What we're buzzing about lately: MOOCs, online education, college applications

ABUZZ: Our reaction to several
higher education stories we're following

As you might expect, our faculty and staff are voracious readers, and when we come across an article that really hits a chord, we often leave a comment. Here's a recap of a few articles that have caught our attention lately.

Student-instructor interaction remains crucial to successful online education models.

Forbes Contributor Daphne Koller penned a piece about Antioch University's announcement to allow students to take certain courses through Coursera for credit. This approach blends the concept of MOOCs (free, non-credit-bearing courses) with the traditional model of educational institutions providing credit-bearing online courses through their own systems. Daphne goes on to discuss how this new model could play out. She mentions how such a model can let students interact with local instructors -- filling a gap in the MOOC model.

'Round the horn with media spotlights on Post University

A lot has happened at Post University over the past couple months. From our renaming of The Malcolm Baldrige School of Business; to our release of our evolution of distance learning infographic; to our faculty's ongoing contributions to numerous education, parenting, and business publications, we've caught the attention of several media publications lately. In case you've missed any of these stories, here's a round-up of where you can read about the latest news and advice from our team.

UP CLOSE: Forbes takes a look at the evolution of distance learning

Going the distance with distance learning

"Distance Learning Has Been Around Since 1892, You Big MOOC." In celebration of National Distance Learning Week 2012, we created this interactive infographic depicting the evolution of distance learning since its beginnings 120 years ago. It garnered attention from James Marshall Crotty, who covered the infographic and the story behind it in Forbes.

"Distance Learning- From Snail Mail to MOOCs and Beyond." Today's Campus also featured the story of our infographic, and how distance learning has developed over time and where it's leading us today.

Paul Tough tells why children's success isn't about IQ

BEYOND IQ: Success has a lot to do with character

Conventional wisdom about childhood development says that one of the most important ways to measure children's success is through their intelligence and cognitive skills. Writer Paul Tough turns this notion on its head in his New York Times bestselling new book, "How Children Succeed."

He provides an important reminder to both parents and educators that academic success is built on a lot more than innate ability and cognitive skill. His evidence of the importance of character traits is humbling, and a call to us all to help students learn what those traits are and how to use them to build the resilience necessary for long-term achievement.

Turning oppositions into opportunities: How Post University embraced online education

THEN AND NOW: Our 1980 Post College logo and name
has been updated to reflect our ongoing development
of our educational programs, including those online

Last week, we launched our interactive infographic showing the evolution of distance learning and online education over the past 120 years. It was part of our celebration of this year's National Distance Learning Week.

Although that infographic shows the industry's development of distance learning and online education, we also wanted to share and reflect on how Post University has made an impact on distance learning and online education over the years -- and in particular, how we've overcome some of the most common obstacles to embracing online education.

Distance learning has been part of the fabric of Post University since 1976, when we developed our first accelerated degree courses. To give you a sense of what was happening in the U.S. around that time, that was the same year Cray Research released the Cray-1, the first commercially developed supercomputer. Jimmy Carter was elected president, and the Vietnam War had just ended the previous year.

Upcoming seminar: Everything you need to know before taking on student loan debt

Student debt has been a hot topic lately, as college costs increase, student debt hits record totals, and the job market remains weak for college graduates. But dig beyond just the numbers and you'll find many students and families just don't know enough about the student loan process to make fully informed decisions about how they're going to manage their loans.

That's why we're holding an in-person seminar on our campus, free and open to the public, to teach students and families about the issues surrounding paying for a college education, and how to make good decisions to manage student debt. Plan to join us Tuesday, Nov. 13 from 7 p.m. to 8 p.m. for our "Financial Literacy" seminar, where you'll learn

Ex Post Facto

Post University cartoon by Dave Blazek is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NoDerivs 3.0 Unported License.
Based on a work at http://blog.post.edu.

The evolution of distance learning in higher education [infographic]

National Distance Learning Week 2012 kicks off today to celebrate and create greater awareness for distance learning, which is increasingly known as online education. The United States Distance Learning Association sponsors the celebratory week to promote the tremendous growth and accomplishments happening today in distance learning programs offered by schools, businesses, and governmental departments.

At Post University, we are proud to be a part of the history of distance learning as we offer more than 14,000 students the opportunity to learn online from wherever they are.

Here are just a few numbers that show the influence online education now bears on higher education. These come from a report by Babson Survey Research Group and College Board.