Techno-News Blog

by Marie Bountrogianni, Huffington Post

Online learning is “the new normal,” according to “The Future of Higher Education,” a report published by Contact North in November 2015. Most higher education institutions, including The Chang School, offer a mix of in-class and online programs so you can choose the format that works best for you. It’s important to note that online learning is particularly well suited to impart many of the skills required by tomorrow’s workplaces. Beyond “hard skills” – from learning a language to enhancing analytical abilities – it teaches students how to work on a virtual team. It can provide safe virtual environments to test approaches to problem-solving and overcoming adversity. And, because it attracts learners from across the country and around the world, it’s an excellent way to acquire an in-depth appreciation of the strengths of diversity. Furthermore, every year brings innovations that enhance online learning.

http://www.huffingtonpost.ca/dr-marie-bountrogianni/17-skills-employers-need_b_8776838.html

by iSchoolGuide

The Department of Education urged teachers to use accessible shared resources online for their class work. The online resources are transforming learning because the materials are constantly updated, unlike the traditional textbooks. The Department of Education urged teachers to use accessible shared resources online for their class work. The online resources are transforming learning because the materials are constantly updated, unlike the traditional textbooks. According to Tes, Arne Duncan, the US education secretary said that the department has launched a campaign dubbed “GoOpen.” The campaign is calling upon teachers to drop traditional textbooks and adapt the online educational resources. Duncan emphasized the importance of subscribing to openly licensed educational resources to ensure that all students access high-quality learning resources.

http://www.ischoolguide.com/articles/38462/20151212/education-department-advocates-online-resources-over-textbooks.htm

By Bradley Fuster, US News

​The notion of earning a degree or certificate entirely from the comfort of your couch is appealing to certain students. The recently updated Online Learning Consortium program definitions articulate that in online programs, all credits must be offered fully online, without students needing to show up anywhere in person. While this remains a reality at some institutions, certain programs may require one-time or periodic student attendance. Before enrolling in a far away degree program, here are five attendance situations you might encounter..

http://www.usnews.com/education/online-learning-lessons/2015/12/11/5-attendance-requirements-to-watch-for-in-online-programs

by James Niccolai, ComputerWorld

Facebook is releasing the hardware design for a server it uses to train artificial intelligence (A.I.) software, allowing other companies exploring A.I. to build similar systems. Code-named Big Sur, Facebook uses the server to run its machine learning programs, a type of A.I. software that “learns” and gets better at tasks over time. It’s contributing Big Sur to the Open Compute Project, which it set up to let companies share designs for new hardware. One common use for machine learning is image recognition, where a software program studies a photo or video to identify the objects in the frame. But it’s being applied to all kinds of large data sets, to spot things like email spam and credit card fraud.

http://www.computerworld.com/article/3014363/computer-hardware/facebook-releases-design-for-its-souped-up-ai-server-big-sur.html

by Amina Khan, LA Times

Today’s artificial intelligence may not be that clever, but it just got much quicker on the uptake. A learning program designed by a trio of researchers can now recognize and draw handwritten characters after seeing them only a few times, just as a human can. And can do it so well that people can’t tell the difference. The findings, published in the journal Science, represent a major step forward in developing more powerful computer programs that learn in the ways that humans do. “For the first time, we think we have a machine system that can learn a large class of visual concepts in ways that are hard to distinguish from human learners,” study coauthor Joshua Tenenbaum from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology said in a news briefing.

http://www.latimes.com/science/sciencenow/la-sci-sn-computers-learn-new-concepts-20151110-story.html

by Christina Passadriello, Wall Street Journal

Minerva Project Inc., a startup university program with no lectures and no final exams, welcomed its first full freshman class this fall with the promise of a different kind of education. All courses take place online, and the students live in a different country each year. “We’re trying to give students cognitive tools for jobs that don’t exist yet,” says Ben Nelson, Minerva’s founder and chief executive. ​“There’s a shift from a perspective on focusing on grades to actually learning.…​We’re not here to give you a degree; we’re here to educate you.” Soon, though, Minerva will begin offering a more conventional tool: a master’s degree, so that its students can graduate with two degrees in four years, an overlap that also exists at schools like Stanford University and Yale​ University.

http://www.wsj.com/articles/education-startup-minerva-project-to-offer-masters-degree-program-1449679243

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.

