Blessings in Banishment

In the past five months, God has revealed Himself in new ways to me during this process called "parenthood." I know this may come as a shock to many of you, but I have come to find that babies are pretty much helpless. Who knew!? Andrew, my now five-month-old son, is no different. He relies on me and Emily to provide for his well-being every minute of every day. In a much greater sense, I am helpless: spiritually, physically, and emotionally. I need to rely on my Heavenly Father every minute of every day, too, if I want to be well-nourished inside and out.

As Andrew gets older, I know there will be times when I have to discipline him when he does wrong. I also know that the discipline will come out of a sense of me wanting what's best for him. It won't be fun for me or him while the discipline is taking place, but I know that it will pay dividends in the long run in order for him to learn right from wrong.

As I read Genesis 3, I see the same exact scenario that I just described playing out, but of course the stakes are much higher. We all know the narrative of how Adam and Eve sinned by eating of the fruit of the tree of knowledge, after He commanded them not to. In response to their sin, God banishes Adam and Eve from the Garden of Eden. What is not often talked about, however, is the reason behind this banishment.

"Then the man—Adam—named his wife Eve, because she would be the mother of all who live. And the Lord God made clothing from animal skins for Adam and his wife. Then the Lord God said, 'Look, the human beings* have become like us, knowing both good and evil. What if they reach out, take fruit from the tree of life, and eat it? Then they will live forever!' So the Lord God banished them from the Garden of Eden, and he sent Adam out to cultivate the ground from which he had been made. After sending them out, the Lord God stationed mighty cherubim to the east of the Garden of Eden. And he placed a flaming sword that flashed back and forth to guard the way to the tree of life." (Genesis 3:20-24)

Banish is a harsh word, and not a word that's heard in our society a lot today because it is rare that you hear of anyone being banished from some place. In my mind, the word banish conjures up images of hurt feelings, anger, or divisiveness. So for me, it would be easy to assume that God is angry with Adam and Eve because of their sin, so his discipline is to banish them from paradise; end of story, right? Not exactly.

When you dig beneath the surface of God's discipline of Adam and Eve, you see a Father's love for His children. The reason God banished them was so that they would not be able to eat from the tree of life, which would then make them immortal. He even put in place mighty angels and a flaming sword to guard the tree of life, and to ensure that they could not partake of it. While I am not a bible scholar, it is clear that humans living in a state of sinful immortality was not God's plan for us. This would have sealed humanities fate of living in sin for all eternity, with no chance of redemption through Christ who would come later.

So, from the beginning, even in God's discipline we see His mercy. Even in His banishment we see His blessings. This is not only true in Adam and Eve's story, it is true of us today. Any good parent wants what is best for their children, and discipline is a part of that love. Parents see the big picture for their children, and while discipline is painful in the moment, it will benefit the child in the long run. How much more, then, can we can trust God and His discipline? He sees the big picture of our life on this earth and throughout eternity, and knows what is best for us. Let us trust Him, even when it is painful.

AHE 591: Lesson 8

According to copyright.com, "copyright protection exists from the moment a work is created in a fixed, tangible form of expression. The copyright immediately becomes the property of the author who created the work." As we have discussed at length in this course over the summer, online learning has grown immensely in the 21st century, and will only continue to grow in the years to come. This means that the amount of original content that is produced by students in these online courses will only continue to grow, and will be permanently available in digital ink forever. Dr. Major posed the question, "Why is student intellectual property an important concept?" It's important because as human beings, we should strive for what is right and fair, and when it comes to intellectual property created by students in online courses, it is right and fair for every student to be given credit for what they create.

Dr. Major also asks, "What copyrightable materials might students create in online courses?" In my opinion, the list is endless. Prior to online courses, these materials mainly included written text. Now, students produce videos, PowerPoints, audio recordings, photography, music, and other media with relative ease. All of these materials can be considered copyrightable.

