(WBNG) -- The New York Hunter Education course is required to purchase a hunter license in the state.

It's typically offered in-person, but because of the coronavirus, it's now being offered online.

The online course cost $19.95, a new fee put in place by the software developer, which isn't required for the in-person classes.

"We are volunteers, we don't get paid, the DEC doesn't get paid, the only money they get paid from is when you go to get their license," said Broome County hunter safety coordinator Alan Hektor.

While the online class is convenient, hunting officials are voicing concerns about the course being offered in the non-traditional way.

"When we have the training here we do field work. We actually take the students out to the fire range, as you can hear in the background, and we let them shoot state guns," said Hektor.

Hektor says there are things he teaches his students hands-on during a typical eight hour course.

For example, loading your vehicle with your firearm or crossing a fence with your firearm.

Hektor says those field lessons are important for one reason.

"Safety. Our number one concern is safety for the hunter in the field," he said.

Hektor also says the instructors teaching the in-person classes have years of knowledge.

"Most of the instructors are old like myself. My father who is 96 and has been an instructor for 73 years. So we pass on our experiences to the new students," he said.

Having an instructor in the same room allows them to share some real-life experiences.

"People fall out of tree stands, you would not believe it. Experienced hunters, turkey hunters shoot each other. It's things that we pick up on and we tell them there's certain things they can do to prevent incidents," said Hektor.

The NYS Department of Environmental Conservation says the course will be available online until June 30.

For more information on how to sign up, click here.

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NY Hunter Education course being offered online - WBNG-TV

This article is part of our latest Learning special report, which focuses on the challenges of online education during the coronavirus outbreak.

A professor at Loyola University New Orleans taught his first virtual class from his courtyard, wearing a bathrobe and sipping from a glass of wine. Faculty at Lafayette College, in Easton, Penn., trained in making document cameras at home using cardboard and rubber bands.

Hamilton College, in Clinton, N.Y., set up drive-up Wi-Fi stations for faculty members whose connections werent reliable enough to let them upload material to the internet. And students in a musicology course at Virginia Tech were assigned to create TikTok videos.

The disruption caused by the coronavirus pandemic has prompted cobbled-together responses ranging from the absurd to the ingenious at colleges and universities struggling to continue teaching even as their students have receded into diminutive images, in dire need of haircuts, on videoconference checkerboards.

But while all of this is widely being referred to as online higher education, thats not really what most of it is, at least so far. As for predictions that it will trigger a permanent exodus from brick-and-mortar campuses to virtual classrooms, all indications are that it probably wont.

What we are talking about when we talk about online education is using digital technologies to transform the learning experience, said Vijay Govindarajan, a professor at Dartmouths Tuck School of Business. That is not what is happening right now. What is happening now is we had eight days to put everything we do in class onto Zoom.

There will be some important lasting impacts, though, experts say: Faculty may incorporate online tools, to which many are being exposed for the first time, into their conventional classes. And students are experiencing a flexible type of learning they may not like as undergraduates, but could return to when its time to get a graduate degree.

These trends may not transform higher education, but they are likely to accelerate the integration of technology into it.

This semester has the potential to raise expectations of using these online resources to complement what we were doing before, in an evolutionary way, not a revolutionary way, said Eric Fredericksen, associate vice president for online learning at the University of Rochester. Thats the more permanent impact.

Real online education lets students move at their own pace and includes such features as continual assessments so they can jump ahead as soon as theyve mastered a skill, Dr. Fredericksen and others said.

Conceiving, planning, designing and developing a genuine online course or program can consume as much as a year of faculty training and collaboration with instructional designers, and often requires student orientation and support and a complex technological infrastructure.

Not surprisingly, when we really do this, it does take more than seven or eight days, Dr. Fredericksen said wryly.

If anything, what people are mistaking now for online education long class meetings in videoconference rooms, professors in their bathrobes, do-it-yourself tools made of rubber bands and cardboard appears to be making them less, not more, open to it.

The pessimistic view is that [students] are going to hate it and never want to do this again, because all theyre doing is using Zoom to reproduce everything thats wrong with traditional passive, teacher-centered modes of teaching, said Bill Cope, a professor of education policy, organization and leadership at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign.

Undergraduates already seemed lukewarm toward virtual higher education; only about 20 percent took even one online course in the fall of 2018, the consulting firm Eduventures estimates.

Sentiments like these suggest theres little likelihood that students will desert their real-world campuses for cyberspace en masse. In fact, if theres a silver lining in this situation for residential colleges and universities, its that students no longer take for granted the everyday realities of campus life: low-tech face-to-face classes, cultural diversions, libraries, athletics, extracurricular activities, in-person office hours and social interaction with their classmates.

The beauty of a residential education has never been more apparent to people, said Michael Roth, the president of Wesleyan University.

But advocates for true online instruction say that students experience of taking courses on their own schedules over mobile platforms may come back to them later, when theyre ready to move on to graduate or professional educations.

Online higher education is a thin diet for the typical 18-year-old, said Richard Garrett, the chief research officer at Eduventures. But todays 18-year-olds are tomorrows 28-year-olds with families and jobs, who then realize that online can be useful.