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

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

by Nathan Culmer, EDUCAUSE Review

Although inevitable — and often beneficial — change is hard for everyone involved because it forces us think, feel, and act in new ways. IT personnel often struggle with change more than people working in other areas; in particular, they perceive a lack of personal influence on their larger group or the overall enterprise. Understanding how change affects people and working with key factors such as motivation and trust can help leaders manage inevitable change in a way that empowers and improves IT organizations and the people who work within them. Penn State University’s IT Transformation Project offered fertile ground for a study of how IT people experience change and how to help them best navigate change in their work tasks and roles, as well as in their overall environment.

http://er.educause.edu/articles/2015/12/leading-change-in-higher-ed-it

by Marco De Novellis, Business Because

Online MBA students say disruptive programs match bricks-and-mortar degrees. According to GMAC’s 2015 prospective student survey, 12% of global MBA applicants consider online programs; 21% in the US; 15% in Africa. The data epitomize how e-learning widens access to education for developing countries. With growing numbers of MBA applicants looking to online MBA programs, business schools are having to adapt to the demands of an increasingly digitized world.

http://www.businessbecause.com/news/mba-distance-learning/3644/mba-students-plug-into-online-revolution

By Tara García Mathewson, Education Dive

The University of Texas’s Institute for Transformational Learning has created an all-digital, biomedical sciences competency-based degree program, designed for iPad through the Total Educational Experience, or TEx, program. Campus Technology reports that the decision to use iPads came from timing — it started developing the program, which launched at its Rio Grande Valley campus, in November of 2014 — and connectivity, as some students in the target population did not have reliable cell service. The CBE program pulled technology support from multiple vendors, including Salesforce and Canvas, and developers have focused on constant improvement, with plans to release a version for all mobile devices through a Web app next year.

http://www.educationdive.com/news/u-of-texas-campus-builds-cbe-from-mobile-up/410515/

by Sue Gee, i-programmer

Enrollment opens today for Udacity’s latest nanodegree. If you want to get hired as a Senior Web Developer, join the first cohort of students to follow a curriculum devised in conjunction with Google. The Senior Web Developer Nanodegree was announced at last month’s Chrome Developer Summit. It can be seen as a follow-on to Udacity’s very first Nanodegree, Front-End Web Developer. The summary of the program which is expected to require 9-12 months if you devote 10 hours per week to it.

http://www.i-programmer.info/news/150-training-a-education/9195-advance-your-career-as-a-web-developer.html

By Andrew Barbour, eCampus News

“CIOs and provosts don’t know where to start,” said Renny Monaghan, chief marketing officer at D2L. “Everybody’s excited about CBE, everybody wants to do it, but they’re really starting at the very beginning. Not surprisingly, companies like D2L are hoping that colleges and universities turn to them to figure out the answers. In some ways, tech companies are a natural fit for CBE, since it’s a form of education that is almost impossible to scale without a robust technology solution in place. It’s a lesson that the University of Wisconsin Extension has learned firsthand since it launched its Flexible Option CBE program in 2013. The program, which is intended to serve the state’s approximately 80,000 adults who are interested in further educational opportunities, currently has about 1,000 students pursuing everything from certificates in technical writing to bachelor’s degrees in science and nursing, diagnostic imaging, and information studies and technology.

http://www.ecampusnews.com/top-news/competency-based-cbe-626/?

by Edward Abeyta, Evolllution

“Badges without taxonomies, without some shared understanding, without rubrics, are meaningless,” notes Matthew Pittinsky, an assistant research professor in the school of social and family dynamics at Arizona State University and founder of Parchment, a credentials-management company. The notion of a student obtaining one large qualification rather than offer an array of micro-credentials (badges) is a thing of the past. From an employer’s point of view, the value of hiring a person with numerous mini-qualifications and a diploma provides a higher confidence in their investment as opposed to the risk involved in hiring a “blue chip” student from a brand name university.

http://evolllution.com/programming/credentials/we-dont-need-no-stinking-badges-or-do-we/

by MarketsandMarkets

The Massive Open Online Course (MOOC) market is estimated to grow from USD 1.83 Billion in 2015 to USD 8.50 Billion by 2020 with a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 36.0%. The report on the MOOC market considered 2014 as the base year and the forecast period from 2015 to 2020. MOOC market aims at providing online education platforms to evaluate the platforms during their development and deployment phase and ensure that platforms implemented adhere to the international standards. The report aims at estimating the market size and future growth opportunities of the MOOC market across different segments, such as platforms, courses, services, end-users, and regions.

http://www.marketsandmarkets.com/Market-Reports/massive-open-online-course-market-237288995.html

