged for us, Steve, but THANK YOU! I think I can make the first two and would do the third one too if my son didn’t have baseball practice. I’ll have to catch it on replay. Hope to see some of you participate in at least one of these!

If anyone attends one or both of these events, please let us know and provide some thoughts here. Note that I have used the same tags and categories as Dangerously Irrelevant.

Blogging And The Academy

My good friend Clif Mims (see Clif’s Notes) sent me the link for a blog entry entitled I said, they said from the blog Dangerously Irrelevant.  Essentially Scott McLeod, is an academic that does a lot of work in schools – and the university that he worked at didn’t quite value that work that he was doing (and quite passionate about) with the K-12 schools.  The entry basically spoke to an annual review that Dr. McLeod had and then some of the experiences he had while interviewing.

While I can’t say I have the same complaints that Dr. McLeod, has, as my institution (like his current one) values my work with schools – virtual schools in my case – and like Dr. McLeod, I have been able to maintain my scholarly output.  But it did get me thinking about my blogging and its relation to my work as an academic.

As a researcher and someone who reads everything I can find about K-12 online learning in the United States, North America and around the world, I think that positions me to be a good person to comment on K-12 online learning.  However, I tend to quite opinionated (when I have the time to actually comment on issues) and I wonder if that affects my ability to do my research.  Does my general opposition to charter schools, based on political/ideological reasons, that I express regularly on this blog limit my opportunities to work with cyber charter schools?  I know that Cory (see The Next Step) deosn’t seem to mind, and my visit to the Odyssey Charter School that he arranged changed my opinion of at least that cyber charter school.  The folks at Connections Academy, who I have been critical of in places like Wisconsin, have continued to be classy individuals that are still interested in working with me.  But I always wonder does my blog and the opinions that I express here shut doors for me?

At the same time, I wonder about the investment of time and resources.  Some days it takes me very little to update this blog – as many of the items are simply cut and pasted into entries.  But some days I post entries that take time to compose.  This entry for example.  The Disrupting Class entries are another great example.  These kinds of entries tend to take an hour or more in many instances.  These tend to be the entries that get the most response, in terms of comments and trackbacks.  As someone who lives in the academy, in the world of publish or perish, I often wonder if those hours would be better served actually writing manuscripts or conference proposals.  It was only a day or two ago I met with a group of my doctoral students to see who was interested in gaining some research and writing experience by helping me to work on the nine revise and re-submits that are currently sitting on the desk of my home office.  Let’s not talk about the other six to eight manuscripts that I have in various states of development and the data that I have collected over the years which I still haven’t had a chance to do much (or anything) with.  As an academic, where should my energies me focused and should the amount of time I put into the blog at present be a part of that focused energy?

For those other academic bloggers, what do you think?  How have you rationalized this in your own work?

Note: I have used almost all of the same tags and categories as Dr. McLeod used in his original entry.