Distance learning no longer a far-fetched idea for colleges

On a warm spring evening, a dozen graduate students slowly fileinto a second-floor classroom in Hamburg Hall at Carnegie MellonUniversity.

More than 10,300 miles away, it's early morning in Adelaide,Australia. When class convenes in Pittsburgh at 6 p.m., it's 7:30a.m. for the folks Down Under.

Yet, a group of students in Adelaide is joining associateteaching professor Tim Zak's class in Pittsburgh for a graduatebusiness course in strategy development, courtesy of a real-timevideo hook-up that couldn't be sharper if the students were inadjoining rooms.

Welcome to the world of distance learning, where colleges facingshrinking resources are utilizing modern technology to maximizetheir reach and offer students opportunities they might neverotherwise have.

Two large video screens mounted high on the walls show theAustralian students taking notes and marking texts as Zak lectures.Screens in the Adelaide classroom receive sounds and images beamedfrom Pittsburgh to Australia.

"I've taught from remote locations before, but this is the firsttime we've simulcasted. It's virtually seamless," said Zak, directorof CMU's Institute for Social Innovation.

It's working so well that Kate Ambrose Sereno, a graduate studentin Pittsburgh, is working on a class project on a team with threeAdelaide students.

"For a recent assignment, the team conducted a discussion viaSkype at 7 p.m. Eastern Standard Time, then while I was sleepinghere in Pittsburgh, my project teammates in Australia completed theinitial draft," she said. "By the time I woke up the next morning,it was my turn to contribute to the draft, and I delivered my partby the end of that day so they could wake up to my deliverable.

"So far, it's been great. I knew when I enrolled that I'd meet alot of international students at CMU, I just didn't realize I'd beworking with students in Australia," Sereno said.

Distance learning has been carving a growing niche in highereducation in recent years. According to the National Center forEducation Statistics, 20.4 percent of the nation's undergraduatecollege students took at least one course through a distancelearning program in 2007-08, the most recent year for whichstatistics were available. Almost 4 percent said they took all oftheir classes via distance learning.

Bill Holland, a 33-year-old stay-at-home dad with two children,ages 3 and 4, recently received a bachelor's degree in fitness/wellness and sports management from California University ofPennsylvania without ever stepping onto the campus, 2,050 miles fromhis home in Queen Creek, Ariz.

Holland, who was a fitness trainer for 10 years before hischildren were born, knew he had to get a degree to get ahead.

Unlike the CMU course that put students and teacher together inreal time, lectures in Holland's courses weren't live. Being able tolog in and work at his convenience was part of the program'sattraction.

"Really, this was my only way to go back to school," Hollandsaid, explaining he concentrates on school work for two hours in themorning before his children awake, in the afternoon at nap time andthen again in the evening.

He said his instructors in Pennsylvania were more than willing tointeract with him via message boards, e-mail and phone calls.

California University of Pennsylvania, which graduated its firstonline students in 2004, was ranked No. 1 in the nation in Internet-based degree programs in a recent SR Education Group survey thatrated programs on accreditation, student-to-faculty ratios, tuition,graduation and retention rates, and student loan repayment.

This fall, California will partner with the 13 other universitiesin the Pennsylvania State System of Higher Education to offer thesystem's first degree in Arabic language and culture, skills thatthe State Department ranked a "super-critical" need.

Although other universities extended programs to remotelocations, this marks the first time the state system will allowstudents at all its schools to pursue online a major available atjust one of them.

Students from the other 13 universities will be able to take 30credits in Arabic online from professors at California while theyearn their general credits at their home universities.

California University spokeswoman Christine Kindl said officialsat the university, which has offered Arabic language classes forseveral years, viewed the effort as a way to begin a major andprovide opportunities to students at other universities where therewas an interest but enrollment was insufficient to launch a newmajor.