IX Annual Worldwide Forum on Education and Culture

1-3 December 2010 in Rome, Italy




Dear Friends and Scholars,

We would like to remind you of the Call for Papers for the IX Annual Worldwide Forum on Education and Culture. You have one more week to send in your abstract. This year’s theme is “Uniting Cultures Through Education: Case Studies and Classroom Curriculum.” The major focus will be on practical applications and case studies for the classroom.

Deadline for all proposals is 21 May. We have already received more than 50 submissions, and we know of many others that will be coming in. Last year, we received 200 and could accept only 60.

There will be a welcome and keynote address on the evening of 1 December, followed by two full days of presentations and panels on 2-3 December.

We invite abstracts from all disciplines and on multiple levels. Please visit our website for complete details as well as an online submission form: www.theworldwideforum.org. We apologize in advance if you receive multiple copies of this message; we have sent the announcement to those who attended the congress in each of the previous four years.



Sincerely,


Bruce Swaffield
Founder/Director

Worldwide Forum on Education and Culture

Bruce C. Swaffield, Ph.D.

Professor, School of Communication & the Arts

Regent University

1000 Regent University Drive

Virginia Beach, VA 23464-9800

Phone: 757.352.4732

Distance Education's Rate of Growth Doubles at Community College

April 13, 2010, 03:54 PM ET
Distance Education's Rate of Growth Doubles at Community College
By Mary Helen Miller

Distance education is growing quickly at community colleges, according to the results of a study published by the Instructional Technology Council. For the 2008-9 academic year, enrollment in distance learning at community colleges grew 22 percent over the 2007-8 academic year, up from a growth rate of 11 percent in the previous year.

The Instructional Technology Council, which is affiliated with the American Association of Community Colleges, conducted its annual survey by e-mail and received responses from 226 community colleges. The 22 percent growth from 2007-8 to 2008-9 is somewhat higher than the 17-percent growth that the Sloan Consortium noted for all distance education from fall 2007 to fall 2008 in a recent report. Overall enrollment in higher education grew less than 2 percent during that time.

Fred Lokken, associate dean for the Truckee Meadows Community College WebCollege and author of the technology-council report, said he thinks that one reason distance education has grown more quickly at community colleges than it has in general is because community colleges are more enthusiastic about it than universities are.

Most respondents cited the economic downturn as the main reason for growth in online enrollment, and other respondents said that the growth was typical or was a result of new enrollment efforts. Community-college enrollment has increased in general with the downturn, and Mr. Lokken said that online courses are particularly appealing to people who are job hunting.

“They now see the online classes giving them the greatest flexibility, given the crises they’re facing their lives,” Mr. Lokken said.

The survey also found that for administrators, the greatest challenge in distance learning was a lack of support staff needed for training and technical assistance. In regard to faculty, the administrators who responded to the survey said, workload issues were the biggest obstacle. For students, the institutions' greatest challenge was preparing them to take classes online.

When distance education first became common about 10 years ago, completion rates for online courses were about 50 percent, but survey findings indicate that they are now up to 72 percent. For face-to-face learning, completion rates are only a little higher, at 76 percent.

Federal Agenda for Open Online Courses

From the Chronicle of Higher Education

April 12, 2010, 05:00 PM ET
Agenda for Open Online Courses Can Go Forward, Federal Officials Say
By Marc Parry

Washington ¬ Education Secretary Arne Duncan laid out the Obama Administration's open-education agenda in Politico last year: an ambitious plan to spend $500-million on developing freely available, high-quality online courses. This great course giveaway attracted both buzz and skepticism in education-technology circles.

It was all part of the president's landmark push to invest $12-billion in community colleges, a sum that got drastically reduced in the legislative sausage-making process that ended with an overhaul of the nation's student-loan system. So is the online agenda dead, too?

Federal officials insist it isn't¬although one community-college lobbyist is skeptical.

On a White House blog post about the Health Care and Education Reconciliation Act (HR 4872), which included the student-loan changes, Brian Levine, deputy domestic policy adviser to the vice president, had this to say about online education:

"The legislation provides new funding for community colleges to develop online courses, build partnerships with local employers, and take other steps to help students get the skills and credentials they need to succeed."

Pressed for details on Monday, Hal Plotkin, a senior policy adviser in the U.S. Education Department, confirmed that the specific plan to spend $500-million on online courses was stripped out of the bill. And "to my knowledge," he said, the bill that passed doesn't explicitly mention open, online courses.

