Techno-News Blog

by Karine Joly, University Business

With so much data now available, it is more challenging to choose what to present to decision-makers. In this context, benchmarking data can offer a welcomed reference frame to evaluate the overall performance of your school website. This is why new benchmarking reports, introduced in Google Analytics in September, are such a step forward for digital analytics. The three available reports let you compare the performance of your website with similar higher ed web properties.By selecting a geographic location and a range of average daily web sessions, you can access dashboards to compare your data on digital marketing channels driving traffic to your website, the location of your visitors and how they connected to your site. For a tutorial on accessing these benchmarking reports in Google Analytics, see my four-minute screencast.

http://www.universitybusiness.com/article/putting-web-analytics-data-use-higher-education

by CHRIS PARR Times Higher Ed

Some 78 per cent of those surveyed said they considered it important in university to be able to plan and coordinate group tasks using online tools such as calendars, scheduling tools and discussion applications, and 94 per cent said having the ability to find academic resources online was valuable. More than four out of five (84 per cent) said it was important to be able to set goals to help manage studying time for their university course, and those who had participated in online learning at school said that they had gained proficiency in a range of online learning tools that they were now using as part of their university working practice. The online learning experience had also helped them to develop confidence in using technology to source information and they were more likely to carry out their research online, the researchers found.

http://www.timeshighereducation.co.uk/news/online-learning-at-school-prepares-students-for-university/2016720.article

by Todd Shields, Glenview Sun-Times

A writer and thinker on the topics of online learning and education, Will Richardson may sound like he favors doing away with school buildings. He doesn’t, but his point is this: self-learning is in the hands of kids while pursing creative interests. “We have access to so much information outside classrooms, and powerful Web technologies really amplifies it. Schools are the most important institutions in communities,” Richardson said Thursday at Glenbrook South High School in Glenview. “But part of learning is leaving the school and that’s the good thing. Students can create their own digital stories, games and animations.”

http://glenview.suntimes.com/2014/10/30/new-tech-empower-students-ignite-learning/

By Leslie King, Emory Report

Want to be rated an excellent instructor by your students? Facilitate learning, show respect for students and communicate well and you are virtually guaranteed to get an overall rating of excellent, irrespective of anything else. The University of Central Florida’s Chuck Dziuban said this unbreakable rule is based on data mined from 1.2 million end-of-course student evaluations of their professors and instructors. If the students rate them excellent in all three of those categories, they will inevitably be rated as excellent overall.

http://news.emory.edu/stories/2014/10/er_blended_learning_talk/campus.html

BY CADE METZ, Wired

Coursera is one of the driving forces behind the MOOC, the massive open online course, a way for enormous numbers of people to experience university courses over the internet. Rick Levin, the former president of Yale University who now serves as CEO of Coursera, says the Silicon Valley startup is exploring the possibility of offering intimate online discussions with university professors who teach its MOOCs. “Down the road, we’ll probably go to a premium layer that you could pay for that would give you live interaction with a professor by video or something like that—a seminar within a MOOC,” Levin told WIRED at the Wall Street Journal’s WSJD conference here in Southern California. He compares this to a Google Hangout with a professor, and he indicated that such a thing could arrive in the coming year.

http://www.wired.com/2014/10/king-free-online-courses-may-soon-add-videochats-professors/

by Before It’s News

The Pew Research Center is predicting there will be a massive and debilitating cyber-attack against the U.S. within the next decade. Of the 1,600-plus experts surveyed by the Pew Research Center and Elon University’s Imagining the Internet Center, 61 percent agreed a major attack causing widespread harm would occur.

Ray Schroeder, associate vice-chancellor for online learning at the University of Illinois-Springfield — “I fear a cyber attack that will bring down key parts of the national infrastructure and severely damage the economy. I do not expect the Internet itself to suffer irreparable harm. But through the Internet, such infrastructures as the power grid; water and sewage services; hard-wired telephone and cell phone networks may be impaired. These, in turn, would put enormous pressures on the economy and alternative service models. Daily, there are thousands of attacks that are thwarted. But, it is only a matter of time before a large-scale attack succeeds. The key will be to establish effective models for recovery and support.”

http://beforeitsnews.com/business/2014/10/more-major-cyber-attacks-are-on-the-way-experts-predict-2665490.html

by Morning Start Advisor

“Contrary to popular belief, online learning isn’t a substitute for student-teacher interaction—it’s the catalyst for it,” says Horn, co-founder and executive director of Education at the Institute and co-author of Disrupting Class. “By offering a scalable way to bring personalization, access and cost control to K-12 schools, online learning enables teachers to spend more time on other activities like project-based and one-on-one learning.” “We can’t simply write a line item around funding tablets and think that will cover it,” adds Staker, senior research fellow at the Institute. “Technology is a critical piece of the puzzle, but understanding how to apply that technology is paramount. Blended is a comprehensive design manual for on-the-ground application.”

