Techno-News Blog

December 31, 2015

Penn’s Online Learning Initiative Launches New Robotics Specialization

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by Amanda Mott, UPenn

Beginning in January, the University of Pennsylvania will roll out a new robotics specialization, an online five-course sequence, via the University’s Online Learning Initiative on the Coursera platform. Members of the School of Engineering and Applied Science’s GRASP Laboratory will teach these courses. Instructors include Vijay Kumar. “Robots are virtually everywhere in our lives today,” said Kumar. “No longer the stuff of science fiction, robots have evolved into complicated autonomous agents with sophisticated mapping technologies and coordination, capabilities and applications within a wide array of industries.”

http://www.upenn.edu/pennnews/news/penn-s-online-learning-initiative-launches-new-robotics-specialization

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What’s Behind Wharton’s Massive Bet on Online Learning

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by John A. Byrne, Fortune

Since 2012, some 2.7 million people have enrolled in Wharton’s 18 MOOC courses. More importantly, the school has awarded 54,000 verified certificates since 2012 and 32,000 verified certificates in specialization courses since April of this year. What started as something of an online experiment will bring an additional $5 million in revenue to Wharton in 2015. Through it all, Wharton has firmly established itself as the leading business purveyor of MOOCs. It was the first business school to offer a MOOC, the first to offer a specialization, or series of related courses, on Coursera, and can boasts one of the highest MOOC enrollments of any business school in the world. No less crucial, the school is now doubling down on its bet on MOOCs. Over the next 12 months, Wharton plans to launch at least two dozen new online offerings, including its first three SPOCs (small private online courses) on digital marketing, gamification, and advanced product design.

http://fortune.com/2015/12/22/wharton-online-learning/

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Indonesian Online Education Platform Links Up With US Counterpart EdX

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by Jakarta Post

Jakarta. IndonesiaX, a local massive open online course platform, is partnering with its US counterpart EdX to allow Indonesians more access to courses offered by some of the world’s most prestigious universities. EdX is an initiative spearheaded by the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and Harvard University in 2012, while IndonesiaX partners with the Bandung Institute of Technology and the Indonesia Stock Exchange, among other institutions. “The free online courses under IndonesiaX will help to democratize access to education in Indonesia and this new partnership will allow our students to access materials from one of the best educators’ in the world, such as Professor Charles Fried from Harvard University,” Lucyanna Mangeondipoero Pandjaitan, the chief executive of IndonesiaX, said in a statement received by the Jakarta Globe on Tuesday.

http://jakartaglobe.beritasatu.com/education/indonesian-online-education-platform-links-us-counterpart-edx/

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December 30, 2015

The 6 Most Important Things That Happened in Virtual Reality in 2015

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By Rachel Metz, Technology Review

Though virtual reality is still far from mainstream, 2015 was a big year for the industry as new headsets were introduced—some full-featured and powerful, some simple and portable—and companies announced new ways to control and capture VR imagery, too. Throughout the year, investors poured money into companies developing the technology, content creators figured out how to make everything from films to advertisements in VR, and millions of Americans experienced virtual-reality technology for the very first time. With all that happened, it can be hard to sift out what’s most important. We cut through the virtual noise to bring you the six most significant events in virtual reality this year.

http://www.technologyreview.com/news/544866/the-6-most-important-things-that-happened-in-virtual-reality-in-2015/

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Can a coding bootcamp replace a four-year degree?

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By Tara García Mathewson, Education Dive

The EQUIP experimental sites program may offer a more direct path for alternative programs to go mainstream. Schmidt sees dissonance with the traditional structures of the accreditation system, but he says the company is in talks with traditional colleges and universities about potential partnerships. “Envisioning a program that meets accreditation requirements can be very different than a program that meets the requirements of the marketplace, and we will maintain our focus on what the market requests,” Schmidt said. “If university partners can adapt their focus to ours, we are willing partners.” With exploding demand for software developers, there seems to be room — in the near-term at least — for training programs of all types. Providers like Bloc are aiming to provide additional skills typically found in four-year degrees.

http://www.educationdive.com/news/can-a-coding-bootcamp-replace-a-four-year-degree/410059/

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Christensen Institute’s Fisher: Schools must expand students’ social capital

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By Roger Riddell, Education Dive

