Techno-News Blog

by National Student Clearinghouse Research

This fourth annual report on national college completion rates offers a look at the six-year outcomes for students who began postsecondary education in fall 2009, the cohort that entered college as the Great Recession was ending. It looks at the various pathways students took toward degree completion, as well as the completion rates through May 2015 for the different student types who followed each pathway. The report also provides discussion comparing the fall 2009 cohort’s outcomes to those of the fall 2008 cohort (analyzed in our third annual completions report, Signature Report 8. The overall national six-year completion rate for the fall 2009 cohort was 52.9 percent, a decline of 2.1 percentage points from the fall 2008 cohort, or twice the rate of decline that we observed in last year’s report when we compared the 2007 cohort to the 2008 cohort. Combined with a small decrease in the percent of students who were still enrolled in their sixth year without having earned a degree (less than one percentage point), the rate at which students were no longer enrolled in the final year of the study period increased 2.7 percentage points, from 30.3 percent for the fall 2008 cohort to 33.0 percent for the fall 2009 cohort.

http://nscresearchcenter.org/wp-content/uploads/SignatureReport10.pdf

by NATE SWANNER, The Next Web

Udacity has partnered with Google to bring another Nanodegree program to the fold: Senior Web Developer. The program builds on the Front End Web Developer Nanodegree curriculum, much like Udacity’s duo of iOS Developer degree programs do. Here’s how a Udacity spokesperson explained it to us: The Senior Web Developer Nanodegree program is a natural progression from the Front-End Web Developer Nanodegree program. Like all Nanodegree programs, The Senior Web Developer degree will cost $200 per month, which Udacity says can be achieved in 10-12 months’ time.

http://thenextweb.com/dd/2015/11/17/udacity-and-google-team-up-for-new-senior-web-developer-nanodegree-program/

Have you been FaceTiming with friends and family? It’s different, right? We’ve been FaceTiming with my older daughter in South Korea (gap year), my brother (new baby), and my parents. Where we once made phone calls we now FaceTime. There is something about FaceTime that makes conversations conversational. FaceTime eliminates most of the weirdness of online video conversations. FaceTime starts with a single click. The video and audio always works. The sound is great, and matches the good video feed. How will online education change when synchronous online classes improve to the level of casual FaceTime conversations?

https://www.insidehighered.com/blogs/technology-and-learning/will-facetime-change-online-education

By Dian Schaffhauser, Campus Technology

The study involved 5,000 students using OER and more than 11,000 “control” students using standard textbooks in courses at 10 different institutions around the country enrolled in 15 different undergraduate courses. It focused on five measures of student success. In the area of course completion, the researchers found “almost no significant differences” between the two groups with a couple of exceptions. In Business 110 and Biology 111 students in the OER group showed higher rates of completion than students in the control. For example, in the business class, 21 percent of commercial textbook users withdrew; in the OER group only six percent withdrew. In the area of student achievement (passing with a C- or better grade), the outcome was mixed. In nine courses researchers saw no significant differences. In five courses, the OER users were more likely to pass the course than those in the control group. In one course, Business 110, students in the control group surpassed students using OER.

https://campustechnology.com/articles/2015/11/10/major-study-finds-oer-students-do-just-as-well-or-better.aspx

by Jane Swift, Huffington Post

Digital learning–online or classroom-based–is not a revolution in education, it’s the evolution of education. For all the talk of the flipped classroom, digital tools have not turned education on its head. But it does provide teachers with more resources and tools to help students and applies learning in a way that helps these digital natives connect with the subject matter. However, we are seeing the strongest growth in the blended learning model, which keeps the teacher at the front of the classroom. That gives teachers a lot of say over which products succeed and fail. This reality should spur edtech providers to bring teachers into the development process. Even if you win a contract at the district level, you need to show value at the classroom level or you won’t see future growth or long relationships with customers. But if you can engage teachers and add value for them, they will embrace your product and provide advice to make it better.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/jane-swift/even-with-flipped-classro_b_8546074.html

By Meris Stansbury, eCampus News

“The Coalition on the Academic Workforce (2012) reported that 75.5 percent of faculty members at two- and four-year institutions were in ‘contingent positions’ off of the tenure track,” write the report’s authors. “Of this large group, 70 percent were part-time or adjunct faculty members, making roughly half of all instructors in higher education in 2011 an adjunct or part-time faculty member.” The authors cite research that predicts this population will only continue to grow in size and proportion. The survey similarly found that more than half of institutions reported that their adjunct population that teaches online has grown over the last year. It’s a one-size-fits all: Policies that were designed for on-campus adjuncts were frequently applied to those who are teaching online, notes the report.