"How can we help ensure that students retain their right to their own content?" There is not a simple answer to this question, as I don't know of a perfect way to police it. Services like turnitin.com can use technology to compare student's original content to what has already been written. But, when it comes to the other types of media mentioned above, students must take it upon themselves to give credit to the original author, and teachers must make sure their students are creating original content and citing other's work.  

AHE 591: Lesson 7

Much like the Americans with Disabilities Act that was covered in last week's lesson, I must admit that I am probably not as well versed in the Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act (FERPA) as I should be. My mode of operation when it comes to privacy laws in higher education is simply to use common sense, which is not to share a student's information with anyone else but that student. I am not a faculty member at my institution, and as such, I do not deal with student grades. I do, however, deal with and handle a lot of student information in my role as Technical Division Advisor. Below are a few of my responsibilities that pertain to handling private student information...

• Scholarships: I am the head of the Technical Scholarship Committee. This committee chooses which students majoring in a technical program are awarded a scholarship. The students who apply for this scholarship turn in their applications to me. These applications contain personal information, an area for the student to write about their goals and aspirations, and any attachments (resume, letters of recommendation, etc.) that they want to include.
• Potential Students: Every month, the Department of Institutional Research at my institution sends me an electronic list of the students who have applied for admission. This list contains all of the student's contact information that they enter on the admission application. I use this information to stay in touch with these potential students, and ensure that they eventually enroll at my college.
• WIA: I am also the main contact person at my institution for technical students who receive Workforce Investment Act funding. While they are enrolled in classes, these students have an active file that I must keep up-to-date with the amount of tuition, books, and supplies that they purchase each semester. I electronically apply the necessary funds each semester to each student's account.
• Marketing: Part of my job as Technical Advisor is to market all of our technical programs. I do this by posting information on social media outlets, such as Twitter and Facebook, about each program that we offer. These posts could include things such as highlights of how a particular program performed at a SkillsUSA competition, or pictures of technical students.

In all of my different roles described above, I am in some way, shape, or form handling student information that is considered private. When it comes to the written documentation, such as scholarship applications or WIA files, I am careful to not share this information with anyone else. When it comes to visual documentation, such as the pictures I take and use to market our technical programs, I always get the student to sign a waiver that gives me permission to use their picture for marketing purposes.

In regard to online learning, Dr. Major accurately stated in her blog this week that "the line between what is and what is not acceptable is not always clear, particularly in the case of social media, and this uncertainty can influence our actions and our experiences." When faculty, or staff for that matter, find ourselves in this gray area of what should remain private and what can be made public in online learning, I believe that we should err on the side of keeping the material private. There is more than enough public content online now to make for a rich online learning experience, and this will only grow over time. As I stated at the beginning of my blog post, we should use common sense when it comes to FERPA. We may not know every privacy law, but we should know what information is o.k. and beneficial to share with others, and what is not.

AHE 591 - Lesson 6

This week's topic on online learning and accessibility really forced me to think deeply about how anyone, no matter their physical limitations or otherwise, could be ensured that they can pursue a higher education. And, before I get too far into my post, I want to say that I greatly admire anyone who lives with a disability, but still decides to pursue a higher education. There are so many excuses that people can have for not going to college. Living with a disability can, and I'm sure does, block many people from achieving that accomplishment. For example, I shared a class with Sarah Eiland a couple of years ago, and she is a student with us in this AHE 591 course. She does not let a hearing impairment become an obstacle. She was a wonderful classmate, and contributed greatly to the course discussion. So, my admiration goes out to all those like her who go after their educational dreams!