Everyone realizes when you get to the job market that networking and who you know matters, but the education system is sort of silent on that matter. You obviously have the luck of who you end up going to school with that may help you open doors, but we don’t organize students’ networks in a deliberate way from a young age, or even up through college. It’s sort of only when you go to the career office in college and there’s a list of alumni that you understand that there’s this idea of a network. I want to call out on two fronts, one, just the fact that we don’t tell kids this, and I think that’s a disservice. But from an equity perspective, the fact that we’re leaving this up to the luck of who you know through family connections or where you end up going to college, I think, is worrisome. And I think that the achievement gap conversation has gotten us a long way around content and skill gaps, but it’s ignoring this piece around networks.

http://www.educationdive.com/news/christensen-institutes-fisher-schools-must-expand-students-social-capita/411043/

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December 29, 2015

To Escape Public Housing, Louisville Woman Turns to Coding

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By JACOB RYAN, WFLP

Through the online learning program called Treehouse, offered at no cost by the Louisville Free Public Library system, she began learning the basics of coding. “Just teaching myself,” she said. She liked it, so she enrolled in Code Louisville — a free 12-week online coding workshop that anyone with a Louisville Free Public Library card can access — to further her learning. Then, things started clicking. “I started finding my niche, and that was new to me,” she said. “It was easier to work on my self-confidence. My view about me started changing.” She kept enrolling in Code Louisville sessions to learn the finer points of frontend and backend web development. Becky Steele, project coordinator for Code Louisville, said many of the program participants are like Johnson. They want to reinvent themselves. But Steele said Johnson has more — an “insatiable desire to improve.”

http://wfpl.org/escape-public-housing-louisville-woman-turns-to-coding/

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As online courses evolve, could a “nudge” help people finish MOOCs?

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by Karis Hustad, Chicago Inno

Northwestern Kellogg professor Gad Allon has been quietly experimenting with ways to not only get students to sign up for these courses, but actually finish them. In addition to teaching operations courses at Kellogg, he teaches “Scaling Operations: Linking Strategy and Execution,” a MOOC through Coursera. It is a free course, but students can pay to get a certificate of accomplishment. Recently he and two other Kellogg researchers, Jan Van Mieghem and Dennis J. Zhang, tested out their hypothesis that emailed “nudges” could push students to talk with classmates and check out a discussion board. That, in turn, could help students stay engaged, and therefore be more likely to complete a course. This course had about 24,000 students and about 4,200 of them submitted at least one of the weekly quizzes.

http://chicagoinno.streetwise.co/2015/12/21/as-online-courses-evolve-could-a-nudge-help-people-finish-moocs/

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Under 1% of Global Freshman Academy students eligible for ASU credit

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By Tara García Mathewson, Education Brief

Arizona State University’s massive open online course experiment in partnership with edX was supposed to give thousands of students free access to freshman-year courses they could take online and pay for only if they passed.  Inside Higher Ed reports, however, that just 323 of 34,086 people who registered for the Global Freshman Academy MOOCs — less than 1% — actually completed the courses with a C or better, making them eligible for the reduced-cost first-year credits. While Arizona State was hoping more students would enroll when it announced the Global Freshman Academy, it sees the small first year as a positive first step.

http://www.educationdive.com/news/under-1-of-global-freshman-academy-students-eligible-for-asu-credit/411241/

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December 28, 2015

Highlights of Distance Education Enrollment Trends from IPEDS Fall 2014

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by Terri Taylor Straut and Russ Poulin, WCET

Enrollments by students Exclusively in Distance Education continued to rise in 2014. There were 2,824,334 fully online enrollments in 2014, compared to 2,659,203 in 2013, representing a 6% increase in just one year. Last year, one-out-of-eight of all higher education students were enrolled exclusively in distance education. In 2014, it is now closer to one-in seven students being enrolled exclusively at a distance. As we noted in our blog about the 2013 data, the distance education growth is in the context of a slight decline in overall enrollments, as reported to IPEDS. Public institutions represent 49% of all enrollments with 1,381,897; Private For-Profit institutions represent 30% of enrollments with 838,219; and the Private Non-Profit sector remains the smallest with 604,218 enrollments or 21% of fully online enrollments.

https://wcetblog.wordpress.com/2015/12/21/ipeds-fall-2014-de-highlights/

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Computers now a qualified higher ed expense for 529 plans