http://www.ecampusnews.com/top-news/online-adjunct-faculty-441/

BY WILLIAM FENTON, PC Magazine

The venerable lecture has few allies today. While many in the humanities have long preferred seminar-style instruction, our friends in the sciences have begun to give the lecture a second look. A growing body of research suggests that lectures simply are not that effective, especially when compared to active-learning models. In a recent meta-analysis of some 225 studies of undergraduate STEM teaching methods, Scott Freeman, principal lecturer in biology at the University of Washington, and his colleagues found that active-learning methods both reduced failure rates and increased exam performance. However, reports of the death of the lecture may be exaggerated, to paraphrase a famous writer. Several recent pieces have advocated for the lecture as a source of active learning. While that might apply to some traditional college courses, it is far from the case among massive open online courses (MOOCs) where video lectures remain ubiquitous, to the detriment of learners.

http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,2817,2494971,00.asp

by Becca Solberg, Michigan Daily

Daphne Koller, president and co-founder of Coursera, gives a talk as a part of the Academic Innovation at Michigan series at the Michigan League on Thursday. Koller’s presentation, hosted by the Office of Digital Education and Innovation, discussed the impacts of Coursera, a platform for hosting the massive open online courses, or MOOCs, offered by a variety of universities. Koller, who is also a professor of computer science at Stanford University, began by describing the impacts of Coursera both on the universities that offer courses and the professors who teach them. In particular, she emphasized how online courses encourage professors to alter and improve their teaching techniques to best serve their students, who have the option of walking away from an online site at any moment compared to the more captive audience of a classroom.

https://www.michigandaily.com/section/news/co-founder-coursera-speaks-league

by Amelia Teng, Straits Times

The number of Singaporeans enrolling in Coursera courses has almost tripled in the last three years – from 52,000 in 2013 to 140,000 so far this year. They are among the 10 million people worldwide plugged into the online learning channel, which took off about three years ago. Coursera offers 1,400 courses with 134 university partners including Brown and Princeton. These mostly free courses consist of video lectures, interactive quizzes and peer-graded assignments. Coursera has also started about 80 specialisation programmes, which are a series of bundled modules. Users may pay up to US$500 (S$710) to earn certification for these programmes.

http://www.straitstimes.com/singapore/coursera-enrolment-in-singapore-soars

by Leena Rao, Fortune

Online education startup Udacity has raised a huge new round of funding that, according to a source close to the company, values the business at around $1 billion.With nanodegrees that come with feedback and mentoring, the completion rate is 90%, Thrun has said. Under the latest strategy, Thrun said that Udacity’s revenue is growing nearly 30% month over month and is profitable. He declined to disclose any more detailed financial information but one source pegged the company’s revenue annual revenue run rate at around $24 million.

http://fortune.com/2015/11/11/udacity-funding/

By Meris Stansbury, eCampus News

New report studies close to a thousand different institutions to provide a detailed snapshot of 2015’s dynamic college and university social media use. If you want to know how other colleges and universities are using social media today, know this: they’re using it like any other media-savvy millennial. From a spike in “giving days” and crowdfunding campaigns to a heavy focus on multimedia, higher education has become a social media heavy-hitter. But measuring success is another issue. The findings are part of a yearly report (currently in its sixth year) conducted by CASE, Huron Education, and mStoner, Inc.—written by Jennifer Mack, senior researcher at Huron Education and Michael Stoner, co-founder and president of mStoner—on higher education’s refinement, prioritization and expansion of their social media habits.

http://www.ecampusnews.com/top-news/trends-social-media-620/

By Laura Devaney, eCampus News

Gartner, Inc. estimates connected devices in 2016 will jump 30 percent internet-of-things. Estimates indicate that 6.4 billion “connected things” will be used across the globe in 2016–a 30 percent increase from 2015, according to IT research firm Gartner, Inc. In 2016, approximately 5.5 million new “things” will become connected each day. Gartner also forecasted that the number of connected things would jump to 20.8 billion in 2020.

http://www.ecampusnews.com/technologies/internet-of-things-587/

by Marco della Cava, USA TODAY

Udacity has 11,000 students. It has some 1,000 graduates bearing its so-called “nanodegrees” who paid $200 a month per course. Most courses require a minimum of 10 hours of work a week, and last between three to six months. Makhijani says the company is profitable with its existing model, even when taking into account the fact that it refunds 50% of tuition to anyone successfully passing a course. “We found we could offer that enticement financially, and we wanted to do because the work isn’t easy,” he says, adding that some 90% of Udacity students have full-time jobs.

http://www.usatoday.com/story/tech/2015/11/11/online-pioneer-udacity-lands-105-million-round-and-1-billion-valuation/75544526/

By Toni Fuhrman, Campus Technology

Two visionary IT experts discuss the biggest trends in mobile for the coming year, from 3D touch and virtual reality to wearables and the Internet of Things. For years, mobile technologies have had an enormous influence on higher education, changing the way students communicate, access information and learn. And there’s no sign of mobile losing steam anytime soon. According to the 2015 NMC Horizon Report, which forecasted the most important ed tech developments in higher education, mobile-related trends will rule for at least the next five years: In the short term, with a time-to-adoption horizon of one year of less, the bring-your-own-device (BYOD) phenomenon will proliferate; in the mid-term (two to three years) wearable technologies will see significant growth; and in the long-term (four to five years), the Internet of Things (IoT) will have wide-reaching impact.

