For those of you who used LinkedIn, you are well aware of what an online networking site targeted at professionals can do for you. It can help you find a new job, learn how seemingly unrelated contacts connect, allow you to participate in industry specific conversations and a whole lot more.

Today, we started an EduDecisions LinkedIn Group for to help push the pursuit of how you get the most value from your education. Why LinkedIn? LinkedIn taps a huge pool of professionals with an incalculable number of years of experience. These professionals have valuable insights, but perhaps would not find themselves researching nursing degrees or a career switch into the criminal justice field. This group will help us gather a larger, hopefully global, intelligence on how you can wring the most out of your education from a great pool of professionals.

If you are not a LinkedIn member yet, Join Here. There are no requirements regarding current job or education. It is too valuable to pass up. To see a description of our group and request to be added, visit our EduDecisions LinkedIn Group page. The group is open to prospective students, current students, graduates, educators, administrators and those the market for educational institutions.

Happy Wednesday Everybody,

Today is a great day because today I bring you news that our Facebook group is now live.

Just in case you’ve been in a cave somewhere in Utah: Facebook helps you keep in touch with your friends and family and reconnect with people you lost touch with. You can share unlimited photos, plan events and join discussion groups. It’s free and everyone can join. To register, go here.

You can join our Online Learning Facebook Group once you are a member. Particularly, I am hoping it will help you wring the most value out of the online elements of your education. There are definitely other reasons to participate.

How is this group different from the LinkedIn.com group?

A Larger Audience

First, there is a much larger group of people that are using Facebook. A lot of these people aren’t professionals yet, and may not be using LinkedIn.

A Different Dialogue

Second, you may prefer the non-professional, more social atmosphere of this network media as your place to find your answers to online learning questions.

The Path of Least Resistance

Finding yourself wanting more information but resenting that stack of username and passwords? We are your friends.

This group is for students and professionals that are
a. thinking about getting an education online
b. already getting an education online
c. have graduation from a institution where online education was a large part of how you received your education.

Please come visit us and participate. Online education is the way of the future and will only get better (as quickly as possible) with the help of those that use it.

In our quest to understand the touch, taste and feel of online education, we’ve now started a San Diego Online Education Meetup and have begun to accept an interest list.

In San Diego, we are lucky to have several tier 1 distance learning institutions at our fingertips. It is our goal that we find representatives from as many as possible for the events in November.

What will we do?

Get Support: Distance learning is efficient, effective, and and can be a revolutionary way of experiencing education. It can lack camaraderie. Meetup with other online education students to experience a little support.

Discuss: Part of the reason we started forming online education groups was so we could help push the online education envelope further. We believe distance learning has the potential to be a superior method to classroom instruction in a lot of different areas. Here we will discuss the shortcomings and successes of today’s online learning suites.

Network: If you are still watching online education from a distance or you’ve already made the leap and are experiencing the benefits, network and gather insights from others interested in this topic.Please email me at luke [at] morefocus dot com if you’d like more information. I look forward to hearing from you.

Things are moving and shaking here at EduDecisions.com. We just added 19 new articles for your delight and edification.

As the reach of our site builds, we are asked more frequently about information on the quality, cost, and types of programs specifically offered online for different majors. This month, we completed our series on online degrees as well as developed much deeper reach into two major areas of interest, education and criminal justice.

New Business Content: A much needed addition to the online degree family. Welcome Online Business Degrees.

New Human Services Content: Another welcome addition to the family. Please play nicely Online Human Service Degrees.

New Criminal Justice Content on Careers in Criminal Justice: These articles highlight the different areas of focus within the criminal justice system. It was interesting to me how they all inter-relate in some fashion.

• Paralegal
• Corrections
• Criminology Law Enforcement

New Criminal Justice Content on Criminal Justice Degrees: Now, we also have a bit more information on what you can do with the different levels of degrees.

• Associate Degrees
• Bachelor’s Degrees
• Master’s Degrees

New Education Content: There are simply not enough days in the week to talk about how much education the United States needs to keep up with the rest of the world. A content push I am ecstatic we made is listed below with a focus on ways you can focus in a career in education.

Areas of Study in Education

• Curriculum and Instruction
• Educational Leadership
• General Education
• Early Childhood Education
• Educational Administration
• Educational Technology
• Special Education
• Library and Resource Management
• e-Education and Distance Learning

That’s it for now. I can’t wait to get you an update on our next content push. Do you have any requests? Is there an new area of study you would like to see covered? Please let me know here!

Last night we had our first San Diego Online Education MeetUp at En Fuego Cantina and Grill in downtown Del Mar, CA. It was a small gathering of 5-6 people a lot of fun.

Topics we covered:

Carpel Tunnel Syndrome - While recently visiting a colleague Chris at his work, I noticed he had a very peculiar desk set up. During our conversation, he explained how a bean bag and a padded mouse pad changed his computing life.

Online Education - As part of the meeting, we discussed gains and pains in online education. For the most part, most of the experiences of pains were 2-4 years ago. Perhaps this means distance learning is moving forward….

Master’s Degrees in Science - This is definitely something we’ll be covering in future MeetUps.How do biology, a masters, and online education mash up? Sogand is gathering some information on that for her next attendance. There are schools that run “Labs” online. How?

After our dinner, we headed down into the cantina area and mingled with the other Thursday night crowd. We managed to bump into some educators in the finance space.

This is just a quick reminder that tonight is our second online education MeetUp. This MeetUp is taking place at Starbuck in Mira Mesa. If you’d like to come, please feel free to register at MeetUp.com. Register Now

Things we’ll cover in this Wednesday Night MeetUp

+ General Online Education Topics

• Does it work for people with jobs?
• Can it help me change my career?
• Can you handle having children and going back to school online?

+ Making Online Education More Enjoyable

• Discuss what software is currently working for students
• How to avoid carpel tunnel
• How to find other students with which to share the experience

+ Picking an education that fits your career objectives

• Salary
• Quality of Life

Fits your interestsView Larger Map