Techno-News Blog

June 24, 2016

Deep Learning Isn’t a Dangerous Magic Genie. It’s Just Math

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by Oren Etzioni, Wired

Deep Learning is rapidly ‘eating’ artificial intelligence. But let’s not mistake this ascendant form of artificial intelligence for anything more than it really is. The famous author Arthur C. Clarke wrote, “Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic.” And deep learning is certainly an advanced technology—it can identify objects and faces in photos, recognize spoken words, translate from one language to another, and even beat the top humans at the ancient game of Go. But it’s far from magic. As companies like Google and Facebook and Microsoft continue to push this technology into everyday online services—and the world continues to marvel at AlphaGo, Google’s Go playing super-machine—the pundits often describe deep learning as an imitation of the human brain. But it’s really just simple math executed on an enormous scale.

http://www.wired.com/2016/06/deep-learning-isnt-dangerous-magic-genie-just-math/

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June 23, 2016

For-profit coding bootcamps better as educational add-on

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By Jarrett Carter, Education Dive

Software engineering jobs are expected to increase by more than 18% over the next seven years, nearly triple the rate of the entire labor market. Coding bootcamps are offering crash courses in this rapidly growing industry — and at a fraction of the cost attached to an associate’s or four-year degree in computer science. Skeptics say crash courses in coding do not offer the full range of skills sought by most employers in the industry.

http://www.educationdive.com/news/for-profit-coding-bootcamps-better-as-educational-add-on/421089/

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5 EdTech Trends Shaping Business Education — From Artificial Intelligence To Virtual Reality

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by Seb Murray, Business Because

The edtech trend on the tip of everyone’s tongue at this year’s EdtechXEurope event is artificial intelligence. By harnessing the power of AI and deep learning, educators can glean insights from the vast quantities of data hoovered up from their students. AI could also help lecturers make better decisions and could improve student retention rates, according to experts. “AI is a tool to make better sense of data,” says Satya Nitta, director of education and cognitive sciences at IBM. The world’s top online learning platforms are working with business schools such as Yale SOM and Duke Fuqua, and are offering advanced analytical tools to help them refine and enhance student learning. Meanwhile, virtual reality is immersing itself into elite schools like Stanford GSB. MIT Sloan, for instance, has trialled Google’s Cardboard and Samsung’s Gear VR devices.

http://www.businessbecause.com/news/mba-distance-learning/4023/5-edtech-trends-shaping-business-education

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Behind the Scenes of a Makerspace

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By Leila Meyer, Campus Technology

Rutgers University Makerspace has become a hub of creativity on campus. Here’s how it manages operations, equipment, projects and more. Four years ago, Rutgers University in New Jersey opened the Rutgers Makerspace — a place where students, faculty, staff and other members of the community can learn to use equipment such as 3D scanners and printers, laser cutters, cutting and milling machines, electronics, and power and hand tools, for both university-related and personal projects. Here’s how the space has evolved into a bustling hub of creativity on campus.

https://campustechnology.com/articles/2016/06/15/behind-the-scenes-of-a-makerspace.aspx

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June 22, 2016

3D Printer Shipments Up for Education (and All Other Segments)

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By Dian Schaffhauser, Campus Technology

3D printing is on a growth jag. A new report from International Data Corp. (IDC) finds that the market grew in the United States by nearly 20 percent in 2015 compared to 2014. Printer hardware and materials represented a $2.5 billion market in this country last year. According to the IDC report, “U.S. 3D Printer Forecast, 2016-2020: New 3D Print/Additive Manufacturing Technologies Fuel Growth,” that increase is expected to continue through 2020, with a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of more than 16 percent. In the education segment specifically, IDC forecasts that 3D printing spending, which includes printers, as well as materials and software, will grow from around $200 million this year to more than $500 million in 2019.

https://campustechnology.com/articles/2016/06/16/3d-printer-shipments-up-for-education-and-every-other-segment.aspx

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Are school internet connections fast enough to support personalized learning?

