Distance Education Initiatives to Provde Open Access

Harvard and MIT have initiated a joint venture called edX to provide online courses by Fall 2012.  Courses will be taught by Harvard and MIT faculty and populated with courses already developed by the two universities in their open access curriculum. So what's new?  The edX initiative will also be used as a test bed for research about effectiveness of online technologies.  To read more, go to http://www.edxonline.org/release.html

Another group of 12 U.S. universities including, Univ. of Virgina, Univ. of Washington, Univ. of Illinois, Duke Univ., Univ. of California - San Francisco, Rice Univ., Johns Hopkins Univ., Georgia Institute of Technology, and the California Institute of Technology and other universities from abroad have joined Coursera to offer open access online courses. Go to https://www.coursera.org/ to read more and examine open access courses.  Why will universities offer open access courses? The reasons are varied -- some want to increase recognition of their brand, others want to offer education to people in the global community without the chance of attending a university, and others...well we will see.

Open Access Textbooks

It's the middle of July, so I am thinking about my courses before fall semester arrives.  Maybe you do some of the same things I do -- think about what I want my students to learn from the course, decide what strategies have been successful in the past, consider new teaching strategies, and make my course revisions.  There are some great open access books (freely available online) that present helpful information about collaborative learning and using web 2.0 tools. Post others that you find.

Here are a few that I have found helpful:

• Online Collaborative Learning in Higher Education http://books.google.com/books?id=01qB45CoC-UC&printsec=frontcover#v=onepage&q&f=false
• Web 2.0 Tools in Education:  A Quick Guide http://www.scribd.com/doc/58594601/Web-2-0-Tools-in-Education-A-Quick-Guide-by-Mohamed-Amin-Embi
• E-Learning Handbook http://img.en25.com/Web/eRepublicInc/Symantec_ELearningHandbook_V.pdf

Faculty Development for Online Teaching

If you are new to distance learning, you might want to take a few faculty development courses.  If your university or college does not offer any, take a look at some free online faculty development classes that can be completed at your own pace.

Go to the University of Washington Center for Health Sciences Interprofessional Education, Research, and Practice:  http://collaborate.uw.edu/faculty-development/faculty-development.html.

Getting Started in Online Teaching – Free Webinar from Sloan-C on September 11, 2012  at 2pm Eastern Time http://sloanconsortium.org/webinar_gs_sept12

Go to iTunesU and search for Northern Illinois University Faculty Development Program Archives.  http://itunes.apple.com/us/podcast/niu-faculty-development-program/id326308196?mt=2&ign-mpt=uo%3D4

Digital Simulation

A digital simulation made by Shadow Health http://shadowhealth.com can be useful in teaching health history and physical examination techniques. This web-based simulation software is in testing phase.  You can register to be a tester, earn a little cash, and decide if the product would be useful in your own undergraduate or graduate classes.  The nurse asks questions by typing, and the patient responds.  Currently, the simulated patient has some limitations in her vocabulary and may not understand every question asked by the nurse; however, it might be a good addtion to your interactive tools.