Already, more than half of American adults who expect to need more education or training after this pandemic say they would do it online, according to a survey of 1,000 people by the Strada Education Network, which advocates connections between education and work.

It isnt entirely students who will move this needle, observers say. Its also faculty.

Even those who had long avoided going online have had to do it this semester, in some form or other. And they may have the most to learn from the experience, said Michael Moe, chief executive of GSV Asset Management, which focuses on education technology.

Along with their students, faculty were thrown into the deep end of the pool for digital learning and asked to swim, Mr. Moe said. Some will sink, some will crawl to the edge of the pool and climb out and theyll never go back in the pool ever again. But many will figure out what to do and how to kick and how to stay afloat.

If theres anyone whos banking on this, its the ed-tech sector. More than 70 percent of such companies have been offering products and services to schools and colleges free or at steep discounts this semester, anticipating sales later, according to the consulting firm Productive.

Cengage, for example, is providing free subscriptions to its online textbooks, and says it has seen a 55 percent increase in the number of students who have signed up for one. Coursera is providing 550 colleges and universities with free access to its online courses.

Administrators and educators are reframing their attitudes, said John Rogers, education sector lead at the $5 billion Rise Fund, which is managed by the asset company TPG and invests in ed tech. That really is the difference-maker. The pace of adoption of those tools will accelerate.

People resist new ideas until external shocks force them to change, said Dr. Govindarajan, who cites as an example the way World War II propelled women into jobs that had traditionally been done by men. We are at that kind of inflection point.

Faculty, he said, will ask themselves, What part of what we just did can be substituted with technology and what part can be complemented by technology to transform higher education?

Universities should consider this semester an experiment to see which classes were most effectively delivered online, he said big introductory courses better taught through video-recorded lectures by faculty stars and with online textbooks, for example, which could be shared among institutions to lower the cost.

Students who want classes best provided face to face, such as those in the performing arts or that require lab work, would continue to take them that way.

Lets take advantage of this moment to start a larger conversation about the whole design of higher education, Dr. Govindarajan said.

We had better not lose this opportunity.

This article was published in cooperation with The Hechinger Report, a nonprofit news organization that covers education. Sign up for its newsletter.

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Will the Coronavirus Forever Alter the College Experience? - The New York Times

Every morning, Michelle Martin-Sullivan rises with her toddler and begins her biggest task of the day: making contact with all her students, who are scattered among the foothills of rural eastern Kentucky. Some she calls by phone, others she chats with over text, and some she sees in class on Zoom.

Like teachers across the US, Martin-Sullivan is working remotely, and the transition has proved difficult almost everywhere. Rollouts of online portals have been plagued with technical issues in many districts, while others have struggled to distribute devices like laptops and iPads amid shortages from suppliers.

For Martin-Sullivan, though, the issues often go deeper than teaching itself. Many of her students are essential workers at stores like Walmart and have begun picking up extra shifts to support their families. Other students, as well as some teachers, dont have internet access at all.

Teachers have been conducting their phone calls and check-ins with students from random parking lots, like church parking lots, the Walmart parking lot, [or] just anywhere that you can get wifi, she says.

The results of these struggles with distance learning will remain unclear for some time. Many standardized tests have been delayed or canceled, which means school districts wont get data on their students progress.

On this episode of Reset, we explore how the pandemic might affect students going forward, and how long those effects could last.

According to Matt Barnum, a national reporter for the education news site Chalkbeat, traumatic effects have big impacts on students lives, both on how much they learn and long-term factors like college enrollment rates and income.

Theres this idea that children are resilient. Theyll just bounce back from whatever you throw at them. And from a research perspective, thats just not the case, he says. We know that things can affect students, both good or bad. We know that early trauma can affect students for bad. We know that a high-quality teacher or access to early childhood education can affect students for good in the long term. So I think its not unreasonable to think that this is going to have long-run negative effects.

Still, there are ways that policymakers can decrease these negative impacts, as Barnum explained. Research shows that one easy way to help students catch up is to add extra instructional time to the end of the school day or make the school year longer.

We have evidence from research: There is a study in Florida that when low-performing schools extended the school day, students did better on state tests. We have another study in Louisiana showing that summer school helps students who are struggling in reading, he says. And so it just makes a whole lot of sense that if you want to make up for missed instruction, you should just make up for missed instruction.

For students who have struggled more than their peers, some experts have suggested that the federal government should fund an army of recent college graduates to tutor students with the added benefit of helping prop up a dismal job market.

Finally, students will also likely need emotional support when they go back to school. Aside from the interruption to their education, they may know people who got sick or died from Covid-19.

If schools want to hit the ground running academically, they also probably need to be thinking about addressing the trauma that students may have faced. Presumably the best way to deal with that is to have trained professionals in schools, who can work with students to talk this through and support them in this, Barnum says.

Whether government officials will take any of these actions remains to be seen. But policy options that can help students through the pandemic exist. The question is mostly whether governments especially during a massive economic downturn will make them happen.

Subscribe to Reset on Apple Podcasts, Stitcher, Spotify, or wherever you listen to podcasts.

