Techno-News Blog

by Marina Gorbis, EDUCAUSE Review

As the world of work undergoes transformation, new worker categories are emerging—people who, by choice or by necessity, are thinking about making a living in new ways and who are putting work into a very different context. At the Institute for the Future (IFTF), our team of ethnographers has been exploring these new worker categories while conducting in-depth interviews and observations in various locations around the United States. These workers span different levels of skills and different levels of engagement with work, from those who simply rent their assets (e.g., homes, cars) to generate income streams to those who work in new ways full-time. Such workers include micro-workers, dream builders, amplified entrepreneurs, and makers and hackers.

http://er.educause.edu/articles/2016/5/new-workers-new-skills

by EdSurge

Last fall Pennsylvania State University’s World Campus launched a small, free skills-focused certificate program meant to help 30 graduate students develop online teaching abilities—but 350 actually showed up, and now the university plans to shake up its professional development to reflect the swell of interest. Laurence Boggess, director of faculty development for the World Campus, told Inside Higher Ed he believes this reflects a larger shift: “These graduate students who are about to go off and be the professors of the future, they get it. They understand that they’re going to be teaching online at some point, and they understand that online education—for better or worse—is not going anywhere.”

https://www.edsurge.com/news/2016-05-03-penn-state-responds-to-surge-of-interest-in-skills-based-online-teaching-certificate

by Evan Ramstad, STAR TRIBUNE

Last month, Capella spent $18 million to buy Hackbright, one of three deals this year that have pushed the Minneapolis-based for-profit education firm into a new business. Capella in the early 1990s was one of the first companies to offer accredited college degrees via online courses and has grown into one of the biggest, with about 38,000 active students and $430 million in annual revenue. Now, it is teaching job-ready skills that will get people into today’s most in-demand professions. “Employers can’t find the right skilled workers and academia isn’t keeping up,” said Kevin Gilligan, Capella’s chief executive. “We recognize a big opportunity to be an institution that can upskill and reskill 21st century workers.” In addition to Hackbright, Capella bought DevMountain, a Provo, Utah, firm that teaches even more specific tech skills, such as creating apps, in classrooms in the Salt Lake and Dallas metro areas.

http://www.startribune.com/with-recent-deals-capella-moves-into-job-skills-training-particularly-software-coding/379452701/

by Lee Maxey, Chief Learning Officer

If chief learning officers could tap into research showing how people are learning most effectively online, it could greatly improve learning content. By talking to universities about their approach to, and results from, online learning, CLOs could change the way their learning and development teams design courses and think about learning. For instance, a plethora of schools publish massive open online courses, or MOOCs. Organizations like edX, launched by Harvard University and MIT, have added dozens of leading schools to present free courses online. Coursera and Udacity have, too. Each of these organizations, and the schools that supply courses, extract heaps of data about what people are clicking on to learn, which in turn demonstrates retention rates. If learning leaders want to understand this data, they can start by contacting the person running the MOOCs for, say, HarvardX or the Harvard Business School. Boston’s Berkelee College of Music supplies MOOCs via something akin to a startup, which is run from within the school itself.

http://www.clomedia.com/2016/05/13/using-mooc-data-for-your-benefit/

By: Jennifer Patterson Lorenzetti, Faculty Focus

Many instructors feel that they need to be experts in mathematics in order to understand analytics. But according to John Vivolo, director of online and virtual learning for New York University, every faculty member can learn to use the course analytics available through their LMS to improve student learning. Vivolo’s aim is to help faculty “use analytics to proactively reach out to students.” Vivolo talks about what he calls “pocket data analytics.” These are small, easy-to-use pieces of data that are readily available to instructors through their LMS. Pocket data analytics are a way to leverage the data that is collected, often automatically, by looking at smaller bits of data that show discrete happenings and student behaviors in a class. This allows instructors, deans, and instructional designers to move beyond simple surveys and student grades as metrics into more information that is easily understood and responded to.

http://www.facultyfocus.com/articles/online-education/using-student-analytics-online-course-improvement/

BY LAURA DEVANEY, eSchool News

Thanks to recent strides in robotics and mobile devices, telepresence technology has opened up numerous possibilities at both the K-12 and higher-ed levels, where remote observation and communication can come in handy. Educators and students are exploring a new way to remotely observe and interact with colleagues and peers with a telepresence robot that enables face-to-face communication. Using Kubi, from Revolve Robotics, users download an app onto a tablet and connect the tablet to Kubi using Bluetooth. The tablet sits on a robotic platform. Other users can then “navigate” to Kubi with a browser. This lets them control the robot remotely over the web, including moving it for face-to-face communication.

http://www.eschoolnews.com/2016/05/12/how-a-telepresence-robot-is-changing-some-classrooms/

BY MERIS STANSBURY, eCampus News

For institutions eager to help their students not only leap into the job market, but enter a future-proof career, these fields of study are wise investments. As students become more concerned with leveraging their postsecondary education for entry into the job market, colleges and universities must look beyond traditional fields of study to ones that directly lead to future-ready careers. Future-ready, or future-proof, careers refer to careers that not only have a significant number of current job openings, but whose openings are expected to increase in the future. These careers also offer competitive salaries, and are available in multiple markets (i.e. business, education, healthcare, etc.). Using data from job-hunting site Glassdoor, CareerBuilder, Economic Modeling Specialists Intl., as well as recent research from the education sector, eCampus News lists three burgeoning fields of study that any campus would do well to incorporate into their curricula.

