Serving Non-Traditional Students Through Educational Technology
Posted by Jen Santaniello on Tue, Oct 13, 2009 @ 10:29 AM
Since the beginning of the economic downturn, and even beforehand, the number of non-traditional students has been on the rise. In fact, recent data shows that the number of students working 20 hours or more per week has doubled since 1970. Younger students are attending school part-time while juggling full-time jobs and family responsibilities, and more working adults are going back to school to become more marketable, or to start new careers.
As the demand for educational options outside of day-time, face-to-face classes rises, institutions throughout the U.S. are finding the need to offer more distance learning courses and blended learning options. One way that they are doing this is through the use of educational technology.
Popular educational technologies include:
- Web services, including lecture capture technology
- Web-based communities
- Social networking sites
- Video-sharing sites
- Wikis and Blogs
- Email
These educational technology tools help enhance the learning process in both distance education and blended learning courses by offering easy access to course materials, providing supplemental information and enabling students to interact and share with one another. They also eliminate the time and place barriers that prevent non-traditional students from attending school full-time, giving students greater choice and flexibility in terms of when and how they learn.
By taking advantage of the multiple technologies available today, colleges and universities are making it easier for non-traditional students to complete degree and certificate programs.
How are you using education technology to serve non-traditional students?
Photo by hancock1953