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Welcome to the Online Education Success series of the Explorations
Learning Network!
Thank you for joining me.
Hi, I'm Avi Anderson and this
is the Explorations Learning Network
[music]
This is the first in a series of 22 episodes that we'll explore
everything you need to know to be successful in an online training,
online course, or even, an online degree program.
In this series we are going to answer the following questions:
What is eLearning and how does it work?
Is eLearning only for high school and college students?
What are the advantages and disadvantages of eLearning?
What are the essential components involved in online learning?
What do I need to know to successfully complete an online class?
Rather than try to answer these questions now
I want to talk about why we decided to produce so many episodes addressing
these five questions.
Simply -- technology...
Many of our parents and grandparents grew up in what was often referred to as the
Post-Industrial Age...
the period of time right after the Industrial Revolution -- you know... when we were
building railroads, factories, electrical power plants, steamships, and eventually airplanes.
We've entered a new age.
Actually -- two ages,
the Information Age and the Digital Era.
Because we're in the middle of these periods they aren't clearly defined.
Everything we're doing is affecting our lives and is shaping our world
and it all centers around what we like to call technology.
In many cases technology makes our life easier
but technology is also changing rapidly and along with it
more information is being created every day.
Hence -- the Digital Era and the Information Age.
In 2001, the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development,
published a report on Literacy in the Information Age -- The Final Report of the
International Adult Literacy Survey.
This report was published as part of a 40 year study
of more than twenty countries.
The study looked at how adult literacy is influenced and how it influences our
global society.
Before we look at what the survey discovered,
we need to know what they mean by "literacy"
here's their definition:
The ability to understand and employ printed information in daily activities
at home,
at work,
and in the community to achieve one's goals and develop one's knowledge and
potential.
This includes skills in reading,
writing, and mathematics.
Here's what they found out...
At least fifteen percent of people in Australia,
Belgium, Canada, Chile,
Czech Republic,
Hungary, Ireland, New Zealand, Poland, Portugal,
Slovenia, Switzerland, the United Kingdom, and the United States
Yep, That's Right! The US of A!
At least fifteen percent of the population of each of those countries
are at the lowest level of literacy skills.
What's even more shocking
As much as seventy-five percent of people in those countries,
Yes, even America,
only have half of the literacy skills necessary to meet their needs.
This compares with other studies that indicate that half of the adults in the
United States are reading at
or below a sixth grade reading level.
The survey indicates that one solution to overcome this problem is regular
and consistent education
both at home
and at work.
The survey also indicates that having greater literacy skills improves your
chances of being employed in a higher earning job
and decreases the chance that you may be unemployed.
But it doesn't stop there
Countries with higher
literacy rates also tend to have better health,
better public services,
and higher levels of civic participation.
Basically,
the more you learn the better your life will be.
But wait..! there's more..!
The results from the survey also indicate that many sectors of business and
industry have a greater reliance on technology.
That means that in order to keep your job
or get a better job you're going to need to know
how to use technology
and continue to learn new technology as it develops.
Remember were talking about the Information Age. So
why do you need keep learning? Well let's look at the statistics:
Some estimates indicate
Todays highest demand jobs
didn't exist five years ago.
Not at all,
five years ago,
they werent even there!
By the age of
fourty, most adults in the United States will have had between ten and fourteen jobs
In addition, we create
and store twice as much information each year as we did the year before
All this information is great but not only do we need to learn it, we need
to store it and be able to access it.
We produce so much
information that all the space needed to store this information is creating problems
Be aware, Information stored in the Cloud is actually stored in thousands
of computers housed in hundreds of buildings
all over the world and we are running out of space.
Why?
Well here's a few reasons from a recent article published in the Economist on
Managing Information:
In 2000, the New Mexico telescope,
a part of the Sloan Digital Sky Survey, collected more information in the first few
weeks of operation
than had been photographed
during the entire
history of modern astronomy.
By 2010 it had collected 140 terabytes of
information and
when the new Large Synoptic Survey Telescope in Chile comes on line in
2016 it will collect
that much information every
five days.
Everyday Wal-mart gathers customer information that is equivalent to more
than 167 times the amount of books
in the Library of Congress.
Facebook stores
40 billion photos.
In fact... new research is looking at ways to store digital information in DNA
strands.
Educators,
policy makers, government officials, and scientists are worried about how
we'll train existing and new workers.
In order to meet the growing demand for processing all of this information
our education system has to use online learning.
And even though online learning is extremely convenient
getting started requires a bit of an introduction.
So... the policy makers at the Department of Labor and the Washington State Workforce
Training and Education Coordinating Board
along with educators and instructional designers from colleges
and universities throughout Washington State
decided that it would be helpful to have an online workshop that provide people
with the tools necessary
to succeed in an online class.
And this series was born.
At first we thought it would be easy,
until we discovered, that from a student's perspective,
there's a lot you need to know before you can just jump into online learning.
So... please take the time watch all our videos in this series
and... if you're taking the associated online course
follow along with the instruction and do your best
I'm sure you'll succeed!
The Explorations Learning Network is a production of Clark College
and is sponsored through generous donations and the support of students
and faculty
Mark Gaither is our producer and director and this episode was sponsored by a
Department of Labor grant administered by the Washington State Workforce
Training and Education Coordinating Board
The Workforce Training and Education Coordinating Borad is a partnership of
labor, business, and government dedicated to helping Washington residents obtain
succeed in family wage jobs while meeting employers needs for skilled
workers.
I'm Aviance Anderson for the Explorations Learning Network.
Advancing learning for the Information Age.