Study Finds That Online Education Beats The Classroom

Original source: http://bits.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/08/19/study-finds-that-online-education-beats...


A recent 93-page report on online education, conducted by SRI International for the Department of Education, has a starchy academic title, but a most intriguing conclusion: "On average, students in online learning conditions performed better than those receiving face-to-face instruction."



The report examined the comparative research on online versus traditional classroom teaching from 1996 to 2008. Some of it was in K-12 settings, but most of the comparative studies were done in colleges and adult continuing-education programs of various kinds, from medical training to the military.

Over the 12-year span, the report found 99 studies in which there were quantitative comparisons of online and classroom performance for the same courses. The analysis for the Department of Education found that, on average, students doing some or all of the course online would rank in the 59th percentile in tested performance, compared with the average classroom student scoring in the 50th percentile. That is a modest but statistically meaningful difference.

"The study's major significance lies in demonstrating that online learning today is not just better than nothing -- it actually tends to be better than conventional instruction," said Barbara Means, the study's lead author and an educational psychologist at SRI International.

Respond: Have you ever taken an online class? Do you think you did better then in the classroom?

MySpace to Buy Social-Music Company iLike

MySpace said Wednesday it is buying iLike, a social music service. The purchase brings together two social-media companies that want to deliver content to users, MySpace said.



Terms of the deal were not disclosed. iLike's dominant music application on is iGoogle and Facebook, among other sites.

In an announcement, Beverly Hills-based MySpace said that the purchase won't change the iLike experience for iLike users and the artists that use the service. iLike will keep its Seattle headquarters.

Brothers Ali and Hadi Partovi founded iLike in 2006. In two years iLike has become the largest music application across all social networks -- with 55 million total users and 1.5 billion monthly impressions. No structural changes will be made among management or employees at iLike.



Respond: How do you think this will affect MySpace?

The World Of Warcraft Jumps into Print

You might think that starting a brand-new, high-quality, full-glossy magazine in one of the worst publishing environments in years would be a suicidal business idea. After all, take a look at just about any magazine you can think of, and, thanks to the veritable collapse of advertising, odds are it's about as thin as can be.

But to the folks at Future--a leading games media publisher--the time couldn't be better to launch World of Warcraft: The Magazine, a new quarterly title that is expected to be unveiled at this weekend's BlizzCon event--the world's biggest World of Warcraft fanfest--in Anaheim, Calif. The magazine will be the "official" WoW magazine, and is both endorsed by and produced with the editorial cooperation of WoW publisher Activision Blizzard.

And, indeed, the timing for the forthcoming magazine is clever: The first issue is planned for sometime this fall, just as WoW celebrates its fifth anniversary. And with an astounding 11.5 million players of the game now spread out around the world, Future is hoping that by promising potential readers stunning artwork, behind-the-scenes looks at ongoing development, deep dives into the game's lore, and perhaps even occasional scoops about new features or other WoW elements, it will offer fans an invaluable experience. In fact, Future sees this magazine as something along the lines of a collectible coffee table book.


Respond: Are you excited about the release of this game?