Techno-News Blog

By Jason Perlow, ZD Net

When is the updated, 6th-generation version of Apple’s flagship tablet coming? All signs point to October or November of 2014. But the real question is not when the product is going to be released, it’s what’s going to be in it. The iPad Air has only just been released, but the rumor mill is already spinning as to what might be in the next-generation version, which is likely to appear in October or November of 2014. Let’s have a look at the technologies and features that might make their way into the next version of the product.

http://www.zdnet.com/ipad-air-2-features-that-are-coming-your-way-7000012706/

by Violet Blue, ZD Net

Hackers looking to make quick cash just got a new way to grease their bank accounts with the launch of HackerOne’s Internet Bug Bounty. Security high-hats from primary sponsors Microsoft and Facebook, along with volunteers from Etsy, Chrome and ISEC Partners calling themselves HackerOne today announced a bounty program trading cash for bugs in Open SSL, Python, Ruby, PHP, Rails, Perl and “the Internet,” among others. According to HackerOne’s Disclosure, the companies behind the program are not allowed special access or rights to the submitted bugs. Hackers can submit as anonymously as they prefer. Response Teams from affected companies and products are cautioned against taking punitive action against the hackers.

http://www.zdnet.com/new-internet-bug-bounty-holds-companies-accountable-protects-hackers-7000022904/

by Ed Bott, ZD Net

How do you compete with rivals that are willing to give away a product comparable to yours? That’s Microsoft’s multi-billion dollar Office dilemma as it tries to compete with Google and its free Google Apps platform. For a generation raised on Gmail, Google Drive and the Google Docs family might be good enough for some potential customers to decide they don’t need the “real” Office after all. In a bid to raise the stakes, Google is making its free Quickoffice suite a standard feature of its latest Android distribution, KitKat. Meanwhile, Apple is stumbling, cutting features as it tries to make its iWork programs compatible across iPads and Macs. All of which explains why Microsoft is evolving its Office Web Apps at breakneck speed.

http://www.zdnet.com/microsoft-improves-its-free-online-office-7000022911/

by  Daniel Randall, et al Brigham Young University; Brainstorm in Progress

“We will present our design for an open badge system currently in use in an undergraduate technology course for education majors. Our design is an attempt to use badges and an open online course to not only enhance student learning but also to encourage continued learning once our course has ended.  Open badges can provide a credential for learning that occurs in a non-traditional setting, a space in which few institutions are providing credentials. This makes open badges a textbook example of a disruptive innovation. However, since badges can also be used in a traditional setting, universities and other traditional credentialing institutions can adapt by using open badges to enhance their current course offers and encourage lifelong learning in a non-traditional setting.
http://cain.blogspot.com/2013/11/using-open-badges-adn-open-course-to.html

by Brainstorm in Progress

Michael Caulfield discussed how MOOCs are being used.   “The “wrapped MOOC” has gained attention over the past year as a way to integrate MOOCs into traditional education. This presentation will present results of interviews with practitioners of this method to show that in practice most educators are not “wrapping” the cohort experience, but are instead using the MOOC as robust OER. This trend is discussed in terms of “distributed flip” and “distributed blend” models, as well as David Wiley’s joking but correct observation that MOOCs are distraction from the potential of DROOL (DistRibuted Open Online Learning). Implications include a hidden but high demand for robust, course-level OER, and the possible desirability of approaching blended learning from the online experience “backwards”, as opposed to the traditional model which emphasizes the online refitting of an existing or assumed face-to-face experience.”

http://cain.blogspot.com/2013/11/open-ed-13-oers-rule-moocs-drool-moocs.html

by Consumer Electronics Network

Two new surveys reveal that the number of online programs is increasing at many private and public colleges and universities, which can lead to higher enrollment and new sources of revenue. The research by Learning House, which was co-sponsored by the Council of Independent Colleges (CIC) and the American Association of State Colleges and Universities (AASCU), also indicates that currently, state universities have integrated online higher education more fully than private institutions. Forty-eight percent of state colleges offer at least five fully online degree programs, while only 15 percent of private colleges do so.  “There has been a lot of discussion about the impact of MOOCs,” said David Clinefelter, Chief Academic Officer at Learning House and a co-author of the reports. “But in these two surveys, we discovered that institutions, private and public alike, are more focused on offering additional online programs.”

http://www.consumerelectronicsnet.com/article/New-Research-Reveals-Public-and-Private-Colleges-Approaches-to-Online-Higher-Education–2903413

By Heidi Clausen, Country Today

While most teens her age were seated behind a desk one recent Tuesday morning, Audree Marcis was finishing up the morning chores on her family’s dairy farm. Shortly before 10 a.m., she logged on to her computer for geometry class, then online lessons in world history and Gothic literature. While she lives a couple hundred miles away from Grantsburg, Audree is one of about 680 students throughout Wisconsin enrolled in the Grantsburg School District’s virtual charter school, iForward. Homeschooled from first through fifth grade, she’s been an iForward student since sixth grade and now is a sophomore. While it can be challenging at times, Audree said she enjoys the freedom virtual schooling provides.

