Lots of cool kids are joining the street style game, but there are only a few that actually make us jealous. Case in point – Marika, a Finnish fashionista that snaps away with style on the gritty streets of NYC. Her  sequined skirt is an eBay treasure, and those boots are Swedish Hasbeens with jazzy custom ribbon lacing for that extra kick! And what better way to stay cool (or flag down another fashionista) than with the dramatically chic accordion fan?! Gotta give props where they’re due, check Marika’s great style site here.
E-classes click as options gow.(Magazine)
The Boston Herald December 2, 2001 | Gieseken, Carlos Higher education has joined shopping and banking as the Internet brings academia into the virtual world.
In the last few years, online education has boomed: The most recent federal survey of distance education in all guises estimated a 1.4 million enrollment in such college-level courses for credit. But that was in the 1997-98 academic year, and figures in the fast-growing field quickly grow outdated. Participation is in the millions, experts say.
About 75 percent of the nation’s established two- and four-year colleges and universities have some online presence – so-called brick to click, according to Robert Tucker of InterEd in Eagle, Idaho, which helps institutions enter the online market.
Online options include nonaccredited, quick-learning fun classes; traditional university courses; certificate programs; and coursework from Web-only universities such as University of Phoenix Online and Jones International University.
You can take courses in Braille literacy at Michigan State, Chinese law at Syracuse University and even aircraft drawing at the University of Alaska at Fairbanks.
Offerings from many schools make up the catalog of new entities such as Kentucky Virtual University, which provides links to online courses statewide and grants degrees, and Western Governors University, which builds degrees based on an individual’s career expertise and offers links to online courses nationwide. Last March, the nation’s 28 Jesuit colleges and universities presented all their online offerings through JesuitNET. this web site jones international university
With all the choices and flexibility, online distance learning has become a popular alternative for busy adults seeking continuing education.
Nancy Goldie of Framingham is one of 6,000 students taking classes at Jones International University, a completely online and accredited institution.
“I was working full time and raising a family for many years,” said the mother of three, who is working towards a master of arts in business communication. “Getting a master’s was something I’d put off.” As an independent meeting planner, Goldie finds that online learning fits into her work schedule as she plans expositions and conferences out of the office she keeps in her Framingham home. For the past two years, she also has spent 12-25 hours a week reading content, doing research and posting discussion responses for her online classes. Goldie said her decision to learn via her computer was a result of several factors, New England winters among them.
“The only program locally that had the degree I was interested in was Suffolk University,” she said. “The thought of having to leave to go take a class when it’s sleeting out is not very appealing to me.” In the typical online class, the professor posts a lesson online. The class then responds to the lesson in a discussion thread, which allows students to address both the professor’s content as well as the comments of fellow classmates. The advantage, said Rick Keating, who has been an online professor for Jones International as well as Northeastern University, the University of Massachusetts at Lowell and New Hampshire College, is that students can post their comments any time of the day or night, as long as it is done within the assigned period.
“You don’t have to meet at a set time,” said the former Air Force Academy English professor. “Posting to the discussion board is synonymous with class discussion.” The anonymity and flexibility of online classes has led some critics to contend that online learning is less rigorous than conventional programs. But such independence requires students to take more responsibility and do the work without the supervision that comes with attending a traditional classroom.
John Lavallee, director of Champlain College OnLine, based in Burlington, Vt., said that in a good online class there can actually be more interaction with the instructor.
Keating agrees. “The guy who sits in the back corner of the classroom with his baseball hat on, trying to look inconspicuous, is not going to make it in the virtual classroom because everybody must contribute,” he said.
According to Rose Doherty, assistant dean at Northeastern and director of liberal arts and criminal justice, online students are no less studious than their traditional counterparts.
“Our faculty have reported that the work done by the people in the online program is as good, if not better, than the classroom work,” said Doherty, adding that students are more accountable. “There’s no one there to give them a dirty look.” Northeastern University began online classes in 1998 with 20 students in two courses. Today the school expects more than 300 to 400 students to register for mote than 30 classes. site jones international university
About half of all colleges offer online alternatives for their students.
“Today, it’s not novel to have your courses online,” said Pamela Pease, president of the Denver-based Jones International University. “It’s expected.” JIU, a for-profit institution that boasts professors from top universities, was fully accredited in 1999 by the North Central Association, the same division of the U.S. Department of Education that accredits universities such as Northwestern and Purdue.
The growth of online learning has been fueled as more and more large corporations use the convience of distance learning to train their employees, according to John Chalykoff, the director of the master’s degree in information systems program at Boston University. Chalykoff is also the head of the BU-IBM E-Learning Program, which has trained more than 600 IBM sales representatives.
“One of the reasons people do this is to lower the cost of training,” Chalykoff said. The program started in September 2000 and has trained IBM sales reps from the United States, Asia and Europe, thus saving Big Blue airline and hotel expenses. BU is also in the early stages of discussion with several other companies, Chalykoff said, and the infant IBM program will only continue to grow.
“They’ve talked about putting thousands of people though this course,” he said.
But even enthusiastic supporters of online learning like Chalykoff admit the system has debugging ahead of it.
“As things shake out, you’ll find that there are faculty that are good at this and there are students that are good at this,” Doherty said. “And you will find that there are some students that are better suited for the classroom.” Online classes will not replace the classroom, Doherty said, but their usefulness cannot be ignored. “It is an addition,” she said, “a very necessary addition, especially for people who are adult students.” Web sites with class Here’s a sampling of local colleges that offer online learning:
Boston University College of Engineering: www.bu/disted/prospect.html Lesley University: www.lesley.edu/online(underscore)courses.html Massachusetts Institute of Technology: www-caes.mit.edu Northeastern University: www.nuol.edu University of Massachusetts at Boston: www.umassonline.net University of Massachusetts at Amherst: www.umass.edu/continued University of Massachusetts at Lowell: cybered.uml.edu Worcester Polytechnic University: www.wpi.edu/Academics/ADLN Bentley College: atc.bentley.edu/de/ Western New England College: www.online.wnec.edu/ Harvard University: www.distancelearning.harvard.edu For nationwide online learning sites, check out:
www.jonesinternational.edu : Jones International University is a for-profit institution with accredited and unaccredited courses.
capellauniversity.edu: Hundreds of courses, as well as advanced degrees are offered.
Uophx.ed.: The original “lifelong” university offers accredited degree programs designed for working professionals.
kaplancollege.com: Programs in law, nursing, educaiton, information technology and other fields are available.
Lifelonglearning.com: Its database has 9,500 distance-learning courses Hungryminds.com: Both credit and noncredit courses are listed.
Newpromise.com: This database of online offerings was started by Harvard and MIT professors.
www.geteducated.com/dlsites.htm: This site lists of online programs.
Caption: Nancy Goldie of Framingham finds the flexibility of online classes fits into her busy work schedule as a meeting planner.
Gieseken, Carlos