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by Joshua Bleiberg, Brookings

Education technologies like personalized learning have tremendous potential to help students learn. To maximize the value of personalized learning, the public and private sectors must increase their investments in training, infrastructure, hardware, and curriculum. Unfortunately progress in each of these areas is uneven. In a recent Chalkboard post, I discussed the potential benefits from broad adoption of personalized learning. A key reason that I remain skeptical about the long-term impact of personalized learning is the lack of bandwidth in the nation’s schools. The available data suggests that school internet speeds continue to rise at a rapid rate, but remain below the levels needed to support broad adoption of personalized learning.

http://www.brookings.edu/blogs/brown-center-chalkboard/posts/2016/06/15-school-internet-connections-support-personalized-learning-bleiberg

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LinkedIn, Microsoft, and Higher Ed

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By Joshua Kim, Inside Higher Ed

What might Microsoft’s $26.2 billion acquisition of LinkedIn mean for higher ed? It is clear that LinkedIn views higher education as a key vertical. This strategy became apparent with the $1.5 purchase of Lynda.com in 2015. So what might the Microsoft acquisition change about LinkedIn through a higher ed lens? Being owned by Microsoft should allow LinkedIn to focus on its core strengths – and to leave the technology back-end to Microsoft. There have been signs that LinkedIn wants to have bigger mindshare in the discussion about the future of higher education, but these signals have been weak and fleeting. LinkedIn is still viewed more as a utility – a digital rolodex – than a key building block of what comes next in higher education. One could imagine a much bigger role for LinkedIn as a competency based education (CBE) goes mainstream.

https://www.insidehighered.com/blogs/technology-and-learning/linkedin-microsoft-and-higher-ed

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June 21, 2016

Relentless data tracking key to MTSU’s success

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By Tara García Mathewson, Education Dive

Middle Tennessee State University’s vice provost for student success brings an uncommon perspective to his job, but it is one that is increasingly recognized as having value. Rick Sluder joined the administrative team at MTSU after four years in enrollment management, where it was his job to track application and matriculation data obsessively. The first thing he did when he got to Middle Tennessee State was to set up a data system that would give the university the power to track performance and do so on a weekly basis. When he hears how other schools approach retention or completion initiatives — measuring progress once per year or less — he says he has to chuckle. “The places that are doing retention work the best are doing it the most,” Sluder said.

http://www.educationdive.com/news/relentless-data-tracking-key-to-mtsus-success/420669/

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90% students see online experience as good as face-to-face

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By Jarrett Carter, Education Dive

The Online Learning Consortium says 5.8 million students are enrolled in online higher education courses, and 90% of these students say their academic experience is as good, or better than an in-person class. According to the data, students report greater levels of engagement with coursework, faculty and classmates with learning technology and support the use of adaptive analytics in helping to customize student learning experiences. Despite eight in 10 faculty members having little experience with online learning tools, data suggests 48% of learning materials will soon be digital.

http://www.educationdive.com/news/olc-study-90-students-see-online-experience-as-good-as-face-to-face/420923/

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College Algebra, Engineering Classes Get Healthy Dose of Games-Based Learning

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BY TANYA ROSCORLA, Center for Digital Education

College professors say they rarely see their peers mixing games into classes, so a few outliers are developing their own games to help students understand complex subjects. In the first three years of elementary school, 65 percent of teachers use digital games to help students learn, according to the 2015 Speak Up report from the nonprofit Project Tomorrow. But by the time those students get to high school, just 31 percent of their teachers incorporate games into instruction. While the survey doesn’t measure college game use, college professors say they rarely see their peers mixing games into classes. That said, a few outliers are developing their own games to help students understand complex subjects including algebra and engineering.

http://www.centerdigitaled.com/higher-ed/College-Algebra-Engineering-Classes-Get-Healthy-Dose-of-Games-Based-Learning.htm

