Affordable eLearning / Instructional Technology online programs

Hi all!

My company is probably going to enter the e-Learning field sometime in the future and I am looking for some DL courses, for me and maybe some of my colleagues, that would give us a solid background on the major issues of developing and administrating e-Learning programs.

I have already found a number of these programs (more like gazillions of them), some of which I like, but before I do any further planning I would like to have your input as well as I have probably missed something.

So, the ideal program should look like

- For academic credit. Graduate preferred, but undergraduate will also do. If the school has a Master's program that the grad cert ties into nicely, even better.
- Has to award some sort of a formal certificate, endorsement i.e. a paper no matter what they call it
- Number of credits can vary
- Has to be online (no correspondence courses)
- Should be affordable, or better yet, cheap. By affordable/cheap I mean under $200 per semester hour credit, but I will consider those more expensive depending on the number of credits required for completion
- Does not require GRE for entrance (most of them don't anyway from what I've seen)
- university should be RA if in USA, or have appropriate accreditation if somewhere else. If someone knows of a nice UK Master's program that has a PgCert or PGDip option, that would be great too. Canada, Australia etc. are also acceptable but I believe it's harder to find nice deals on tuition for non-residents in those countries

If you know of a reasonably priced program that satisfies at least most of the conditions above, I would appreciate your input very much!

What I'm considering so far (not all of these satisfy all the conditions above):


http://www.cel.cmich.edu/teachonline/

http://scs.indiana.edu/nc/decert.html#cost

http://www.uel.ac.uk/uelconnect/distance_learning/module_info/alt.htm

http://extension.ucsd.edu/programs/index.cfm?vAction=certDetail&vCertificateID=132&vStudyAreaID=8

http://unex.uci.edu/certificates/education/teaching_online/

http://www.extension.ucr.edu/certificates/technology_in_education/requirements.html

 

I believe these classes are in a classroom and not elearning or distance learning. I am pursuing a certificate through UCR Extension (very slowly - tuition at UCR is not cheap).

 

Hi Ian, thanks for responding.

I admit I didn't check if all the classes for that certificate at UCR are available online. However, it seems to me all the courses in the certificate program that are currently offered are offered online as well as in-class or only online. Others are not offered at all at this time, so I'm guessing when they offer those there's a good chance of them also being available online.

Seems to me only these 3 are currently offered though:

https://onlinereg.extension.ucr.edu/unexreg/OR_Classschedule.CourseDescription?pSessionID=3FC1A7E0502CBD6E9CAFD626A6858FC40000000019801302&pCourseID=1320

https://onlinereg.extension.ucr.edu/unexreg/OR_Classschedule.CourseDescription?pSessionID=56E17600D566937EBBD8FA636C32D38F0000000019801307&pCourseID=1321

https://onlinereg.extension.ucr.edu/unexreg/OR_Classschedule.CourseDescription?pSessionID=9D9B8B549087C0D85CB2F552930286390000000019801312&pCourseID=2390

 

Thank you for this reminder to post about my experiences with the CMich cert program!

I am almost finished the Central Michigan Online Instruction certificate, we're currently in week 4 (the last week) of the course. I am not a teacher myself. (Well, other than Sunday school on weekends, which carries its own unique set of challenges!) It seems like this certificate is tailored toward teachers who are currently teaching in traditional B&M settings but are interested in teaching online as well. That said, there's certainly valuable content here even for non b&m-teachers.

Personally, as someone who's never taught online before (and only even taken a few distance courses myself) a lot of it seems like common sense, but it has helped me to think more deeply about how people can and should teach and learn online.

It's not a particularly difficult program, but I am taking the $295 not-for-credit version, which consists of weekly readings (it takes maybe 10 minutes to read each week), posting on the discussion board, a multiple choice quiz (which is open book and quite easy) and a group project. The for-credit version also requires additional work, ie a weekly journal and a final paper (5-10pgs). Either way, it's much less intensive than most online courses, hence it's single credit value (and cost).

Overall it's a decent short program, but I don't think it would be sufficient to train non-teachers to teach online. For your company, assuming they have little or no previous teaching experience, you'd probably want something more substantial. However, if they DO have previous significant teaching experience, it may be worth it.

 

Oh and since we're talking about UCR.

I don't know much about UC Riverside, but I am actually quite fond of the UC Extension system based on what I have seen so far. Take for example UC Berkeley Extension where I am currently taking one class.

- Flexible enrollment
- Tuition is actually not too much considering the Berkeley name
- They offer some certificate options
- They are quite clear on which of their professional credit-bearing courses are on the post-graduate level

Actually my option 1 at this time is the 1-credit certificate from CMU (next time they offer it) for the certificate and two more classes, 5 credits total, from UC Berkeley Extension (unfortunately they don't offer a certificate)

http://extension.berkeley.edu/cat/course149.html
http://extension.berkeley.edu/cat/course570.html

UC San Diego also seems nice and cheap and well-rounded but if I remember correctly they are not that explicit about the level of their professional credit courses. I could be wrong.

Has anyone had any experience in transferring any UC Extension professional-credit courses into a Master's program somewhere?

