Public universities have a long history of adapting to technological change, but they must speed up their embrace of online education — and work together to do so — to remain at the forefront of educating the citizens of their states and the country, argues a new report from two Washington research groups.
Meanwhile Betsy Hammond of the Oregonian has a report on how online-ed companies are lobbying the Oregon legislature for more K-12 courses:
In Oregon right now, K-12 Inc., which operates the statewide online charter school Oregon Virtual Academy, has two lobbyists working the Oregon Legislature.Connections Education LLC, which operates the even bigger online charter Oregon Connections Academy, also has two lobbyists working to influence the legislature.
The legislators are in love with on-line, even for higher ed, presumably this lobbying s part of that. Ms Hammond had an earlier report on OSU’s “top ten” online ed programs. From what I can tell UO’s programs are in disarray. The SSIL lab has a program for secure testing for on-line courses – described well in UO’s latest accreditation report – but only a small minority of UO courses use it. 4/23/2013.
Legislators are in love with on-line because they have no fucking clue about education in general, much less on-line education.
I’m so glad we are getting an independent board because of course they will be much more knowledgeable about education.
Yeah, right. Phil Knight? Allyn Ford? And a bunch more athletic boosters. What are you smoking?
I was smoking sarcasm. Geez – that wasn’t obvious?
Dog to UOmatters:
is there anything at the UO that is not in some state
of disarray?
The weather. It’s gorgeous out there. Or at least that’s the way it looks from my office.
Looking ahead, I wonder how many UO Foundation board members will be serving on the future “independent” UO Board?
Online education for me is very beneficial.