Techno-News Blog

by Sara Grossman, Chronicle of Higher Ed

Bill Gates says that this is the “golden era” of learning, thanks to massive open online courses and easy access to information. The chairman of Microsoft gave the keynote address on Monday at Microsoft Research’s Faculty Summit, an annual event that brings together Microsoft researchers and academics from more than 200 institutions for a two-day conference in Redmond, Wash., on current issues facing computer science. At the summit, Mr. Gates told the audience that he sees enormous potential for MOOCs but cautioned that online education still faces many challenges. He also talked briefly about online education during an question-and-answer session with the audience. This will be “a global phenomenon,” he said. “We’re on the beginning of something very profound.”

http://chronicle.com/blogs/wiredcampus/bill-gates-discusses-moocs-at-microsoft-researchs-faculty-summit/44809

by Amanda Hollman, UVU Review
 
Like most colleges, Utah Valley University offers many online courses to give students a variety of options to achieve their degree. Like any other choice, there are benefits and downfalls. Before clicking the submit button to register for that online class, check out if that is a good option for you. Online courses give students a chance to learn on their own time, which is especially helpful for many. UVU has many working students trying to pay their bills, and often finding a job that works with your class schedule is difficult. While online classes have deadlines just like traditional classes, they give you a chance to plan your education when you have time for it.

http://www.uvureview.com/2013/07/15/how-to-survive-online-courses/

by the Economist

IN A small school on the South Side of Chicago, 40 children between the ages of five and six sit quietly learning in a classroom. In front of each of them is a computer running software called Reading Eggs. Some are reading a short story, others building sentences with words they are learning. The least advanced are capturing all the upper- and lower-case Bs that fly past in the sky. As they complete each task they move through a cartoon map that shows how far they have progressed in reading and writing. Along the way they collect eggs which they can use to buy objects in the game, such as items to furnish their avatar’s apartment. Now and then a child will be taken aside for scheduled reading periods with one of the two monitoring teachers. The director of North Kenwood-Oakland school says this sort of teaching, blending software with human intervention, helps her pupils learn faster.

http://www.economist.com/news/briefing/21580136-new-technology-poised-disrupt-americas-schools-and-then-worlds-catching-last

by MyEducation.com

The number of online learning students is close to 7 million….we’d say now’s the time to dispel some of those online learning myths and get at the “click into school” truth! Great infographic starts with the “Myth: You can’t get a job with an online degree…”

http://www.myeducation.com/blog/infographic-7-myths-and-facts-about-online-learning/

By Jessica Knott, etcjournal

MOOCulus is an online platform, developed at Ohio State, to provide students a place to go to practice Calculus problems. The key to learning Calculus is to do problems, tons of problems. Our MOOC platform provider, Coursera, didn’t offer an engaging method for students to simply practice problems so we built MOOCulus to provide that opportunity for Calculus fun! MOOCulus was developed by Jim Fowler, a Math lecturer in our Math department at Ohio State. He and his team used Ruby on Rails to build the platform. It will be promoted for use in several sections this coming fall. However, any student, anywhere, can access MOOCulus, anytime, by logging into the site using their Google ID.

http://etcjournal.com/2013/07/11/mooculus-for-calculus-fun-an-interview-with-tom-evans/

By Alexander Hiam, eSchool News

It’s wonderful to hear President Obama call for a nationwide emphasis on innovation, but it raises an interesting challenge: Where will all those innovators come from? Currently, we are chasing testable competency in academic core skills. It is quite a different thing to try to educate future innovators. We don’t test for that. An innovation curriculum requires an emphasis on what I am going to call, for lack of a preexisting term, the Five I’s: Imagination, Inquiry, Invention, Implementation, and Initiative (the latter being a foundational trait that enables the other four). Here is my take on how to teach each of the Five I’s of innovation in our schools.

http://www.eschoolnews.com/2011/02/01/how-and-why-to-teach-innovation-in-our-schools/

by Justin Ferriman, Learn Dash

Inevitably anyone who wants to cheat is going to find a way to do so, be it for an online course or in a normal classroom setting.  While it cannot be completely controlled, you do have some strategies available to you that decreases the likelihood of cheating – or at least discourages it by making life a bit more difficult. Cheating can take many forms, but the majority of people will look to cheat on a quiz, especially an online quiz.  Many educators find this to be challenging, but there are some steps you can take to limit the amount of cheating that takes place.

http://www.learndash.com/how-to-prevent-cheating-in-online-courses/

by EdSurge

Versal hopes to breath life and possibilities into what they see as a very limited set of tools that currently exist. Their course-building platform offers a set of pre-made gadgets that allow teachers to build interactive courses on their platform through a what-you-see-is-what-you-get drag and drop interface. To add interactivity beyond basic pictures, texts and embedded quizzes, Versal uses gadgets to create interactive graphs, simulations, and models. With these gadgets, teachers can build models or simulations that the students use to experience and manipulate the content they are learning. Examples include a 3-D model of a skeleton where students click on parts of the face that will then appear on the skeleton, and a simulation where students can set limits like population and and contact rate to see how disease spreads. Sharing courses with students is enabled via facebook, twitter, email, or direct links.

https://www.edsurge.com/n/2013-07-12-can-versal-take-online-course-beyond-the-chalk-and-talk

by MetroWestDaily

Students learn quickly that “online” does not mean “easy.”