http://www.ecampusnews.com/technologies/fields-of-study/

BY LAURA DEVANEY, eCampus News

A new study on MOOC course design reveals that students prefer Facebook’s collaboration and interaction features to those of built-in MOOC communication tools. Social media tools might be the key to keeping students engaged in MOOCs and preventing course dropouts, according to new research on MOOC course design that was presented at the annual ACM conference on Learning at Scale on April 26. A study comparing students’ use of their MOOC course’s built-in message boards and forums to the same students’ use of course Facebook groupe revealed that students seemed more engaged in the Facebook groups. Students told researchers they preferred social media interaction to interacting with the MOOC communication tools. Results of the study have implications for future MOOC course design, the researchers said in their paper, parts of which are available by registering for the Learning at Scale flipped conference online.

http://www.ecampusnews.com/featured/featured-on-ecampus-news/mooc-course-design/

By Dian Schaffhauser, Campus Technology

Managing projects is the most common task instructional designers undertake during their days, followed by technology and pedagogical training. Their biggest obstacle to success on the job is faculty resistance. The most important expertise they possess as a whole is the ability to learn new technologies, followed by project management and learning science or theory. Their favorite tools to work with are Camtasia and Adobe products; their least-favorite are Blackboard and learning management systems in general. Those are some of the findings that have come out of a new survey undertaken by Intentional Futures, a self-described “strategy and design studio,” undertaken on behalf of the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation’s “Next Generation Courseware Challenge.”

https://campustechnology.com/articles/2016/05/09/survey-instructional-designers-pivotal-in-tech-adoption.aspx

By Leila Meyer, Campus Technology

The MIT Lincoln Laboratory established a new supercomputing center in April to provide more than 1,000 MIT researchers with access to high-performance computing (HPC) cluster nodes. The Lincoln Laboratory Supercomputing Center (LLSC) features an interactive, on-demand parallel computing system running thousands of processors that will enable MIT researchers “to process larger sets of sensor data, create higher-fidelity simulations, and develop entirely new algorithms,” according to information on the lab’s site. The center is also “extremely” green, with computers running 93 percent carbon-free, according to information from MIT. Albert Reuther, manager of LLSC, said the center is unlike other supercomputing centers because of its “focus on interactive supercomputing for high-performance data analysis” and relatively low carbon footprint.

https://campustechnology.com/articles/2016/05/13/mit-adds-supercomputing-center.aspx

By Vince M. Bertram, Campus Technology

Giving students an early start on computer science education with a focus on security is crucial. And high school is already too late, argues Project Lead the Way’s Vince Bertram. There is a disturbing trend in computer science education today: Not one of the top 10 computer science programs in the U.S. requires so much as a single cybersecurity course as a prerequisite for graduation, and just three of the top 50 computer science programs, as ranked by Business Insider, require majors to complete such a course. Worse still, out of the 121 schools examined in a recent CloudPassage study, just one — the University of Alabama — requires three or more cybersecurity classes to graduate. The IT security company surveyed cybersecurity education at undergraduate computer science programs at top colleges and universities across the U.S.

https://campustechnology.com/articles/2016/05/12/the-shocking-data-security-gap-in-computer-science-education.aspx

By Autumn A. Arnett, Education Dive

Arizona State University President Dr. Michael Crow took the reigns of the university 14 years ago, and under his leadership, the institution has implemented a number of programs and innovations, including the Starbucks College Achievement Plan, the University Innovation Alliance, eAdvisor, Learn-Explore-Advance-Design, ASU 101, the Student 360 view and retention dashboard. Arizona State has an 86% freshman retention rate, thanks in no small part to its concentrated efforts around the Global Freshman Academy, which Crow says “draws in students who, because of life balance or a need for greater confidence, have shied away from attempting higher education,” and the institution’s First-Year Success Center — “which pairs highly trained upper-division graduate students with freshmen and sophomores to offer free, personal academic support and advocacy.”

http://www.educationdive.com/news/eduvation-spotlight-asu-president-michael-crow-on-innovation-tenure-and-m/418153/

by Business Wire

According to the latest research study released by Technavio, the global flipped classroom market is expected to record a CAGR of over 37% by 2020. This research report titled ‘Global Flip Classroom Market 2016-2020’, provides an in-depth analysis of market growth in terms of revenue and emerging market trends. This market research report also includes up to date analysis and forecasts for various product segments, including software, hardware, and services. “In the flipped learning model, learning content is provided to the students primarily in the form of video and audio lectures before a classroom session begins. Teachers design lectures that act as study materials for students to ensure that they have some knowledge of the subject before the in-class session.