"As the White House blog accurately states, however, this legislation does enable us to move forward with our plans related to open online courses," Mr. Plotkin said in an e-mail message.

Exactly how this might happen, and how much might get spent, is fuzzy. Mr. Plotkin suggested some money for online courses could come from $2-billion that the reconciliation bill did include for community colleges. The money, which Mr. Plotkin said is intended to help dislocated workers, will flow through the Department of Labor.

"The Department of Education and the Department of Labor are working now to collaborate on developing the most effective way to use those resources, and our expectation is that we will be able to move forward with the agenda that Secretary Duncan has previously outlined," he said. Including the open online courses? "Yes."

Before joining the Education Department last June, Mr. Plotkin worked as a trustee for the Foothill-De Anza Community College District in California and as a journalist whose lengthy résumé includes serving as a founding editor of the public-radio program Marketplace. His new portfolio includes open educational resources, and his remarks on that subject kicked up Twitter buzz during a talk at last week's meeting of William and Flora Hewlett Foundation grantees at Yale University.

In an interview, Mr. Plotkin confirmed one other tidbit that emerged during the conference. The Hewlett foundation, the dominant philanthropic player in open education, has entered into a formal agreement with the Education Department. "The department has accepted a gift of consulting services from the Hewlett foundation, which allows the foundation to provide us with advice and information as we move forward in this area," Mr. Plotkin said.

Before you get too excited, though, listen to another perspective on what's going on.

It’s "not inconceivable" that some of the $2-billion could pay for online courses, said David S. Baime, senior vice president for government relations and research at the American Association of Community Colleges.

"But it’s not at all the thrust of this," he said. "It doesn’t appear to be much the intent of this new program. And it’s certainly not at all what was envisioned in the $500-million open online program. Nothing like it."

Worldwide Forum on Education and Culture December 2010

Sessions or Panel Proposals

Conference Theme: Uniting Cultures Through Education: Case Studies and Classroom Curriculum



Worldwide Forum on Education and Culture December 2010





1. No Charge for Extra Pillows: Degenderization and Androgynous Socialization



This could be a panel discussion on the role of professional women globally and the concept "Are Women Persons?"

This could also be a cross cultural curriculum discussion on how women studies are handled cross-culturally, and the challenge of androgynous socialization.

I have started this research and do teach androgynous socialization concept in a Women's Study Course.



Sociologically the gender distinction does not exist, and person is defined as an individual human being with reference to her or his social relationships and behavioral patterns as conditioned by that culture.



The purpose of this paper is to open the door for "Instructional" models for collaboration in virtual worlds. Such a topic would generate interest in virtual collaboration. We would note global diversity, similarity, belief, misconceptions based on culture, language, experience, biblical concepts.



Such a proposal could change the nature of how women's identity courses are taught, and the possible consideration if we should be teaching individual gender descriptive courses. After all, we teach women's courses; should we identify male gender courses globally or should we be teaching "androgynous socialization?" Part of the research and presentation process would be to send a questionnaire to various participants asking their thinking and concerns on the subject.





2. "Heart over Mind" vs Mind over Heart



This is an extension of the presentation at the Forum, December 2009, where the discussion of "Heart over Mind" was well received and mentioned throughout the Forum.



This presentation will focus on the pedagogy of teaching in both dimensions, and take into mind, that many professors are truly regulatory oriented as to requirements for their classes. Is this universal on a global basis? What are the advantages and disadvantages of both concepts? Is one way better than another? How do colleagues view these concepts" Are they action oriented or philosophically oriented - another conference, another "wordy" discussion?" Is this what we should be looking at in higher education? Should students have more free will, more self authority as they handle their individual responsibilities? Should there be a Montessori method to higher education?



I feel this is a topic, continually in-process. Certainly, it does matter when one is discussing physics or another is discussing the state of health care, or does it? Should the issues of ethics, above-board negotiations and under-the-table negotiations be brought into such classroom and online discussions?



Why are there issues of unethical behavior and actions among students as they reach "maturity?" Are we as educators "missing the boat?" Do we need more understanding of "heart over mind," or must we become more authoritarian through mind over heart?



This presentation on a global basis could lead to newer development of such curricula. Part of the research process will include questionnaires sent out to educators on a global basis.



This presenter would welcome panel members who have diverse and challenging views.



Caroline S. Westerhof, Ph.D.

Mary's Ning Site

Check our Mary Springer's Ning site!

http://springer-hu300.ning.com

Resource for Twitter & HU300

Stephanie Litz shares this link regarding HU300 and folk music.

http://www.loc.gov/folklife/teachers/subjects.php

Stephanie Litz's Ning!