http://www.morningstar.com/advisor/t/98696679/the-way-we-learn-has-changed-why-haven-t-our-schools.htm

by Matthew C. Keegan, Say Campus Life

You’ve finally decided to take an online course, perhaps supplementing your regular on-campus courses with one that you can complete at your own pace. Online learning has been around for years and has provided many opportunities for people to get an education who might otherwise be shut out. Online courses may provide some flexibility for students, but there are some challenges that must be met too.

http://www.saycampuslife.com/2014/10/29/how-to-succeed-taking-online-courses/

by Sarah Darville, Chalkbeat

The panel’s recommendations are generic, and include expanding the use of tablets and interactive whiteboards, providing schools with high-speed broadband, and increasing students’ access to “blended learning” programs that combine online and in-person teaching. The report also notes that districts will need to plan useful teacher training sessions and set clear goals if they decide to spend money on expensive devices. “Even the best-laid plans will run into hiccups along the way, and the most successful school districts will be the ones who are able to adjust their technology plans along the way,” the report says.

http://ny.chalkbeat.org/2014/10/27/gov-cuomos-commission-on-ed-tech-spending-recommends-more-online-learning/

By Bob Glissmann, Omaha World-Herald

The University of Nebraska Medical Center and Nebraska Medicine, its clinical partner, are launching two free online Ebola education courses. The downloadable courses will provide easy-to-understand instruction and resources for health care professionals and the general public. The two courses, The Nebraska Ebola Method for Clinicians and The Nebraska Ebola Method for General Public, will provide instruction and information through videos and printable documents. The clinicians’ course already is available via the iTunes U app for iPad and iPhone.

http://www.omaha.com/news/metro/med-center-offers-free-online-ebola-education-courses/article_f79765d8-5dcb-11e4-9c0a-001a4bcf6878.html

By Christina Larson, Bloomberg

Levin, the new chief executive of Coursera, was president of Yale University for 20 years, making him one of the Ivy League’s longest-serving presidents. Levin focused on expanding partnerships in China and the school’s international presence more broadly in his time at Yale, according to his university biography, and he laid out an optimistic vision for the future of higher education in China in a 2010 article for Foreign Affairs. Now he wants to expand Coursera’s footprint in China. The company already offers more than 800 online courses led by professors at 112 colleges and other institutions—including such top-flight schools as Yale, Columbia University, and Duke University. Today Coursera has more than 10 million total users, and as Levin recently told the China Daily, the number of Chinese users is second only to those in the U.S. He sees China as the company’s greatest opportunity for expanding its user base.

http://www.businessweek.com/articles/2014-10-27/coursera-ceo-richard-levin-plans-to-expand-the-company-in-china

By Nichole Dobo, Hechinger Report

The Pennsylvania Department of Education recently approved an online program “endorsement” for educators – a credential that “documents knowledge in new and emerging areas where formal certification does not exist,” according to a June 2014 report from the department. The new course at the University of Pennsylvania will offer teachers instruction, from a practitioners’ perspective, on how to work in a blended learning-style instruction model. The virtual online teaching, known by the acronym VOLT, will include three modules: teaching and learning, communicating and literacy. The unifying thread is that the course will help teachers learn to do these things in an online environment.

http://hechingerreport.org/content/q-barbara-kurshan-need-certify-people-teach-online_17770/

By Laura Devaney, eSchool News

The answer to ensuring that all students have equitable access to the courses that will prepare them to be college- and career-ready could be found in a state policy known as Course Access, according to a new report from the International Association for K-12 Online Learning (iNACOL). Federal data indicates that only 50 percent of U.S. high schools offer calculus and just 63 percent offer physics, meaning that students in the other 50 percent of schools don’t even have the chance to enroll in these advanced courses. But Course Access policies, funded by public education dollars, would ensure that all students have equal access to the online, blended, and face-to-face educational opportunities that help them become college and career ready.

http://www.eschoolnews.com/2014/10/24/course-access-policies-650/

By Ron Bethke, eCampus News

Using “the science of memory,” and recent advances in personalized learning, an adaptive courseware provider is developing a STEM course aimed at engaging and retaining at-risk students. A recent recipient of the the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation Next Generation Courseware Challenge, Cerego says its future course, StatsPL, will allow for such personalization of STEM learning that the course could reach more than 1 million low-income students by 2018.