Dr. Major ends her blog this week with the following questions. How do we, those of us working in institutions of higher education, honor and ensure this basic right to accessibility? How do we ensure online learning is accessible? After much thought, the only answer I could come up to these questions is this..."hard work." The 3PlayMedia piece sums up my thoughts quite succinctly. "Coordinating accessibility initiatives across a university can be time consuming, laborious, and sometime overwhelming. The costs are substantial and it's not always clear how to prioritize. Furthermore, the spectrum of disabilities makes it difficult to creat educational content that is universally accessible" (p. 19). With all of the varying documented disabilities that people have, it does seem overwhelming to think about how we as higher educational professionals can prepare for anyone who walks in our doors with a disability. However, there is a word in the quote above that provides a place where we can begin to find solutions, and that is "prioritize." Every college has an ADA Coordinator. If that person were able to look back on previous history and see what disabilities were more prevalent at their institution, then the college could take the proper steps to ensure that people with those disabilities were able to access all course work easily.

I am not saying this is an issue that should just be pushed to the ADA Coordinator. On the contrary, all higher education professionals have a part to play. "Instructional technologists and designers must be proactive and incorporate accessibility into all stages of course content development, as well as the selection of university hardware and software systems. Professors should make reasonable efforts to creat accessible content and work with students to pilot new e-learning practices. Administrators should review university buying practices, push for funding, and seek state and federal grant opportunities" (3PlayMedia, p. 19). I thought about my role as an Academic Advisor, and how I need to be prepared to help students with disabilities. I need to know the accomodations available to them, and how to properly guide them to the courses where they can be most successful.

In closing, I will repeat my earlier thought, and that is accessibility will take "hard work". There is no easy answer, and no silver bullet to automatically help all those with varying disabilities. If a person has the desire to pursue a higher education, but that person also lives with a disability, then it is incumbent upon the institution they are attending to make sure that the disability does not become an obstacle that the student cannot overcome.

AHE 591 - Lesson 5

This week's lesson is on the quality and outcomes of online learning, and whether or not it is significantly better than what students receive from offline learning. I am not, nor have I been, on the faculty side of the house in my experience working in higher education, but rather on the student affairs side. Therefore, I am not as well versed in having to come up with proper student learning outcomes as a faculty member would be. I would say, however, that this course has showed me that the quality of the online learning experience is slowly but surely improving every year. There is no doubt that online education is here to stay, and will only grow over time. The question is, will the quality of the online education experience catch up with the demand of people wanting a higher education?

The demand for higher education is certainly there. The Daphne Koller TED Talk emphasized this demand, showing just how important a higher education is to people. She talked about the mob scene at the University of Johannesburg recently, where thousands of people stormed the entrance of the institution just to try to get one of the few admission spots left. Many were injured, and one person lost her life. This encapsulates how much getting a higher education means to people around the world. Koller goes on to talk about her experience with Coursera, an online platform in which some of the leading minds and instructors in their field were able to teach their subject online for free to students around the world. The results were fascinating, particularly the fact that students from different parts of the world were able to help each other in real time with questions they had, and even graded each others homework! To me, this is when you know students are engaged, and true learning is taking place.

One of the questions Dr. Major poses this week is "how might we best gather data from online courses, and the students taking these courses?" I think we need to continue to inquire from faculty who teach online and offline courses about the engagement and learning that takes place with their students in both types of courses. Faculty who only teach offline courses might be biased toward thinking that is the best method, and faculty who only teach online courses might feel that is the best method. Getting feedback from those who teach both methods, in my opinion, will offer feedback that is more objective. But, more important is getting feedback from the students who take online courses. What is it about the online experience that makes it richer than the traditional lecture course? I can personally attest that, before I took AHE 591, I did not particularly enjoy the online courses I had taken. They provided in convenience in the fact that I could access the course material any time I wanted, but that was about it. I missed the interaction I had with my classmates, and the verbal discussions that would take place in the brick-and-mortar classroom. However, with the continued growth of using video in online courses, I can see the human, face-to-face interaction in online courses becoming just as good as what students would have in traditional lectures.