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by Stefanie Botelho, University Business
Congress passed and the President is expected to sign the “Protecting Americans from Tax Hikes (PATH) Act of 2015.” The passage of this legislation qualifies computer equipment and related technology and services as “qualified higher education expenses” when purchased for use primarily by the beneficiary of a 529 college savings plan during any years the beneficiary is enrolled at an eligible educational institution. The Protecting Americans from Tax Hikes Act of 2015 was created to extend or permanently renew a variety of federal tax provisions, along with a number of new tax changes. “For years, CollegeAdvantage, along with other 529 plans around the country, has lobbied legislators to establish the purchase of computers as a qualified 529 expense.
http://www.universitybusiness.com/news/congress-approves-computers-qualified-higher-ed-expense-529-plans

by Stefanie Botelho, University BusinessCongress passed and the President is expected to sign the “Protecting Americans from Tax Hikes (PATH) Act of 2015.” The passage of this legislation qualifies computer equipment and related technology and services as “qualified higher education expenses” when purchased for use primarily by the beneficiary of a 529 college savings plan during any years the beneficiary is enrolled at an eligible educational institution. The Protecting Americans from Tax Hikes Act of 2015 was created to extend or permanently renew a variety of federal tax provisions, along with a number of new tax changes. “For years, CollegeAdvantage, along with other 529 plans around the country, has lobbied legislators to establish the purchase of computers as a qualified 529 expense.

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Anger at ‘stolen’ online courses on Udemy

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by Dave Lee,BBC

Several experts and academics have expressed anger at finding their courses uploaded to the site and offered up for sale, without their permission. Udemy, which raised $65m in investment in June this year, responded by saying it relies on users flagging copyright infringing content and would review its procedures for doing so. Rob Conery discovered that his programming courses had been reposted – but sometimes with identifying information intentionally removed. “Piracy happens,” Mr Conery said. “But I’ve never seen it rewarded so openly… so brazenly.

http://www.bbc.com/news/technology-34952382

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December 27, 2015

Looking Back at the Year in Ed Tech

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by Jeffrey R. Young, Chronicle of Higher Ed

Concerns about Yik Yak and analysis of MOOCs and online teaching were among the most popular stories this past year on our Wired Campus blog. Each year we run the numbers to see which items drew the most reader attention, and this year’s list highlights a continuing interest in understanding how technology — and online education, in particular — might change college as we know it. And while massive open online courses have largely fallen out of the national headlines, three of the top 10 articles in 2015 involved MOOCs (in one case, charting their fade from prominence).

http://chronicle.com/blogs/wiredcampus/looking-back-at-the-year-in-ed-tech/57704

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Teachers: We Want More Control over Ed Tech Decisions

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By Dian Schaffhauser, THE Journal

American teachers want much more say over what education technology comes into their classrooms. A survey conducted by a teacher marketplace and an education technology “accelerator” found that while only 38 percent of teachers currently have a role in the decision-making process of ed tech, 63 percent want to be in charge of those decisions. Right now, almost half say those choices are decided by education leaders at the school, district or regional levels. The survey was conducted among 4,300 teachers by TES Global, which runs tes.com, an online community and marketplace for teachers, and the Jefferson Education Accelerator, founded at the University of Virginia’s Curry School of Education to help develop and scale ed tech solutions.

https://thejournal.com/articles/2015/12/16/teachers-we-want-more-control-over-ed-tech-decisions.aspx

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Library focuses on digital literacy

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by Amanda Bohman, News Miner

Melissa Harter, the new digital literacy librarian, teared up as she told the story. The task of finding the obituary was easy for Harter, who is well-versed in the digital world, but for many people, even in 2015, the Internet is a mystery. It’s Harter’s job to guide them. The daughter of a journalist, the 50-year-old mother of two is passionate about helping people find information. The library created the new digital literacy position in September after noticing a need. “People will buy their first laptop. They come in. They are not sure where to start,” Harter said. “You have to be ready to drop something at any moment and help people.” Those who need a digital literacy guide include job seekers, elders who want to take an online course and students working on a research project.

http://www.newsminer.com/news/local_news/library-focuses-on-digital-literacy/article_bb8fce6a-a6f2-11e5-a766-9bf30ec09ac8.html

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December 26, 2015

Students learn financial literacy

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by Allison Thompson, Sheboygan Press

Ask an adult what they wish they understood more clearly before heading into the real world, and many will answer how to better manage household finances. A quick glance at Americans’ collective debt, which totals more than $11.52 trillion, proves that there are lessons to be learned. To help improve that knowledge, Kohler Credit Union has partnered with some area middle and high school teachers to provide their classes access to Bonzai, an online education tool designed to introduce students to adult dilemmas such as managing debt, reconciling bank statements, balancing budgets and making tradeoffs. The program features real-life simulations that build financial knowledge in a format that is fun and easy to comprehend.

