The Thomas Edison State College was recently awarded a federal grant to develop a course delivery system that utilizes flash drives so that students can participate in distance learning without connecting to the internet at all times. According to the college’s website, they will develop 40 courses over the next few years that contain a similar structure to the online course but students will only need to connect to the internet to submit assignments and participate in online discussions. Dr. George A. Pruitt, president of Thomas Edison State College commented, “This grant enables us to make our courses and degree programs more readily accessible to students in locations all over the world, even where broadband Internet access is limited, including remote rural areas in the United States, in the Middle East and on ships at sea.”
The college will also begin developing courses that use cloud computing technology. The technology enables content to be stored on a server so that users can access the content at anytime from various mobile devices or PCs. This will lead to a platform independent course delivery system that enables all classes to use the same content regardless if it is an online course, independent study, delivered via flash drive, or delivered to a smartphone or web-enabled device.
