Techno-News Blog

by Inside Higher Ed

Minerva Schools at KGI, the ambitious (and still heavily theoretical) project that aims to educate some of the world’s best students online but in residential settings, said this week that it would give its first group of undergraduates four years of free tuition when they enroll next fall, but ultimately charge $10,000 in annual tuition and under $30,000 in total costs. The project, which is seeking accreditation through Keck Graduate Institute, part of the Claremont University Consortium, aims to enroll students who could qualify for Ivy League and other highly competitive universities but would opt for an experimental alternative. The project has been the subject of both significant interest (and support from powerful friends, such as Bob Kerrey and Lawrence Summers) and a good bit of skepticism.

http://www.insidehighered.com/quicktakes/2013/09/18/minerva-plans-annual-price-29000-online-residential-program

By Carl Straumsheim, Inside Higher Ed

The Massachusetts Institute of Technology will this fall package some of its online courses into more cohesive sequences, just as edX prepares to roll out certificates of completion using identity verification. Seen together, the two announcements may provide a glimpse at what the future holds for the massive open online course provider. The “XSeries” sequences add a new layer of  structure to MITx, the institution’s section of the edX platform. The first of seven courses in the Foundations of Computer Science XSeries will be offered this fall, with one or more new courses being rolled out each semester until the fall of 2015. The Supply Chain Management XSeries, consisting of three courses, will begin in the fall of 2014. The two sequences will target undergraduates and working professionals, respectively.

http://www.insidehighered.com/news/2013/09/18/mit-announces-two-mooc-sequences-edx-strategy-begins-take-shape

by Steve Kolowich, Chronicle of Higher Ed

MITx, a division of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology that offers courses on the nonprofit edX’s platform, announced on Tuesday that it would soon offer special certificates to students who completed a prescribed sequence of massive open online courses from MIT. The sequences will be called XSeries. T plans to offer its first XSeries sequence, Foundations of Computer Science, beginning this fall. The computer-science series will consist of seven courses that together “will cover content equivalent to two to four traditional residential courses and take between six months and two years to complete,” according to a news release. By offering certificates to students who complete a sequence of MOOCs, edX seems to be pushing alternative credentials to the next logical step.

http://chronicle.com/blogs/wiredcampus/mit-will-offer-mooc-curricula-not-just-single-courses-on-edx/46715

By Matthew Finnegan, Computerworld UK

The OpenStack Foundation has launched a new online resource aimed at improving access to training courses for those building applications on the open source cloud operating system. The OpenStack Foundation said that there is growing demand for workers with cloud-related skills, citing recent stats that indicate 14 million cloud-related roles will be created by 2015. In order to meet demand from enterprises seeking to build and operate OpenStack-based clouds, the OpenStack Foundation has launched its Training Marketplace to provide details of training courses available worldwide. The site allows people to search for the nearest course, as well as indicating the specific specialties that they are interested in. Training courses are currently on offer from a number of participating firms, including Red Hat, Rackspace, the Linux foundation, though there has not been a central repository of information up until now, OpenStack said.

http://www.cfoworld.com/operations/72790/openstack-foundation-aims-improve-training-access-online-search-tools

By NICHOLAS FINIO, The Slate

With the advancement of technology throughout the past decade, education has taken steps in easier, more compatible directions. With such a wide array of information, access and connection associated with the Internet, taking classes electronically have become a normal part of the college experience. Such innovations did not exist 20 years ago and now that these options are available, professors and students are using the stability of working from home rather than doing exercises in the classroom. In my opinion, taking an online class truly eliminates factors that may make a student hesitant to participate and applies a positive outlook on actions.

http://www.theslateonline.com/article/2013/09/technologys-benefit-in-schools

By Denny Carter, eCampus News

Three in four online students said this week in a national survey that they were satisfied with their college experience, though the quality of online instruction is a lingering concern. Instructional quality remains a concern in online classes. The 75 percent satisfaction rate among web-based students was markedly higher than the 55 percent rate among traditional campus-based students surveyed by Noel-Levitz, a higher education consulting firm that publishes the annual “National Online Learners Priorities Report.” The report gauges student perception of various kinds of post-secondary education, and how they’ve changed in recent years. Online learning satisfaction levels were high, but instructional quality was pegged as a primary concern among those who took online classes.

http://www.ecampusnews.com/top-news/survey-online-students-133/

By Antonio Regalado, Technology Review

Eye app: A smartphone displays a measurement of the refractive error of a person’s eyes. Vitor Pamplona isn’t a doctor. He’s not even an optician. He can’t write you a prescription for glasses, or sell you a pair. Still, he’s pretty sure he’s going to disrupt the $75 billion global eye-care market. At EyeNetra, the startup he cofounded, goofy curiosities like plastic eyeballs line the shelves, and a 3-D printing machine whirs in the background. It’s printing out prototypes of a device that will attach to your smartphone and, in a minute or two, tell you what kind of eyeglasses you need.

