Techno-News Blog

April 30, 2016

OER in Higher Ed: ‘Huge Awareness-Raising Effort Needed’

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By David Raths, Campus Technology

When it comes to open educational resources (OER) adoption, is the glass half empty or half full? On the one hand, more than 1 billion works have been licensed using Creative Commons since the organization was founded 15 years ago, and in 2015 alone Creative Commons-licensed works were viewed online 136 billion times. Yet awareness of OER in higher education remains low. Approximately 75 percent of faculty respondents to a 2014 Babson Survey Research Group study didn’t know about or couldn’t accurately define OER or why it is important. Changing that situation is the mission of Cable Green, director of open education at Creative Commons and a leading advocate for open policies that ensure publicly funded education materials are freely and openly available to the public. “We still have a huge awareness-raising effort that needs to be done,” said Green. “We all need to teach other people about what this is and why it is important.”

https://campustechnology.com/articles/2016/04/21/oer-in-higher-ed-huge-awareness-raising-effort-needed.aspx

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Employers, insurers see promise in self-directed online therapy

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By Christopher Snowbeck, Star Tribune

Employers and a large health insurer are considering a new way of reaching people with social anxiety and depression. Many who suffer from social anxiety, depression and other mental health problems won’t seek help from a therapist. However, they may find a sense of community in online discussion groups and “anxiety blogs,” said Dale Cook, the chief executive and co-founder of Learn to Live, a Minneapolis-based start-up. The company sells access to online courses for people struggling with mental health issues, and touts its strategies for engaging with sufferers. “They’re looking for online resources because they don’t want to tell anyone, or they don’t have time to go” for face-to-face therapy, Cook said in an interview. “We’re able to identify places where sufferers go to commiserate and suffer together and say: Have you found anything that works?”

http://www.startribune.com/employers-insurers-see-promise-in-self-directed-online-therapy/376658941/

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Get On The Machine Learning Bandwagon With Google

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by Lucy Black, iProgrammer

You can’t help but notice the surge of interest in anything to do with machine learning. Now Google has launched a series of videos presenting machine learning recipes. And this adds to an existing heap of resources. AlphaGo’s historic victory against the Korean Go champion Lee Sedol has had consequences. One is a worldwide shortage of Go boards due to an upsurge of interest in the game, which is recognized as the most difficult to play. Another is that we all want to get involved with machine learning, amplifying a trend that has already been evident for a couple of years. The latest way to gain some insight into what machine learning does and how you can use it comes from Josh Gordon, who presents a series of short (7 minutes) videos that aim to get you started with machine learning using two open source libraries, scikit-learn and TensorFlow, which Google open sourced having developed it in-house.

http://www.i-programmer.info/news/105-artificial-intelligence/9662-get-on-the-machine-learning-bandwagon-with-google.html

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April 29, 2016

Sebastian Thrun Steps Down As Udacity’s CEO

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by Leena Rao, Fortune

Udacity’s founder Sebastian Thrun is stepping down as chief executive officer, the company announced on Friday. Vishal Makhijani, the company’s chief operating officer, will be Udacity’s new CEO. Thrun, who will remain as president and chairman of Udacity, said that he will continue to work full-time at Udacity, but he will take on a role focused on what he is passionate about—innovation. Thrun added that he has taken inspiration from his former employer when restructuring his role at Udacity. “While at Google, I was impressed with the way Larry and Sergey organized Google. Eric [Schmidt] was the CEO, but Larry and Sergey enjoyed the freedom of focusing on innovating within the company,” he said.

http://fortune.com/2016/04/22/sebastian-thrun-udacity/

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Adaptive engineering course opens up engineering fundamentals to all

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by eCampus News

The University of New South Wales Australia and adaptive learning provider Smart Sparrow have unveiled what they call the world’s first-ever open adaptive engineering course designed to unlock access to high-quality courses for learners of all backgrounds. The course, Through Engineers’ Eyes: Engineering Mechanics by Experiment, Analysis and Design, was developed by Professor Gangadhara Prusty and Robin Ford, a retired Associate Professor, both from the School of Mechanical and Manufacturing at UNSW. It is the first Engineering MOOC to leverage Adaptive Technology. Adaptive Tutorials built on the Smart Sparrow platform have been incorporated to engage students with real-life simulations and personalised course materials, addressing the low completion rates in MOOCs and high failure rates in introductory engineering.

