Techno-News Blog

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 Indiana State University

“Enrollment in online programs is increasing all over the country and higher education has seen a simultaneous significant increase in community engagement and service-learning” said Nathan Schaumleffel, associate professor in the department of kinesiology, recreation and sport. “And these two things haven’t really collided yet nationally. There are very few people doing community engagement and service-learning in the online environment.” Schaumleffel is campus/executive director of Indiana State’s Nonprofit Leadership Alliance Certification Program, which earned national Sprint Campus of the Year honors in 2013. Alliance members are dedicated to educating, preparing and certifying professionals to strengthen and lead nonprofit organizations. Schaumleffel completed five online courses during his spring 2014 sabbatical, all focusing on online instruction and e-service-learning.

http://www.indstate.edu/news/news.php?newsid=4133

by Seb Murray, Business Because

The online learning revolution is coming to the office. Mooc makers and business schools are selling customized online courses to businesses – a lucrative market. The online learning revolution has broken into the boardroom. The developers of Moocs – massive open online courses – are teaming up with business schools to train executives in potentially lucrative courses ranging from cybersecurity to marketing. These developers have drawn huge audiences of millions globally to their free content which is developed by industry professionals and leading academics. For MBA and business school students, it means an online network of additional knowledge to tap into outside of the classroom, free of charge. For the learning technology companies that produce the courses, it is a way to turn their enormous popularity into cash, and widen their student pools.

http://www.businessbecause.com/news/mba-distance-learning/2869/online-learning-revolution-gains-ground-with-businesses

By Michael Hart, Campus Technologies

Academic online database Researchomatic has added 20,000 new literature topics to its collection of nearly 4 million topics across a wide range of academic fields. Researchomatic.com is an e-library of essays, articles and research papers intended to help high school and college students as they prepare their own academic assignments. Students can search its database for specific topics. They will get multiple summaries of a few hundred words each on the topic they select. They can also copy and paste citation information that attributes the information to Researchomatic.com.

http://campustechnology.com/articles/2014/10/22/elibrary-of-research-materials-bulks-up-literature-collection.aspx

by Ron Bethke, eCampusNews

According to a report by McKinsey, freelance portals will create more than 150 million jobs globally by 2025. And a new education startup called CodersTrust is aiming to teach students new IT and coding skills in order to land those freelance and outsourcing jobs–a goal that CodersTrust believes will be critical for future economies. For example, Elance, one of the major online freelance job portals, has a whopping 54 percent of its listed jobs in the IT & Programming category, with those jobs going for over $2 billion dollars total.

http://www.ecampusnews.com/top-news/coderstrust-unique-it-826/

By Laura Devaney, eSchool News

Seventy-four percent of K-8 teachers in a recent report said they use digital games for instruction, but few teachers reported engaging students with immersive games that offer in-depth exploration and 21st-century skill development. Teachers surveyed for a new report from the Joan Ganz Cooney Center said they believe using digital games in the classroom helps students improve math skills (71 percent), computer/technology content and skills (65 percent), executive function skills (59 percent), and 21st-century skills (52 percent).

http://www.eschoolnews.com/2014/10/22/wanted-immersive-gaming-673/