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At home, Bryce (7) and Beck (5) Machacek officially begin the McFarland School Districts Distance Learning program, which was implemented in response to COVID-19 pandemic-related school closures, on Monday, March 23. Madison Metropolitan School District students are expected to begin a virtual learning program April 6.

STEVENS POINT A few items from a journal

As for many in these times, emails and phone calls have arrived from near and far. Family, friends, business associates and news sources over the years have reached out.

One came from Charles Wurster, a scientist who had a pivotal role in Wisconsins efforts to ban DDT in the 1960s. Wurster lives in Maryland, but Wisconsin is close to his heart. He was angered when we held an election during the pandemic, endangering lives and making a mockery of democracy. Trumpublicans want a Trumpublican dictatorship, he wrote. They want as few voters as possible, and the virus is helping them. I hope Charlie is wrong, but April 7's gruesome deed makes one wonder.

Up on Vancouver Island, British Columbia, Canada, Wisconsin native Patrick Herzog sends along his recipe for strengthening the immune system. Herzog, a wildlife biologist, author and educator who has spent most of his adult life in Canada, knows something about the topic. Twenty years ago, he was stricken with an aggressive form of leukemia, requiring a long-shot experimental treatment regime. He survived, and he told the story of how nature helped him heal in an inspiring 2017 book, Tiger, Tiger: A life Restored by Nature. He says folks in his rural setting have been quick to comply with Canadas stay-at-home advice. His own cancer regime required the same of him. I, of course, have been through the self-isolating gig before, one that was indeed a means to health and future life, he said in a recent message.

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Bill Berry: Online education, immune boosters and an election: More COVID-19 journal entries - Madison.com

The plan was solid, but its execution began as a dumpster fire.

Thats how Stefan Troutman, an instructional coach at Moses Lake School District, described it: plagued by tech glitches, his effort to host daily online check-ins for district staff went south quickly.

But in the weeks since schools closed statewide and at this rural school district 180 miles east of Seattle, Troutman and his colleagues began to figure it out. Every weekday morning, roughly 100 educators get online for a new ritual: to swap online learning tips and motivate each other to keep experimenting and finding new ways to serve their 8,700 students.

As school districts grapple with the fact that education wont resume in person this school year, Moses Lake and others across Washington are taking seriously their mandate to find creative virtual solutions. Getting students laptops and internet access were the first and easiest steps many made since school buildings have closed, though its unclear how many students still lack devices.

What districts do next to transform their curriculum will dictate whether children slide backward. Students already behind because of systemic inequities may slide the most.

While Washington requires school districts to teach remotely, districts arent mandated to track student attendance or individual teachers instructional plans so its hard to say, definitively, how its going. Some districts immediately distributed laptops and began online instruction, but others, such as Seattle Public Schools, first delivered devices weeks into the states mandated closure.

Students in low-income families and those who are homeless are less likely to have an internet connection, let alone basic needs such as food and shelter. And children who need extra attention, because theyre learning English or have a disability, for example, are fighting for the services schools promised them.

Online schooling has a mixed reputation. Its marked by the failures of several for-profit virtual schools and credit recovery programs. But experts say online education is now at an inflection point. Going online is no longer a choice, and schools have been thrust into a grand experiment that could transform forever how learning virtually is done.

In Moses Lake, the daily online meeting is an important part of that. At 9 a.m. on Monday, teachers and staff were getting pumped up.

No thumping music. No jumping jacks. Just pure, earnest praise to get hyped for the week. We are doing it, and were rocking it, a district instructional coach said. Troutman is the master of ceremonies. From his living room at home, Troutman casts to YouTube a livestream of these impromptu professional development sessions. The goal up until now has been survival, Troutman said. But the conversations were about to start having are, how do you redefine your lesson?

Teachers in Moses Lake and beyond are learning by trial and error: Many are teaching over video platforms, while others are sending students recorded lessons. Some are printing out materials to drop off at students homes.

Teachers are all being thrown into this, said Gary Miron, professor of education at Western Michigan University. It doesnt mean they are all going to act responsible and be totally prepared to switch and start testing ideas. But it gives us an opportunity right now with this crisis, if we can, to start considering new models for instruction.

Existing research on best practices in online learning will only get educators so far. When you are being asked to implement online learning in the way our research suggests you should, but you are being asked to do that in a 12-day period, thats nearly impossible, said Annalee Good, co-director of the Wisconsin Evaluation Collaborative at the University of Wisconsin-Madison.

There is no single set of practices that will fit every school district, she added. What matters most, she said, is each districts context and preparedness.

The evidence machine

Its been a decade since anyone took a hard look at online education. Back then, researcher Barbara Means and her colleagues compiled studies from 1996 to 2008 at the request of the federal government, and compared how people fare when taught face-to-face, online only, or some combination of the two. A blended form of learning won out a model that cant work now. But perhaps more interestingly, Means found, very few studies looked at online K-12 education. Most focused on college.

A decade later, federal officials are launching a follow-up. And theyre in a big hurry.

This is one of the rare occasions where there has been a simultaneous crisis of this type where rigorous evidence is needed by everyone, all at once, said Matthew Soldner, commissioner at the National Center for Education Evaluation and Regional Assistance, an arm of the U.S. Department of Education. What is something we could do to fire up the evidence machine really, really quickly and see what can be done?