http://www.ecampusnews.com/online-learning/moocs/adaptive-engineering-course/

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University of Colorado contemplates 3-year, fully online degree programs

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BY SARAH KUTA, DAILY CAMERA

The University of Colorado is asking its faculty and staff to get creative and develop new, fully online degree programs to launch in the fall of 2018. The CU system is calling for online degree program proposals until July 15, with grants being awarded by Sept. 30. CU hopes to select three winning grant proposals and award each team $200,000 for course development. Faculty selected for the grant will receive a $15,000 stipend, with staff members receiving a $5,000 stipend to support the logistics of course development. Students must be able to complete the degree completely online and in three calendar years, though they won’t be required to work within that time frame.

http://www.ecampusnews.com/top-news/university-3-online/

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April 28, 2016

Udacity Debuts In China, Launches In-Person Group Tutoring

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by Kathleen Chaykowski, FORBES

After launching in India last year, Udacity has made its way to China. The Mountain View, Calif-based online education company, cofounded about four years ago by Google GOOGL -5.53% X founder and Stanford University research professor Sebastian Thrun, is opening offices in China and making more than 100 of its free online courses available to anyone in China under the domain name youdaxue.com, the company said this week. On Wednesday, the company also announced it is launching its first in-person, instructor-led study sessions for students in its “Nanodegree” programs, which cover topics from iOS and Android development to machine learning and require students to complete a series of projects.

http://www.forbes.com/sites/kathleenchaykowski/2016/04/21/udacity-debuts-in-china-launches-in-person-group-tutoring/#586d9c9d4bd0

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Bellevue U approaches online learning with liberal arts classroom model

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By Tara García Mathewson, Education Dive

Bellevue University in Nebraska takes a liberal arts approach to online education, focusing on small class sizes and high-touch faculty who provide oversight and guidance to students, and, in turn, improve retention. According to eCampus News, the school requires faculty to take a course about online teaching strategies before leading their first classes, and they are then monitored by senior faculty and deans; a performance-based approach to student progress avoids automation of some competency-based programs. While programs map curricula and outline outcomes and performance skills students must master, it is a combination of tests and other assessments, like video presentations, that allow students to prove their skill — and while the programs are largely self-paced, students must meet major milestones to stay largely in step with one another.

http://www.educationdive.com/news/bellevue-u-approaches-online-learning-with-liberal-arts-classroom-model/417870/

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More UK adults taking online courses

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By Anthony Spadafora, Beta News

Adults in the UK are turning to online learning platforms in order to stay competitive in their fields and to learn new skills, despite their increasingly busy schedules. Coursera, which offers online courses from some of the top universities worldwide, has noticed that the number of new users registering for its educational platform has increased by 50 percent over the course of the past 12 months. In the UK, the company has over half a million users that are registered for a variety of courses. Coursera has noted that of those currently studying, 30 percent are using their smartphones to access their courses, which illustrates the flexibility of studying online.

http://betanews.com/2016/04/21/uk-online-courses

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April 27, 2016

Online Vs. Traditional: Which is the Better Platform?

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By Stefanie Schmude, ULoop

Picture this. Two friends go out to eat for lunch; friend number one discusses the hard work of being a college student and juggling class schedules with work. Friend two discusses the same struggles, but whether or not they are going to attend their American Literature class on the couch or in bed. With the rising popularity of online courses, students are starting to think about not only where they want to go, what they want to do career wise, but how they are going to receive that education: online or traditional. Personally, I have done schooling in both mediums and I don’t find either one to be better than the other. I prefer one to the other because one option (online) works best for me. But there are pros and cons to each one, and to look at those, I took the Rasmussen College model, which broke it down into four simple categories.

http://www.uloop.com/news/view.php/198063/Online-Vs-Traditional-Which-is-the-Better-Platform

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Berkeley chancellor, Stanford president kick off online-learning summit

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by Public Affairs, UC Berkeley

