Trends in U'S' Distance Education

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Trends in U.S. Distance Education
May 23rd, 2007 Cor Vink, President and
CEO Ashworth University
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U.S. Accreditation

• The Council for Higher Education
• Accreditation oversees accrediting agencies
• There are two versions of U.S. accreditation
• National and Regional.
• Only 6 regional creditors exist. Ashworth
• University is accredited by
• Southern Association of Colleges and Schools
  (SACS)
• The Commission of International and
  Trans-Regional Accreditation (CITA)
• 52 recognized National creditors exist.
• Ashworth University is accredited by Distance
• Education and Training Council (DETC).

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Who is ?
investment

• Nationally accredited correspondence and online
  learning company established in 1987
• Formerly
• Affiliates
• Offer the following types of education
• Career Diplomas
• Associate/Masters Degrees
• High School Diploma

74 Programs 400 courses
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Who is ?
Support an active student body of approximately
150,000 Enroll around 10,000 new students and
graduate 1,700 students every month Students
by Program Type
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The Accelerating Rate of ChangeWhat Can We do?
The world is too big for us. Too much is going
on, too many crimes, too much violence and
excitement. Try as you will, you get behind in
the race in spite of yourself. It is an incessant
strain to keep pace, and still you lose ground.
Science empties its discoveries on you so fast
you stagger beneath them in hopeless
bewilderment. The political world is news
changing so rapidly that youre out of breath
trying to keep pace with whos in and whos out.
Everything is high pressure. Human nature cant
endure much more!
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The Accelerating Rate of ChangeWhat Can We do?
Published date June 16, 1833
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Online vs. Offline

• Online education is characterized by the
  enrollment and delivery of the majority of course
  content online.
• Online students
• Communicate mainly electronically
• Desire speed and efficiency
• Are younger and more technologically savvy

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Online vs. Offline

• Offline education uses several formats including
  textbooks, CDs, satellite, and blended online.
• Offline Students
• Prefer traditional learning method
• Communicate primarily through mail and
• phone
• Generally an older demographic
• Minimal Technological Skills

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Online vs. Offline

• Online presence and preference
• 13 of Ashworth University students are studying
• for a degree or certificate online
• 50 of consumers who anticipate enrolling prefer
• online dominated instruction

Source Eduventures Expanding Demand for Higher
Education, Part 1. January 2006
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Enrollment Growth

• Total enrollment and online enrollment
• growth show larger for-profit sector
• growth than public and not-for-profit
• Enrollment growth for Ashworth mirrors
• the current educational standard of 2
• per year
• Distance education and Ashworth is well
  positioned within the interactive marketplace of
  the future.

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Who are the distance learners?

• 61 of For-Profit distance
• learners are Female, Ashworth
• shows a similar mix
• Average age of For-Profit
• distance education students is
• 25.7
• The distance education model of
• the future should complement
• the youth

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Who are the New Distance Learners?

• There are more Hispanics living in the U.S.
• than the entire population of Canada
• The Hispanic population will continue to
• grow by more than 1.7 million each year
• Ashworth recognizes the education/skills training
  gap created by the Hispanic population and has
  created courses to meet these needs.

Sources U.S. Hispanic Chamber of Commerce, Kagan
Research
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Choosing which programs to offer
Ashworth concentrates on areas where there is a
high consumer demand such as Business, IT, and
Healthcare.
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Increases in Internet Usage
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Increases in Internet Usage

• MySpace
• Over 106 million registered users
• If it were a country it would be the 11th largest
  in the world (between Japan and Mexico)
• Google
• Over 2.7 billion searches are performed each
  month
• 2nd only to Yahoo in top visited sites

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What are social networks?

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What are social networks?

• Networks that allow interconnectivity between
• web users and user generated content
• Self created, self organized, and self-
• perpetuated
• More than 90 of online youth use these
• networks
• 75 of online adults are now socially networking

Source Forrester 2007
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Dominance of Social Networking Sites
60 are P2P, eCommerce, or search social networks
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Can Social Networking help with content delivery?

• Traditional method only provides
• single to multi user interaction
• Limited by the bandwidth of the
• source

• Social Networking provides multi to
• multi user interaction
• Grows with each users contribution
• Collaborative interaction and student
• engagement

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Todays learner grows up with technology

• 68 of children under
• two will use a screen
• media for an average of
• 2 hours every day
• 70 of U.S. 4-6 year-
• olds have used a
• computer
• The new consumer
• market is innately suited
• for online learning

Source Kaiser Family Foundation
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Reach out to students using their channels

• Todays college graduate has spent
• Over 10,000 hours playing video games
• Over 10,000 hours talking on cell phones
• 20,000 hours watching TV

Sources Prensky, M. (2001). Digital Natives
Digital Immigrants and Interactive Videogames,
Mediascope, June 1996
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Cell phones connect us all

• Over 1.5 billion people in the
• world have a cell phone
• Text messages sent and
• received everyday exceeds the
• population of the planet
• Students have sent and
• received over 200,000 emails or
• instant messages by age 22

Sources Prensky, M. (2001). Digital Natives
Digital Immigrants. Prensky, M. (2004). What Can
You Learn From A Cell Phone?
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Using the mobile devices

• Text/Video Messaging (SMS) could be used for
• Pop Quizzes
• Student Polls
• Class Assignments
• School Bulletins
• Math experiments
• Science experiments
• Peer tutoring
• Study groups
• Class presentations

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iPods for more than entertainment?

• 90,000,000 iPods are in the
• world today
• Over 90,000 video/audio
• podcasts being served to
• over 1.6 million subscribers
• iPod Podcast Anytime
• Learning

Source Apple Press Release, January 17, 2007 and
www.feedburner.com
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Virtual Reality as an Education Tool?

• Set up a school building with all the
  interactive
• resources
• Conduct a class by using links, cached
• documents, video presentations, etc.
• Students can interact with each other in a
• commons area
• Second Life Educators community (SLED) was
• created to assist educators

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Who is on Second Life?
Examples include Coca-Cola, IBM, Thomson, Angel
Learning, and Ashworth University

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User Generated Content

• Wikipedia
• 1.7 million articles in English
• Articles in 10 different languages
• YouTube
• Hosts over 6 million videos
• Growing about 20 every month
• Total time users spent watching is 9,305 years!
• Distance education can use these resources to
  have virtual study groups or collaborative
  projects

Sources wikipedia.com, usenet.com, gadgetizer.com
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Blended Learning

• The student picks their preferred study method
• Ashworth University Provides the accreditation

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Summary

• Continual rise in enrollments for
  degree-granting
• institutions
• Internet networking technologies are being used
  for
• Social, Entertainment, Business, Family, and
  Healthcare
• We should use what is already out there
• Distance education must adapt and interact with
  the
• student on their preferred (online) environment
• With these web technologies the distance in
  distance education will become irrelevant.

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