http://www.thecountrytoday.com/front_page/article_59d618f0-4579-11e3-84a6-0019bb2963f4.html

by David Blake, Huffington Post

Right now, for online learning services like MOOCs, only a few rankings or review sites are available. CourseTalk is an early entry into the market. It focuses on customer reviews. There is definitely space yet for a Yelp, Angie’s List or Consumer Reports for online education to emerge. MOOCS.com is starting to provide much more detailed reviews and reports about some popular MOOCs. But we shouldn’t get carried away about the importance of rankings. Ranking an educational program, whether traditional or not, in terms of whether it gets you a job or gets you promoted is not the only value that should be considered or even be given top priority. Education is also a value in itself.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/david-blake/a-yelp-for-online-learning_b_4193050.html

By Megan O’Neil, Chronicle of Higher Ed

The State University of New York’s University at Albany and nearby Hudson Valley Community College have agreed to take the first steps in what officials envision as a long-term, multifaceted sharing of information-technology services and facilities. They are the first institutions in the 64-campus SUNY system to share information-technology resources, and the arrangement could become a model for other colleges, officials say. The first step, in which each institution will house secondary backup servers for the other, involves linking the campuses via a dedicated fiber cable that is to be installed by December.

http://chronicle.com/blogs/wiredcampus/u-at-albany-will-share-technology-services-with-community-college/48107

By Avi Goldfarb, Technology Review

E-commerce purchases are increasingly being carried out from mobile devices. For retailing, the key change produced by the Internet is that shopping online spared consumers the economic costs (in time, grief, and gas money) of visiting a store and locating a product. This has been called the “death of distance.” When even isolated individuals can buy anything from a global marketplace, physical location does not confer any commercial advantage, and online merchants might be expected to win every battle. But an emerging body of economic research shows that there is no independent “online world.” Physical context matters to e-commerce. It shapes our choices and tastes, and it strongly determines what we buy online. With the rise of mobile computing, these local effects matter even more.

http://www.technologyreview.com/news/520796/the-internet-killed-distance-mobile-computing-brought-it-back/

by Steve Kolowich, Chronicle of Higher Ed

Now Stanford is looking to reclaim some leadership in the MOOC movement from the private companies down the street. For some of its offerings it has started using Open edX, the open-source platform developed by edX, an East Coast nonprofit provider of MOOCs. And Stanford is marshaling its resources and brainpower to improve its own online infrastructure. In doing so, the university is putting its weight behind an open-source alternative that could help others develop MOOCs independently of proprietary companies.

http://chronicle.com/article/With-Open-Platform-Stanford/142783/

by Mark DiOrio, Observer-Dispatch

In a traditional classroom, the teacher gives a lecture and assigns homework. Now reverse it. Students watch the lesson at home, or on the bus using their smartphone, computer or tablet. The homework? It’s done in class. The idea of the flipped classroom is becoming more and more common, said Patrice Hallock, Utica College Education Department chairwoman. “The students are actively engaged in the classroom under the supervision of the teacher, so they are doing activities that apply the content in the classroom,” Hallock said. “Whenever there is higher student engagement, there’s more learning that occurs.”
http://www.uticaod.com/news/x1783713601/Teachers-use-technology-to-instruct-outside-of-school

by Lauren Hepler, San Jose Biz Journal

Mountain View online education startup Coursera just nabbed two new hires from Facebook Inc. and Netflix Inc., according to a company spokesperson. The additions to the executive team come just months after the Stanford-bred purveyor of Massive Open Online Courses, or MOOCs, landed a $43 million series B funding round led by Silicon Valley venture capital firms Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers and NEA. Despite a total $65 million in funding, Coursera remains in the experimentation phase when it comes to rolling out products that actually generate revenue.

http://www.bizjournals.com/sanjose/news/2013/11/04/coursera-nabs-new-executives-from.html

By Tanya Roscorla, Center for Digital Ed

The University of Michigan is moving to a shared services model that it says represents the future for higher education IT.  A shared services model has the potential to help university IT run more efficiently and focus more on teaching and learning technologies. While companies have been using a shared services model for decades, higher education is fairly new to this model because universities tend to be more decentralized. And that was the case at the University of Michigan until recently.

http://www.centerdigitaled.com/news/The-Future-Model-of-Higher-Education-IT.html

by Education’s Digital Future of Stanford Graduate School of Education

A growing clamor is calling for an accreditor to oversee the quality of college-level learning that occurs outside of college. The challenge could be taken on by an existing accrediting agency — or a new one — that develops a specialty in non-institutional providers like StraighterLine and Udacity. Or, with more of a trailblazing approach, an accreditor could approve individual courses rather than degrees. If either idea becomes a reality it would add a seal of approval for a constellation of online course providers and, perhaps, open the door for them to federal financial aid. The current accreditation system has taken plenty of hits lately. President Obama, Congressional Republicans, think tanks and Bill Gates are among many critics who say accreditors — who are outsourced gate-keepers for the federal government — need to do more to encourage innovation and competition.

