News, including science, technology, business and culture.
Thursday, December 20, 2007
Capella Demonstrates Online Learning Leadership
Did you know that capella university is the fastest-growing online university? That's based on the fact that Capella is growing its enrollment of learners at a rate that's four times as fast as the rate for all learners entering distance learning overall.
That statistic is only just one of a variety of ways Capella can demonstrate its leadership in the online learning field. Capella has also been awarded just honors as the WebCT Exemplary Course Award, National University Telecommunications Network (NUTN) 2006 Distance Education Innovation Award, WebCT Exemplary Practice Award, and National Center of Academic Excellence designation from the National Security Agency and U.S. Department of Homeland Security.
What's more, Capella is accredited as would be a traditional campus university. Capella is accredited by The Higher Learning Commission and is a member of the North Central Association of Colleges and Schools (NCA). Founded in 1993, Capella is based in Minneapolis.
This blog post was based on information provided by Blogitive. For more information, please visit Blogitive.com.
Baltimore's Makeover Could Use More Than 'Hairspray'
I first noticed something when I saw the sleek black limosines sliding their way along Charles Street. Once on the bus, I saw what was going on -- it was the Baltimore premiere of the new remake of the cult film Hairspray.
Fans and TV crews alike had mobbed the sidewalk and as the bus drove by, we passengers saw film co-star Amanda Bynes posing in very Hollywood fashion out on the sidewalk for the photographers.
So this is what passes for glamour here in Baltimore.
You see, Baltimore is caught up in a bit of an identity crisis. This city, which once had serious personality, now lives in the shadow of this other city just an hour south on I-95. Yes, you guessed it -- our nation's capital, Washington DC.
Washington is a living city. Whatever their political stripe, Washington attracts the best and the brightest who come from across the country -- and around the world -- just to change the world, and leave their mark on it, too.
You can feel that energy everyday in Washington, as I do working there.
At night I come home to the somnambulent-by-comparison Baltimore, which is caught between the quaint past as seen in Hairspray and a future not yet made or defined.
Baltimore is just not the magnet for people and energy that Washington proves to be every day.
Certainly, Baltimore is home to the world-famous Johns Hopkins University, as well as many fine colleges and universities. Yet, they all operate as islands and never achieve the critical mass that government, non-profits and all of the other associated enterprises of Washington DC can muster.
Baltimore's in the midst of a mayoral election and the top issue on everyone's lips is the city's high crime and soaring homicide rate.
The thing is, Washington also has crime, murder and all the other urban social ills of a modern city. And yet for all of that, smart people keep coming to Washington. People in Washington have a lot more to talk about than their murder rate.
It will be up to the next mayor of Baltimore to provide the city with more of the energy that is so common and infectious on the streets just an hour south. With its universities and other assets, Baltimore has what it takes. What needs is a vision to create that critical mass its neighbor down in Washington has. What DC has is the "people's business." Baltimore needs to find some new business of its own, as unique in its own way as you'll find in government in Washington.
It's time that people in Baltimore also have more to talk about than either their crime rate or the sweet nostalgia of Hairspray.
You might think a big online university like capella university would be cold and impersonal. You would be wrong.
Capella has grown since its founding in 1993 to serve some 18,000 demanding, professional and top notch students precisely because it is highly responsive and personal.
Using the phone or Web technology, you can query Capella right now -- and get straight answers to your questions from Capella's personal enrollment counselors.
It's this kind of attention that attracts high achieving students like Dr. Carla Thomas, a family physician in Anniston, Alabama, to pursue their education at Capella.
Or consider the words of Judith Kenney, a Capella student working toward a PhD in human resource management: "Capella ranks as the best school I've gone to by far in terms of its service orientation. I'm impressed by its innovative methods of communicating with students."
Visit Capella online or call 1-888-CAPELLA (227-3552).
(Listen to Dr. Thomas, who hopes to one day be the U.S. surgeon general, in Capella's latest podcast. The podcasts are typically about 15 minutes long and are available through the Capella University website at capella.edu or capellacommons.com. They are also available via subscription from iTunes.)
Not only is capella university helping busy professional students like Dr. Carla Thomas gain important knowledge, but it is also a great place to work.
In fact, you can begin a career at Capella, a leader in online learning, so as to help these professionals gain the tools they need to advance their careers and improve their communities.
A fully accredited online university founded in 1993, Capella is always on the lookout for new talent to help their driven, goal-oriented students succeed.
Headquartered in downtown Minneapolis, Minnesota, Capella hires high caliber people like yourself to better create a top notch learning environment. In fact, it was named one of the 'Great Places to Work' in 2005.
An institution serving 18,000 students, Capella offers its employees a generous salary and benefits package, including 100 percent education reimbursement. It is also committed to developing a truly multicultural environment.
To learn more about Capella and what makes it special, listen to a new podcast featuring Dr. Thomas, family physician in Anniston, Alabama, who is pursuing a PhD in healthcare administration at Capella. She talks about her ambition to one day become U.S. surgeon general.
Capella's podcasts are typically about 15 minutes long and are available through the Capella University website at capella.edu or at capellacommons.com.
Statistics get thrown around all the time and it was Mark Twain once said, "There are three kinds of lies: lies, damned lies and statistics."
If you took the Statistical Literacy course at capella university, you'd likely have a better ability to think critically and hypothetically about statistics.
Capella developed its course in collaboration with Augsburg College, which is a small, private liberal arts institution in Minneapolis. Augsburg was the recipient of a W.M. Keck Foundation grant designed to "develop and deliver course-room materials for the teaching of Statistical Literacy." This grant provided the resources for the development of teaching strategies and methods along with an appropriate textbook.