AHE 591: Lesson 4

As Dr. Major's stated in the beginning of her blog this week, a college education is vital in today's society if a person wants a career (not just a job) that will provide financial stability, as well as personal gratification. This is more true now than it ever has been. When I talk to high school students about the importance of going to college and earning a degree, I try to get them to think long-term, over the span of their lifetime. Most studies show that any type of college degree or certification compared to a high school diploma will mean substantial income growth. The individual with a higher education often earns $1,000,000 more over their lifetime as compared to the one with just a high school diploma. So, when viewed in this light, the cost of a college education seems well worth it.

However, as Dr. Major also pointed out, this cost continues to rise, with seemingly no end in sight. This is certainly true of four-year universities. For example, I did a Google search of "University of Alabama  tuition increase". The first four results were from articles in 2011, 2012, 2013, and just recently in 2014 where the UA Board of Trustees voted to increase tuition in each of those years. Community colleges tout their affordability as compared to the four-year institution, which is true. But even the yearly tuition costs at community colleges, which in Alabama approximately amounts to $4,000, can be steep for some. I see it everyday in my office, as students come in asking for financial help to ease the burden of paying for tuition, books, and tools if they are in a technical program.

So, if higher education is critical for individuals to attain, yet increasingly expensive and an obstacle more and more individuals cannot overcome, what is the answer? As we have been learning in this course, online education, especially in the form of MOOC's (massive open online courses) can be an avenue in which students can get a higher education at a low cost to them, possibly even free. This is a wonderful thing, and something that will no doubt continue to influence higher education as a whole. My question is in regard to credentialing for the organizations that provide MOOC's, such as Khan Academy and EdX. How will businesses and industries view an education that was earned via MOOC's? Will it be viable in the job market? And, how will MOOC's be accredited so that the public at large will know that this is a legitimate option for those pursuing a higher education?

Online learning is not the silver bullet that will solve the problem of accessibility and tuition costs in higher education. But, it is here to stay, and will only continue to grow throughout this century. My two-month-old son will graduate high school in the year 2032 (hopefully!). I fully expect him to go to college, but I am sure that his college "classroom" experience will include more hours in front of a computer, tablet, or maybe even a smart phone, than mine ever did. 

AHE 591: Lesson 3

While I wouldn't rate this week's readings as the most exciting I have read throughout my graduate coursework (no offense, Dr. Major :), it definitely was thought-provoking. I have never given any thought to state's having to regulate their institutions using distance education and online learning, but it certainly makes sense. I do think that it is a difficult thing to oversee, especially as the different forms of online learning continue to grow. Forgive me for using a college football analogy, but it made me think of the NCAA and their inability to make sure that every athletic program is following every recruiting rule in the rulebook to a "T". The really good coaches and recruiters know how to push the boundaries of the rules and operate in a gray area where they technically aren't breaking a rule. I can see the same happening over time with online learning. Colleges want to increase their enrollment and tuition dollars. So instead of being restricted to only their geographic service area or state, online learning essentially makes anybody who is living and breathing a potential student. Over time, I think college decision-makers and administrators will try to find ways to recruit the student(s) who lives on the other side of the country, and even the other side of the globe, if it means increased enrollment figures and more tuition revenue coming into the university.

I also echo the sentiment in Dr. Major's blog that "the primary question at hand is whether online learning has or will be able to provide meaningful access to higher education to those who need and want it." Before starting in my new position as an Advisor at Gadsden State Community College a couple of months ago, I was essentially a Recruiter for GSCC. I helped many high school seniors fill out admission, scholarship, and financial aid applications online. I would often ask students if they had Internet access at home, in case we couldn't finish the online application we were working on. Far too often, the student's answer was "no". And, it's not just about having a reliable Internet connection in order to take an online class in college. I taught an Orientation to College 101 class at GSCC for several years, and often I would have students who did not have basic software applications like Microsoft Word, Excel, or PowerPoint. In short, while access to higher education has certainly increased with the development of online learning, it is still an unlevel playing field, and honestly it probably always will be to some degree. As soon as those who are technologically behind catch up, there will be other technologies that will be required to take online courses that they may not have (i.e. webcams, App Store apps, etc.).