Accredited Online Community College

Below there is a note on this new trend. I just joined Waubonsee Community College.

I had worked at this institution before, during the Summer of 2007, teaching High School Mathematics. There is a new campus in Aurora, and another in Plano. I am happy to teach Astronomy at this institution of higher learning. I have also recently worked in Online Education. You can visit a site that a friend of mine, Professor Edgar Altamirano, keeps in Mexico. It has material mainly in Spanish, Aprender el Futuro, or Learn the Future. As part of my research on Mathematics Education, I have this much to offer here.

Accreditation is obtained when your installations, and endowments, satisfy standards of the accrediting institutions. Professors should have degrees conferred, by other accredited institutions, and so on, and so forth. Online Education presents a new set of requirements, some of them already seemed necessary, like Internet connectivity, and some not so much so, like student, faculty and staff Internet proficiency. Some can be transferred with no apparent problem. For instance I just registered to an Artificial Intelligence course, offered by the University of California, Berkeley, through edX.  By November or December, I should have a better idea of the credits, I will be able to add to my CV, For instance due to the recognition of the University of California, I was able to present transcripts at Waubonsee, and thus I was accepted to teach Astronomy.

The textbook is Essential Cosmic Perspective, by Jeffrey Bennett at al.

Our course is accredited and students can use these credits in other institutions of higher learning. This course already allows online interaction by students and faculty. This is a evolutionary process, which I can envision, will lead us to a Learning Network, more efficient as time passes. As it is, I will only see the students three hours a week.

Learning and Teaching in a Connected World.