http://www.sheboyganpress.com/story/money/2015/12/19/students-learn-financial-literacy/77488184/

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Lifetime Learning: Discovering MOOCs

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by Kelly Ann Benz, the Daily World

I have three EDx certificates, one from the Cornell class, one from Smithsonian University, and an art history certificate from the University of Madrid. By the end of the year, I’ll have a certificate in the “Science of Art Restoration” from Trinity (just completed), and by January, a certificate in Civil War history from Columbia. Finally, also in January, I’ll have a certificate in a class called “American Government” taught by professor Thomas Patterson from Harvard. Yes, I finally passed a Harvard MOOC. Phew. How do I know I’ll earn these certificates? The course page offers a chart of my progress and I am only a few lessons away from finishing the last two MOOCs. My progress chart shows that I’ve already made a passing grade. It remains to be seen if and how this education impacts my life, my work, my world, but I know one thing for sure. I like learning, and finding a way to do that has renewed my interest in keeping it a lifetime pursuit.

http://thedailyworld.com/lifestyle/lifetime-learning-discovering-moocs

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Georgetown MSF Uses Technology to Shape the Future of Classroom Learning

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by Georgetown University

A new “Blended Classroom” allows students in the Master of Science in Finance (MSF) program at Georgetown University’s McDonough School of Business to participate either online or on campus during weekly live class sessions. The new @GeorgetownMSF blended classroom is the future of online, on-campus learning. While adding an on-campus component to what started as an online program might seem counterintuitive, it is the beginning of what MSF Director Allan Eberhart sees as the shape of classrooms to come – an environment where students work independently through the “Anytime Media” platform, complete with animated lectures and searchable transcripts, and then gather in the Blended Classroom for case discussions. On-campus students fill the first three rows and the online students “sit” in the “fourth row” — a large monitor that displays crisp, real-time videos of up to 40 students.

http://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20151218006088/en/Georgetown-MSF-Technology-Shape-Future-Classroom-Learning

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December 25, 2015

Student-Centered Approach of Online Ed Could Enrich On-Campus Student Experience

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by Pat James-Hanz, Evolllution

Since its inception, online programming has continued to evolve to better meet the needs of its students, mainly non-traditional, part-time learners with competing priorities. Great strides have been taken to create rich, engaging experiences for online learners, and colleges have looked to the adoption and implementation of different tools and strategies to support this transformation. In fact, in pushing to create these engaging student-centered experiences for online students, many online leaders have stumbled onto administrative processes that would significantly enrich the traditional and on-campus student experience as well.

http://evolllution.com/opinions/student-centered-approach-of-online-ed-could-enrich-on-campus-student-experience/

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Online learning conference to bring experts to Rutgers

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By My Central New Jersey

Some of the nation’s top experts in online education and hybrid learning will share innovations and best practices at the Rutgers Online Learning Conference (RUOnlineCon) Jan. 11-12, 2016. The conference will explore available and emerging technologies, use of learning management systems, ancillary software and sites, new instructional methods, assessments, audio/video elements, and faculty training and resources. Joining Jeff Selingo as speakers are Deb Adair, managing director and chief planning officer, Quality Matters, a nonprofit dedicated to quality assurance in online education; Ray Schroeder, founding director, Center for Online Leadership, UPCEA, a leading association for professional, continuing and online education; Joan Bouillon, director of regulatory compliance, Pearson, an international education company; and Kenneth Ronkowitz, senior designer, New Jersey Institute of Technology.

http://www.mycentraljersey.com/story/news/local/2015/12/17/online-learning-conference-rutgers/76333330/

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10 steps for making your online courses accessible for all students

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BY MERIS STANSBURY, eCampus News

According to a new report, incorporating Universal Design for Learning (UDL) in online courses not only benefits students with disabilities, but can have significant benefits for all students, ultimately increasing retention and improving learning outcomes. UDL is tough enough in a face-to-face environment, but the real challenge might be how to implement the principles in an online world where students’ abilities and learning styles differ drastically. The recent report, written by three professors at Montana State University, aims to help educators involved in online learning implement UDL for teaching both general and diverse populations, including students with disabilities. The authors note that while, ideally, UDL allows students with disabilities to access courses without adaptation, it can also help to improve learning—and, therefore, retention—among all students.

http://www.eschoolnews.com/2015/12/17/10-steps-for-making-your-online-courses-accessible-for-all-students/

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