Friday Follow Up

Half a decade ago, international online students, Dept of Ed org charts and what to watch for data

Was this forwarded to you by a friend? Sign up, and get your own copy of the news that matters sent to your inbox every week. Sign up for the On EdTech newsletter. Interested in additional analysis? Try with our 30-day free trial and Upgrade to the On EdTech+ newsletter.

Not All Anniversaries are Happy

We’re nearing the five-year anniversary of our first Covid coverage at On EdTech with this post highlighting the multi-phase nature of the shift to online learning.

As dozens of colleges and universities canceled face-to-face classes and moved to online delivery of these classes since March 9th (i.e. not the same thing as intentionally-designed online education), the US postsecondary system appears to already be entering the next phase.

Phase 1: The Rush to Zoom

Phase 1 could be considered as all-hands-on-deck, do whatever you can to have some educational presence for all classes online. Commenters have rightly pointed out that students’ and educators’ health and safety are more important than worrying about quality course design or even equitable access. In the EdTech world, think of this phase as Put everything on Zoom and worry about details later. Substitute Microsoft Teams or Webex or Collaborate for Zoom, as so many instructors opt for the comfort of synchronous video discussions to replace the face-to-face experience. [snip]

At the same time, it has become quite apparent this week that any view of these emergency shutdowns and online migrations as only taking a few weeks is mistaken. We are likely at the point where the full spring term for both semester and quarter-based institutions will be delivered fully online, if at all. And there are plenty of scientific analyses suggesting that the disruptions will last at least until late Summer.

International Online Students

In our latest Online Across the Atlantic podcast episode, we covered international online students and how the base assumptions for schools wanting this population are quite different than for international on campus students.

In that episode I mistakenly referenced an MIT study from 2016 on the Georgia Tech Online Masters of Computers Science (OMSCS) program, when I should have specified a study from a Harvard researcher that compared student populations for the online and the on-campus programs. Mea culpa. At least I got Cambridge, MA right.

Subscribe to Premium to read the rest.

Become a paying subscriber of Premium to get access to this post and other subscriber-only content.

Already a paying subscriber? Sign In.

A subscription gets you:

  • • New content 3-4 times per week
  • • Shared Q&A discussions
  • • More coming soon