By Anu Passary, Tech Times

In a short span of three years, Google’s Chromebooks have leapfrogged its way from accounting for less than a percent to over 50 percent of the educational market share in the U.S., thwarting rivals Apple and Microsoft in the process. Google has inched past rivals Microsoft and Apple when it comes to the educational technology space thanks to its Chromebook. The Google Chromebook now accounts for over 50 percent of the lucrative educational tech space in the U.S. According to data from a Futuresource Consulting report cited by NBC, Chromebooks now encompass over half the devices that are deployed in classrooms across the U.S. This is a colossal increase for the device and speaks volumes of its progress as in 2012, Chromebooks only accounted for less than a percent of the gadgets used in education. The leapfrogging of Chromebooks has confounded even analysts.

http://www.techtimes.com/articles/113650/20151207/google-chromebook-now-owns-over-50-percent-of-educational-tech-market-share-in-us.htm

by Mapping Student Debt

More than 42 million Americans owe a total of $1.1 trillion in student debt, making it the second-largest liability on the national balance sheet. A generation ago, student debt was a relative rarity, but for today’s students and recent graduates, it’s a central fact of economic life that we don’t know much about. Mapping Student Debt is changing that. The maps below show how borrowing for college affects the nation, your city, and even your neighborhood, giving a new perspective on the way in which student debt relates to economic inequality. [ed note: this is an astounding interactive data map!]

http://www.mappingstudentdebt.org/#/map-1-an-introduction

By HOLLY RAMER, Associated Press

Saturday was the last day for those seeking a completion certificate or continuing education credit to finish the course’s 13 quizzes, but the material itself will remain available online. That includes video lectures by professors Andrew Smith and Dante Scala that explore how and why New Hampshire rose to its prominent position in the nominating calendar, the art of organizing and campaigning in New Hampshire, and the political landscape heading into the 2016 contest. A series of videos called “Faces of the Primary” introduced students to grassroots activists, campaign strategists and journalists who’ve played key roles over the years. “We could’ve done twice as much and still be going and not have covered everything about the primary, but I think we were able to cover all of the major points,” said Smith, a political science professor and director of the UNH Survey Center. “We gave people a sense of the history, and also gave people a sense of the political science of the primary.”

http://www.concordmonitor.com/news/nation/world/19903228-95/unh-wraps-up-online-course-on-new-hampshire-primary

by Steve Downey, THE Journal

The progression from lifelong digital companions to lifelong personal teachers is only another series of algorithms away. The technology underlying those algorithms already is being developed. In March 2013, the United States Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency announced a new initiative to “decisively reduce the current barriers to machine learning and foster a boom in innovation, productivity and effectiveness.” In January 2014, Google paid $400 million to acquire London-based DeepMind Technologies, a small startup focused on deep learning research. Prior to this acquisition, Google’s director of research, Peter Novig, acknowledged that Google already employed more than five percent of world’s leading minds in machine learning. Google isn’t the only tech firm investing heavily into machine learning.

https://thejournal.com/articles/2015/12/02/lifelong-personal-teachers-the-next-step-in-educations-evolution.aspx

by Ariel Diaz, EdSurge

Making the jump to more affordable, online courseware is the logical next step to cut costs, and many learning platforms and digital content providers are stepping up to help. Even the government is in support of digital, open textbooks, with members of Congress recently proposing the Affordable College Textbook Act and the U.S. Department of Education’s #GoOpen campaign. But despite available resources and growing support, digital textbooks are still met with doubt and resistance sparked by some key—and not so unfounded—objections. No stranger to having to set the digital versus print textbook debate straight, I’ve pulled together a list of common objections to sort out what is, in fact, true and what is completely false.

https://www.edsurge.com/news/2015-12-05-facing-the-facts-four-common-objections-to-digital-textbooks

by Star Daily Standard Times

A pair of researchers looking into whether Massive Open Online Courses (MOOCs) are helping to bridge the disparity gap in education access in the U.S. has found that those who take the courses tend to be from wealthier neighborhoods. In their paper published in the journal Science, John Hansen, with Harvard University and Justin Reich, with MIT describe their research efforts and why they came to believe that MOOCs are not the remedy to educational disparity that many had hoped. Access to a high quality is not guaranteed in the U.S. People who live in tend to live in less well funded schools with lower success rates. Over the years some have espoused technological advances as the key to leveling the playing field—some believed radio could change things by offering educational programming, others believed television would help, offering even more programming such as that provided by PBS.

http://www.stardailystandard.com/science/research-exhibits-large-open-on-line-programs-used-principally-by-wealthier-individuals/33377/