http://www.technologyreview.com/news/518891/when-smartphones-do-a-doctors-job/

by Digital Journal

Nearly three-quarters of online learners surveyed (74 percent) expressed satisfaction with their educational experience. In fact, when comparing those enrolled primarily online to those enrolled at a campus but taking courses online, the satisfaction numbers were in stark contrast: 75 percent to 55 percent. These figures come from the 2013 National Online Learners Priorities Report, published by Noel-Levitz. They also compare to figures from the 2013 National Student Satisfaction and Priorities Report which looks at student satisfaction levels by institutional type. Here, the satisfaction levels ranged from 54 percent for four-year publics and 58 percent for four-year privates to 63 percent for community colleges. (Career and private schools scored 58 percent in overall satisfaction.)

http://www.digitaljournal.com/pr/1468138

by Harvard Magazine

Harvard President Emeritus Derek Bok, speaking at the six-hundredth anniversary of the University of St Andrews on September 14, focused squarely on the application of information technology to the classroom. Framing his remarks, Bok said it was easy to decide which theme to pursue in thinking about the future of universities: “In the long history of higher education, no development since the printing press has had as much power to transform universities as the computer and the related innovations we call information technology.”

http://harvardmagazine.com/2013/09/harvard-past-president-endorses-online-education

by Jackson State University

Learning has gone mobile, and the students at Jackson State University (JSU) are reaping the benefits. Through the iPad Technology Advantage Scholarship Initiative (TASI), incoming full-time freshmen at JSU are each provided with the latest-generation iPad. And what do the students do with these iPads? Some pretty amazing things. In addition to having 24/7 access to textbooks online in the form of eBooks or iBooks, students have dozens of apps that enable them to take class notes, collaborate on content, communicate via Skype, tap into resources like math reference formulas or periodic tables, learn a foreign language online, access world maps at a touch, read or listen to thousands of other books or audiobooks, use their iPad as a graphing calculator and much more. ESE Apps are also included, with references for American Sign Language and text to speech conversion.

http://www.napsnet.com/articles/69797.html

by Lauren Landry, BostInno

Coursera has successfully cleared the hurdle many massive open online course platforms continue to face. The company announced Thursday its Signature Track program has garnered 25,000 signups, earning it $1 million in revenue. Launched in January, Coursera’s Signature Track program gives students the ability to earn a verified certificate for completing one of their online courses. The feature also lets students link their coursework to their identity so they can securely show employers what they have achieved while using the platform. Beyond Signature Track, Coursera has started working with the American Council on Education on credit equivalency, and has also launched a recruiting service to help committed Coursera students connect with employers.

http://bostinno.streetwise.co/2013/09/13/coursera-hits-1-million-in-revenue-verified-certificates/

by James Call, the Florida Current

Florida House Speaker Will Weatherford may have been a day earlier than the agenda but on Thursday he proposed a big hairy audacious goal for education at the Florida Leaders Summit. He wants the state to assume national leadership in on-line education. “Starting with preK-12 through higher education we should be the state that everyone looks to and says ‘Wow, what’s Florida doing? It’s really exciting and it looks like they figured out this online learning thing,’” Weatherford said to summit participants. Weatherford participated in a discussion with Miami University President Donna Shalala and Daphne Koller, a professor in the Stanford School of Engineering. The three talked about how technology is changing the way people learn and can free up teachers’ time, create value for institutions and provide more opportunities for people seeking a higher education.

http://www.thefloridacurrent.com/article.cfm?id=34448967

BY JANE DARBY MENTON AND JULIA ZORTHIAN, Yale Daily

With enrollment now open for Yale’s first four courses on Coursera — a platform for massive online open courses, or MOOCs — faculty are leading efforts to expand different forms of online education, funded by two major donations on the horizon. University President Peter Salovey said the Committee on Online Education, a group of 14 faculty members, will look into and experiment with other forms of online education and the Coursera courses using the donations to find the form best for Yale. The University’s effort to expand its programs in online education will be faculty-driven, rather than mandated by administrators.

http://yaledailynews.com/blog/2013/09/13/yale-pushes-online-expansion/

by Muhammad Nadeen, Education News

LearnBig offers a powerful search engine on its website. The search tools include filters for grade level, subject, and whether or not the content complies with national educational standards to help users dig for the right stuff. LearnBig also features Career Paths, which provide older students with learning programs that pull from all around the web to get them set up for a career in a skill-based field like mobile app development or 3D modeling. LearnBIG is hoping to change the way learners of all ages access thousands of online educational resources by providing them with one central location. The company’s website joins together technology and community to improve educational access regardless of income, age or geographic location, according to LearnBIG. The company sees that users want to search for and filter content by subject, level, platform and popularity for all major sectors of education — Pre-K, K-12, college and lifelong learning — and allows users to easily find education resources that match their perceived learning style.