“A few folks drop out the first week of classes because they learn once they see the syllabus … that this is not the cakewalk they had anticipated,” Edmonds says. Though they aren’t attending lectures, online students spend time reading assignments, watching videos and contributing to online discussions. Bruce Kingma, associate provost and professor at Syracuse University (syr.edu), says, “Online courses are definitely not the easy way out.” Online discussions are text-based and require more thought, input and participation by all students.

http://www.metrowestdailynews.com/news/education/x1808713823/Internet-classes-take-discipline-motivation

By Samantha Gordon, US News

Students go online to enhance the learning experience. Technology is very rapidly becoming integrated with almost every aspect of life, and higher learning is no exception. Whether students are pursuing associate’s degrees, bachelor’s degrees, master’s degrees or doctorates, having access to the Internet is proving very useful in a variety of ways. In addition to having the ability to learn remotely via online classes, students are able to conduct thorough research more easily, stay connected with peers and explore their subjects in a more interactive manner. Google compiled data in its Digital & the New College Experience survey, which details just how far-reaching technology is for students.

http://www.usnewsuniversitydirectory.com/articles/online-learning-continues-to-prove-beneficial-to-c_13265.aspx#.UeIDRtLYdy1

 by  edcetera
One hint might be found in the last paragraph of an interview Forbes did with Coursera co-founder Daphne Koller. Asking what lies ahead in the future, an acquisition or IPO, Koller stated that the latter might be inevitable, as Coursera has “outside investors, and they expect a return.” Doing some basic back of the napkin math, with a total of $65 million in funding, an acquisition offer by another company would need  to be between $325 to $650 million at this point, which would theoretically still be in the range of the top players in the space. But Koller says that she and the team are not interested in being acquired, as she is “not sure that the companies that might want to buy us would have the right goals.” A couple of days earlier, Andrew Ng also made a comment in that direction during a phone interview with Inside Higher Ed, stating, “For as long as its Daphne and me running the company, I’m confident we’ll do what’s best for students.”

http://edcetera.rafter.com/has-coursera-already-won-the-mooc-game

by the Business Recorder

Online education service Coursera on Wednesday announced a fresh round of funding from the investment arm of the World Bank and other backers. The Silicon Valley-based start-up said that it took in $43 million from a group of investors that included the World Bank’s International Finance Corporation and Russian venture capitalist Yuri Milner.  “Coursera is on the forefront of transforming the $4.5 trillion dollar learning industry,” said Michael Moe, chief of GSV Capital, which also participated in the funding round. “Coursera is democratising access to the best universities and professors in the world.” Coursera.org was created by Stanford University professors and launched in April of last year as an online venue for free university classes.

http://www.brecorder.com/general-news/172/1209987/

By KEVIN ABOUREZK, Lincoln Journal Star

The University of Nebraska’s online distance education program saw a 12 percent increase last year in the number of credit hours taken by students who enrolled in only online courses, university regents learned Thursday. Those students enrolled in 56,952 online credit hours in 2012-13, compared to 50,907 the year before, said Mary Niemiec, director for Online Worldwide, the university’s distance education program.

http://journalstar.com/news/local/education/nu-sees-big-jump-in-online-courses/article_adc79eb9-755e-59c1-b575-28e39c546db4.html

by Sean McMinn, USA TODAY

Every college atop a leading national university ranking is now embracing massive open online courses (MOOCs). Every college atop U.S. News and World Report’s national university rankings is now embracing them. In addition, the nation’s two largest public university systems — the California State University and State University of New York systems — are poised to join them. In June, the University of Chicago became the last of the country’s top 10 universities to announce it would begin offering MOOCs. A widely discussed trend in higher education, MOOCs routinely enroll tens of thousands of students across the world, often for free.

http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2013/07/11/moocs-top-colleges-and-universities/2509883/

by Ki Mae Heussner, GigaOM

With mounting competition in education technology, this week industry giant Blackboard laid out its plans for staying ahead. As the giant among learning management systems (LMS) for higher education, Blackboard is an easy target. And as its market share has dropped and newer, more innovative companies have entered the field over the past few years, Blackboard bashing has become a regular industry pastime. But the company’s critics might have less to knock if the company’s new CEO succeeds in putting Blackboard on a new path.  With mounting competition from LMS providers like Instructure, Moodle and Desire2Learn, as well as MOOC platforms and other ed tech startups bringing new learning software to education, Blackboard is under more pressure than ever before. But here are four ways Bhatt seems to believe he can move the company ahead.

