dochoc's blog

I’m at the 2008 MERLOT Conference in Minneapolis this week so Okie Funk will be bringing you the recent developments in online higher education in the next two or three posts. I’ll get back to politics—though it has been increasingly difficult to separate educational issues from politics under the President George Bush administration—next week.

MERLOT stands for Multimedia Educational Resource for Learning and Online Teaching. The organization helps college professors and instructors incorporate new technologies in their online and ongound classes in a variety of ways. It serves as a clearing house for technology-related learning objects and resources. It publishes JOLT (Journal of Online Learning and Teaching). It also holds annual conferences that bring together educational technologists from around the world. It works in conjunction with leading universities and major technology companies.

In the past, I have given presentations at MERLOT related, in part, to the larger implications of how we empower students in online classes to create Web-based knowledge centers or learning objects. A pressing need, as I see it, is to develop academic systems and protocols—big and small—to generate more content-oriented Web material and digital texts as more and more students take online courses.

This year, my presentation is more pragmatic. I’m scheduled to give a three-hour workshop Thursday on the course manage system Moodle, which is based on open source programming. Moodle is a widely popular course management system that allows professors to teach online or supplement their regular onground classes. I use Moodle in my own courses.

Open source programming is a system of free—that’s right FREE—scripts that are essentially based on the computer language of php and its interaction with databases. Moodle is one of the most popular scripts, which is used by millions of users. One of the most important aspects of Moodle and other open source scripts is that developers/professors can modify and improve particular systems, and then, if significant, these improvements become part of the main script.

But the focus of my workshop is more pragmatic. How do you create a course and teach on Moodle? How do you add discussion forums and wikis? How do you create exams? How do you keep a grade book on Moodle that allows individual students to view their progress in particular courses.

There is also a major workshop exploring the use of Second Life in educational systems. I have tentatively tried to engage my students with learning opportunities on Second Life, and interest is quickly growing. Moodle now has a connector, titled Sloodle, which allows the two systems to work together. Some universities, including the University of Texas, now offer courses on Second Life. Second Life’s growing popularity as an educational site is one of the hottest issues in online higher education right now.

Here’s the description about the Second Life workshop:

“Communities of Practice emerging in 3D Virtual Worlds such as Second Life are creating learning experiences heretofore unavailable to teachers and learners. The SaLamander Project at The University of Oregon is a MERLOT Community with a mission to collaborate, find, index, and discuss aspects of the 3D Virtual World "Second Life" that have educational value and share in the research, development, and training opportunities associated with those factors. This workshop requires that participants feel reasonably comfortable navigating in SL.”

Are we ready for the future of online education?

No one issue defines the difference between the state’s candidates for U.S. Senator this year more than how they approach the current health care crisis.

U.S. Sen. Inhofe, 73, has long been part of a federal legislative system that rewards insurance companies and health management organizations at the expense of ordinary Americans. Millions of Americans lack health insurance. Those Americans who have insurance face skyrocketing premiums, increased costs of co-payments and issues like “pre-existing” conditions. People often go without health care to pay other bills. Inhofe has sanctioned the current health care crisis with his votes, his lack of interest and Republican ideology.

State Sen. Andrew Rice, 35, the Democrat running against Inhofe, has proven he believes in a better health care system for Americans. We have seen this in his sponsorship and support of bills to require insurance companies to cover routine medial care for those undergoing clinical trials and medical costs associated with autism. We also know he has promised in his campaign repeatedly to use his position as U.S. Senator to work for an overall better health care system for Americans.

“"Every family, every child and every veteran should have access to the same health care options that taxpayers make available to members of Congress," Rice said recently. This is one of the great moral issues of our time."

It is hard to conceive of a person or voter—besides a very radical fringe of our culture—who truly does not see the current health care crisis as a moral issue. Certainly, there is room to argue over the exact approach to solving the health care crisis, but can any rational person believe the insurance companies will voluntary accept lower profits to help people? Our broken system calls for government intervention. The government intervenes if someone kills or physically hurts another person. This same intervention should apply to our health system. Even an increasing number of doctors in this country—some claim a clear majority—now believe we should have some type of universal health care program.

