A Productive Decade of Andragogy\u27s History and Philosophy 2000-2009

With the foundation of andragogy having been laid, there was a serious attempt at investigating its value. Some felt that a broad scope was established in the practice to support growth in learners, with any mention of adult learning needing to include andragogy. Others perceived that andragogy produced unproductive debates along a binary path, with its being too caught up in individualization, the politics of exclusion, conformity, and de-contextualizing adult learning. However, some research revealed numerous dimensions of andragogy. The connection with distance learning became very strong and solid. New applications of andragogy were spawned into foreign language learning, internet learning, validation of the adult instructor\u27s perspective, the public school, emotional intelligence, and an interlinking with brain research. The long range projection of andragogy saw a strong resurgence in numerous research papers being put forward through conferences and publication with the world-wide foundation being established by thorough documentation of the materials. Savicevic looks far into the future and credits Knowles with a meritorious place in the advancement of andragogy. Many new applications over an extensive period of time were increasing

The Bridge Newsletter Winter 2012

-Creating bridge beams that will last 100 years-Great school, great price-Recruiting technical minds -Combatting obesity, diabeteshttps://scholarsmine.mst.edu/bridge/1013/thumbnail.jp

Developing sustainable business models for institutions’ provision of open educational resources: Learning from OpenLearn users’ motivations and experiences

Universities across the globe have, for some time, been exploring the possibilities for achieving public benefit and generating business and visibility through releasing and sharing open educational resources (OER). Many have written about the need to develop sustainable and profitable business models around the production and release of OER. Downes (2006), for example, has questioned the financial sustainability of OER production at scale. Many of the proposed business models focus on OER’s value in generating revenue and detractors of OER have questioned whether they are in competition with formal education. This paper reports on a study intended to broaden the conversation about OER business models to consider the motivations and experiences of OER users as the basis for making a better informed decision about whether OER and formal learning are competitive or complementary with each other. The study focused on OpenLearn - the Open University’s (OU) web-based platform for OER, which hosts hundreds of online courses and videos and is accessed by over 3,000,000 users a year. A large scale survey and follow-up interviews with OpenLearn users worldwide revealed that university provided OER can offer learners a bridge to formal education, allowing them to try out a subject before registering on a formal course and to build confidence in their abilities as learners. In addition, it was found that using OER during formal paid-for study can improve learners’ performance and self-reliance, leading to increased retention and satisfaction with the learning experience

Open educational resources for all? Comparing user motivations and characteristics across The Open University’s iTunes U channel and OpenLearn platform.

With the rise in access to mobile multimedia devices, educational institutions have exploited the iTunes U platform as an additional channel to provide free educational resources with the aim of profile-raising and breaking down barriers to education. For those prepared to invest in content preparation, it is possible to produce interactive, portable material that can be made available globally. Commentators have questioned both the financial implications for platform-specific content production, and the availability of devices for learners to access it (Osborne, 2012). The Open University (OU) makes its free educational resources available on iTunes U and via its web-based open educational resources (OER) platform, OpenLearn. The OU’s OER on iTunes U reached the 60 million download mark in 2013; its OpenLearn platform boasts 27 million unique visitors since 2006. This paper reports the results of a large-scale study of users of the OU’s iTunes U channel and OpenLearn platform. A survey of several thousand users revealed key differences in demographics between those accessing OER via the web and via iTunes U. In addition, the data allowed comparison between three groups: formal learners, informal learners and educators. The study raises questions about whether university-provided OER meet the needs of users and makes recommendations for how content can be modified to suit their needs. As the publishing of OER becomes core to business, we reflect on reasons why understanding users’ motivations and demographics is vital, allowing for needs-led resource provision and content that is adapted to best achieve learner satisfaction, and to deliver institutions’ social mission

Prospectus (2014)

https://aquila.usm.edu/alprospectus/1002/thumbnail.jp

LYNN - 2016 Annual Edition

Main Stories: Learning like pros College success 101 Keeping campus top-notchhttps://spiral.lynn.edu/lynnmag/1016/thumbnail.jp

The Expatriate and Transnational Distance Student Phenomenon: A Series of Investigations

The scale and scope of distance education has changed significantly over the last 250 years. Technology, from the early days of correspondence courses to radio, television and satellite broadcasting, has continually increased the scope, scale, and access potential to education. Distance courses and programs, however, were typically serving local, regional, or national communities. The Internet, by contrast, has transformed distance education by enabling access to education by virtually anyone, anywhere in the world. Students are no longer limited or constrained by geography or residency, yet how such potential has been conceptualized, identified, and subsequently researched has been limited by homogenous frames of reference. The homogenization of student conceptualizations and classifications for distance students situated outside of a national context has resulted in both unclear discussions, as well as the omission of differing perspectives. This dissertation investigated the phenomenon of transnational distance education, and particularly the expatriate and transnational distance student perspective from a vantage point in the Republic of Korea across three related studies. The first investigation, an exploratory study, proposed a framework that organized and defined four distinct types of student (national, international, expatriate, transnational) and subsequently collected demographic and program characteristics of expatriate and transnational distance students from 33 survey respondents. The second study utilized a multicase approach to collect data on the experiences of expatriate and transnational students and document their experiences, similarities, and differences by examining eight cases. The third study, a grounded theory approach, explored the motivations and decision-making process of expatriate and transnational students and why/how they choose their education programs with a sample of 10 participants. Though the three samples were not representative of all foreign-residents in Korea, they provide additional perspectives to the distance, transnational, and international education literature, as well as scholarship on university attendance. Key findings from study one suggested that expatriate and transnational students were disproportionately male, and most likely completing distance programs in their home countries. Findings from study two described how, as first-generation adult immigrants in Korea, students were funneled into the same career path by virtue of national/linguistic background which prompted them to seek out further higher education opportunities to become qualified in their fields. Lastly, findings from the third study suggested that the concept of repatriation (i.e., return to their home countries), whether realized or not, played a recurring role in their decisions to pursue higher education, and was similarly related to their reasons for choosing distance programs usually in their home countries. Moreover, these findings suggested an ecosystem as both a push and pull factor where various obstacles (e.g., no background knowledge on university programs, no information available in participants’ L1) to entry in the local educational ecosystem pushed them to choose educational opportunities mostly in their home countries as a path of least resistance to achieving their educational goals