https://campustechnology.com/articles/2015/11/10/top-mobile-trends-to-watch-in-2016.aspx

By Ian Quillen, US News

Traditional-age college students in online programs can benefit from campus access and success courses. Because online higher education has generally been aimed at older students, so has most advice for online students. But with an increasing number of 18- to 24-year-olds turning online for at least some of their undergraduate study, perhaps it’s time to update that advice. Here are five suggestions for traditional college-age students considering a new-age virtual approach to a degree.

http://www.usnews.com/education/online-education/articles/2015/11/09/5-ways-younger-students-can-be-successful-in-online-programs

by Cade Metz, Wired

The app uses an increasingly powerful form of artificial intelligence called deep learning. By analyzing thousands of photos of gravestones, this AI technology can learn to identify a gravestone it has never seen before. The same goes for cats and dogs, trees and clouds, flowers and food. The Google Photos search engine isn’t perfect. But its accuracy is enormously impressive—so impressive that O’Reilly couldn’t understand why Google didn’t sell access to its AI engine via the Internet, cloud-computing style, letting others drive their apps with the same machine learning. That could be Google’s real money-maker, he said.

http://www.wired.com/2015/11/google-open-sources-its-artificial-intelligence-engine/

by David Raths, THE Journal

The New Media Consortium’s 2014 Horizon Report K-12 Edition noted that although digital textbooks have become a mainstay in higher education, they have been slower to infiltrate K-12. The report’s authors added, however, that the “financial and educational benefits of digital learning materials will eventually outweigh the outdated paper textbook dependence in K-12 education, and gradual adoption of digital textbooks is expected.” THE Journal recently spoke with teachers and administrators in several districts that are experimenting with digital versions of textbooks from traditional publishers as well as those curating digital material to compose new, more personalized texts for their students.

https://thejournal.com/articles/2015/10/28/the-promise-and-perils-of-digital-textbooks.aspx

by RICHARD HARRIS, App Developer Magazine

Google has partnered with Udacity to create a new Tech Entrepreneur Nanodegree which is designed to help indie app publishers learn what it takes to design, validate, prototype, monetize, and market app ideas from the ground up and grow them into a scalable business. The program takes 4-7 months to complete and offers access to industry app veterans to provide students with a battle-tested perspective. Included will be Geoffrey Moore, author of “Crossing the Chasm”, Pete Koomen, co-founder of Optimizely; Aaron Harris and Kevin Hale, Partners at Y-Combinator; Nir Eyal, author of the book “Hooked: How to build habit forming products” and co-founder of Product Hunt; Steve Chen, Co-Founder of YouTube, rapid prototyping company InVision and plus others.

https://appdevelopermagazine.com/3339/2015/11/9/Google-Creates-Tech-Entrepreneur-Nanodegree-to-Help-Indies-Learn-to-Scale-/

by Debra Hughes, eMPR

In a little less than 4 years after massive online course company Coursera’s existence, what began in a Stanford University classroom of 400 students has become a global classroom of 100,000, with 16 billion total course enrollments. “We envision a world where anyone, anywhere can transform their life by accessing the world’s best learning experience,” said Daphne Koller, PhD, said, in delivering the 2015 ACR/AHRP Annual Meeting Opening Lecture. “The impact in the real world can be quite significant and inspiring.” The implications for education—more specifically, the process of learning—are enormous. This is relevant when one considers that 91% of millennials change jobs in less than 3 years, and new jobs often require new skills. Consider, too, that 65% of tomorrow’s job don’t exist, Dr. Koller said, and that “58% of employers worldwide believe that new college grads are inadequately prepared for work.”

http://www.empr.com/acrarhp-annual-meeting-2015/coursera-transforming-lives-worldwide-through-education/article/452552/

By Laura Devaney, eCampusNews

Students’ desire for instant feedback, such as the kind they receive through social media, could be a significant asset when it comes to studying with the help of learning analytics technology, new research suggests. Eighty-seven percent of surveyed college students said having access to learning analytics on their academic performance can have positively impact their learning experience, according to “The Impact of Technology on College Student Study Habits,” the third report in an annual series conducted by McGraw-Hill Education and fielded by Hanover Research.

http://www.ecampusnews.com/top-news/students-learning-analytics-547/

by Molly Hensley-Clancy, BuzzFeed

With online for-profit schools leading a boom in black college enrollment, historically black colleges are learning, cautiously, from the model. Now, amidst a push by one of the largest benefactors of historically black colleges, the country’s HBCUs are beginning to figure out how they fit into an online space once dominated by for-profit colleges. They are struggling, too, with the question of what an online education at a black college looks like. “Generally speaking, HBCUs, especially public HBCUs, are behind the curve on this one,” said Johnny Taylor, the president of the Thurgood Marshall College Fund, which supports most of the country’s public HBCUs. Taylor believes that building online programs is a matter of dire urgency, and even survival, for historically black schools. They need online programs to compete with majority-white institutions for the older, nontraditional students that tend to be attracted to online programs.

http://www.buzzfeed.com/mollyhensleyclancy/black-colleges-are-going-online