Since online learning burst on the scene in the late 1990s, predictions of traditional higher education's obsolescence and disruption have been steady fare in the trade and popular media. This time the change is shaping up to be more profound than most had envisioned. As alternatives to the degree system (and the accreditation/financial…

In a world on the move, the need for technology in any of its form is desired every minute of every day. For any type of technology to stay in vogue, real-time information is to be delivered to the applicants; otherwise, it is doomed to fall. The process of updating information and delivering it to the applicants needs education--with no doubt.…

Various discussions at the March 2010 Scholarship of Teaching and Learning (SoTL) Commons in Statesboro, GA, led this author to reflect on the relationship between academic development, e-learning, and SoTL. Throughout the conference, she felt a nagging suspicion that each professional community may have created a silo, with a discourse so tightly…

In this regular feature of "Educational Technology," Michael F. Shaughnessy and Susan M. Fulgham present their interview with Ryan Watkins, Associate Professor of Educational Technology at the George Washington University and the author of 10 books and more than 95 articles. In this interview, Watkins discusses the following topics:…

This author asserts that the problem of reading among today's twittering, digital-minded, and half-literate generation of students cannot be solved by the vaunted hypertext revolution in screenal reading practices as advocated in contrived and facile efforts like George Landow's influential "Hypertext: The Convergence of Contemporary Critical…

This commentary investigates the extent to which the control-value theory of emotions (Pekrun, 2006) is applicable in online learning environments. Four empirical studies in this special issue of "The Internet and Higher Education" explicitly used the control-value theory as their theoretical framework and several others have components of the…

The author reflects on how she has used technology as a language teacher since the mid-1980s. She describes the evolution of technology in language learning pre- and Internet tools, from "blended learning" to social media. She concludes with the telecollaboration projects she has been recently working on and the issues they have found…

While most in the academic community know about the attempt to rein in the for-profits, few are aware of its collateral damage. In October, the Department of Education (DOE) issued its Program Integrity Rules, intended to protect federal funds especially from those for-profit institutions with high student loan default rates. Well-intentioned…

Tony Bates is a world-known expert on distance education. He has published extensively on both traditional and contemporary distance learning practices. Besides teaching courses and delivering seminars in the area of distance education, he has also provided consultancy with a number of institutions around the world. These include both formal and…

This article describes how the author's skepticism about online education turns into belief when he teaches his own online course. Throughout the process of designing and facilitating his online course, he found himself slowly evolving from critic to champion of online education. Here, he shares the benefits of online learning.

Because the globalization of traditional research universities has so far been largely an elite phenomenon, for-profit higher education has become the kind of high-growth worldwide industry that would attract entrepreneurs. The for-profit sector, by contrast, has targeted a vast and vastly different student market: non-elite learners, often poorly…

This article presents an interview with Ken Udas, chief executive officer of UMassOnline. During the past decade, Udas has held leadership positions in online university initiatives and has served the field through his leadership in organizations including the Association of Public Land Grant Universities, EDUCAUSE, IMS, Sloan-C, and the American…

It is almost a foregone conclusion that the mobile device will become an indispensable tool for learning in the future. That's why "T.H.E. Journal" asked a number of educators to let their imaginations go wild and conjure up visions of the future of the device in the classroom. This paper presents the views of educators who conjure up the mobile…

In this article, the authors explore the following questions: How have Americans actually responded to these developments? Have they grown more supportive of the current direction of school reform, or are there instead signs of a backlash? And how do the views of teachers compare to those of the public at large? In addition to the views of the…

In both schools and homes, information and communication technologies (ICT) are widely seen as enhancing learning, this hope fuelling their rapid diffusion and adoption throughout developed societies. But they are not yet so embedded in the social practices of everyday life as to be taken for granted, with schools proving slower to change their…