The COVID-19 global pandemic necessitated a rapid transition to remote learning (synchronous or asynchronous) for higher education institutions. This paper documents lived experiences of this occurrence from the perspectives of a graduate student, an instructional designer, and a professor. There is discussion of strategies that facilitated a…

Associate Professor Dr. M. Murat Erguvan has 28 years of teaching and administrative experience in various countries and positions such as programme coordinator, dean, vice rector for education, research and/or external affairs. He has been with the International Black Sea University (IBSU), in Tbilisi, Georgia, a country located at the…

In this commentary, we discuss the impact of the COVID-19 global pandemic on Vietnamese universities and policy makers, paying particular attention to the growing appreciation for the merits of e-learning and related technology-based educational modalities. Some possible avenues for the adoption of e-learning in Vietnamese HE institutions in a…

There is a common assumption in education that lack of face-to-face instruction during COVID-19 will result in a learning loss when students return to physical classrooms. While some studies reported interesting results on learning loss, more research must be done to inform schooling practices. At a recorded webinar, learning loss was examined by…

In this brief article, Stephen Kotok discusses the impact of COVID-19 public-school districts across the U.S. and the shift overnight from in-person learning to remote learning in May 2020. Herein he argues that full-time remote learning is mostly devoid of genuine peer-to-peer interaction but acknowledges that it does introduce some supplemental…

The American dream--the belief that anyone is capable of upward mobility and a better life than the one in which they were born--is in jeopardy. According to Harvard economist Raj Chetty, American families are experiencing reduced upward mobility across generations. Education is the key to reversing the trajectory of upward mobility, imparting…

This memo, which is the seventh in the series, features an interview with the Director of Curriculum and Instruction at the Two Rivers Public Charter School in Washington, DC. Originally planned as a piece analyzing the long-term work of the school, this memo was redesigned to feature an interview highlighting how the school rapidly responded to…

This article presents an interview with Joe Freidhoff, the director of online learning research and innovation at the "Michigan Virtual University"[R] ("MVU"[R]), a nonprofit corporation in Michigan. He publishes and presents frequently in the area of K-12 online and blended learning research. Dr. Freidhoff completed his…

The author of this commentary states that, except for the scale, there is little novel about Massive Open Online Courses (MOOCs) because distance teaching courses have featured the same elements for many years. He notes the extreme view that MOOCs will destroy established universities, but asserts that this is a variation on doomsday predictions…

Russ Poulin is director of policy and analysis for Western Cooperative for Educational Telecommunications (WCET), the Western Interstate Commission for Higher Education (WICHE) Cooperative for Educational Technologies. He has been an outspoken advocate of treating distance education fairly in state and federal regulations. In recent years, he has…

Marcie Boucouvalas, Ph.D., having worked with an array of cultures and contexts, has served for decades as professor and program director of adult learning and human resource development, Department of Human Development, at Virginia Tech's Graduate Center/National Capital Region, offering master of science and doctor of philosophy degrees to…

The enthusiasm for digital learning is contagious. More than 2 million K-12 students are enrolled in online courses today, and research firm Ambient Insight projects that figure will hit 10 million by 2014. Will today's wave of technology inexorably change the face of schooling, or must school administrators first alter policy? This article…

In the title the author asked whether dual-mode institutions were a stable "final" model for higher education or a step on the way to something else. Only a few institutions seem able to function in dual mode (i.e. with distinct groups of distance and classroom students) in a successful and sustainable way. Some institutions now claim…

This article presents an interview with Hal Markowitz, a veteran distance educator whose experience in the field is both deep and broad. Building on bachelor's and master's degrees at the University of Florida and his doctorate at Columbia University, Markowitz served in leadership roles in several professional organizations and directed distance…

There is a dramatic shift in the tools that are used in today's technology-based distance education. While distance education is not new, there are new types of socially rich, mobile technologies that empower learners to be more in control of what they learn, when they learn it, and how they learn it. Students are taking more responsibility for…