The answer: a meta-analysis similar to Means study. This time, officials are crowd-sourcing the studies they include. Theyre hoping to reduce the time it takes from the typical 18 months to roughly 2.5 to winnow and analyze research that meets a rigorous set of criteria. They hope outside research teams will be enticed to do a deeper dive into the studies and glean sets of best practices.

Techniques used by online-only schools might be appealing, but experts urge caution: Taking up the methods of such schools likely wont work for most public school districts. Online schools often employ too few teachers (sometimes 1 for several hundred students) and pay them poorly, Miron said. Students often dont get to know their teachers, and vice versa. Its failing because its geared toward profiteering, he said.

Many online schools have a poor track record. Kevin Huffman, former commissioner of the Tennessee Department of Education who tried to take down a virtual school run by a controversial company called K12 Inc., said that school had a high attrition rate. For those who stuck with it, their first-year results were abysmal compared to their typical public school peers, he said. Theres a massive learning curve, which we dont have time for right now, Huffman said.

Public school districts, in contrast, have a lot going for them. They typically have lower student-teacher ratios, and relationships between children and their teachers are already formed, Miron said.

While federal officials continue their research, experts such as Miron and Means suggest researchers and school districts collect data now.

If we knew some schools did A in the spring and some schools did B in the spring, then we could look at the aggregated data and try to tease out what were some of the more effective practices, said Means, who is now part of Digital Promise, an education nonprofit in Washington, D.C. We dont want to punish students or teachers because of what happened this spring. But we do want to learn from this experience.

Absent hard data on what works and what doesnt solutions are beginning to bubble up from inside online classrooms.

More than a device

Every weekday morning, Kathleen Claymore, a culinary teacher at Moses Lake High School, launches a Zoom room for her students. She mutes herself, but leaves the video on. Students can come and go as they wish, hang out and work together, or request help. Its just for them to see your face, she said.

Access to technology is an important first step, but its not everything Good said. Even having a laptop wont bridge the digital divide. In communities where most families live in poverty and many are learning English, as is the case in Moses Lake, teachers will need to find unique ways to keep students in attendance and engaged.

The type of regular, quality interaction that Claymore offers is important, experts say.

Moses Lake is well positioned relative to others across Washington: School officials gave Chromebooks to all students as school closed, and many teachers have some facility with digital learning tools. But about 65% of the districts students live in poverty. To acknowledge that many need extra help, administrators set up tech sites for students with broken or lost equipment. Staff deliver replacements to students without transportation. Teachers such as Claymore are finding ways to make lessons flexible.

Claymores assignments double as a way to ensure her students are eating regularly. If students need ingredients for a recipe, Claymore provides them. And instead of running her classes in real time, Claymore posts lessons to Google Classroom. Many students wouldnt show up if she hosted lessons live: Several assist their parents in nearby fields or spend their days caring for younger siblings. But Claymore said shes pleasantly surprised that about 65% of her 135 students have been handing in assignments.

Washington may also learn from other high-poverty districts that are further afield. In Milwaukee Public Schools, staff are considering how an online learning program they launched about five years ago, called Telepresence, could be used more broadly during coronavirus closures. High schools that cant offer a whole suite of Advanced Placement classes let students take them virtually from teachers at other Milwaukee high schools. A 2019 study of the program suggests that boosting teachers professional development, and providing ample resources for students without technology at home, are critical for making such online programs work.

These takeaways are particularly important for districts as they consider how to serve students with few resources or support at home, or those in special education. A few major school districts, including Los Angeles Unified are trying district-wide online learning programs, though early reports suggest many students are failing to participate.

Many Washington families report their children are not receiving special education services theyre entitled to; as of April 10, state officials had received at least five formal complaints about special education services.

Officials here could take notes from schools such as Utah Schools for the Deaf and the Blind, which serve about 4,000 students with disabilities and offer several forms of remote instruction. One lesson: not everything can be accomplished online, but that doesnt mean you should give up.

Michael Berger, a teacher who works with visually impaired and blind students aged 3 to 5 there, filled green plastic bins with paper lesson plans and supplies for each of his students when he learned Utahs schools would close. He regularly swings by his students homes on a recent Friday, he donned a mask and spent three hours dropping off supplies on their porches. Batteries for one child whose assistive technology device went dead. For a student without internet at home, an iPad preloaded with videos of himself teaching new lessons.

Berger also teaches his students during brief, individual weekly online sessions.

His personal takeaway: Parent involvement is huge. How are [the children] going to engage with me over a camera and my voice? Parents have to be very hands on with them during the lesson, he said.

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There's no roadmap for teaching online, so Washington's teachers are creating their own - Seattle Times

DC DISPATCH-It was only a few weeks ago -- although it now seems like a different age -- that I began preparing my return to graduate school using an online distance learning platform rather than an in-person classroom.

At the time, I detected bias against Internet classes as being somehow lesser than in-person sessions, and even found myself explaining that there were also on-campus requirements and the entire educational world was headed toward a hybrid, campus-and-online future.

