NVU's Online Presence Grows

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Created on Tuesday, 20 February 2018 20:35

Written by Andrew Whalen

Northern Vermont University has recently announced that they have received a nearly $400,000 grant from the USDA Rural Utilities Service office, in an effort to support real time, online courses through NVU online.

 

"There's actually a number of ways that we're applying this grant," said Dr. Bobbi Jo Carter, the Associate Dean of Distance Education Programs for NVU. "We're putting in video conferencing rooms on both the Johnson and the Lyndon campuses. That's specifically to allow students to take advantage the expanded opportunities. That's because it just isn't feesable to ask people to drive back in forth between the two campuses."

Dr. Carter also spoke about the other applications for the grant. Vermont Tech will be provided with a classroom so they can utilize video conferencing to deliver nursing classes to Lamoille County.

The third application will send video conferencing equipment to 28 high schools around the state.

"This allows us to deliver courses to them that students will take as dual enrollment courses," added Dr. Carter.

The grant will also allow students to take live online courses, as opposed to right now, where online courses are offered through Moodle.

"They don't have the same opportunity to engage with their classmates and instructors in real time."

The last part of the grant will be used to form an online partnership with Sinte Geska University in South Dakota, a partnership that Dr. Carter says came because of the similarities of the two schools.

"They have a lot of the same struggles as that we do as far as, they're a small institution, they have limited course offerings, and they're in a geographically isolated area."

Dr. Carter is also a native of South Dakota, and emphasized the benefits that working with a tribal University can have.