The use of Web 2.0 tools along with the widespread broadband access makes arts education programs possible. The barriers between teaching degrees and distance learning are increasingly being circumnavigated by creative efforts put forth by both faculty and administrators. According to BU, the new degree program will have these advantages:

• An accelerated curriculum and competitive cost
• Access to Boston University’s extensive, world-class resources
• Exposure to esteemed faculty who are talented artists in their own right
• An intimate program approach, focusing on artistic growth and child-centered art education
• An optional, on-campus studio session focused on personal artistic development
• No GRE requirement

The degree in Art Education is matched in the audio sector by an existing Master’s in Music Education program that launched online a couple of years ago. The BU music faculty has developed the tools and the software design to deliver both music theory classes and the mechanics of music education utilizing online education formats. There is a PhD in Music Education available online as well.

In the University’s words: “Now, graduate degrees in music education are available for working professionals worldwide through the Boston University School of Music online education program. The master and doctoral degree in music education provides students with a highly immersive experience via a variety of instructional approaches.
Boston University’s online music education students receive the benefit of a time-honored music education program and a proven curriculum.”

Both of these programs are golden opportunities for teachers who wish to move into fine arts education and need the educational credentials to do so. The bigger challenge may be finding K-12 schools that still have music and fine arts programs.

• Earn your online music degree via part-time study – Complete coursework in about 17-20 months (Master’s students) or 24 months (Doctoral students).
• Learn from renowned music education faculty – Each faculty member is a recognized authority in music education, music theory, or musicology.

Anything less than a bachelor’s degree in the profession has proven to be a career barrier for tens of thousands of nurses; Capella is now making an online degree program available to RNs from any part of the country.

The University announced two additions their extensive offerings in psychology. They are introducing a Bachelor’s of Science in Psychology with a specialization in General Psychology. In addition, they are providing a combined BS/MS Psychology Degree option.

This allows eligible BS in Psychology students to begin earning master’s-level credits after completing at least 100 undergraduate credits. These master’s-level credits can be used toward completing the BS in Psychology and may also be applied toward a Capella MS in Psychology degree. The result is a significant cost savings and the opportunity to shave two semesters off the Master’s in Psychology program.

The other changes that are now part of the Capella University catalogue are all in the public service sector. They are offering a Master’s in Public Health (MPH), replacing their Master’s of Science in Public Health. In addition, they have added a Bachelor’s degree in Security Management and Master’s programs in Homeland Security. Their final addition is a Master’s in Public Health degree for professionals who are looking for a distance learning opportunity that will lead to a career in Health Care Administration.

The education grant will offer two options for students seeking a master’s degree in education (MEd): 1) a complete online degree MEd, or 2) a hybrid master’s degree that combines online classes with traditional face-to-face classes.

“This grant will not only infuse the master in education program with technology, it will also provide flexible course delivery for working adult students,” said Dr. Robert LeBlanc, UST School of Education dean. “We will concentrate our efforts on achieving Hispanic graduate student enrollment that mirrors the percentage of Hispanics in Houston and the surrounding area.”

The University of St. Thomas will begin teaching graduate education online courses in the fall of 2010. Scholarships ranging from $1,000 to $10,000 will be awarded to Hispanic and low-income students in the second through fifth years of the grant. Graduate student fellowships are proposed to increase enrollment of Hispanics and low-income students in UST graduate programs.

Proposed solutions include increasing the information technology infrastructure for online and hybrid delivery of six masters-level education courses per year in the areas of dual language instruction, special education and education administration. By increasing access to and completion of these programs, the University of St. Thomas will not only boost enrollment but also help to fill the critical shortages of P-12 masters-level educators in these areas.

“UST’s master’s education graduates are leaders who will train other teachers and thus have an influence far beyond a single classroom,” UST President Dr. Robert Ivany said. “The success of this program will impact the educational pipeline for Hispanics at virtually every level.”

This legislation became law in August of this year and among the important provisions in the law is financial support for veterans who enroll in a higher education institution. From the blog post:

“While the new bill increases support for tuition, books and expenses, it sorts veterans into two categories when deciding the housing stipend. For veterans who choose campus-based schools, the benefit increases from the $1,321 cost-of-living stipend available under the old bill to more than $2,000 a month under the new law. For veterans taking online courses, there is no housing stipend at all.”

While it’s true that veterans pursuing online degrees don’t need a dorm room, that doesn’t mean that they have no housing expenses. The odds are pretty good that they are supporting a household and family, unlike veterans who are free to walk onto a campus and enroll. A subsidy for education doesn’t need to resemble a budget; what matters is that veterans who enroll can afford to stay in school and graduate.