For many learners, this course is an awakening to the world of statistics, Capella says.
"While they have lived in a world of increasing complexity, they viewed statistics in simple way prior to the course. Nearly all learners comment about the change in perspective that they have after taking this course," says Marc Isaacson, a course designer for Capella University who helped create the Statistical Literacy course.
Founded in 1993, Capella is an accredited, online university that offers graduate degree programs in business, information technology, education, human services, public safety, and psychology, and bachelor’s degree programs in business, information technology, and public safety.
Capella University gets you inside the Pentagon through a conversation with student Carla Chladek about her work as program manager for the Joint Staff Training Program.
The conversation with Chladek is in the latest capella university Inside Online Education podcast. She is is responsible for ensuring that the training needs are met for the 2,000 military members who support the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff.
Chladek is just one example of how Capella University can accommodate someone in a such a mission-critical position and yet provide the quality education she expects and requires. Listen to the podcast and find out how she -- and Capella -- do it together.
She's a PhD student at Capella, an online university with more than 19,000 students. It offers coursework in 89 graduate and undergraduate specialties and 16 certificate programs. It was founded in 1993 and is fully accredited.
The Capella podcasts feature interviews with students, faculty and staff who share the experience of online education from a first-person point of view. They are typically about 15 minutes long and are available through the Capella University website or capellacommons.com.
Capellacommons.com is Capella University's online social networking portal and also features Capella's blog.
Listeners can subscribe to the podcast RSS feed at capellacommons.com/rss/. They are also available via subscription from iTunes.
Capella Gives You More Reasons To Get Your Degree Online
An accredited, online university, capella university has expanded its degree offerings.
A review of Capella University says it is widely regarded as the most technologically advanced of all online universities. Capella uses its iGuide system to replace the online chatrooms and iffy webcams its competitors use, the review says. The review gives Capella 4 out of 5 possible stars.
Capella now offers a new Bachelor of Science in Public Safety program, as well as eight new graduate and undergraduate specializations in psychology, education, information technology, business, and criminal justice. Enrollment is now open, with classes beginning summer quarter 2007.
Capella’s School of Education has launched a new Special Education Leadership specialization as part of its PhD in Education program. There is a real need for a leadership specialization focused on special education, according to Pamela Potter, president of the National Association of Pupil Services Administrators and special education director for the Loudonville-Perrysville, Ohio, school district.
“The current preparatory program for a career in special education administration is a patchwork quilt at best,” she says. “A PhD focused in special education would be an efficient and effective way to prepare for the actual job that must be done. If I were starting my career again, this is the direction I would take without a doubt.”
Founded in 1993, Capella has grown to more than 650 faculty members and 13,000 students. It is also fully accredited.
Study May Lead to New Therapies for Binge Eating Disorder
University of Alabama at Birmingham (UAB) psychologists have developed an animal model for the binge eating disorder, which affects an estimated one in 20 Americans. The Sprague-Dawley rat model could lead to the identification of physiological mechanisms that distinguish different types of eating disorders and to the creation of new, targeted drug therapies.
In the study, published in the April issue of the International Journal of Obesity, UAB psychologists identified rats who are predisposed to binge on large quantities of palatable food – sugary and high-fat junk foods – in a short period of time. Eating a large amount of palatable food in one sitting, however, did not predict susceptibility to become obese, just as some human binge eaters become obese while others remain lean.
With the animal model, UAB psychologists want to determine the genetic and neurochemical differences that characterize lean from obese binge eaters and obese individuals who don’t binge. This should ultimately lead to more targeted preventative measures and treatment strategies for people with binge-eating disorders and obesity, said the study’s author UAB psychologist Mary Boggiano.
Although binge eating disorder is the most common of all eating disorders, affecting 5 percent of the U.S. population, it does not have a formal mental health diagnosis due to a lack of research. Obesity and binge-eating disorders such as bulimia and binge-purge anorexia affect 40 percent of the population. But often patients are given the same set of treatments regardless of the condition or disorder.
Boggiano assigned rats as "binge prone" or "binge resistant" based on the amount of palatable food, (Oreo cookies), they consistently ate when given a choice between the cookies and regular chow. When only chow was offered, none differed in their intake of chow, but when cookies were presented, the rats ate more cookies. The binge-prone groups’ penchant for junk food may be driven by taste rather than by a preference for any one macronutrient, such as carbohydrates or fats, since they also ate more Froot Loops and Crisco, which do not contain any fat or carbohydrate, respectively.
To the psychologists’ surprise, the amount of junk food the rats ate, whether binge prone or binge resistant, was not predictive of whether the rats became obese. In fact, obesity and obesity resistance was equally represented in both the binge prone and binge resistant groups. The finding is consistent with humans in that not everyone who frequently craves or eats junk food is obese. The lean binge-prone group resembles bulimia nervosa patients who generally do not gain weight, while the binge-prone obese group parallels patients who binge and gain weight, typical of binge-eating disorder. The binge-resistant obese group mirrors two-thirds of the obese population who consume a high number of calories but do not binge.
You hear about them all the time. You see the ads, promising the ease of an online college degree.
But how do you make sense of it all? How do you make sure you're going to find the school and right program for you?
Directory of Schools features more than 1,364 schools with accredited online degrees and 9,238 online programs.
The site offers a full search capability. Search by degrees offered and programs offered.
You find information of the well-known University of Phoenix, as well as online programs from Liberty University, Kaplan University, Ashford University and hundreds more.
Search by subject area: communications, health care administration, management degrees, and many more. You'll also find informational articles that explain online degrees and offers important tips.
Directory of Schools finally lays out the world of online learning in a way that makes sense.