Techno-News Blog

December 25, 2015

Springboard Raises $1.7M For Its Mentor-Based Approach To Online Learning

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by Jon Russell, Tech Crunch

Springboard, an India-U.S. company formerly known as SlideRule, has raised a $1.7 million seed round to accelerate its concept of learning through engagement with others. It has adopted individual mentors, who provide a weekly catch-up session with their students, while partnering with other MOOCs for course content, creating its own where it sees gaps in the market. The funding comes from some pretty prominent names, including LinkedIn cofounder Allen Blue, Princeton Review founder John Katzman, InMobi founder Naveen Tewari, and Wharton School professor Kartik Hosanagar. Also participating was 500 Startups, Blue Fog Capital and clutch of angel investors that include WhatsApp business lead Neeraj Arora, ex-Facebook VP Greg Badros, Dropbox engineering head Jea-Deniz Greze, and LinkedIn VP Dan Shapero.

http://techcrunch.com/2015/12/17/springboard-raises-1-7m-for-its-mentor-based-approach-to-online-learning/

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December 24, 2015

Digital Badges Certify Competencies Gained through Student Clubs

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by: Styliani Kounelaki, EDUCAUSE Review

This study investigated the potential for digital badges to certify and showcase the competencies students gain while participating in campus-based clubs. Thirty-one young professionals who were active in student clubs during college were asked about the value that digital badges might have had for their careers if the badges had been available when they were students. Most (58 percent) said that using digital badges to certify and highlight competencies gained through student club activities would have been useful as they entered the job market after college. Study participants’ views varied depending on their club experiences; those who focused on knowledge acquisition and leadership in their clubs were more favorable toward digital badges than those whose involvement emphasized professional networking.

http://er.educause.edu/articles/2015/12/digital-badges-certify-competencies-gained-through-student-clubs

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The Next-Gen IT Leader

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by Brandon Bernier, EDUCAUSE Review

The old saying is true: What got us here won’t get us there. Higher education is experiencing significant disruption, and those of us in the profession are watching as institutional models that have existed for centuries are coming into question and as colleges and universities look to adapt to an ever-changing landscape. Accountability demands from legislators, taxpayers, parents, and students have risen to new levels while costs for institutions continue to rise as well. In his EDUCAUSE Review article “The New Leadership Challenge,” Michael Kubit, deputy CIO at Case Western Reserve University, highlights the collision course ahead for the IT field: the higher education landscape is changing radically at the same time that a large number of CIOs are planning to retire in the next five to ten years.

http://er.educause.edu/articles/2015/10/the-next-gen-it-leader

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Higher Education Policy: What 2015 Means for 2016

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by Jarret Cummings, EDUCAUSE

The general higher education policy environment often impacts the interests of EDUCAUSE members. As we consider that environment in 2015 and look ahead to 2016, continued inaction on reauthorizing the Higher Education Act leaves major issues in limbo, such as accreditation reform, federal financial aid access for nontraditional providers, and the role of competency-based education. Whether Congress can act on those concerns in an election year is an open question – they may await a new President and Congress in 2017.

http://er.educause.edu/blogs/2015/12/higher-education-policy-what-2015-means-for-2016

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December 23, 2015

PC and Tablet Growth Predicted

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by Whatech

Report delivers insight into the education PC and tablet market in the US to grow at an impressive CAGR of approximately 21% to 2020. The introduction of stringent government initiatives that focuses on the deployment of educational hardware in K-12 schools is expected to spur the adoption of PCs and tablets in the education sector during the forecast period. The K-12 educational segment accounted for more than 69% of the overall market share during the forecast period. The high popularity of blended learning in the K-12 segment is an important factor that impels the prospects for growth in this segment during the predicted period.

https://www.whatech.com/market-research/it/116032-report-delivers-insight-into-the-education-pc-and-tablet-market-in-the-us-to-grow-at-an-impressive-cagr-of-approximately-21-to-2020

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Online learning, from biochemistry to Basque

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By Nicole Freeling, University of California

