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I am writing to you today from lovely Idaho. Apart from information about trout and the Snake River, what else did I read this week?
Online is cheaper than rent
The Academica Group and the Canadian Digital Learning Research Association (CDLRA) offered an amuse-bouche of survey results this week on Canadian students’ views of online learning. Preferences were predictable: most students favor a mix of on-campus and online, with only 26% preferring exclusively on-campus courses and 9% exclusively online. One finding stood out, though, some students’ preference for online learning is driven in part by housing costs.
When asked about the factors that influenced their needs and preferences around course delivery, students cited several challenges, including:
* Needing to accommodate competing life priorities (65% strongly agree or agree)
* Cost savings (60%), and
* The difficulties of finding affordable housing close to campus (46%).
One could argue there’s quite a bit of unhelpful overlap in that question. Still, it reflects recurring concerns about accommodation costs for students in major urban areas in Canada and Australia.
The item on tools used in classes made me want to see the full survey rather than the highly abridged version on the website.
According to the survey results, the most common technologies that students used in their courses during the 2024-2025 academic year were:
* Online quizzes and polls (65%),
* Recorded lectures for later viewing (65%),
* Online platforms (LMS) for interaction between instructors and students (56%),
* Online tools to ensure academic integrity (50%), and
* Online platforms (LMS) for the purpose of student-to-student interactions (43%).
A couple of observations:
