Skip to main content

Waiting on "B1G time" higher ed to change

This May I'll be wrapping up my master's program at UW-Milwaukee in Administrative Leadership. This program was 100% online. I've done a master's face-to-face too, and the online experience has been better for me. There's no way with a 2.5-year old and a almost 3-month old I could have done this any other way. If UWM hadn't offered this sort of format to earn a degree with licensure for Wisconsin's principal and director of instruction certifications, I wouldn't have done it.

I think back to my first master's program, sitting in a car for 180 minutes a night to listen to a 2 hour lecture with some lame group work and a few breaks. Certainly the relationships I built weren't a waste, but those were more built on our collective misery for that process. I can't/won't go back to doing that.

Now that I'm at the right stage in my life where I truly love learning (if only 16-year old me had a twinge of that feeling...) I want to eventually move on to a PhD program in leadership or educational technology. A juvenile part of me wants to do it at a Big Ten school to prove to myself I'm good enough for that level of higher ed. I guess I'm still chasing demons for my young adult years. What does UW-Madison have to offer? A reservist-style cohort, "one weekend a month, two weeks in a year." Minnesota? Online with two weeks in the summer, but from what I can tell that's only for international educators. Michigan or Northwestern? They have no online offerings for what I'm looking for from what I can tell. Michigan State does have a program in ed tech/learning sciences. Indiana has one, but it's only for the EdD. I know Scott McLeod has started a program up in Kentucky, and there are others at Pepperdine and John Hopkins, but I want to stay here in the midwest (don't ask why...no good reason really).

What are the other Big Ten schools waiting for? I really want to give UW or Michigan my business, but there's no online option. Rich Halverson told me stories of students he's had that packed up the family and moved to Madison to live on noodles while they do their PhD work. That's not in the cards for me...

Maybe I just need to get over the external awe of a more "reputable" college. UWM has been good to me. They offer a great deal of the classes for their PhD program online. But I'd really like to be an official Badger, not just a guy who buys football season tickets. I realize how silly that sounds.

In the end isn't this is about customer service? Doesn't it make sense if you wanted to earn a graduate degree in Educational Communications and Technology, that you'd be able to do it all online? If you're a busy administrator and wanted to work on your PhD with a superintendent license, wouldn't you want to save yourself the hours that are thrown away driving to class?

I wonder how long it will take until these schools are forced to move in this direction? For my sake hope less than a decade. More importantly for the sake of our two sons I hope it gets figured out in the next 16 years. Hopefully the options for them will endless.
Labels:

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Do we have to call them 21st Century Skills?

I'm glad a few years ago I introduced the book 21st Century Skills: Learning for Life in Our Times  to our administration. It was exciting to have an assistant superintendent interested in changing the conversation for learning in our school district. While I still certainly appreciate the content of this book, I am soooooooo sick of hearing about 21st Century Learning, 21st Century Skills, 21st Century ad nauseam . Isn't there a better way to phrase this for everyday conversation? Perhaps we need to stick with this so everyone hears consistent jargon, but I don't think people overall have the right idea of what it means. I would imagine if we polled our staff or parents they would say its technology or computer skills. That couldn't be further from the truth. If I say higher order thinking skills  I think that's pretty clear (at least to me) of what that means. I worry 21st Century  means the Jetsons or Star Trek to all too many people. I appreciate Tony Wag...
2 comments
Read more

...moving in.

...getting used to my new digs in Germantown . I moved into an office I'll be sh aring with a soon to be hired Student Information Specialist. To be honest there were plenty of times in the last week I felt like I was going to puke - moving on from all I've known for 7 years professionally. Stomachs have settled now and great conversations are taking their place. Had a great one today with our high school media specialist Jeff Schreiber  who has done great things integrating technology, boosting circulation and getting kids reading. I know we're going to do some great things in the next few years and I look forward to the challenge of discovering what works for Germantown in terms of instructional technology. In addition to instructional technology integration, I'm also working on data and assessment analysis. This is a hot topic in Wisconsin right now, as the DPI NAEPized  (more than you care to know on this link) our standardized test scores. Students who may...
2 comments
Read more

The Future of Technology Funding and Support

Will Richardson and Chris Lehman shined a light  on what I found to be horrifying statements. At the Education Innovation Summit Lehman reported defeated former Mayor of Washington DC Adrian Fenty said "if we fire more teachers, we'll have more money for technology."This happened a while ago - back in April, but this morning it came back to me as I contemplated the future of technology funding and support in schools in the face of ever-decreasing budgets. In my opinion, people are more important than machines for our kids. I can buy an iPad or laptop, but a personal teacher/mentor/advisor that's a little more pricey. Can we find ways to use technology to lighten the load for teachers - of course - but as a parent, a school flush with laptops and tablets, but devoid the necessary number of caring professionals to support learning is not a school I want my kids in. To contradict Mr. Fenty, "the more technology we don't buy, the more caring professionals we ...
2 comments
Read more