What a difference a few weeks has made, in so many ways. The COVID-19 pandemic has changed the paradigm of how we think about online education, as millions of students from elementary school to graduate school have experimented and realized this is a viable alternative to crowded in-person classrooms. The pandemic threat has compelled hundreds of colleges and universities nationwide from USC to MIT to close their classroom doors and shift instead to online education.

The question is, when the age of COVID-19 passes, how many of these schools will shift back to in-person education after millions of students have seen firsthand the potential benefits of the online education alternative. Any lingering confusion or stigma about online classes is quickly being erased, as students from elementary school to medical school are now getting their education over the internet instead of in person.

Make no mistake, the virus has changed American education forever and the biggest misconception is that we are quickly transitioning into a temporary fix. College campuses will eventually re-open and students will return to mostly in-person instruction, but their distance learning experience willleave lasting impressions -- either good or bad, depending on how well they and their educational institutions adapted to the new model.

A recent story in The Washington Post, It Shouldnt Take a Pandemic: Coronavirus exposes Internet inequality among U.S. students as schools close their doors, illustrates the chaos. The Post reported on a teacher at Knox College in Galesburg, Ill., who asked her liberal arts students, how they would feel if instruction next term shifted online. The Post reported that in response, she heard a wave of concerns from her class students didnt like message boards, they werent sure where they would live, they werent clear what they would eat, and they were concerned about issues of technology. She also noted also noted that some of the students use smartphones, not desktop computers, to access online assignments.

Yet, the use of smartphones is another reason the advances in distance learning will stick. It shows that, really, this future was already well on the way.

Even K-12 students were typically accessing some aspects of education online, albeit homework and school communications. Those systems were ill suited to adding classes, but they are being pressed into service. Indeed, even commercial workplace services like Zoom are being applied to education.

So now, millions of students and their families who would have given little thought to distance learning are arranging at-home desks and logging on. Even this most basic acceleration comes with a full measure of chaos, especially in K-12 where economic disparity and the digital divide more often collide, but this is a shared national experience like few others. Only weeks ago, distance learning was being marketed in terms of cost savings for prospective students, realistic mid-career alternatives for at-home parents who need to care for children, continuing careers while earning degrees online, and expanded access in under-served communities that lack on-campus educational opportunities at all.

Now in this time of pandemic, by giving millions of students a way to continue their education without classroom learning alongside dozens or hundreds of strangers, distance learning is saving lives.

The long-term distance learning future is easy to see, even if the timetable remains unclear. Just this month, the U.S. Department of Education announced it would allow schools to use online learning techniques without having to go through the usual approval process.

The next phase of the distance learning acceleration will be the migration away from the stop-gap chaotic systems adopted in haste and by necessity by educational institutions nationwide into organized, structured platforms designed to take advantage of online learnings upsides while minimizing the downsides.

In this respect, the colleges, universities, and programs that already have established online programs will have a clear head start and be best positioned to benefit from the heightened awareness of online educations potential advantages.

The program Ive applied for, the Masters of Science in Integrated Design, Business and Technology, already illustrated the hybrid dynamic, promising that students work closely with peers, professors and industry and field experts to apply the skills and knowledge they gain in real-world scenarios the online learning environment, as well as in-person residency experiences, allow us to facilitate this dynamic and engaging experience. I received my formal acceptance letter last week and am thrilled at the prospect of returning to my Alma Mater.

The USC online management partner for years has been 2U, a Maryland based company that has been partnering with colleges for more than a decade and counts more than 70 universities in its portfolio not the stuff of chaos hodgepodge and an example that the future was already here for some of us.

The COVID-19 pandemic has forced all of us to adapt in all kinds of ways but in rare instances, to learn and grow as well. Millions of students of all ages have had the enforced opportunity to discover the possibilities and alternatives that distance learning can present.

Its hard to see any silver linings when youre social distancing in your basement, but at least this is one.

(SaraCorcoran is publisher of the National Courts Monitor and writes for CityWatch, Daily Koz, and other news outlets.) Prepped for CityWatch by Linda Abrams.

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Of Pandemics and Paradigms: How COVID-19 has Transformed Perspectives on Distance Learning - City Watch

GODFREY - Lewis and Clark Community College has been honored to serve and be a part of the communities that make up District 536 for the past 50 years. The college district was given the opportunity to purchase the historically significant Monticello College campus in 1970. The all-female college was established in 1838 and saw its last graduating class in 1971. The Monticello College Foundation continues to support Lewis and Clark today through financial contributions and scholarship support.

Although 2020 hasnt shaped up to be the 50th anniversary celebration we envisioned, were here to weather the storm alongside our communities, and were reinventing ourselves to serve our students and others in a time of great need.

The college is currently conducting instruction online, in lieu of face-to-face meetings, and preparing for online instruction through the summer. Weve added extra supports to help transition academic and student services to a virtual environment to keep our constituents safe and at the same time, empower students to overcome obstacles and achieve academic success.

Current students will soon be able to access more than $1 million in emergency federal aid to help with education and training at Lewis and Clark through the CARES Act. The Lewis and Clark Community College Foundation is also raising money to create a Student Emergency Relief Fund for additional support.