This administration might do something about the VA’s history of mediocre service and CYA policies on veteran issues. The President has declared his intention to make jobs available to veterans within the federal government. The Executive Order he signed a few days ago lists 24 executive branch agencies that each must form a Veterans Employment Program “to be responsible for enhancing employment opportunities for veterans within the agency.” The agencies are told to develop an operational plan, training programs for disabled vets, and mandatory instruction for human resources personnel and hiring managers on veterans’ preference.

Department of Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano has emphasized the department’s goal of hiring 50,000 veterans by 2012. It held a job fair for vets in July, and the department says its workforce now is about 25 percent veterans. Yesterday she unveiled a new website designed to provide a one-stop location for veterans and veterans ‘organizations to learn about many veteran outreach initiatives and hiring and contracting opportunities within the Department.

Homeland security is an excellent option for veterans with training in surveillance, law enforcement and all sorts of computer functions. The agency is constantly recruiting for people with a criminal justice degree in their border patrol and immigration divisions. Veterans who have some technical background and obtain a degree in accounting can move into computer forensics, an increasingly important technician’s role in the Department’s investigative wings.

With the right degree a veteran can qualify for one of hundreds of jobs in the DHS, which can be easily researched through their websites. And in the current political environment, veterans with a distance learning degree from an accredited school may get equal consideration with applicants from brick-and-mortar schools.

Scranton’s program curriculum aligns with the core body of knowledge of the Society for Human Resource Management (SHRM), the premier professional organization in the field. The school is a 121 year old Jesuit institution, a niche in higher education that tends to be conservative. The fact that they are introducing a new online graduate degree is further evidence of the mainstream role that distance learning is playing today.

According to the school’s press release, the new program…”offers a strong foundation in the theories and practice of promoting employee performance and development. It also explores new specialties and applications in the field due to advances in technology, changes in laws related to personnel management and benefits, and issues related to an increasingly international and diverse workforce.”

“The convenience and flexibility of the online format allows busy professionals to pursue a respected degree from The University of Scranton and ultimately advance their careers while continuing to work. Other advantages of The University of Scranton’s online Master of Science in Human Resources include 24/7 online access to coursework, a diverse student body, and engaged faculty members who are respected experts in their fields.”

Once again the power of distance learning has proven my perspective to be woefully antiquated. One of the nation’s premier conservatories, the Berklee College of Music, has taken on the distance learning challenge as an opportunity rather than a threat, and the result is a fine program that features the world’s largest music catalog, offering more than 100 accredited courses and 30 certificate programs to more than 25,000 students in 90 countries through their online branch: www.berkleemusic.com.

Many of these courses are a long way from the violin and the practice room. Berkleemusic professor Erik Hawkins, who teaches music production courses such as Pro Tools 110 and Producing Music with Reason from his home studio in Los Angeles, says he strives to keep class content accessible and interesting to all levels of students. That can be a challenge, particularly with ProTools, which is the premiere music editing, mixing and production tool used in studios today. Studying this material is akin to the Microsoft certification program or similar courses offered for Oracle and Sun products.

“For example, beginning in week eight of the Producing Music with Reason course, students start writing and producing their own song that I expect them to have completed, mixed and mastered by the end of week 12 of the course. And in my Remixing with Pro Tools and Reason course, students complete three remix sketches as a warm-up for producing a full-length remix beginning in week seven. It’s an intense ride, but there’s no better way to hone your music production chops than to apply the production techniques that I’m teaching in the lessons to actual projects.”

The online program has Specialist Certificates and Master Certificates in field such as music theory, theory and harmony, keyboard skills and voice technique & musicianship. Some are similar to computer programming degrees; others lock in on the artistic side of the business. One of the more intense offerings would seem to be the Berklee Keyboard Method, a twelve week course that introduces the basics of technique and chord voicings, along with more advanced concepts including interpretation of lead sheets and improvisation.

That’s a lot to grasp from online instruction, regardless of the course presentation technology. That’s why many Berklee instructors see the online program as an adjunct to campus learning, as well as an outreach tool. Certification in the use of ProTools may get you a job as an IT administrator in a studio and may help with a music career. But a Bachelor’s in Fine Arts from Berklee will give you the musical knowledge to take you much further down the paths of composition and performance.

The impressive aspect of this step is the degree programs they have chosen for online distribution. Five of the six are “transfer tracks,” associate’s degree programs designed to provide the credits to move into a bachelor’s program upon completion. Two of the programs are for students who want to complete a special education or an elementary school teaching degree. Graduates from these programs will have the “core courses” for these teaching degrees out of the way so that they can focus on the curriculum courses for these teaching professions and move into a student teaching program.