http://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20160512005035/en/Popularity-Online-Community-Learning-Predicted-Boost-demand

by Laura Diamond, Georgia Tech

Parents looking to help their children succeed academically can access free online educational programs, games and services to help them outside the classroom. A plethora of these tools have popped up in recent years in an attempt to close the achievement gap and digital divide between the rich and poor. Instead, the gap seems to be getting larger because of these tools, according to a new study from the Georgia Institute of Technology.

http://www.news.gatech.edu/2016/05/12/lower-income-families-less-likely-use-online-learning-tools

by Tomas Laurinavicius, Huffington Post

I believe that education is the most powerful force in the world. To be exact, self-education. It doesn’t matter if you are in a university or studying in a library, it’s self-education. If you want to learn something, you’ll find a way, and on the other hand, if you don’t want to learn, even the best university or teacher won’t be able to put knowledge into your head. Learning online allowed me to become my own boss and focus on things that excite me. Instead of following orders and lesson plans designed for general public, I was able to learn things on my own, copy others, ask questions and even start working for money by applying those skills I’ve learned. Could it get even better?

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/tomas-laurinavicius/how-to-learn-anything-online_b_9856754.html

by DAVID BROOKS, Concord Monitor

MOOCs were a hot new thing three or four years ago when they looked as if they might upend the traditional college business model. “Structures” is part of EdX, a compilation of MOOCs from a variety of high-profile universities around the world that was created by MIT and Harvard. The advantage of the approach is obvious: it’s a great way to spread education. May says a whopping 15,000 students have taken the class. She plans to use a rerun for research into educational methods, performing so-called A/B tests in which single variables of the approach are tweaked for different groups so the results can be compared.

By Jason Maderer, Georgia Tech

College of Computing Professor Ashok Goel teaches Knowledge Based Artificial Intelligence (KBAI) every semester. It’s a core requirement of Georgia Tech’s online master’s of science in computer science program. And every time he offers it, Goel estimates, his 300 or so students post roughly 10,000 messages in the online forums — far too many inquiries for him and his eight teaching assistants (TA) to handle. That’s why Goel added a ninth TA this semester. Her name is Jill Watson, and she’s unlike any other TA in the world. In fact, she’s not even a “she.” Jill is a computer — a virtual TA —implemented on IBM’s Watson platform. The students, who were studying artificial intelligence, were unknowingly interacting with it. Goel didn’t inform them about Jill’s true identity until April 26. The student response was uniformly positive.

http://www.news.gatech.edu/2016/05/09/artificial-intelligence-course-creates-ai-teaching-assistant

By Joshua Kim, Inside Higher Ed

Why are we so interested in mobile learning? What is it about moving online education from our laptops to our phones and tablets that has gotten us so intrigued? Is it because the world of social media has largely moved to mobile? Over three-quarters of all the time that people in the U.S. spend on social media is done so on a mobile device. 90 percent of people that access Facebook on a daily basis are doing so via mobile, and over 50 percent of Facebook users only access the social network on a mobile device. Over 80 percent of Twitter users are mobile users. More than half of YouTube views come from a mobile device. I have 3 theories about why we are so intrigued by the siren song of mobile learning.

https://www.insidehighered.com/blogs/technology-and-learning/3-theories-why-we-are-intrigued-mobile-learning

By Leila Meyer, Campus Technology

Northwestern University in Illinois has launched a new Digital Learning website to showcase the innovative online and blended learning practices of campus faculty and provide information for those who want to implement digital learning. “The primary goal of the new website is to provide a glimpse into what is happening inside the Northwestern classroom and to help connect the dots between various innovations in teaching and learning,” stated a news release from the university. The site is a partnership project between the Office of the Provost and Northwestern Information Technology, with input from other campus offices, administration and faculty members. The people who created the site hope faculty from Northwestern and other educational institutions will look to the site for information about digital learning and examples of best practices.

https://campustechnology.com/articles/2016/05/05/northwestern-u-develops-new-digital-learning-website.aspx

by Allan Edwards, EDUCAUSE Review

At Eastern Michigan University (EMU), information security is a challenge. We in the IT department understand and recommend security best practices but cannot always insist on them to the degree that we would like. For example, endpoint management tools that catalog the software on users’ machines are viewed as intrusive. Mobile device management is also not possible since the devices in question are owned by the users and not supplied by the university. Because of this, much of our focus needs to be on training and education. But how can an IT department, which is small compared to the entire university, make a meaningful impact?

http://er.educause.edu/blogs/2016/4/security-awareness-at-eastern-michigan-university

by The Jakarta Post

In recent years, the mobile internet has surged globally. In Indonesia, sales of smartphones exceed 71.25 million and will surpass 100 million in 2018, making it the fourth-largest country by smartphone user after China, India and the US. In the coming years, thanks to the demographic dividend, an upsurge in mobile internet penetration, startup companies and a technical framework that builds a mature mobile ecosystem, users will undoubtedly play a crucial role in mobile internet development. The emergence of the internet has changed talent cultivation in higher education. The mobile internet has taken the global communication network onto a new level and will force higher education to create a new model of talent cultivation.

http://www.thejakartapost.com/adv/2016/05/09/what-higher-education-institutions-can-do-in-the-mobile-internet-era.html