The college strives to be a good neighbor and community partner as well. We are working with our area healthcare providers to understand their needs at this time and to develop ways we can be a support for those on the front lines of COVID-19.

We are proud that many of those on the front lines are Lewis and Clark alumni nurses, EMTs, paramedics, law enforcement, firefighters and more all working harder than ever to keep our communities safe. Were beyond proud of their contributions and honored to call them fellow Trailblazers.

We know that many in our communities are struggling and perhaps rethinking their future in the wake of this pandemic. Lewis and Clark is here to help.

Students eager to retrain quickly or join the workforce sooner can earn a certificate or a degree and get started in a new career in just two years or less. Transfer students can save an average of $18,396 on their bachelors degree if they come to Lewis and Clark for two years before moving to a four-year institution.

In addition to numerous two-year transfer degree options, Lewis and Clark also offers more than 40 career and technical education programs from Dental Hygiene to Truck Driver Training. Many of our career programs offer students the opportunity to earn competitive salaries upon completion of their certificate or degree. Starting salaries for some programs can be as high as $50,000-100,000 annually. We also offer adult education programs and other non-credit continuing education offerings for everyone from infants to senior citizens.

April is Community College Month. Now more than ever, Lewis and Clark remains committed to making high quality education and career training opportunities not only affordable, but also accessible, to any and all students who wish to pursue their dreams or change their course in life.

Although our campuses remain physically closed, Lewis and Clark remains focused on providing our district residents with these valuable academic and training opportunities. We are here for you during these very challenging times, and reaffirm our commitment to helping our community heal during and beyond this pandemic.

We look forward to the day we can reopen our campuses and welcome everyone back. Until then, we encourage everyone to continue to stay home and stay well during this time.

On behalf of the entire Lewis and Clark Team, we thank the community for its continued support of Lewis and Clark. We look forward to serving you now and in the future.

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April is Community College Month and Lewis and Clark is Reinventing Itself in its 50th Year to Reach Students Through Online Education in the Face of...

Every student can excel in a distance education course, especially at a university with established infrastructure and experience. Source: Bay Ismoyo/AFP

Students pursuing distance education are turning to digital platforms more than ever before, surpassing its traditional correspondence methods.

Research has assessed the capability of online, or e-learning, against more traditional teaching mediums. The benefits of online education stretch far beyond student experience alone, producing graduates who are not only literate but fluent in the most cutting-edge technologies.

One of the most influential studies derives from the US Department of Education. In its report, the Department notes that students who took all or part of their courses online performed better than those who took the same course solely in a traditional face-to-face environment.

On top of this, distance education gives students the chance to sculpt their degree around existing work commitments and future aspirations for a much more affordable price.

Thats why, in the words of educational technology expert Elliot Masie, We need to bring learning to people instead of people to learning.

Here are three leading US providers of online and distance education for your consideration.

UNM online programmes promise flexibility without compromising quality, empowering students with the same graduate outcomes found on more traditional degrees. Courses are offered in a flexible eight-week format, five times per year. Attending UNM online means you have the freedom to earn your degree while you continue to manage the demands of work and family obligations.

At UNM Online you will access course content and interact with peers through a range of multimedia technologies. Every module is delivered in its own unique style, blending to create a study experience free from global boundaries and borders.

UOs Distance Education is accredited by the Northwest Commission on Colleges and Universities (NWCCU). Online courses are offered for a wide range of disciplines, giving students the chance to earn a degree from anywhere with an Internet connection.

The university employs powerful web-based tools to elevate the learning experience. Courses are presented via the Canvas course management system, while some require students to take in-person, proctored exams.

UOs Distance Education programmes stick to the same term schedule as on-campus courses, and credits are awarded in the very same way. One thing that sets UO apart from both regional and global competition is that there is truly no difference between the online curriculum when compared to a classroom-based course.

OSU Online, ranked as the top Online Undergraduate Programme by US News and World Report, prepares all student participants for lasting career success. Here, exceptional members of faculty prepare you to tackle some of the worlds most pressing issues, placing you among like-minded individuals whose potential knows no bounds.

5 major benefits of online learning

A day in the life of an online student

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3 leading online and distance education providers in the US - Study International News

Universities should charge less for online education and weave collaborative learning into their virtual courses or risk dismal completion rates, according to the founder of a low-cost, online university.

Shai Reshef, president of the California-headquartered University of the People (UoPeople), said he feared that moving [education] online without the right systems and expertise may result in a similar outcome as massive open online courses (Moocs). A2013 studyfound that the average completion rate for Moocs was 6.8 per cent.

All universities are now moving online. But they dont really know what theyre doing, Mr Reshef said in an interview withTimes Higher Education. It reminds me of the Moocs era, where they videoed the professor and believed that was the answerI certainly hope that the experience the universities offer their students right now will not ruin it for them.

Mr Reshef added that some universities are already talking aboutpotentially not opening [their campuses]next year and UoPeople was the natural answer for any displaced students or any institutions that wished to enhance their online offering.

UoPeople, which launched in 2009 and relies on volunteer instructors, is a non-profit online university aimed at disadvantaged students from around the world. Tuition is free but students pay $100 (81) for each exam they sit, taking the total cost of an undergraduate degree to $4,000.

