After schools closed in March of 2020 due to the COVID-19 pandemic, students, families and teachers had to shift learning from in-class to online. But the switch to remote learning was hasty and disorganized in many school districts. Families struggled with the technology and coordinating schedules at home, while teachers tried to shift the…

This Forum explores what the Association of Theological Schools (ATS) has been learning about formation in online contexts through the Educational Models and Practices project. Deborah Gin's opening essay briefly enumerates operating assumptions, several widespread misconceptions, and emerging recommended practices. G. Brooke Lester proposes a…

Distance learning, whether completely remote or in combination with classroom experiences, can pose challenges for teachers, students, and families. Pre-assessment to plan instruction can help guide the instructional planning process and improve the distance learning experience for students with disabilities, as well as for other students. This…

Distance universities excel in using digital media technologies for content delivery and collaborative interaction to compensate for limited face-to-face opportunities. Now that an ever-growing variety of media technologies, devices, and services are flooding the market, possession of expertise about the educational opportunities of these…

In sub-Saharan Africa, the COVID-19 pandemic continues to have far-reaching consequences for 550 million children under the age of 18. This UNICEF Child Alert examines how the disease and measures put in place to contain it are impacting the lives of children across the region, exacerbating existing threats like conflict, climate change and…

Administrators at many colleges and universities have had online courses at their institutions for many years, now. One of the hidden challenges about online courses is that they tend to be observed and evaluated far less frequently than their face-to-face course counterparts. This is party due to the fact that many of us administrators today…

This paper provides information about noncredit instruction in the California Community Colleges and updates the 2009 paper "Noncredit Instruction: Opportunity and Challenge" to incorporate subsequent changes from the last decade. Since the passage of SB 361 (Scott, 2006), noncredit instruction has seen significant changes, including the…

"Alabama Education News" is published monthly except for June, July, and December by the Alabama Department of Education. This publication, authorized by Section 16-2-4 of the "Code of Alabama", as recompiled in 1975, is a public service of the Alabama Department of Education designed to inform citizens and educators about…

It's been a rough time for the image of K-12 virtual education. Studies in Colorado and Minnesota have suggested that full-time online students are struggling to match the achievement levels of their peers in brick-and-mortar schools. Articles in "The New York Times" questioned not only the academic results for students in virtual schools, but…

This article discusses the role of open and distance learning to widen participation and promote social inclusion within Australian higher education, as well as the benefits that open educational resources (OER) could bring to that context. It also explores some of the most relevant social inclusion policies and related initiatives developed in…

This article discusses in its first part three common misconceptions related to the operation of distance education providers in the digital age: The tendency to relate to e-learning as the new generation of distance education; the confusion between ends and means of distance education; and the absence of the teachers' crucial role in the…

With universities, teacher education institutions, and high schools gearing up heavily in online course delivery in every discipline, science educators specifically are asking themselves "How do we provide this access to our students and still maintain our pedagogical integrity in science instruction?" This question seems to be at the heart of a…

Although university-level distance education often sets itself up in contradistinction to conventional educational provision, the thinking most distance educators is framed by a set of un-stated axioms that derive from the conventional system. This axiomatically framed approach to university education at a distance may well blunt the potential for…

Internet technologies blur the distinction between distance learning and traditional learning by enabling the convergence of these two, thus causing confusion in widely-accepted definitions, terminologies, concepts, and theories on distance learning. This paper introduces an e-education framework with three reference models in order to reduce the…

What is the capacity of online programs? Can these types of programs enroll more students than their face-to-face counterparts or not? This article looks at research on achieving cost-efficiencies through online learning, identifies the parts of an online program that can be changed to increase enrollments, and discusses whether a program's…