Techno-News Blog

September 30, 2016

Americans fall along a spectrum of preparedness to pursue learning online

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BY JOHN B. HORRIGAN, Pew Charitable Trust

In this report, we use newly released Pew Research Center survey findings to address a related issue: digital readiness. The new analysis explores the attitudes and behaviors that underpin people’s preparedness and comfort in using digital tools for learning as we measured it in a survey about people’s activities for personal learning. Specifically, we assess American adults according to five main factors: their confidence in using computers, their facility with getting new technology to work, their use of digital tools for learning, their ability to determine the trustworthiness of online information, and their familiarity with contemporary “education tech” terms. It is important to note that the findings here just cover people’s learning activities in digital spaces and do not address the full range of important things that people can do online or their “readiness” to perform them.

http://www.pewinternet.org/2016/09/20/digital-readiness-gaps/

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Is Online Learning the Future of Further Education?

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by Simon Davies, Tech.co

Leading universities will offer fully accredited undergraduate degrees online within the next five years, according to the founder of educational platform Coursera. Speaking at an educational conference in London, Professor Daphne Koller said the next stage for digital learning would be the introduction of online undergraduate courses with invigilated exams and full degrees. Though some still consider technology to be a distraction to learning, many education experts understand that embracing the digital era can enrich the classroom environment. The focus on technology in further education specifically has intensified in the last few years. A 2014 Association of Colleges report highlighted how the integration of tech solutions in schools is inevitable. http://tech.co/online-learning-future-education-2016-09

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Experts says education headed for dramatic shift by 2020

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By Jarrett Carter, Education Dive

Fast Company describes the five ways that the industry of education is likely to change by the year 2020, with communication, technology and industry driving the rapid shifts over the next four years. According to some experts, remote learning, credentialing, student feedback, and the ability to adapt will be the biggest changes that students will expect, and that leaders will be forced to accommodate. Technological innovations and shifts in population will make the United States less of a global player unless the country moves to the front of educational achievement.

http://www.educationdive.com/news/experts-says-education-headed-for-dramatic-shift-by-2020/426626/

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September 29, 2016

Outsourcing IT in Higher Ed: A Necessary Evil?

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By Dian Schaffhauser, Campus Technology

News that the University of California San Francisco plans to outsource many of its technology functions to an India-based service provider appears to have sparked a blaze of concern that soon the entire UC system could adopt the same contract. While offshoring opponents predict that the plan could set off a domino effect of other colleges and universities following suit, institutional leaders appear to view the UCSF move as an individual decision made for strategic reasons — no different, really, from choosing any kind of service delivery. According to reporting by Computerworld, healthcare-focused UCSF is laying off some 17 percent of the institution’s 565-employee IT staff starting next February — after those same workers have presumably trained Indian replacements employed by HCL Technologies. Of the 96 positions being eliminated, just over half of the people facing layoffs are permanent employees.

https://campustechnology.com/articles/2016/09/19/outsourcing-it-in-higher-ed.aspx

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Why It’s Time for Education Technology to Become an Academic Discipline

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by David Raths, Campus Technology

As Georgetown University prepares to launch a master’s degree program in Learning and Design, a new academic discipline built around the study of education technology, learning analytics and instructional design is starting to take shape. Leaders in the field are “bringing about a set of practices that require a knowledge base, that require an ability to share information and that start to form a set of practices that we can all share — but also resist, test, push back against and challenge each other on,” according to Eddie Maloney, executive director of the university’s Center for New Designs in Learning and Scholarship. Maloney, who is also professor of the practice of narrative literature and theory in Georgetown’s Department of English, has observed a trajectory in the discipline of education technology over the last four years. “We saw 2012 as an inflection point regarding the role technology plays in higher education,” he said, referring to what The New York Times dubbed “The Year of the MOOC.”

https://campustechnology.com/articles/2016/09/19/why-its-time-for-education-technology-to-become-an-academic-discipline.aspx

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viNGN Offers Parents and Kids Tips on Digital Privacy, Internet Safety

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BY St. Croix Source

Anita Davis of viNGN prepares to teach parents, kids and faculty about Internet Safety and Digial Privacy. With the theme “Invest to Protect,” the Virgin Islands Next Generation Network (viNGN) shared digital privacy and Internet safety tips with parents, faculty and students. Attendees learned about digital privacy advocates Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF), and they received informational worksheets for “6 Degrees of Information,” produced by NetSmartz/National Center for Missing and Exploited Children (NCMEC). This short film highlights the many ways digital privacy and online safety can be compromised by leaving “digital footprints” – personal identifiable information (PII) of which we are not even aware.

http://stcroixsource.com/content/community/schools/2016/09/18/vingn-offers-parents-and-kids-tips-digital-privacy-internet-saf

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September 28, 2016

Digital Badges and Academic Transformation

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by Veronica Diaz, EDUCAUSE Review