The institution has 31,000 students, 7,000 of whom started this month, and is recruiting 1,000 volunteer instructors. Mr Reshef said that it had seen unprecedented growth from students in China, Japan, South Korea and Italy, many of whom have been laid off and are pursuing degrees to aid future job searches. He expected enrolment to grow to 40,000 by September and 80,000 a year later.

Mr Reshef said that the success of his institution was partly down to pedagogy centred on peer-to-peer, interactive learning. He also recommended that traditional universities charge less for their online courses because the cost of online is a fraction of the cost of traditional face-to-face teaching and were going to have an economic crisis following coronavirus.

Almost every university in the Western world has some courses online, if not full degrees. The challenge, though, is that many of them charge the same amount if you go online or if you do it face to face, he said.

It may be that some universities will say: every year you take x courses, 30 per cent of them will be online, and well reduce tuition by 25 per cent. I think some will go even further and say: study the first two years online and then come to campus for the final two years. Others will just do what we do and go all the way online.

Mr Reshef added that UoPeople had opened up its courses to students at other institutions and offered to train academics on how to deliver their courses online.

Im somewhat worried about the future of online, because if [universities] do it wrong the students will suffer, they will all hate it and then they will decide online doesnt work. My interest is to show them that online is great, but do it right, he said.

Is Mr Reshef concerned that the rapid shift to online education will threaten the USP of his own institution?

If one day I wake up and see that our model worked and all the universities of the world opened their gates to everyone and all the students in the world are being served, I will wake up that morning with a big smile, go back to sleep and probably wake up with another dream, he said.

ellie.bothwell@timeshighereducation.com

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Online university head fears students will 'suffer' from shift online - Times Higher Education (THE)

Dont tell my 11-year-old son Im holed up in my room, pondering whether people are hoarding Ding-Dongs and reclaiming my laptop from his desk. Its a common theme during this COVID-19 pandemic: adults told to work from home are losing their minds as they fight for devices and bandwidth while helping their children learn remotely. At last count, at least 124,000 K-12 public and private schools in the U.S. were closed for in-person schooling, affecting more than 55 million students.

As many have said, this isnt home schooling, where parents prepare ahead of time to teach their children. We talk about virtual learning, said Celeste M. Malone, coordinator of the school psychology program at the Howard University School of Education in Washington D.C., but this is emergency distance education.

How families feel about this upending of school rhythms depends on many things their job situation; the impact of the virus on their circle of loved ones; the content their school is providing; the time and tools they have for online learning; and even how many kids they have and their ages and learning needs. Its one thing to comfort a 16-year-old who is self-directed. Its quite another to help multiple children under 10. Then there are people whose children have special learning needs and often need more intensive support, like my son, who has Down syndrome.

This has prompted the expected outpouring of internet memes and horror stories about stepping out of the shower just as your child comes running with the iPad featuring his entire class on Zoom.

There is another line of thinking, though, that Ive seen circulating on social media or blogs that doesnt sit right with me. It goes something like: This is too much, for families and for schools, and Im not participating in online learning. People will emphasize how much learning and wonder can take place simply by cooking together or doing crafts and art. This is true, as long as parents have time for that. And no one can argue with a familys decision to put less emphasis on academics to focus on survival, especially in the midst of job losses or health concerns.

But underneath some of these arguments is the implication that public schooling is like a sour-tasting medicine being thrust upon us by overzealous educators, when in fact it is one of our most precious civil rights. We owe it to all children, but especially to students of color, those living in poverty or students with disabilities, to hold schools to high standards and look at how educators are making remote learning work.

No one knows yet what distance learning approaches might lead to the best student outcomes, but the research arm of the Department of Education is synthesizing data from families, educators and researchers. In the meantime, schools need to address equity of access first. A Pew Research study from 2018 found that about 15% of U.S. households lacked high-speed internet access, with disparities more pronounced for those with low incomes or who are black or Hispanic. Schools have made major efforts to get students connected, but heartbreaking stories still abound: eager students who have devices but no internet, or others who painstakingly type out assignments on smartphones because thats all they have.

Everything were saying is an issue has always been an issue, said Malone. Ive had longstanding issues with schools doing heavily online communication or using the web to submit work just because this is the wave of the future and people need to keep up. Now were seeing there are real issues and parents arent just being oppositional.

Some districts took weeks to implement formal distance learning, providing printed review packets until they were able to figure out how to supply food to families who qualify, and then how to distribute tens of thousands of loaner devices or get children connected to Wi-Fi.

Offers of free Internet service from local providers dont work for families whose living situation is fluid or who live in rural areas, so many districts are focusing on mobile hot spots, setting up Wi-Fi inside school buses or encouraging people to use school parking lots. In addition, districts including Los Angeles Unified, the countrys second largest, and Dallas ISD have partnerships with PBS stations to livestream programming and communication.

At Baltimore County Public Schools, where almost half the students qualify for free or reduced-price lunch, Ryan Imbriale is the executive director for learning technology. He said his district was able to hit the ground running because theyve had a learning management system in place for seven years, along with continual professional development. The district is also mailing out paper packets to those who need them. When we come out on the other side, he said, we want to know that all of our kids are engaged.

