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.
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.
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