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Kathy Cannon

News: The Obama Plan - Inside Higher Ed - 0 views

  • Experts on distance education at community colleges said that the president's proposals on creating free online courses could be historic and transformative.
  • "And this will make it possible for a professor to complement his lecture with an online exercise, or for a student who can't be away from her family to still keep up with her coursework. We don't know where this kind of experiment will lead, but that's exactly why we ought to try it because I think there's a possibility that online education can provide especially for people who are already in the workforce and want to retrain the chance to upgrade their skills without having to quit their job."
  • He said that the college has expanded courses offered online, and in the early morning, or nights or weekends, but that "the bottom line is that we have to build capacity."
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  • Of late, educators and foundations have been focusing more on graduation rates, with the City University of New York starting programs and planning a new model of community college to focus on getting students degrees, and the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation and the Lumina Foundation for Education spending big on efforts to improve remedial education and graduation rates.
  • Advocates for online learning also viewed Obama's plans as significant. Fred Lokken, associate dean of Truckee Meadows Community College for its WebCollege, said this was "the very first comprehensive effort by the federal government that recognizes the importance of online learning."
  • Catherine M. Casserly, who studies technology issues at the Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching, said she saw the program leading to "a dual approach," in which students could view the new material or community colleges would get well-prepared material around which local instructors could plan instruction
  • "It's very hard to supplement something if the base is being undermined," he said. "We can't look at this as a panacea."
  • Indeed, late Tuesday, that's exactly what Democrats in the House proposed doing, when they announced plans to move ahead soon on Obama's student loan restructuring proposal, which paves the way for paying for the community college plan.
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    $500 million would be awarded to create online instructional materials that would be available free to community colleges and their students. \n\n"And this will make it possible for a professor to complement his lecture with an online exercise, or for a student who can't be away from her family to still keep up with her coursework. We don't know where this kind of experiment will lead, but that's exactly why we ought to try it because I think there's a possibility that online education can provide especially for people who are already in the workforce and want to retrain the chance to upgrade their skills without having to quit their job."
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    Obama's plan could be transformative according to distance education expert.
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