In addition to the over 3 million college students who are taking at least some of their classes online, there are online high schools, online career training schools and courses and continuing education for adults online.

A 2005 survey by the National Center for Education Statistics found that 44% of American adults, almost 93 million people, were pursuing some type of continuing education.

They also note reported that 32% of these adults had participated in some form of distance or online education. This means that almost 30 million adults were involved in learning or taking a class online.
Why do people take online continuing education classes?

The NCES survey found that 27% of continuing education students were taking work-related courses or training programs, While 21% were taking courses to pursue personal interests, and 4% were part-time students working on a university degree.

Dr Kenneth Hartman, director of academic affairs for Drexel University Online says “Online learning is the fastest growing area in higher education today. As more and more adults look to higher education to expand their knowledge base for promotional or new career opportunities, they will look to online learning as a convenient and viable way to continue their education.”

It is now estimated that the average person will change careers 3-5 times during their lifetime. Online classes and training can allow you to prepare for a career change without quitting your job and going back to school. You can take university or college classes online that will count towards a degree, or career training classes, which generally are not transferable to universities.
What kind of personal interest classes are available online?

The second most common reason people take continuing education classes is for personal satisfaction or personal interest. In this area, the choices are tremendous.
Have you always been fascinated by ancient Egypt? Would you like to learn about the history of Egypt, study hieroglyphics and archeological discoveries? For only $149, you can take an interactive online course in Egyptology.

Or have you dreamed of tracing your family tree and exploring your family history, if you only knew where to start? You can take a 4-week online genealogy class that explains records searches, tips, chats and more for less than $30.

Or maybe you’ve always wished you could speak Italian or Spanish. You can take an online class, complete with instant translation features and become proficient in a short time. Courses are available in 7 languages for under $30.

Are there practical or hobby classes available online?

Oh, yes. There are hundreds of choices in the continuing education or noncredit field, and some of them are very practical and helpful. For example, would you like to learn how to prepare your own taxes instead of paying someone to do it? You can take an online course in Tax Preparation for around $50 that will teach you about forms, filing status, income, credits, pensions and more.

If you are over 50 and want to save some money or just refresh your driving skills, the American Association of Retired Persons (AARP) offers an online Driver Safety class for around $20. This could get you a discount on your auto insurance and make you feel more comfortable on the road.

Now that spring is on the way, are you thinking of gardens? Perhaps you live in an apartment or don’t have much of a yard. You can still have a beautiful garden in containers. The Horticulture Gardening Institute can teach you which plants to choose and how to care for them in their online class “Art and Science of Container Gardening” for around $70.

A more expensive option is an online class in digital photography. While the beginning class is around $300, it is an 8-week class and includes critiques and instruction from professional photographers. If you would like to learn photography on this level, this could be a great opportunity.

Or, if you are mainly concerned with learning how to use the digital camera you got as a gift, you may want to check out “The Art of Digital Photography” at UniversalClass. This class covers areas such as using the camera, scanning images, printing pictures and choosing cameras, along with basic photography for around $99.

If we haven’t mentioned an online class that interests you, check out universal class.com, as they have more than 500 classes available and most of them are reasonably priced. You can choose from areas such as cooking, pet care, fitness, web development and many more. (www.universalclass.com)

So, no matter what your educational level or interests, there will be an online class that will be right for you. Whether you use it to get ahead at work, obtain a college degree or simply make your life better through learning something new, online classes truly offer something for everyone.

Most likely you are already taking advantage of these ‘new’ social media networks. Whether you are socializing on Facebook, updating Twitter or just adding a new bookmark to Digg or ZoomIt Canada, social media has become an integral part of our daily lives. The next step is to integrate these tools into a new form of learning, or upgrading to Learning 2.0.

Social media tools are providing teachers with so many more opportunities to improve student engagement in learning.  From blogs and wikis, where people are sharing how they approach all sorts of information, to the use of new teaching tools to help teachers to implement social learning in their classrooms.

How Social Learning Is Being Used Today

Social learning is based on the premise that a better understanding of the subject matter can be had when learning is constructed through conversations and interactions with others. The focus is not so much on what we are learning but on how we are learning. Many colleges and universities are already implementing social learning in their teaching methods.

