California Virtual Campus

A class at California State University, Long Beach has signed up to receive online tutoring in Chinese from eChineseLearning. The company, based in Beijing, provides Chinese language lessons for academic, business, and personal use through Skype. The program was piloted earlier this year by eight students in CSU’s Asian and Asian American Studies Department who […]

A new survey of students found that about a quarter of them reported hunting for an illegal copy of a textbook from pirate Web sites.
The survey was small—only about 500 students from two colleges—but it is one of several indicators that downloading unauthorized textbooks is becoming commonplace at college campuses.
by Jeffrey R. Young
Read The Chronicle […]

Cell phones have long been anathema in the classroom, banned as a potential distraction, at best, and as a possible vehicle for cheating, at worst. But lately, educators have begun changing their tune on mobile phones. Abilene Christian University will hand out Apple’s iPhone 3G smartphone to two-thirds of this year’s entering class of 950 […]

Teaching and learning have always had a collaborative element, but wiki technology has in recent years made collaboration central to the method of many educators. Since they can be edited by anyone with access to them, education wikis are ever-changing and evolving documents that ideally represent the wisdom of the student crowd. Teachers are constantly […]

The student textbook market will soon welcome another newcomer to the market in the form of a revamped Amazon Kindle, according to McAdams Wright Ragen analyst Tim Bueneman. If true, it will have to compete with a number of other digital textbook options, but has the potential to win students’ affections by changing the textbook […]

Taking a step that professors may view as a bit counterproductive, some universities are doling out Apple iPhones and Internet-capable iPods to students. The always-on Internet devices raise some novel possibilities, like tracking where students congregate. With far less controversy, colleges could send messages about canceled classes, delayed buses, campus crises or just the cafeteria […]

As more of the student population gets access to broadband connections, faculty at major universities are exploring how rich media and online interactivity can enhance, supplement, and even replace the classroom experience. In the latest development, a professor at the University of Texas at Dallas is going to experiment with replicating a graduate seminar online […]

And Then There Were Blogs
I have worked at Golden West College, in Huntington Beach for the past ten years as an Instructional Associate and more recently as on Online Instructor, which prompted me to return to school. So, this past January I decided to“dive in” and begin the pursuit of my Master’s Degree in […]

Starved For Time: Leave the Pencil and Paper Behind
By Philip Bogendyment
Philip teaches 4th grade at an elementary school in San Jacinto, CA and is presently completing his Masters of Education at California State University East Bay. He is convinced that online teaching and learning is effective and schools should put more effort into developing […]

I Just Like the Real Classroom
By Jodi Gootkin
August 4, 2008
After enrolling in the MS-OTL program at CSU East Bay, I enthusiastically revised my online courses to include best practices and constructivist principles. I felt like Kevin Costner in Field of Dreams. If I build it, they will come. But, will they like playing on a […]