Online courses may not have overwhelmed undergraduate education in a disruptive “tsunami,” as once predicted. But teaching and learning technology is “going to change the landscape of everything we do,” UC Berkeley Chancellor Nicholas Dirks told an audience at Stanford University on Friday. Dirks made that prediction in conversation with Stanford president John Hennessy, kicking off the fourth annual “learning summit,” held this year on the Stanford campus. “We’ve seen that online resources can be very important,” Dirks said. “But at the same time they don’t substitute for being there” – for personal contact with faculty or the sense of community that residential undergraduate institutions provide. So far, he added, MOOCs have been “most spectacularly successful for students who have graduated.” Hennessy concurred, observing that massive open online courses (MOOCs) have gotten their greatest traction among professionals already working in their field.

https://news.berkeley.edu/2016/04/18/berkeley-chancellor-stanford-president-kick-off-online-learning-summit/

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8 strategies for successful tech initiatives

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BY ANDREW BARBOUR, eCampus News

Great tech products are a reflection of the needs and values of the community they serve. These eight strategies can help ensure that new IT tech initiatives get real traction on campus. For university IT leaders, unveiling major tech initiatives can be a bit like handing out Halloween candy: The customers run the gamut from quiet pixies to absolute ghouls, some complain about the quality of the treats, and others have a nagging suspicion that you’ve put razor blades in their apples. It doesn’t have to be this way. Handled well, the rollout of a big IT project should unfold more like an adult Christmas, with customers receiving presents they’ve wanted and thought about for a long time. In interviews with IT leaders at a range of institutions and companies, eCampus News identified eight strategies to help colleges ensure that constituents see their next big IT project coming with a bow on top.

http://www.ecampusnews.com/technologies/successful-tech-initiatives/

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April 26, 2016

ASU’s Global Freshman Academy Taps Adaptive Software for Math Students

Filed under: Uncategorized — admin @ 12:27 am

By Rhea Kelly, Campus Technology

Arizona State University’s online Global Freshman Academy (GFA) is rolling out adaptive software to help tens of thousands of students work through its College Algebra & Problem Solving course. The GFA program, delivered via massive open online course (MOOC) provider edX, will be the first to utilize McGraw-Hill Education’s ALEKS adaptive learning product in a MOOC format. “To date, more than 17,800 students from 186 countries have registered for the College Algebra & Problem Solving course using the ALEKS program, which will provide students with individualized learning and instruct them on the topics they are most ready to learn,” according to a press release from McGraw-Hill Education.

https://campustechnology.com/articles/2016/04/18/asus-global-freshman-academy-taps-adaptive-software-for-math-students.aspx

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Education Leaders Need to Bridge the Digital Use Divide

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BY TANYA ROSCORLA, Center for Digital Ed

National ed tech leader Joseph South emphasized the importance of shifting schools away from passive to active technology use. The digital divide receives a lot of attention because it separates those who have technology from those who don’t. But another divide exists that puts some students at a disadvantage: the digital use divide. This divide makes includes active technology use on one side and passive technology use on the other side. Schools across the country need to start providing more learning opportunities for students to create and collaborate with technology instead of just using it to consume information, said Joseph South, acting director of the Office of Educational Technology in the U.S. Department of Education. “It’s not enough to have the connectivity; it’s not enough to have the smartphones,” South said.

http://www.centerdigitaled.com/higher-ed/How-Education-Leaders-Can-Bridge-the-Digital-Use-Divide.html

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Higher Ed Needs Major Disruption

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By Froma Harrop, Real Clear Politics

Happily, there exists an alternative to four bankrupting years on campus. There’s almost no learning, be it liberal arts or STEM (science, technology, engineering and math), that can’t be had free — or close to it — online. MOOCs (massive open online courses) are perfectly suited to disrupt the campus model. As suggested above, expense isn’t the only thing powering this revolution. It’s the sense that the people running the universities have lost their minds. Either that or they’ll say almost anything to get protesting students off their backs. (In doing so, they’re also softly egging the students on to say absurd things that could haunt them when prospective employers Google their names.)

http://www.realclearpolitics.com/articles/2016/04/19/higher_ed_needs_major_disruption_130318.html

