New tools make online courses easier to access

Florida Virtual Schools announced built-in text-to-speech reader and other tools will be be made available for online students. FLVS courses will be updated to include a toolbar with read-aloud functionality, as well as study skills tools, a dictionary, English to Spanish translation, and a research tool for conducting web searches on any selected word. The read-aloud functionality allows students to click on a sentence to hear the content read aloud. As students hear a word read aloud, the word is simultaneously highlighted on the screen. These new technology tools will benefit online students especially the students with learning challenges.

New language learning systems target K-12 schools

Recorded Books, a publisher of K-12 curriculum and independent producer of audio books, has teamed up with Transparent Language, a provider of language-learning software, to introduce three foreign language-learning systems for K-12 schools: Transparent Language Premium Edition, Byki Online for Education, and KidSpeak.

Each system uses multimedia technology to help students rapidly acquire language skills and enhance foreign language instruction in K-12 classrooms. Transparent Language Premium Edition offers instruction in 16 different languages. Byki Online for Education offers practice and feedback for more than 70 different languages, including seven different languages for ESL students. KidSpeak offers 11 different languages: Chinese (Mandarin), English, French, German, Hebrew, Indonesian, Italian, Japanese, Korean, Spanish, and Portuguese. Know more about it here

Teacher Tube

TeacherTube is a You Tube based tool designed for teachers that allow them to share educational resources such as video, audio, documents, photos, groups and blogs. "as of March 2010, TeacherTube has over 525,000+ educational members and over 200,000 educational videos (Wikipedia)" Under Channels, you can find News and journalism, college and university, high school, middle school, elementary school, student products and subject categories like world language, fine arts etc.

Udemy-virtual learning and teaching tool

So many online learning tools are available out there, Udemy seems an interesting one. Watch the introduction video.

Udemy provides the basic tools so anyone can create their own online course in minutes on any subject they like. Educators can upload presentations, videos, and write blog posts for their online course.
Udemy also enables instructors to engage with their users, providing participants with the ability to “subscribe” to courses so they are more engaged. They can also ask questions via the discussion boards and publish links and comments on course to Twitter and Facebook. One of the most compelling features of Udemy is the live virtual classroom, where instructors can host a live video conference with students using Udemy’s proprietary live video technology. Udemy Live has a whiteboard, presentation viewer, chatroom, and file-sharing component. Over 10 videos can stream on Udemy Live and 1000+ users can watch a session. Read more from TechCrunch

Middlebury college aims online language program as a source of revnue

Middlebury College, a small Vermont college known for its rigorous foreign-language programs, is forming a venture with a commercial entity to develop online language programs for pre-college students. The college plans to invest $4 million for a 40 percent stake in what will become Middlebury Interactive Languages. The goals of doing this: It will help more American students learn foreign languages, an area in which they lag far behind Europeans; and it will give Middlebury another source of revenue. The price of the language class will be about $100.

Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation supports online education

Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation is giving $12.9-million to advance technology at community colleges, improving virtual learning environments for both students and teachers, according to Wired Campus. Here is how the dollars distributed.

Most of College Students To Take Classes Online by 2014

Nearly 12 million post-secondary students in the United States take some or all of their classes online right now. But this number will skyrocket to more than 22 million in the next five years, according to data released recently by research firm Ambient Insight. Now about 1.25 million students in higher education programs take all of their classes online, while 10.65 million take some of their classes online. The students who take all of their courses in physical classrooms are 15.14 million as of 2009. However, this situation will change by 2014, according to the research, by 2014 only 5.14 million students will take all of their courses in a physical classroom, while 3.55 million will take all of their classes online, and 18.65 million will take some of their classes online.
Read the full article by David Nagel.

According to the data released by the same research firm, More than 2 million preK-12 students take some form of schooling online right now, the number will jump to more than 10 million by 2014.

Online learning and futue of higher education

High costs maybe one of reasons that pushes students online. Read the article "the future of college may be virtual"

Today, a college education is more than twice as expensive as it was in the early 1990s, even after adjusting for inflation.

Colleges and universities already offer thousands of online courses to their registered students. According to one recent survey, nearly 4 million college students, more than 20 percent of all students, have taken at least one online course.

Online education is continually improving. It’s better now than it was 10 years ago. A study of 12 years of online teaching by SRI International on behalf of the US Department of Education concluded earlier this year that “On average, students in online learning conditions performed better than those receiving face-to-face instruction.”

openculture.com, is a website that points visitors to free educational courses online