Dear Colleagues,
As you know, my primary position here at Howard University is Director of Howard-Online (HUOL). As I am sure you also know, higher education is in the initial stages of a revolution driven by the emergence of powerful new eLearning technologies. Online programs make the most intensive use of these disruptive technologies.
Howard University must become a global leader in this peaceful revolution in teaching and learning in order to ensure that black Americans and other students of color throughout the African Diaspora can acquire the skills they need to enjoy successful careers in the emerging knowledge-based global economy.
If HUOL's planning initiatives succeed, the University will launch a wide array of high quality, revenue generating, online and blended degree & certificate programs for non-traditional students within the next few years. These programs will convert online and blended courses for traditional students into formats that will be more appropriate for non-traditional students, e.g., sessions that last 5, 6, or 7 weeks instead of 14 or 15 week semesters.
Therefore HUOL's initiatives can move forward if and only if HUOL first succeeds as a catalyst, as a change agent that facilitates the development of a wide array of state-of-the-art online and blended courses for the University's traditional students. In other words, the introduction of revolutionary eLearning technologies will have to start with the University's courses for its traditional students on-campus. The online and blended courses for on-campus students will then be converted into courses for non-traditional students anywhere on the planet, but especially throughout the Diaspora.
Unfortunately, it's taking far more time to launch the HUOL initiative than I anticipated. And contrary to the old cliche in my favorite action movies, failure is always an option whenever one's efforts aren't sufficient to meet a challenge. Having only 24 hours in my day and finding that the hours I had been devoting to HUOL were insufficient, I have no choice but to suspend all of my other professional interests, including the Howard Applications Developers Group, until HUOL succeeds.
Sincerely,
Roy L. Beasley, PhD
Director, Howard-Online (HUOL)
http://howard-online.blogspot.com