"Health insurance companies decline coverage for what they call 'pre-existing conditions,' and they retroactively deny treatment that has been 'pre-approved' to stick patients and doctors with the bill for treatment they had been told would be covered," Rice said. "In addition to providing all Oklahomans health insurance, I will stand up against insurance companies to ensure we have a Patient's Bill of Rights."

Inhofe, meanwhile, has consistently sided with insurance companies over ordinary Americans. He has voted 17 times against Medicare since 1995, according to Rice in earlier statement. Rice has also pointed out the Senator has accepted $342,166 in campaign donations from the insurance industry as well.

Most of those Oklahomans who support Inhofe in his reelection bid literally do so at the risk of their own health and the health of their children and grandchildren.

(Read "Inhofe sleaze at root of Roberts' woes?")

U.S. Sen. Jim Inhofe, world famous for his controversial remarks about global warming, faces more problems in his reelection campaign than just low Republican voter turnout.

The 73-year-old Senator may face serious questions about his role in events leading to an ongoing lawsuit against Oral Roberts University in Tulsa and the resignation of the university’s former president, Richard Roberts.

Inhofe, along with U.S. Sen. Tom Coburn, were recently listed as possible witnesses in the lawsuit brought by Tim and Paulita Brooker. The Brookers claim in the lawsuit that Roberts forced Tim Brooker’s ORU government class to help get Randi Miller elected as Tulsa mayor in 2006. This action, if true, could call into question the college’s nonprofit status.

Inhofe urged Miller, who lost the election and currently serves as a Tulsa County Commissioner, to run for mayor, according to The Tulsa World. Internal university emails, obtained by the newspaper, also show Roberts was urged by his sister-in-law Stephanie Cantees to thank Inhofe for assisting the university.

"Might want to in your thank you to Inhofe for his assistance in helping encourage usage of city plex for fema and any govt office," the email states. CityPLex, owned by the university, is an office building. Apparently the university sought Inhofe’s help in encouraging government agencies to rent space at CityPlex, according to the email.

Roberts, the son of televangelist Oral Roberts, was heavily criticized for his lavish lifestyle and administration of the university before he resigned.

It is unclear what Coburn’s testimony would reveal about his own relationship with the university. Several other notable people, including Miller, former Tulsa Mayor Bill LaFortune and former U.S. Reps. Bob Beauprez (Colorado) and James Traficant (Ohio) were also listed as witnesses.

The lawsuit, Miller’s public comments about Inhofe and how ORU students helped in her campaign and the email raise serious questions about Inhofe’s relationship with the beleaguered college.

Did Inhofe encourage the college to violate IRS rules about the political activities of nonprofit organizations? Did Inhofe seek out special favors for the college as it knowingly violated IRS rules?

Inhofe, who has embarrassed the state repeatedly with his bizarre comments that global warming is a political “hoax,” won Tuesday’s Republican primary. But low Republican voter turnout Tuesday—compared to the Democratic turnout—probably shows state voters lack enthusiasm for GOP candidates this year up and down the ticket, and that includes Inhofe. State Sen. Andrew Rice won the Democratic primary Tuesday handily but, according to conservative pundits, by-a-less-than-expected margin. He still faces a difficult battle against Inhofe, who has more campaign money.

John Wylie, pubisher of the Oologah Lake Leader, a newspaper located in the eastern part of the state, editorialized about Inhofe and the ORU controversy last November:

The heart of this scandal has never been Lindsay Roberts’ personal life or whether the Roberts enjoyed a lavish lifestyle at university expense while it careened towards financial ruin.

It is about the state and federal felonies of tax fraud, mail fraud, wire fraud, violations of the RICO statutes and obstruction of justice.

Inhofe is almost certain to be deposed as civil and perhaps criminal probes move forward.

“What did you know and when did you know it?” are not questions any politician seeking reelection wants to answer under oath.