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April 25, 2016

Udacity Brings Its Nanodegree Programs to China

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by Leena Rao, Fortune

Similar to the Indian expansion, Udacity has localized many of its most popular nanodegree certifications to China, including courses in iOS, Android, and machine learning development. Udacity has a local team in China that is providing in-person reviews and coaching in Mandarin. Udacity said it is working with Chinese e-commerce giant JD.com, and ride-sharing company Didi Kuadi to build customized courses for students. Udacity previously partnered with Google to create coursework targeted at Indian students.

http://fortune.com/2016/04/18/udacity-expands-to-china/

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Evaluating the Privacy and Security of Ed Tech: 7 Questions to Guide the Process

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By Bill Fitzgerald, THE Journal

When working with educational technology, responsible decision makers in schools recognize the need for solid security and privacy practice in software applications. However, defining an acceptable level of privacy protection, or an adequate level of security, can feel imprecise. While some of the loudest conversations about privacy and security try to reduce the issues to binary choice, the reality is often more nuanced. As we navigate evaluating the privacy and security protections of educational software, the following questions and observations can help guide the process.

https://thejournal.com/articles/2016/04/14/evaluating-the-privacy-and-security-of-edtech-7-questions-to-guide-the-process.aspx

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IBM, Coursera Team Up on IoT Developer Course

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By Darryl K. Taft. eWeek

IBM and Coursera next month will begin teaching a new online course for developers to learn how to create applications for the Internet of things. Starting next month, Coursera, the education platform that forms partnerships with top universities and organizations worldwide to offer courses online, is teaming up with IBM to develop an online course to teach programming for the Internet of things (IoT). The new course, “A developer’s guide to the Internet of Things (IoT),” is aimed at providing instruction on how to build IoT applications and will cost $79. Although it is an entry-level course, the assignments use both the Python and JavaScript programming languages, so basic skills in these languages are required.

http://www.eweek.com/developer/ibm-coursera-team-up-on-iot-developer-course.html

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April 24, 2016

Online degrees could make universities redundant, historian warns

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by Richard Adams, the Guardian

Oxford, along with all other universities, faces an “uncomfortable future” unless it embraces online degrees and draws up plans for raising billions of pounds to go private, according to the university’s new official history. The book, to be launched by Oxford University Press this week, says new technology has the potential to make universities such as Oxford “redundant” and that it is “only a matter of time” before virtual learning transforms higher education. Laurence Brockliss, the historian and author, argues that Oxford itself should offer undergraduate degrees via online learning, and in doing so could solve the controversies it faces over student access. “I would like Oxford to pilot something, and say we are going to offer 1,000 18-year-olds online courses in different subjects, to experiment and see how it works and how it can be improved,” Brockliss said.

http://www.theguardian.com/education/2016/apr/17/oxford-university-online-degree-historian-laurence-brockliss

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‘Exam factory’ schools urged to shift emphasis to online learning

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by Richard Adams, the Guardian

High-quality, low-cost online courses could be used to shift schools away from being “exam factories” and help students keep pace with the threat of automation, according to a new report by the Institute of Directors. The report argues that the internet allows schools to be more flexible and adapt learning towards “a future in which more and more work is taken over by robots or computers”. “The cost savings, convenience and flexibility that online learning offers has the potential to revolutionise education provision, but only if businesses and the education sector work together to capitalise on the potential of computer-based teaching applications to support employees in their pursuit of lifelong learning,” the report said.

http://www.theguardian.com/education/2016/apr/18/exam-factory-schools-urged-to-shift-emphasis-to-online-learning

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Learning Differences MOOC might help educators target instruction

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by eCampus News

A new report suggests that the Learning Differences Massive Open Online Course for Educators (MOOC-Ed), provided by the Friday Institute for Education Innovation at NC State University, may help teachers around the world advance their knowledge of learning differences and better meet the learning needs of their students. Written by researchers on the Friday Institute’s evaluation team, What’s the Value of a Learning Differences MOOC-Ed? analyzes how participants found value in the course using a “value creation framework” developed by Etienne Wenger, Beverly Trayner, and Maarten De Laat (2011). They suggest that, in order to appreciate the richness of the value created by learning communities or networks such as MOOC-Eds, it is helpful to think about value creation in terms of cycles.

http://www.ecampusnews.com/online-learning/moocs/learning-differences-mooc/

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