 

Hi emmzee!

Thanks for all the information.

As far as my company is concerned, we've been in the education business for 7 years now and we're actually quite good at it in the traditional classroom setting. We're actually providers of IT courses, so I guess most of us would be quite comfortable in using IT for distance teaching / learning, we are already using DL for some of the labs, and the course materials for some of the courses are provided online.

However, we would need to see which areas in DL teaching would require us to adjust our methods and generally get an overview of the methods, issues and possible problems. I do agree that the 1-credit certificate seems a bit short, so I was also considering complementing it with some more classes taken somewhere else.

Oh, and by the way, some other courses I was considering. I know there is talk of Sweden making internationals pay for tuition, but I believe if they pass that law it would not be implemented till 2011 (from what I've read here), so there's a whole year left in the worst case. I'm actually enrolled in two courses at two Swedish universities at this time and so far I can't say anything but good things about DL in Sweden.

Anyway, here are the courses:


http://www.umu.se/english/education/courses-and-programmes/course?code=6IT040
Action Research Project 2.0, 7.5 ECTS
This course will focus on putting ideas in action through conducting an action research project that involves the application of resources and tools which utilise Web 2.0 and social software applications by integrating them into the design and development of teaching situations, pedagogical activities and learning environments.

http://www.umu.se/english/education/courses-and-programmes/course?code=6IT039
New Technologies of e-Learning 2.0, 7.5 ECTS
The course will focus on the design, development and evaluation of teaching, studying and learning processes that are supported by the use ICT and contemporary digital media applications.

http://www.umu.se/english/education/courses-and-programmes/course?code=6IT000
Social Software and Web 2.0, 15.0 ECTS
This course will offer students the opportunity to consider how such social software applications can be used to support teaching and learning.

http://www.umu.se/english/education/courses-and-programmes/course?code=2PE023
Global Perspectives on Education, 7.5 ECTS
The aim of the course is to make students knowledgeable about perspectives that influence education globally.

 

This is almost ideal...

http://extended.nmsu.edu/academics/otl/index.html

...except for this:

http://www.nmsu.edu/~uar/schecosts/schcosts.htm

I'll still send them an e-mail to check.

Program originally found on this thread from 2005 by Ted Heiks. Thanks Ted.

 

http://www.ce.csueastbay.edu/certificate/online_teaching/index.shtml

This is nice.

I'll just have to go through Ted's list one by one, many links are no longer valid and the tuition has gone up on some (all?) universities, but some of those programs are probably still around.

 

Boise State has a very affordable graduate program that looks excellent. I've just come home from a Seahawks game and I'm beat, but I'll look up the website tomorrow.

 

Great info!

Certificates are 9 credits. Transferable into their Master's programs.

http://edtech.boisestate.edu/web/certificates.htm

http://edtech.boisestate.edu/web/tuition.htm

So $3132 plus any additional graduation fees etc. Nice.

 

Yes, plus their football team humiliated the Oregon Ducks the second consecutive year last night.

As for the program, I like how everything is presented. They really seem to be trying to make this an accessible, affordable quality program.

 

Unm - olit

Try University of New Mexico. They have many good programs in Instructional Technology and Organizational Learning.

 

More of a soccer fan myself, but they don't seem to have a men's soccer team. On the other hand, Boise seems to have a decent Bosnian folk dance group, so that's a plus too. Small world, eh?

Back on topic, they are definitely going onto my list.

Thanks!

http://www.unm.edu/~olit/cert_elearning.html
http://distance.unm.edu/index.cfm?fuseaction=centerinfo&center_del_code=ONLINE

And of course the standard NM goodness:

So 12 credits, $233.20 per credit. Transferable into their Master's. Very cool.

 

College of Southern Nevada offers an undergraduate certificate in Online Teaching. Do you think an undergraduate certificate would be beneficial? They offer courses at a reasonable price too for out-of-state students.

http://www.csn.edu/pages/2271.asp

 

Very nice find, thanks!

Oh, I got the response from NMSU as well.

 

That school is ridiculously inexpensive, how do they do that? I'm paying $380 instate and UNDERgrad!

 

Well, Western New Mexico University has even lower tuition rates for non-residents taking up to 6 credits.

New Mexico as a state seems to be a place of cheap higher education.

 

Joint certificate in e-learning design and development, Open University of Catalonia (UOC) & University of New Mexico

http://www.uoc.edu/masters/eng/master/web/psicologia_ciencias_educacion/educacion_y_tic/especialitzacio/joint_certificate_elearning_design_development_unm/

http://www.unm.edu/~olit/cert_uoc_unm.html

N.º of credits: 40 ECTS
Language used to impart course: English and Spanish
Price 1.900 euros

 

Instructional Technology

My wife just finished her Masters in Instructional Technology at East Carolina via DL. We paid less than $5500 TOTAL for the two-year program. Check them out at www.ecu.edu. Great school, great reputation, great price. Can't touch it.

I'm still amazed by the prices I'm seeing for PhD or DBA programs. I have an MBA and want to some day pursue a DBA in Organizational Science, but I refuse to pay 10 times what I paid for my MBA. At some point you have to draw the line.