http://www.educationnews.org/online-schools/learnbig-strives-to-make-online-educational-content-search-easy/

by the Gazette

The Iowa Board of Regents wants to know whether Iowa’s public universities have considered increases in online learning before proposing more than $200 million in building projects on the campuses. Iowa Gov. Terry Branstad vetoed funding for these same projects in June, saying he feared campus overbuilding as online learning continues to grow. “I have to ask this: have we adequately considered an online teaching component?” Regent Milt Dakovich, asked Warren Madden, Iowa State University vice president for business and finance, at a regents committee meeting Tuesday in Cedar Falls.

http://thegazette.com/2013/09/10/iowa-board-of-regents-committee-asks-universities-whether-online-learning-should-mean-fewer-building-projects/

By Karl Malgiero, WDDE

Over 6,500 hundred high school and college students, veterans and job seekers are already participating in the Cyber Aces program in five other states. The Delaware Cyber Aces program is comprised of three phases: online courses, state championship events and elite education academies. This year’s program begins with a qualifying online competition that runs from now until December. Qualifiers then advance to a championship event on March 30 that utilizes NetWars, the same hands-on simulation the U.S. military uses to train its officers in network warfare. From that point, selected participants can begin elite education and workforce training at a “Cyber Aces Academy” that provides hands-on coursework, certifications and paid residencies in real world job environments. Although Delaware does not have an academy of its own in the state, planning is underway to get one up and running.

http://www.wdde.org/49739-online-competition-seeks-cybersecurity-talent

by Molly Greenberg, In the Capital

EdX made a huge announcement on Tuesday that may very well change the way we perceive digital education. Unveiling a brand new partnership with Google, edX and the tech titan will be working together to develop the open source learning platform, Open edX, and collaborate on building out and hosting MOOC.org – a new site for universities, businesses, and professors not already associated with edX to introduce their lessons to a global audience. Developed by bright minds from Harvard and MIT, edX immediately caught the attention of the masses upon first entering the online learning realm, and has since lived up to the hype. The platform has only grown bigger, progressively increasing its higher education partnerships, which is why it’s pursuing even greater dominance of the digital world today. And what better company to partner with than Google is you truly want to make a splash on the tech scene.

http://inthecapital.streetwise.co/2013/09/10/edx-partners-with-google-to-create-mooc-org-online-learning/

by Tony Wan, EdSurge

Do online courses work? It’s a question that’s been debated since, well, the dawn of the Internet. Dubious results and success stories alike have made headlines in recent years. Now, the venerable research institute, SRI International, is taking a crack at this question. In August, it published Phase 1 of an ongoing study to examine “to what extent, why, when, and how [italics in original] online learning models that target Algebra 1 work or do not work for different student populations.” Funded by the Gates Foundation, the report, “Supporting K-12 Students in Online Learning: A Review of Online Algebra I Courses,” looks at six popular online providers of Algebra I courses, which present “a mature segment of the online learning market.” These six providers offer fully-packaged courses designed as an alternative (and not a supplement) to traditional, in-person classes. The enrollments for these profiled companies range from 18,000+ in Michigan to half a million students around the U.S.

https://www.edsurge.com/n/2013-09-10-do-online-algebra-courses-work

Steven A. Lowe , InfoWorld

Much of today’s talk is about youth ruling development and IT. Sure, there are a lot of eager, bright young people in tech, and most of them like to think that they “rule,” but the truth is we oldsters still run the show. Why? Because hard-earned lessons provide the wisdom to distinguish fantasy from reality, and the determination to do what’s necessary, not just what’s fun or cool.

http://www.cio.com/slideshow/detail/117841

by Al Sacco, CIO

An online-research firm released a list of what it says are the most popular mobile apps in the world. CIO.com blogger Al Sacco says the list is questionable, but it does provide some interesting findings. The infographic in this post supposedly spotlights the 16 most popular mobile apps in the world, based on usage. It comes from online-research firm GlobalWebIndex, which asked respondents, “Which of the following mobile applications have you used in the past month?”

http://blogs.cio.com/mobile-apps/18229/globalwebindex-most-popular-mobile-apps-google

By Judy Salpeter, School CIO

Few people today would argue with the idea that technology offers powerful tools for teaching, learning, and communicating. But how do we ensure that access to such tools is ongoing and ubiquitous, rather than an optional “frill” that teachers and students use only occasionally? Participants in this working session were addressing this question through 1:1 initiatives, Bring Your Own (BYO) solutions, or some combination of the two.

http://www.schoolcio.com/cio-feature-articles/0109/byod-and-one-to-one/54155