Launched in January 2013, UC’s Innovative Learning Technologies Initiative (ILTI) has supported the development of 80 online undergraduate courses, with dozens more in development. Subjects range from psychology and pre-calculus to more esoteric topics. The courses – which are as rigorous as in-person courses – carry unit credit, and many count toward specific graduation or major requirements. Some 29 are now open for enrollment for the coming term. “I thought about teaching an online course for years, but I didn’t have the resources to put it together,” said UC Santa Cruz faculty member Susan Schwartz. ILTI offered funding and the technical and instructional design support she needed to develop a course on the geology of national parks, which she now co-teaches with UC Davis professor David Osleger and UC San Diego professor Jeff Gee.

http://universityofcalifornia.edu/news/online-learning-biochemistry-basque

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New Study Raises Questions of Access for HarvardX

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By C. RAMSEY FAHS, Harvard Crimson

Researchers find a strong correlation between socioeconomic status and MOOC completion. While the average MOOC user lives in a neighborhood with a median income $11,998 above the national average, the difference is $23,181 among 13 to 17-year-olds, an age range of critical importance in determining post-secondary focus, the researchers say. EdX publishes online courses created by dozens of partner schools. HarvardX, also founded in 2012, is Harvard’s MOOC-production arm.

http://www.thecrimson.com/article/2015/12/16/new-moocs-study-access/#mce_temp_url#

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December 22, 2015

7 Tips for Data Mining Your Digital Archives

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By Dian Schaffhauser, Campus Technology

Content mining of archival materials can make for amazing discoveries. Here’s how to prepare for the coming influx of researchers who will want access to digital archives as a data source. Today’s digital archives are more than a repository of content — they are a new data source for researchers. The computationally-intensive research being performed in the digital humanities, for example, can chart data such as word frequency, proximity, source and other factors to 32 dimensions across decades of previously published journals, newspapers, annual reports or other documents — in a matter of hours. “The human mind can’t even conceive of what that would be, but the computer can do that,” said Darby Orcutt, the assistant head of collection management at North Carolina State University Libraries. Orcutt and Iris Hanney, president of Unlimited Priorities, a firm that consults with both libraries and vendors with archival collections, recently shared their advice for how to approach the business of content mining with digital archives.

https://campustechnology.com/articles/2015/12/15/7-tips-for-data-mining-your-digital-archives.aspx

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College Campuses Are The New Test Facilities For Emerging Technology

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by Melissa Tait, Tech Crunch

Consider, for instance, the University of Michigan is using VR technology to offer prospective student-athletes a behind-the-scenes look at the facilities and exciting game-day environment. This includes glimpses into fall camp, the stadiums and footage of the Oregon State football game — all of which offer an accurate and inclusive representation of a football player’s life at UM for a would-be student-athlete weighing his (perhaps numerous) college options. While some colleges use new technology to strategically draw prospective students, others use it purely as a means to generate buzz and lay the foundation for its potential application to the real world. By setting an aggressive pace for technology adoption, colleges around the country are pioneering the ways in which we will work and live. Students, having grown accustomed to using virtual reality, driverless cars and Google Glass in their college lives, will inevitably carry these tools to future jobs and their personal lives.

http://techcrunch.com/2015/12/12/college-campuses-are-the-new-test-facilities-for-emerging-technology/#.o1vp04r:gXtg

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Reimagining Online Education

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by Steven Mintz, Inside Higher Ed

As long as aviation pioneers tried to mimic birds, controlled, heavier-than-air human flight proved impossible. Along somewhat similar lines, it is only by breaking decisively from traditional face-to-face models that it will be truly possible to create the kinds of immersive, social experiences in online education that will truly engage students and promote high levels of attainment among broad profiles of students. If online learning is to be more than a pale imitation of the face-to-face experience, educational innovators must rigorously address and radically rethink four key facets of online education: Motivation, learning acquisition, the student experience, and assessment. In designing our online experiences, the University of Texas System’s Institute for Transformational Learning and our faculty partners have adopted an approach that is outcomes-driven, modularized, personalized, gamified, and activity-based (and also bilingual).