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June 20, 2016

Survey Says, It’s the Dawn of a New Era in Professional Learning

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By Lisa Schmucki, EdSurge

Ask school leaders what is needed to help teachers integrate technology into teaching and learning, and they’ll tell you that teachers need more professional learning and support. At a recent Consortium for School Networking’s (CoSN) conference, educational consultant and retired superintendent Gabe Soumakian summed it up concisely, “It’s not about the tech, it’s about the professional learning.” We’re at the dawn of a new era in professional learning, one brought on by the creation of social networking, content-sharing, and collaborative technology. Providing teachers—and all educators—with the professional learning they need is a daunting task. Online professional development may hold the key.

https://www.edsurge.com/news/2016-06-13-survey-says-it-s-the-dawn-of-a-new-era-in-professional-learning-plus-6-favorite-pd-resources-for-teachers

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Coming of age:online accelerated learning is here to stay

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by Marjorie Hope Rothstein, the Examiner

In an article by Candice Adderly, How Technology Has Changed Education, she has touched upon many significant points. “Over the past 20 years, technology has dramatically transformed how we live, how we work and how we connect. How we learn is no exception…. Nearly 70 percent of chief academic leaders said that online learning is critical to their long-term strategy, and 77 percent rated learning outcomes in online education as the same or superior to those in a classroom setting.” A more recent study estimates that about 46 percent college students are taking at least one course online and that by 2019, roughly half of all college classes will be digitally based. On average, students in online learning conditions performed modestly better than those receiving face-to-face instruction. —SRI International for the Department of Education

http://www.examiner.com/article/coming-of-age-online-accelerated-learning-is-here-to-stay

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HERE’S WHY E-LEARNING IS BECOMING MORE POPULAR

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By Carol Trehearn, Inscribe

Online learning has been possible for over a decade, however it has only recently begun to take the student population by storm. Once seen as ‘lesser’ than traditional classroom learning, e-learning and online courses were shunned by students in favor of physical colleges and degree courses, with many being misinformed that an online degree was less effective or worth less than its traditional counterparts. However, as this misinformation has been debunked by experts stressing that online learning could actually be a more effective alternative. There has been a significant increase in the number of undergraduate and postgraduate students taking classes online.

http://theinscribermag.com/insc/living-heres-why-e-learning-is-becoming-more-popular.html

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June 19, 2016

MIT graphene breakthrough could make chips one million times faster

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By Liam Tung, ZD Net

US Army-funded researchers at MIT believe an optical equivalent of a “sonic boom” created using graphene could make chips a million times faster than they are today. Researchers at MIT and several other universities have discovered that graphene can be used to slow light down below the speed of electrons to create an intense beam of light. The researchers call the effect an “optic boom”, since it is similar to the sonic boom caused by shock waves when a jet breaks the speed of sound. In graphene, an electron “spews out plasmons” when it moves faster than the speed of the trapped light. The researchers believe this new way of converting electricity into light could pave the way for light-based circuits in ultra-compact computing devices.

http://www.zdnet.com/article/mit-graphene-breakthrough-could-make-chips-one-million-times-faster/?ftag=TRE17cfd61&bhid=21336272792489785584654629872153

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Worldwide PC Market Expected to Slump in 2016 and 2017

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By Richard Chang, THE Journal

Worldwide PC shipments are expected to decline by 73 percent year over year in 2016, according to a recent forecast by the International Data Corporation’s (IDC) “Worldwide Quarterly PC Tracker.” The outlook continues to predict progressively smaller declines through 2017, followed by stable volume in 2018. However, growth in 2016 is now expected to be about 2 percent below earlier projections, as conditions have been weaker than expected. Growth in the first quarter of 2016 came in at -12.5 percent, below IDC’s forecast of -11.3 percent. Impediments such as weak currencies, depressed commodity prices, political uncertainty and delayed projects continue to constrain shipments.

https://thejournal.com/articles/2016/06/13/pc-market-expected-to-slump-in-2016-and-2017.aspx

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MITx Grant Program selects innovative digital learning projects

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by Lisa Eichel, MIT

New projects emphasize using digital methods not possible in traditional classes, leveraging research-based teaching practices, and measuring student learning. The MIT Office of Digital Learning (ODL) recently announced the recipients of its Spring 2016 MITx Grant Program. The program funds the development and operation of online modules that leverage the edX platform for both global and residential audiences, in support of the digital learning strategies of MIT schools and departments.

http://www.ecampusnews.com/ed-tech-leadership/mitx-grant-program-selects-innovative-digital-learning-projects/

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June 18, 2016

Are effective retention strategies dependent upon ed tech?