http://gigaom.com/2013/07/12/a-new-blackboard-4-ways-the-ed-tech-giants-new-ceo-hopes-to-win-back-market-share/

By DEVON HAYNIE, US News

Graduate students should ensure online programs offer substantial student services.   While many online programs are ramping up their support services for students, experts say many others have a long way to go before they rival the offerings of their on-campus counterparts. Students considering an online graduate degree should explore whether the program offers tutoring, advising, library services and career counseling, says Susan Aldridge, a senior fellow at the American Association of State Colleges and Universities. Ideally, she says, those services would be available and accessible to students outside of traditional working hours. “If the support systems for the online students are only 8 a.m. to 5 p.m., they aren’t that useful to the online students,” she says.

http://www.usnews.com/education/online-education/articles/2013/07/12/how-to-compare-online-on-campus-graduate-programs

by Bernard Golden, CIO

It’s undeniable that the entire technology industry is shifting to cloud computing. Just as the ’80s was the era of the PC, and the ’90s (and ’00s, too) was the era of the Web, it’s inevitable that the ’10s will be the era of cloud computing. Endless words have been written about the technology underlying cloud computing. A number of orchestration products joust, each described by its company as the most complete, best performing product on the market. We’ve seen hybrid cloud products released by every vendor from Borneo to Nome, every one non pareil in tying together distributed orchestration products. One has even seen IBM describe its mainframe products as “truly a cloud” because mainframes, well…compute, I guess.

http://www.cio.com/article/735995/What_Economists_Can_Teach_Us_About_Cloud_Computing

by Voxxi

The United States’ image as a digital innovator does not match the level of high-tech educational opportunities offered in its classrooms. Namely, millions of students lack access to the high-speed broadband Internet that supports learning digital technology. Furthermore, less than 20 percent of educators across the country say their school’s Internet connection meets their teaching needs. While the nation was on the leading edge of web in the ‘90s, it has lagged behind as other nations invested in digital learning and technology education. President Barack Obama last month unveiled ConnectED, a new digital technology initiative that in five years aims to connect 99 percent of America’s students to the Internet through high-speed broadband and high-speed wireless.  The idea is the Federal Communications Commission [FCC] will modernize and leverage existing programs to deliver the intended connectivity.

http://www.voxxi.com/connected-digital-technology-schools/

by CIO

It’s undeniable that the entire technology industry is shifting to cloud computing. Just as the ’80s was the era of the PC, and the ’90s (and ’00s, too) was the era of the Web, it’s inevitable that the ’10s will be the era of cloud computing. Endless words have been written about the technology underlying cloud computing. A number of orchestration products joust, each described by its company as the most complete, best performing product on the market. We’ve seen hybrid cloud products released by every vendor from Borneo to Nome, every one non pareil in tying together distributed orchestration products. One has even seen IBM describe its mainframe products as “truly a cloud” because mainframes, well…compute, I guess.

http://www.cio.com/article/735995/What_Economists_Can_Teach_Us_About_Cloud_Computing

By Rachel Metz, Technology Review

In a bid to become ubiquitous, Dropbox unveils tools to help developers sync apps across mobile platforms. Dropbox, the fast-growing file-synching and file-sharing service, today announced new tools that could help the company become an indispensable ally to developers in an increasingly fragmented mobile ecosystem. The growth of smartphones and tablets spawned a whole new app economy, as well as a vexing problem for app developers: how to make an app that’s running on one device, such as a game on an Android smartphone, sync up with the same game running on every other device a person may use, from iPads to Linux laptops.

http://www.technologyreview.com/news/516951/how-dropbox-could-rule-a-multi-platform-world/

By Rachel Metz, Technology Review

A research project at Georgia Tech called FIDO (for “facilitating interactions for dogs with occupations”) is exploring ways to create wearable devices for dogs. Border collie Sky, pictured here, tries out a bite sensor. We’re just starting to see the early adopters of wearable computing wandering the streets gazing through Google’s head-worn computer or staring down at their Pebble smart watch. But a slew of researchers are already hard at work figuring out what will come next. Among the more outlandish ideas these researchers are experimenting with: sensors embedded in clothing and teeth, and—oh yes—a wearable computer designed just for dogs. After languishing in research labs for years, wearable computing is suddenly a hot topic in technology circles. The introduction of technologies such as the Pebble watch, fitness-tracking devices like Jawbone’s Up, and Google Glass, which is currently available to developers and is slated for public release next year, have ignited demand for more wearable gadgets.

http://www.technologyreview.com/news/516461/next-in-wearable-computing-a-device-for-dogs/