http://edf.stanford.edu/readings/course-size-accreditation

By Holly Clark, Edudemic

Crowdsourcing is an important information literacy skill.  Jeff Howe was the first to coin the term “crowdsourcing” in Wired Magazine in 2006. In his article, Howe describes how the internet has created a virtual crowd that allows us to share our passions and interests. This is important for students because the idea of crowdsourcing will allow them to utilize personal learning networks to gain a diversity of opinions, find outside experts and use the wisdom of a network or crowd to find more thorough answers and ask better questions. Howe feels there are two important components to crowdsourcing. There must be an “open-call”  (you allow everyone to participate), and it must be undefined (let the students ask the questions). The person you think might be the best person, is not necessarily the best person for the job. This forces students to think of each other as potential partners and together, by utilizing the strengths of everyone or the crowd, they can create a much better product or expand an idea. It is what Howe calls “Wikipedia with everything.”
http://www.edudemic.com/crowdsourcing-in-the-classroom/

By Rachel Metz, Technology Review

A 3-D gesture-recognition chip could make it a lot easier to use smart watches and head-mounted computers. Shown on a penny are the ultrasound chip and the electronics chip that make up Chirp, a 3-D gesture-recognition system that uses ultrasonic sound waves to identify motions, as well as a battery that can run the system for 30 hours. If just thinking about using a tiny touch screen on a smart watch has your fingers cramping up, researchers at the University of California at Berkeley and Davis may soon offer some relief: they’re developing a tiny chip that uses ultrasound waves to detect a slew of gestures in three dimensions. The chip could be implanted in wearable gadgets.

http://www.technologyreview.com/news/520841/a-gestural-interface-for-smart-watches/

By Mike Orcutt, Technology Review

Until we have a better understanding of design constraints imposed by 3-D printers and 3-D-printed materials, the technology won’t reach its full potential in manufacturing. Drawing on artificial-intelligence capabilities, PARC researchers are developing software meant to help make manufacturing accessible to people without manufacturing expertise. In theory, 3-D printing gives consumers the ability to conceive of and make various products. But designing many objects requires specialized knowledge of geometry, materials, and manufacturing processes. Researchers at PARC are now building software tools meant to automate that kind of judgment. The goal, says PARC CEO Stephen Hoover, is to build programs that enable non-experts to “kind of think their way through a design space” before sending any instructions to the printer.

http://www.technologyreview.com/news/520576/automated-manufacturing-for-3-d-printers/

by Karen Grava, University of New Haven

Some of the faculty who recently completed a special course sponsored by the College of Lifelong & eLearning (CLEL) began the class with great skepticism. Online classes, they said, were probably impersonal. Students wouldn’t be engaged. The quality wouldn’t be as good as an “on-ground” course, and the students wouldn’t work as much or be as good. The classes might be suitable for someone else, but for their material, online teaching just wouldn’t work. They learned they were wrong. “A colleague in the accounting department and I had discussions on the possibility of a good online course coming up to the quality and results of a good on-ground course,” said Robert McDonald, associate professor of accounting. “I was not sure that was possible. But I have changed my mind on that question. I think the University community is on the edge of a major transformation in which online courses will surpass on-ground courses in quality and effectiveness.”

http://newhaven.edu/Lifelong_eLearning/643322/

by: Rob Kelly, Magna Publications

When designing an online course it’s important to carefully consider which tools align with the course’s learning objectives and the types of communication that will occur. There are three types of communication that can occur in an online course—one to one, one to many, and many to many. In an interview with Online Classroom, Sara Ombres, faculty development instructor, and Anna Reese, production coordinator/instructional designer, both at Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University’s Worldwide Campus, talked about how they help instructors select communication tools to suit the situation.

http://www.magnapubs.com/blog/teaching-and-learning/selecting-the-appropriate-communication-tools/

By Calvin Hennick, Boston Globe

Paper? Check. Pencils? Got ’em. And — if you’re a Medfield eighth-grader — don’t forget the iPad. At a time when technology is becoming as integral as backpacks and gym shoes for some students, the policy raises the question of whether expensive electronics should be considered “school supplies” like calculators, notebooks, and binder, or whether districts should provide required devices in the same way they hand out textbooks. Nat Vaughn, principal of Blake Middle School in Medfield, said he was “cautiously optimistic” when the district first surveyed parents last winter to determine how they would feel about buying iPads for their kids to use at school. “We said, ‘We feel this is really enhancing our education. Here’s why, and here’s what it looks like,’ ” Vaughn said. “Overwhelmingly, they said they would support this initiative.”

http://www.bostonglobe.com/metro/regionals/west/2013/11/03/become-ipads-devices-great-rigeur-schools-offers-lesson-should-economics-ipads-students-high-tech-gear-schools-call-tablets-high-tech/2AvVcGYtZIlq9YKyTO8TEK/story.html