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By Jarrett Carter, Education Dive

Ed Tech Magazine reports the six-year cohort entering college in 2009 graduated just 53% of its students, a number which demonstrates the need for effective retention strategies, perhaps centered around tech solutions.According to a recent Eduventures survey, 60% of responding institutions said technology was a part of their retention strategy, with more than 80% using an external resource. But only 38% of respondents indicated satisfaction with the technology’s help in improving completion rates. Institutions have a responsibility to work more closely with IT in retention tech implementation, but vendors should look to partner more effectively with institutions in developing retention solutions.

http://www.educationdive.com/news/are-effective-retention-strategies-dependent-upon-ed-tech/420772/

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Logging Off the LMS, Dropping Out

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by Paul Fain, Inside Higher Ed

Hard data on which students are failing to use learning management software can help colleges intervene to boost retention rates. Knowing how often college students log onto learning management software is one of the best ways to predict whether they will stick with their studies or drop out. That finding, which comes from a trove of data collected by Civitas, an education technology company that does predictive data analytics, might seem like common sense: students who don’t do their course work are less likely to graduate. But engagement data from learning management systems (LMS), said officials at colleges that are clients of Civitas, can be sliced and diced to much better predict which students are likely to struggle, and for colleges to act on that information.

https://www.insidehighered.com/news/2016/06/13/data-student-engagement-lms-key-predicting-retention

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Students gravitate to online courses, legislators talk higher ed facilities

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By Anna Burleson, Grand Forks Herald

Many students taking classes at colleges and universities in North Dakota are doing so online. At the 11 North Dakota University System institutions, 47 percent of students take at least one distance course, which is defined as a class delivered via video, online, or other long distance instructional method. In 2012, that number sat at 40 percent, according to information presented to the interim Legislative Higher Education Funding Committee. In total, 69 percent of all NDUS students who take at least one distance course live in the state and 61 percent enrolled solely in distance courses are also North Dakota residents, Chief of Staff and Vice Chancellor for IT and Institutional Research Lisa Feldner said.

http://www.grandforksherald.com/news/education/4052162-students-gravitate-online-courses-legislators-talk-higher-ed-facilities

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June 17, 2016

When I Buy Edtech Products, Our Teachers Don’t Use Them… What Do I Do?

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By Jin-Soo Huh, EdSurge

As the school year winds down, some educators have spent numerous hours finding the right online products for the 2016-2017 school year by taking demos from vendors, piloting programs, and soliciting feedback. Others went to a conference, saw something shiny, and bought it for their entire school or district. But, even with a significant dedication of time and funds, many of these product licenses will not come close to hitting their teacher or student usage goals. In a study of 49 schools, Lea(R)n Trials found that 37% of purchased online literacy and math program licenses were never even activated; an additional 28% of licenses were activated, but usage goals were never hit. In fact, only 5% of users “fully” hit all usage goals, as shown below.

https://www.edsurge.com/news/2016-06-08-when-i-buy-edtech-products-our-teachers-don-t-use-them-what-do-i-do

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Udacity Launches in German-Speaking Countries, Looks to Move Beyond Engineering

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by EdSurge

Udacity has begun operations in Germany, Austria and Switzerland—quickly becoming its fastest growing regions—according to an email to Edsurge. The Silicon Valley-based company, now worth more than $1 billion, offers short professional development courses, dubbed “nanodegrees,” on technical topics such as data analytics and software development. In the email, Udacity representatives said that the company sees many of its German-speaking users coming from the automotive and banking sectors. The education arm of the German publisher Bertelsmann, Udacity’s biggest shareholder, is assisting with its deployment across the new regions.

https://www.edsurge.com/news/2016-06-09-udacity-launches-in-german-speaking-countries-looks-to-move-beyond-engineering

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