Online Education

With the growth of the internet as a way to get an education has increased. The fasted growing educational trend right now is online degrees through virtual schools. A virtual school is an institution that teaches courses either entirely or primarily through online methods. Even though there are tens of thousands of commercial and non-accredited classes online, virtual schools are generally accredited schools that teach a full-time or nearly full-time courses that lead to a degree. Many Universities offer online programs and there are special schools like the University of Phoenix that specialize in virtual education.

Here are two articles that discuss online education.
The Sound of One Hand Clicking

Study: Online Education Continues Its Meteoric Growth

Email and Education

Communication between teachers and students is very important in the educational process. There are many ways for educators to communicate with their students using Internet communication tools. The most popular method of communication by Internet is email. According the Pew Research Center, 94% of adults use the Internet for email. Students and educators can use email to communicate, share files and receive responses quickly and efficiently. According to the Department of Education, the use of email in the classroom allows students to "use language to understand, develop and communicate ideas and information and interact with one another while learning about other cultures".

Email in education provides for many things. It provides greater access to student. It gives voice to more reserved students. At times it can encourage thoughtful responses. It can encourage collaboration among students and non-students. Also email can create a virtual paper trail.

Almost all colleges and universities use email as their primary source of communication with the university’s students, faculty and staff Syracuse University is one of them. Syracuse University gives each registered student and active faculty and staff member an official Syracuse University e-mail address. All official University email communications will be sent to the assigned Syracuse address. This includes but is not limited to communications from faculty to students registered in their classes and from administrative personnel to students. The University expects that students, faculty, and staff will receive and read e-mail in a timely manner. Failure to receive and read University communications delivered to the University e-mail address in a timely manner does not absolve recipients from knowing and complying with the content of the email.

Using Internet for Educational Research

One of the ways the internet is used in education is to do research. According to a study published in the Turkish Online Journal of Educational Technology 58% of student internet users use the internet to do educational research.

The Internet is widely and readily accessible and can provide instant information on most topics, which makes it ideal for doing research. Internet Research simply means to look something up on the Web. It includes any activity where a topic is identified, and an effort is made to gather information for the purpose of further understanding of the topic. It is not the same as scientific research, which is research that follows a defined and rigorous process that could be carried out using the Internet.

Compared to the using the Internet for research, using printed materials physically limits access to information. A book has to be identified, found, and then actually obtained. On the internet, the web can be searched, and hundreds and thousands of pages can be found with some relation to the topic, within seconds. In addition, email, online discussion forums, and other things like instant messaging can provide direct access to experts and other individuals with relevant information to the topic can be used as research. However, with the internet, difficulties persist in verifying a writer's credentials and verifying the accuracy of the information obtained.

Using tools from a library can help in doing research and making sure the information comes from a reliable source. Syracuse University library offers research guides on its website (http://researchguides.library.syr.edu/) that can help students use the internet to find information relevant to the student’s topic.

The topic of the internet is very broad. So the focus of the blog will be its use in education. There are many uses of the internet for education that is discussed in other classmates blogs. Here I will be discussing using the internet for Research, E-Mail, Online schools, and the possible downfalls of using the internet for educational purposes.

The internet is a very important part in education. According to the Pew Research Institute,

• 94% of youth ages 12-17 who have Internet access say they use the Internet for school research and 78% say they believe the Internet helps them with schoolwork.
• 71% of online teens say that they used the Internet as the major source for their most recent major school project or report.
• 41% of online teens say they use email and instant messaging to contact teachers or classmates about schoolwork.
• 34% of online teens have downloaded an online study aid.
• 18% of online teens say they know of someone who has used the Internet to cheat on a paper or test.
• 58% of online teens report using Web sites that had been set up specifically for their school or for a particular class.
• 17% of online teens have created a Web page for a school project.

With these numbers it is important to understand the significance of the internet in education.

Ref: http://www.slideshare.net/rogerja/top-ten-internet-uses-in-teaching-and-learning-2

http://www.pewinternet.org/Reports/2001/The-Internet-and-Education/Summary-of-Findings.aspx