In the meantime, he said, the focus on technology is paying off. (Students in grades 6 to 12 already had school-issued laptops.) When you get all of these middle school kids in a virtual room together, Imbriale said, its really powerful to see the connection they have with each other and their teacher."

An emphasis on professional development is key, said Joseph South, the chief learning officer for the International Society for Technology in Education, or ISTE. One of my big concerns, he said, is that were going to establish a baseline of what remote learning looks like that reflects essentially one or two days of educator learning.

Thats not what it could or should be, he said. The educators I know are trying to come up to speed, learning three or four systems, translating face-to-face teaching to online, learning how to communicate and then send assignments its a crushing workload, he said.

Teachers are also spending more time communicating with students. A recent survey from EdWeek Research Center found that 74% of all teachers communicated with most of their students either weekly or daily as of April 8, compared with 52% in late March.

Though this is a lot for teachers, its good news for those concerned about students basic needs. A crucial element of feeling emotionally safe is feeling connected with your school community, said John B. King Jr., a former education secretary who now leads The Education Trust, a nonprofit focused on educational equity. He said schools in the Phoenix Union District in Arizona started an effort called Every Student, Every Day, where staff connect with every student to identify challenges and offer support.

The relationship between teachers and students is the true core of education, King said, and efforts like holding virtual educator office hours, is another way to get it right. Great teachers and great schools can make all the difference for kids, King said. By the time I was 12 years old, I lost both my parents to illness. And I can unequivocally say that my teachers saved my life.

Sergio Garcia, the principal of Artesia High School in Los Angeles County, is also prioritizing outreach. I reached him through Karin Chenoweth, writer-in-residence at The Education Trust, who is producing a series of podcasts on extraordinary educators during the pandemic. Garcia said every student and parent at the school, which is 80% Latino and had a graduation rate above 98% last year, has his cellphone number, and theyve been checking in often. A lot of districts are doing enrichment activities only, Garcia said last week. We are continuing to educate. Last year, every senior applied to college.

Staff and counselors checking on students have discovered a trick to reaching those who dont respond: Text them after 9 p.m. If you send them a text at that hour, he said, a 30-second response is a long time. During the day, he said, a large majority are caring for siblings or have other responsibilities.

A willingness to meet families where they are is appreciated by parents, especially those lifting mountains to help their kids. Ay-Shia Baldwin-Jacobs works full time as a manager for Chick-fil-A in the Charlotte, N.C., area. Drive-through and delivery business is booming, so shes an essential worker. Shes been taking her 8-year-old daughter, Malene, with her to work, where her shifts sometimes start at 7:45 a.m. and end at 6 p.m. Malene works on a laptop and her mom sets alarms so she can run over to assist her for a few minutes at key times.

Baldwin-Jacobs is happy with how accommodating her daughters second-grade teacher has been. She brought my daughters work to my job one time because I dont have a car, Baldwin-Jacobs said. At first, she was worried her daughter would lose ground but said teachers at the school, part of the Charlotte-Mecklenburg system, are very proactive and very involved with all of their students. If Malene cant make it to the classroom Zoom session, the teacher will meet with her another time.

Delivering instruction remotely to very young children presents a unique challenge. They are sometimes pre-literate and it requires a much greater amount of parental involvement, said South of ISTE, which is another equity issue not often discussed. More affluent parents are in a better position to assist their children than lower-income families.

Schools seem to recognize that, and many are either not grading or are using a modified grading or credit system. Malone agrees with that approach, because were not grading based on learning, were grading based on other factors like access and space to work. But teachers should still be giving feedback so children can learn, she said.

The experts I spoke with were also very concerned about students with disabilities falling through the cracks. It isnt easy to deliver certain therapeutic supports online or to connect with students who have language impairments. Im pleased with what our public charter school is doing for my son; he loves being on Zoom with his general education classmates or special education teachers.

But some schools and parents are feeling at a loss. Educating All Learners, a new online resource from a consortium of technology innovators and disability groups, is hoping to be part of the solution. The site curates resources, hosts forums and has practical case studies. Saying, We dont know how, or We cant do this is not an acceptable response to the education of complex learners, said Erin Mote, executive director of InnovateEDU, a founding partner.

As with most things in education, it ultimately falls on individual teachers to save the day. Larry Ferlazzo, a teacher, author and blogger for Ed Week, hosts a series of podcasts about teaching during the pandemic. One of the first episodes featured four teachers from around the country.

They said their students uniformly craved connection and told them they wanted to get back to school. David Sherrin, a social studies teacher at Scarsdale High School in Westchester County, N.Y., found a silver lining: We now know for sure, he said, that the way we were doing school was the best way it could be done. Face-to-face learning, that is where education really happens.

He advised other teachers to focus on bringing joy. The more we can make the work joyful and creative, said Sherrin, who wrote a book about authentic assessments, that will be one of the most meaningful things we can do for them.

Vicki Vila is a freelance editor and writer in Charlotte, N.C. She wrote this column for The Dallas Morning News.

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