http://www.ecampusnews.com/top-news/cerego-personalized-courseware-918/

by Georgia Institute of Technology

The Georgia Institute of Technology organized a national media roundtable Thursday to discuss the current state of online learning in higher education and how technology will help shape its future. Georgia Tech Provost Rafael L. Bras hosted a nationa media roundtable on Technology and the Future of Online Higher Education at the Carnegie Corporation of New York in New York City. Provost Rafael L. Bras hosted the event, “Technology and the Future of Online Higher Education,” at the Carnegie Corporation of New York’s headquarters in New York City. There was universal agreement that technology maneuvered higher education to a new trajectory where teaching and learning is changing for the better.

http://www.ecnmag.com/news/2014/10/technology-provides-higher-education-bright-future

By JOHN D’AMICO, Wall Street Journal

A high school in Japan will allow students to attend via virtual avatar starting next spring. Meisei Cyber, an initiative of private Meisei High School in Chiba prefecture, said it would offer classes and tests via computer, smartphone or tablet in a three-year high school curriculum. Students will watch prerecorded lectures from Meisei’s teaching staff, each running around 25 minutes. For four days per year, students must attend schooling at Meisei in person. The rest of the year, students are free to study at their own pace, and they can adopt an avatar as their identity just as videogamers would do in a role-playing game. In their free time, students can communicate in the guise of their avatar with other students, perhaps to “consult on studying or tests” or “enjoy student life,” according to Meisei’s website.

http://blogs.wsj.com/japanrealtime/2014/10/24/cyber-high-school-will-allow-students-to-attend-as-avatars/

by Natalie Kitroeff, BusinessWeek

It made sense that the Georgia Institute of Technology launched an online-only computer science degree in January of this year. It was less obvious what was in it for its two corporate partners: Udacity and AT&T. Sure, Udacity is an online education company. But the company’s founder, former Google (GOOG) vice president and self-driving car evangelist Sebastian Thrun, made his name by creating virtual programs open to anyone, not paid online degrees like the one Georgia Tech is offering. He is, according to Fast Company, the “godfather of free online education.” Georgia Tech’s program has the technological trappings of a massive open online course, or MOOC, but it’s different from a MOOC in important ways. First, to get credit for the class you need to pony up $6,600. Second, graduates can claim a Master of Science degree that’s no different from the one someone sitting in a physical Georgia Tech classroom would receive—you don’t have to list “online” next to the MS on your résumé.

http://www.businessweek.com/articles/2014-10-24/at-and-t-and-former-google-vp-back-georgia-tech-online-degree-program

by Jacquie Posey, U Penn

For students in University of Pennsylvania Open Learning courses, the online education provided in the global classroom doesn’t end when the courses do. “Growing Old Around the Globe” from Penn’s School of Nursing is a shining example of the college-level continuing education that can be found in Penn’s free massive open online courses. Students enrolled in the MOOC, first offered in 2013, created a community of learners around the world who are still sharing perspectives on aging and learning about gerontology via the course teaching team’s social media outreach. Archived video lessons are available for public viewing on YouTube.

http://www.upenn.edu/pennnews/news/when-penn-open-learning-class-ends-continuing-education-does-not

By Amy Erin Borovoy, edutopia

“Digital citizenship” is an umbrella term that covers a whole host of important issues. Broadly, it’s the guidelines for responsible, appropriate behavior when one is using technology. But specifically, it can cover anything from “netiquette” to cyberbullying; technology access and the digital divide; online safety and privacy; copyright, plagiarism, and digital law, and more. In fact, some programs that teach digital citizenship have outlined no less than nine elements that intersect to inform a well-equipped digital citizen. This playlist is intended to offer tools to make the case that it’s critical to teach this, and then launchpad videos to seed classroom discussions once you’ve carved out that precious time.

http://www.edutopia.org/blog/film-festival-digital-citizenship

By Laura Devaney, eSchool News

The answer to ensuring that all students have equitable access to the courses that will prepare them to be college- and career-ready could be found in a state policy known as Course Access, according to a new report from the International Association for K-12 Online Learning (iNACOL). Federal data indicates that only 50 percent of U.S. high schools offer calculus and just 63 percent offer physics, meaning that students in the other 50 percent of schools don’t even have the chance to enroll in these advanced courses. But Course Access policies, funded by public education dollars, would ensure that all students have equal access to the online, blended, and face-to-face educational opportunities that help them become college and career ready.

http://www.eschoolnews.com/2014/10/24/course-access-policies-650/