Below are five examples of how social media is currently being used by teachers today:

1) Collaborative Learning

There are many social media sites out there that deal with collaborative learning. The Hands-On Universe is based at the University of California and is a collaborative learning project in astronomy. Students request observations from professional observatories that will provide them with image-processing software to visualize and analyze their data, encouraging interaction between the students and scientists. The Faulkes Telescope Project provides students in the United Kingdom with free access to two high-powered robotic telescopes, one in Hawaii and the other in Australia, which the students are able to use remotely to carry out their own scientific investigations and supports collaborative projects between students and expert astronomers.

2) Open Educational Resources

One of the earliest examples of the impact of social learning has been the Open Educational Resources (OER) movement. OER began in 2001 when MIT provided open access to materials and modules from more than 1,700 of their courses. MIT’s initiative has inspired hundreds of other colleges and universities to join the OER movement and contribute their own open educational resources.

3) Online Video

Online video has been used to present live and taped lectures to students for quite some time now. Michael Wesch, PhD, an Assistant Professor of Cultural Anthropology at Kansas State University, has taken online video further by incorporating the social aspect of it. His videos The Machine is Us/ing Us and A Vision of Students Today, which is a video that summarizes how students learn today, can be found on video social networking sites like YouTube.com.

4) Virtual Learning

Second Life is an online virtual world that has attracted millions of users and many schools are now using Second Life to teach their courses. Two of the most notable schools to recently host classes in Second Life are the University of Southern Queensland with their Terra Incognita project and Harvard Law School with their course called CyberOne: Law in the Court of Public Opinion. The Terra Incognita project not only supports lecture-style teaching, but in true social learning style students also have the ability to break off into smaller groups which instructors can visit or send messages to. Harvard’s CyberOne course was not only offered to students enrolled in Harvard Law School, who were able to attend the class in person, but also non-law school students attending Harvard, and even any member Second Life could review the lectures and other course materials online at no cost.

5) Public Blogs

Many teachers are not only using public blogs to communicate with their students but they are also being used as part of the course curriculum. Walter Carl at Northeastern University uses blogs to teach students about viral marketing. While Toby Bloomberg, of the University of Delaware, has added her own personal blog to the assigned reading list for her class. David Wiley at Utah State University took it a step further by requesting that all student writing was required to be completed on public blogs.

If Learning 2.0 becomes compulsory, new graduates are no longer going to view social media as a challenge when entering the workforce. Rather, the end result is going to be a wide range of young professionals entering the business world with new tricks up their sleeve.

For higher education in US you need to apply 18 to 24 months in advance of the session you wish to join for. The entire application procedure is time consuming and requires advance planning. Let’s focus on some of the preliminary aspects related to admission for university studies and what needs to be done in these cases.

Selection of a University
A popular American weekly called ‘US News and World Report’ publishes every year ranking of universities based on various criteria. Information regarding ranking can also be found online on their website. ETS (Education Testing Service) also has websites which provide information on how to get started in US campuses and on model test papers respectively.

The selection criteria for the university should be based on your chosen field of study and other important criteria fulfilled by the university, instead of chasing just the big names. The weather is also an important criterion, as is the cost of living, which varies from place to place. It is advisable to keep $6,000 a year extra to provide a cushion for inflation and other unforeseen expenses.

Unlike India, the US has no ministry of education. Instead there is a system of central accreditation and state authorization. This does not however mean that the US government takes any responsibility for the quality if education provided by the universities. Application procedure for university studies require copies of your academic record, test scores of TOEFL, financial information, letters of recommendation (generally needed, but not always) and a non-refundable application fee. Deadline for international students are generally in January. Some institutions have a ‘rolling admissions’, which means you can get admissions any time of the year.

Academic Credentials for University Studies
Information on how to forward your academic documents, scholastic records etc. to be submitted at the university you have applied will be provided by the college or university itself. These documents (also called ‘credentials’) must be duly signed by the proper authority from your Indian college or university. Never send the original documents while applying; keep ready several photocopies of your credentials.