Online Education, Growing Fast, Eyes the Truly 'Big Time'

Retrieved from [The Wired Campus] on 31/10/2009

http://chronicle.com/blogPost/Online-Education-Growing/8663/

*October 30, 2009, 04:23 PM ET *By Marc Parry

Orlando, Fla. -- Online education is a runaway best seller. Its growth rate -- 12.9 percent -- dwarfs the overall pace of academe’s student expansion. More than 25 percent of all students may have taken at least one online class this year, according to a speculative estimate suggested at a distance-education conference that wraps up here today.

But the success isn’t smashing enough. Not even close.

That’s the case made by A. Frank Mayadas, an Alfred P. Sloan Foundation program director who called on online educators gathered here to meet what he sees as a major need -- fast. And Mr. Mayadas, considered the Father of Online Learning, suggested in an interview following his speech that the government should step in with some $500-million to support traditional online courses -- not just the experimental “free” courses that have emerged as a darling of the Obama administration.

Questions of growth and scale were key issues for some of the 1,435 people who attended this year’s Sloan Consortium International Conference on Online Learning. The turnout, which included 170 virtual attendees, grew from last year’s 1,190 participants. That's a notable feat during a difficult time for academic travel and a period of transition for the Sloan community, with Mr. Mayadas stepping down and his foundation ending a grant program that has poured roughly $80-million into online education.

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