A third transfer track degree coming online this spring is in social studies education, also a field where students have to prep for both curriculum and teaching skills prior to taking on a student teacher role. In addition Gulf Coast CC will be offering online programs for a psychology degree and a history degree. All of these could be applied to the pursuit of professional opportunities in education, an employment sector plagued by chronic shortages of qualified personnel.

The school’s plans for future online degrees turn the focus to business. Included in the near term plans are online versions of the accounting degree, the computer science degree and a business administration degree.

All of these are excellent choices for the budget conscious student who knows his or her goal for a bachelor’s degree. The Gulf Coast CC computer science degree will provide two years of solid groundwork for majors in many of the offshoots from computer science including network analysis and information security.

“Pennsylvania resident enrollments have grown very modestly,” Pangborn said, “with much of the increase attributable to online learners, while the enrollment of non-Pennsylvania residents — which includes international enrollments — has expanded steadily, again with a significant portion of the growth coming from online learners.”

More that 25% of Penn State’s graduate students are now online. The administrative staff attributes that fact to the quality and mix of graduate degrees now available through the distance learning program. Among the more popular master’s degree options are homeland security degrees and public health degrees.

The fact that the graduate programs are being driven by new enrollments from off campus suggests that many of the students are currently in the workforce and wish to improve their academic credentials. Other programs that seem to have sparked the online graduate degree interest are in supply chain management, a field that has developed a high profile among business professionals due to the global nature of business logistics, both for manufacturers and in many of the white collar professions. Tax returns are being jobbed out to India by American accountants.

Human resources and employee relations are also fields of interest in the Penn State online graduate programs. There has been a fundamental shift in the employee-employer relationships that characterize most business sectors in this country today. There are very few careers that begin and end with the same firm; many of the benefits that used to be a given in many businesses are now vastly reduced if they remain in place at all.

The professionals who handle development and management of a work force are developing more sophisticated training programs, and learning to work with employees that no longer hold the loyalty spawned by long term employment.

The grants will help cities and colleges in New York, Florida, Arizona, Ohio, and California dramatically increase the number of young people who earn a degree beyond high school. These grants recognize that successfully reaching that goal will require education, business, and civic leaders working together to coordinate and streamline the guidance and services young people need to get into, and through, college.

The dropout rate for both two and four year colleges is higher than is necessary. But if there is an at-risk subset for college students in general, it’s those who are pursuing an associate’s degree. Often these students didn’t acquire the study habits in high school to carry them; just as often they are working and often supporting a family while going to school.

In these situations the value of an online degree program becomes readily apparent. These are the situations that the Gates’ grants will hopefully address. People who need child care more than they need money for textbooks are often the reluctant college dropouts today.

Class schedules can be flexible; degree programs can be completed in eighteen months or three years, it’s up to the student. It’s also worth noting that the average completion rate for associate’s programs today is three years, so distance learning students can get ahead of the game easily if they’ve got the discipline.

According to the Obama Administration, job growth for graduates with associate degrees over the next twenty years will outpace those with bachelor’s degrees. Job growth today is in the service industries, but in services that require training. Health care careers will put you in an industry with chronic shortages of trained personnel and a steep projected growth curve.

Engineering careers are expected to grow at a rate well beyond the national average. Engineering technicians’ careers are going to grow right with them. Then there’s the IT careers, some of which require an associate’s degree – such as computer repair technicians, installation technicians and network administrators. There can be great value in an associate’s degree if it’s in the right industry. It can also be a stepping stone to further education when positions up the ladder are within reach.

Beginning fall 2010, the University of Texas System will offer the Bachelor’s Accelerated Completion program – the BAC – a group of fully online bachelor degrees. Courses will run every six to eight weeks, so that working adults can finish out their bachelor’s degree faster. According to the University, “You’ll be learning from expert UT faculty, and your diploma will come from an accredited UT institution.”

Once an applicant has reached agreement with the University on transferrable credits, a university counselor will assist in working out the academic requirements for completion of a bachelor’s degree. The options available in this first year of operation are essentially liberal arts degrees that vary in areas of focus. Students enroll with the campus that is offering the online program and will receive a degree from that campus upon completion.

From the University of Texas at El Paso (UTEP) there will be the Bachelor of Arts in Multidisciplinary Studies. From the Arlington campus online degree students will be studying for a Bachelor or Arts in University Studies. And from the campus in the Permian Basin the available degree will be a Bachelor of Arts in Humanities.

Completion programs already in place through UT’s TeleCampus include the bachelor’s degree in criminal justice and in health services technology. The University has been offering online courses for ten years, many of which lead to graduated degrees such as the MBA and several masters’ in education options. The school also has many online certificate programs, two of which reflect the state’s location and ethnic mix: one is in border administration and the other an ESL program.