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Online Learning Management
Your 5 Best Tips for No-Fail Production
5/1/2008
Hungry, Hungry Hippocampus
IN THE WORLD OF NEUROLOGY, the hippocampus is the part of the brain that plays a role in forming, storing, and processing long-term memory. In the world of online courses, HippoCampus is a new clearinghouse of high-quality, multimedia content on general education subjects, which is available to high school and college students free of charge. In some cases, this content takes the form of online classes. The goal: Students download the classes and use the material as study guides. The site is a project of the Monterey Institute for Technology and Education (MITE) in Monterey, CA.
Executive Director Gary Lopez says HippoCampus content has been developed by some of the finest colleges and universities in the world. "The whole idea is to take what's out there, mine the great minds, and create content students can use as a resource. Students who are accustomed to learning in online course environments will be that much more comfortable learning from the kind of medium they're familiar with," he adds.
As of March 1, the HippoCampus site had 33 courses in its archive-not bad, considering that the site went live in fall 2007. Currently, courses are offered in two languages, and span nine subjects: algebra, American government, biology, calculus, environmental science, physics, psychology, religion, and US history.
Despite these offerings, the HippoCampus site is not designed to compete with MITE's other project, the National Repository of Online Courses. Courses on that site are developed specifically by curriculum experts, for teachers to adopt and personalize. (Access to these courses costs anywhere from $3,000 to $25,000, depending on the number of students and the number of courses a school wants to use.) As both sites grow in popularity over the next few months, Lopez says he expects the number of courses in each to climb dramatically. Already, numbers on NROC are impressive; at last count, the site contained literally hundreds of courses for teachers to co-opt, even including some as sophisticated as a course on plate tectonics. Both HippoCampus and NROC are supported by The William and Flora Hewlett Foundation. Lopez adds that the projects also were designed as part of Open Educational Resources (OER) Commons, a worldwide effort to improve access to quality education for all.
"We pride ourselves on the fact that everyone here takes preparation very seriously," says Anderson. "If educators don't take advantage of [online] media, a course can fall apart."
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