https://www.insidehighered.com/blogs/higher-ed-beta/reimagining-online-education

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December 21, 2015

Online Degree Hits Learning Curve

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By MELISSA KORN, Wall Street Journal

Now, Georgia Tech and a few other schools—including Arizona State University, the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology—are still trying to incorporate the technology of MOOCs into their credit-bearing academic programs. But they aren’t necessarily sticking to the original definitions of massive or open, instead settling on some hybrid of traditional MOOCs and more modest online degrees. Students must meet certain admission requirements, pay for official university recognition, such as getting actual school credit, and, at MIT, even go to campus. The Georgia Tech online computer-science program is relatively massive: It has 2,789 students enrolled this semester, compared with 312 in the campus-based version. It’s on track to turn a profit by May,

http://www.wsj.com/articles/online-degree-hits-learning-curve-1450055726

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Did you love watching lectures from your professors?

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by JILL BARSHAY, Hechinger Report

Online course data show that video lectures are not the best way to learn. Koedinger didn’t study live lectures, but recorded ones that were part of a free online psychology class produced by the Georgia Institute of Technology. He and a team of four Carnegie Mellon researchers mined the data from almost 28,000 students who took the course over the Coursera platform for Massive Open Online Courses (MOOCs). They found that video lecturers were the least effective way to learn. Students who primarily learned through watching video lectures did the worst both on the 11 quizzes during the 12-week course and on the final exam. Students who primarily learned through reading, or a combination of reading and video lectures, did a bit better, but not much. The students who did the best were those who clicked on interactive exercises.

http://hechingerreport.org/data-mining-shows-that-recorded-video-lectures-are-the-least-effective-way-to-learn/

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Coursera’s 10 most popular free online courses for professionals

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by Richard Feloni, Business Insider

Your education shouldn’t stop when you leave the classroom. Learning new skills is a great way to expand your mind and get ahead in your career — and it’s easier than ever with a plethora of online classes just a click away. A good place to start is with this year’s most popular Coursera courses from top universities. They range from an introduction to the programming language Python to mastering the art of negotiating. All are free, but some have paid versions that offer more extensive experiences. Read on to see this year’s top 10, courtesy of Coursera.

http://www.businessinsider.com/most-popular-coursera-courses-of-2015-2015-12

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December 20, 2015

3 Ways to Use Online Learning to Land Your Next Job

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By Mattan Griffel, The Times-Picayune

Online learning is revolutionizing the way people build our careers. Comprehensive programming and design courses enable us to hone and develop new skills, make massive career shifts, and earn more money. Seems like a win-win for employees and employers alike. But some hiring managers are still skeptical of online training and fall back on a college degree as the standard for a good hire. That reality is changing, but there’s still a high threshold for proving your worth through e-learning. So how do you persuade potential employers that you’ve done more than watch a few unvetted YouTube videos on how to code an app? Follow these three steps to win them over on both you and the value of your online learning.

http://www.nola.com/careeradvice/2015/12/3_ways_to_use_online_learning.html

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University of Maryland Uses Virtual Reality Lab for Research and Education

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By Leila Meyer, Campus Technology

The University of Maryland hosted a demonstration of its new virtual and augmented reality laboratory recently, showing off the lab’s potential to support research, education and training in the sciences, engineering, medicine and industry. The lab, called the Augmentarium, is housed in a 1,000 square foot facility at the University of Maryland’s College Park campus. It opened in December 2014 with the help of more than $1 million in funding, including a $600,000 grant from the National Science Foundation. The Augmentarium features both virtual and augmented reality technology.

https://campustechnology.com/articles/2015/12/07/university-of-maryland-uses-virtual-reality-lab-for-research-and-education.aspx

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Faculty Role in Competency Programs Still Evolving

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By Dian Schaffhauser, Campus Technology

Faculty leadership may not be as strongly felt in competency-based education (CBE) programs as it ought to be. Only 15 percent of CBE faculty and staff members are tenured or on the tenure track and only about one in five (19 percent) participate in shared governance activities. What this suggests is that CBE programs don’t have the kind of independent faculty oversight common to more traditional instructional formats. These results come out of a recent survey done by the Competency-Based Education Network (C-BEN) among its membership, a group of schools that offer competency-based programs. (Competency-based education assesses learning based on a student demonstrating mastery of a given concept or skill rather than on the amount of time he or she has spent in the classroom.)