Look what Stephanie Litz is doing in her SS360 American Women's course! She's using Ning.com for her upcoming class. Take a look here:

http://kaplanamericanwomenlitz.ning.com/

UNC Humanities Conference

University of North Carolina is hosting an inexpensive conference next week called Collaborations: Humanities, Arts & Technology. Feb 16-20th.



http://www.chatfestival2010.com/index.html

NEH Institute

Greetings Faculty:



This is a great opportunity!





Dear Colleagues



We are writing to alert you to an exciting and intellectually

rewarding way to spend a month this summer. The Silk Roads: Early

Globalizations and Chinese Cultural Identities is a 5-week Summer

Residential Institute funded by the National Endowment for the

Humanities, and hosted by the Asian Studies Development Program, a

partnership between the East-West Center and University of Hawai’i.



This Institute will make use of the rich history and imaginaire of the

Silk Roads as a way of examining how global interconnectedness shapes

and is shaped by culture, focusing in particular on how China’s

complex relationships with other cultures—mediated by both overland

and oceanic “silk roads”—has been crucial to the emergence of

distinctively Chinese cultures over the last two millennia.



Dates: May 24-June 25, 2010

Deadline: March 2, 2010 (post-mark)



NEH Stipend: Participants will receive a total stipend of

$3900 to help meet costs associated with attending the Institute,

including travel, housing (East-West Center guest house), meals, and

required Institute texts.



Full program information and application procedures can be found at

the following hyperlink. If you encounter a problem in opening it,

please copy and paste the web address into your web browser.



http://eastwestcenter.org/?id=1268



Roger T. Ames, Academic Director



Peter D. Hershock, Principle Investigator

S&U 2010 Conference

The Department of Foreign Languages, English Section at the University of Vlora, Albania, is pleased to invite you to participate in its First International Conference on Language, Literature and Cultural Studies: The Said and the Unsaid. The conference will take place in Vlore, a beautiful coastal town in the southwestern part of Albania, from 11 to 13 September 2010. Please, visit the conference website (http://univlora.edu.al/fe/lang/al/konf/Home.html) for more information.

Isabel's AT&T Data-Connect Advice

While I'm not sure this is "blog" material, I just wanted to share with you that - after experiencing a semester of weather related internet interruptions, yesterday I subscribed to AT&T data-connect to assure I have a reliable internet backup in the case that I lose my regular internet connection. The service costs $35 a month (and there is a 2 year contract attached to it), but I think it is worth having to assure that we always have access to our classes regardless of weather emergencies. I know I am thrilled with the idea that I won't have to worry if my service goes out (15 minutes before seminar ;o), and wanted to share this with our team. Some folks may not be aware that this option exists and may appreciate the tip; I know I would.

Welcome Dr. Matt Emerson! Our New Assistant Department Chair of Humanities

It gives me great pleasure to welcome Dr. Matt Emerson to the Department of Humanities team. Matt joins us as the Assistant Department Chair of Humanities, joining Dr. Michele Hinton-Riley, Chair. Matt has previously served as a part-time faculty member in the humanities. Matt received his PhD from the University of California-Berkeley, and he has taught anthropology, history and archaeology at the University of California, Princeton University, Carleton College and Southern Illinois University(SIU). At SIU he was the director of a nationally certified archaeology field school. Matt’s administrative experience includes community outreach, university research & curricula review, retention & mentoring, off-campus program assessment, IT and facilities development and admissions.



Matt’s research interests include the archaeology of historic period settlements and the African Diaspora. His dissertation, Decorated Clay Tobacco Pipes from the Chesapeake, identified pipes recovered from seventeenth-century sites in Virginia as the earliest evidence of African craftsmanship in the New World. He continues to write about African influences in New World based on recent ethnographic work among the Northern Edoid speaking peoples in Nigeria, a minority group with a long history in the Atlantic slave trade.



Please join me in welcoming Matt to the team!

Welcome to the Humanities Blog!

Welcome to the Kaplan University's Humanities Department blog! This space will allow us to communicate with each other and share information quickly and efficiently right to your email. On the right we have links to our school's main page as well as our department's site. There are also links to three different Wikis where you can find resources and participate in discussions with other instructors in your field. We'll also use this blog to communicate current events in our department such as our Movie Club discussion.

Please take a moment to subscribe to the blog on the right. This will send updates directly to your email.