Monica Sockwell stepped up to the lectern last month to deliver a commencement speech after two years of studying at Grand Canyon University.

She knew almost no one as she looked out at the students. Sockwell, 25, had obtained her master’s degree in special education online from her home in Philadelphia. She had been to Grand Canyon’s Phoenix campus only once.

In the span of two years, Grand Canyon has transformed itself from a traditional university dominated by on-campus students and courses to a nationwide, virtual school where 70 percent of its roughly 9,200 students study online

The transformation reflects a larger shift that is beginning to take off at established, brick-and-mortar colleges. Enrollment in online courses nationwide is rising 10 times as fast as traditional enrollment, the National Center for Education Statistics says.

The number of Arizona State University students expected to enroll in at least one online course will soar to 100,000 from 15,000 over the next five years. Students from New Hampshire and Iowa, and China, India and Mexico already are attending ASU full time by computer.

Northern Arizona University offers 15 undergraduate and 10 graduate programs online and is developing more. NAU officials foresee an online enrollment of 30,000 in five years, with an offering of about 700 courses.

University of Arizona students can earn a master’s in three areas and a doctorate in nursing. Administrators are exploring offering minors online but not purely Web-based bachelor’s degrees.

The online-learning surge is being driven by several factors, including the spread of high-speed Internet and colleges’ pursuit of an increasingly lucrative market.

Most people earning online degrees are older than 22, work full time and have families. They choose learning on the Web because they can sit at home and use their own computers rather than attend classes or rearrange their schedules. And online courses generally cost only a bit more, if not the same, as traditional classes.

Online learning is now part of mainstream higher education. Educators foresee more types of courses being offered on the Web.

But the day online undergraduate and graduate students earn the same kind and number of degrees as their traditional counterparts remains far off, if ever.

For now, college presidents seek to augment existing classes with online and hybrid options, not replace them.

Student mom
Divya Marwaha, 28, just finished an online class, cross-media design solutions, that she took so she could complete her degree requirements while caring for her 6 1/2-month-old, Ishaan.

Marwaha, who lives in Chandler with her husband, is earning a master’s from ASU in graphic information technology.

Though she liked learning over the Internet, she was surprised that “it was actually a lot more work than in a classroom.”

“I had to read more and understand without someone explaining things to me,” she added.

In the end, the class took about 10 hours each week, several hours more than her traditional courses.

Each student had a textbook and weekly assignments that the professor posted online.

Students also posted their work online and critiqued one another’s contributions. Every other week the professor provided topics for instant-message discussions.

Students earned points for participation.

Marwaha and her classmates held meetings and conferences online, as well. “That was a little challenging because we had different timetables,” she said.

Each student had to produce a project from the textbook. “It kept you on your toes all the time,” she said.

Reasons for growth
More than 2.3 million students took at least one online course in 2004, according to the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation. The organization published its third-annual report on U.S. online higher education in November.

Among the reasons for the rapid ascent of Web-based learning:

• High-speed Internet: With a home computer, anyone can take a course online. With high-speed Internet, which has grown more accessible and affordable, the potential for interactivity takes off.

Faster and cheaper computers help make online courses appealing to students.

“You don’t have to drive to school, and you can do homework when your schedule permits,” said Magdalena Soto, a 25-year-old single mom who lives in Chandler. She, too, is earning a master’s degree in graphic information technology at ASU.

• Job-training demands: Employers are demanding higher skills to compete in a global economy. That is sending more kids into colleges and workers back to school for better training. Online classes offer more flexibility.

The hot online courses reflect the hot job sections, such as health care, education, business, technology and engineering, said Jeffrey Goss, an assistant dean at ASU’s Ira A. Fulton School of Engineering.

• Foreign students: More students from other countries are seeking online degrees from American universities.

Engineering Professor Ramón Godana, 34, of the Instituto Tecnológico y de Estudios Superiores de Monterrey in Mexico, lauds the partnership between his school and ASU, which has enabled him to enroll in an online certificate program that will enhance his credentials.

“This certificate is very important in my industry,” he said.

• Potential profits: For-profit schools, such as the University of Phoenix and Grand Canyon, have moved rapidly into online education to tap a profitable market.

Feeling the competition, major public universities are following suit while retaining their campus-based focus.

Before Phoenix-based Significant Education bought Grand Canyon University in 2004, the school had a shortfall of $12 million to $15 million. It broke even in 2005 and is now turning a profit, Chief Executive Brent Richardson said.

School officials project 7,000 students will take online courses this fall, 3,000 more than in 2004.

Grand Canyon charges undergraduates $360 per credit hour and graduates $390 per credit hour.

Getting ahead
Professors dream about students like 18-year-old Hayden Croft of Ahwatukee. The incoming ASU freshman is taking an online course this summer on race and ethnicity in film. That way, his credit load won’t be so heavy this fall.

The rigors of the class surprised Croft. “It was kind of weird at first,” he said. “I didn’t understand how an online course was going to make me stick to a schedule. I thought it was going to be a blowoff. But it’s more of a learning environment than I thought it was going to be. You do have deadlines.”

Croft’s experience could portend the future of the online learning landscape, particularly among traditional students 18 to 22 years old.

Source: www.azcentral.com

This entry was posted by Taman Siswa on Wednesday, June 21, 2006 at 9:43 pm and is filed under Online Education. Tags: College, Education News, Online Education, Student, Study, . You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.