https://campustechnology.com/articles/2015/12/03/faculty-role-in-competency-programs-still-evolving.aspx

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December 19, 2015

Highlands University partners with Dine College on distance learning

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by Associated Press

New Mexico Highlands University is using federal funds to expand opportunities for Native American students through a new distance-learning system. The effort calls for the installation of new technology that will allow students at six Diné College locations in Arizona and New Mexico to access advanced classes offered by Highlands University, which is hundreds of miles away. Nearly a half-million dollars is being provided by U.S. Department of Agriculture Rural Development through a distance-learning telemedicine program. New Mexico Highlands University also recently announced the creation of an indigenous knowledge center within its school of social work.

http://www.santafenewmexican.com/news/briefs/highlands-university-partners-with-dine-college-on-distance-learning/article_20ff550b-9e96-5778-9f58-cd9782a15a9d.html

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Turning Course Materials Into a Digital Magazine

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By David Raths, Campus Technology

When textbook material gets dated — particularly in current affairs or business topics — what is an instructor to do? Some have found a solution in the Flipboard news reader, which aggregates stories in a magazine-format mobile app. Users can create customized magazines from their social network feeds and news outlets, compiling up-to-date content in an engaging interface. Lyna Matesi, who teaches management, leadership, strategy, learning and development, and ethics for the School of Business and Economics at the University of Wisconsin, Stevens Point, started using Flipboard in 2013 and now uses it in every class she teaches. “For my students who are undergraduates and who are going to be entering the professional market for the first time when they leave school, I want them to understand their industry because it will help them secure a job. They will sound much different in an interview.”

https://campustechnology.com/articles/2015/12/09/turning-course-materials-into-a-digital-magazine.aspx

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Arkansas State online graduates meet face-to-face

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by Seth Stephenson, KSLA

Arkansas State’s fall graduation took place Saturday morning, but those who did their work online received a little more. Online graduates got the chance Saturday to meet their instructors in person. The goal of the event was to offer those students a place to celebrate and thank their instructors. Maria Munoz-White graduated with a master’s degree in Public Administration and said she was grateful to have this opportunity after all the work. “You know a lot of schools don’t do that,” Munoz-White said. “An online program is just like a person behind a computer and then you think they’re done with you. This is great. I’m so proud that I’m part of this.”

http://www.ksla.com/story/30732894/arkansas-state-online-graduates-meet-face-to-face

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December 18, 2015

York U Adds Immersive EGG for Research

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By Dian Schaffhauser, Campus Technology

Researchers at a Canadian university have tapped an immersive system to learn more about how the vestibular system regulates balance and motion in extreme and even ordinary environments. York University’s Centre for Vision Research installed Christie Digital’s Edgeless Graphics Geometry (EGG) 3D stereoscopic visualization system in its multi-sensory integration lab. EGG, shaped like the inside of an egg, allows a person to sit at the screen and feel immersed within the environment.

https://campustechnology.com/articles/2015/12/10/york-u-adds-immersive-egg-for-research.aspx

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Speeding Up IT Support

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By Leila Meyer, Campus Technology

Valdosta State University in Georgia has achieved a 15-minute response time for second-tier information technology service — even while reducing costs. How? A new Technical Response Unit (TRU) program takes advantage of numerous technologies and operational changes to improve IT support on campus. The university serves approximately 11,000 students and employs around 1,500 faculty and staff. From an IT perspective, it supports about 4,000 PCs in 235 classrooms and labs. As with many other educational institutions, VSU was trying to figure out how to support increasing levels of technology on a shrinking budget. “To be able to continue that level of growth yet maintain the same service and support levels, we had to figure out better ways to utilize our existing resources,” said Benjamin Li, tier 1 coordinator for the IT department.

https://campustechnology.com/articles/2015/12/10/speeding-up-it-support.aspx

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