It seems that digital badges are everywhere these days: in fitness apps, on social networking websites, and in company loyalty programs. In higher education, they’re taking the form of microcredentials, representing successful completion of a variety of learning experiences inside and outside of the traditional for-credit course. Institutions continue to experiment with digital badges, and the rate of adoption is increasing at a rapid pace. According to a recent study of 190 institutions by the University Professional Continuing Education Association (UPCEA), one in five colleges has issued digital badges. In today’s competitive economy, students and recent graduates are seeking ways to showcase the wide-ranging knowledge and skills they’ve developed outside of the traditional classroom experience. This learning could take place via internships, co-op programs, community service learning programs, study abroad programs, undergraduate research programs to supplement coursework, or seminars for graduate students, among others.

http://er.educause.edu/blogs/2016/9/digital-badges-and-academic-transformation

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Digital Badges and Academic Transformation

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by Veronica Diaz, EDUCAUSE Review

It seems that digital badges are everywhere these days: in fitness apps, on social networking websites, and in company loyalty programs. In higher education, they’re taking the form of microcredentials, representing successful completion of a variety of learning experiences inside and outside of the traditional for-credit course. Institutions continue to experiment with digital badges, and the rate of adoption is increasing at a rapid pace. According to a recent study of 190 institutions by the University Professional Continuing Education Association (UPCEA), one in five colleges has issued digital badges. In today’s competitive economy, students and recent graduates are seeking ways to showcase the wide-ranging knowledge and skills they’ve developed outside of the traditional classroom experience. This learning could take place via internships, co-op programs, community service learning programs, study abroad programs, undergraduate research programs to supplement coursework, or seminars for graduate students, among others.

http://er.educause.edu/blogs/2016/9/digital-badges-and-academic-transformation

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The how’s, why’s and what-to-do’s of cloud security in higher education.

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BY MERIS STANSBURY, eCampus News

According to a number of cybersecurity experts, no platform or industry is immune from data breaches, especially as targeted “hacktivism” is on the rise, says John Wethington, cybersecurity executive at Ground Labs. But if the cloud is “only as safe as the administrative credentials of a single person,” how can colleges and universities focus on identifying all of the data they have and reducing their digital footprint? In 2015, Ken Westin, senior security analyst at Tripwire, as well as FBI experts working the case, said Penn State’s attack by Chinese cyber terrorists was part of a larger campaign targeting similar departments and groups in higher education in a search for intellectual property. Now, in 2016, during an interview with Wethington on cloud security issues in higher education, it seems this type of what he calls “hacktivism” is on the rise.

http://www.ecampusnews.com/safety-and-security/cloud-security-hacktivism/

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September 27, 2016

Companies Settle with New York to Stop Tracking Children Online

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By Richard Chang, THE Journal

Hasbro, which makes the My Little Pony website, is among the companies that have illegally allowed children’s viewing habits to be tracked online. New York Attorney General Eric Schneiderman has reached settlements with four major companies, blocking them from using tracking technology on their popular children’s websites. The settlements require that Viacom, Mattel and Jumpstart pay penalties totaling $835,000 following an investigation dubbed Operation Child Tracker, according to WABC-TV, the attorney general’s media site and other news sources. The two-year investigation found that the companies violated a 1998 federal law, the Children’s Online Privacy Protection Act, that prohibits unauthorized collection of children’s personal information on websites aimed at users under 13. “What we found, frankly, was shocking,” Schneiderman said during a press conference this week. “Many of the sites that are home to our most popular TV shows and toys were littered with technology that can be used to track every move a child makes on that site.”

https://thejournal.com/articles/2016/09/14/companies-settle-with-new-york-to-stop-tracking-children-online.aspx

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5 ways edu-tech is changing your learning experience

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by J Vignesh & Varsha Bansal, Economic Times

Online courses and learning through mobile apps are gaining more acceptances among the student community. This is fuelling further development of data-driven education technologies, triggering fundamental changes in how school and college students as well as professionals seeking new skills are learning. Last week, the foundation started by Facebook’s Mark Zuckerberg and wife Priscilla Chan co-led a $50-million investment in the Bengaluru-based startup Byju’s app. It has been downloaded by about 5.5 million students in more than 1,400 cities and towns. Take a look at how edu-tech is changing the learning experience of students.

http://economictimes.indiatimes.com/slideshows/tech-life/five-ways-mobile-and-online-can-change-your-learning-experience/5-ways-edu-tech-is-changing-your-learning-experience/slideshow/54359457.cms

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Staying the course on a massive open online course

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by Science Daily

Massive open online courses (MOOCs) are popular with educational establishments as an efficient way to deliver their materials. Unfortunately, student engagement does not match the enthusiasm of the educators and the number who complete any given course is disturbingly low, according to research. The authors of the paper, suggest that an engagement model for MOOCs needs to be implemented and simple steps taken to improve completion rates.

https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2016/09/160915120349.htm

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September 26, 2016

Udacity Fuels Autonomous Vehicle Engineering Dreams

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By Jack M. Germain, Linux Insider

Online education company Udacity on Tuesday introduced a new “nanodegree” program in self-driving auto engineering. President Sebastian Thrun made the announcement during an interview at TechCrunch Disrupt. The goal is to build a crowdsourced, open source self-driving car, he said. The program is the first of its kind, according to Thrun. Students will learn the skills and techniques used by self-driving car teams at the most innovative companies in the world, Udacity has promised. The course spans three 12-week terms and covers deep learning, computer vision, sensor fusion, localization and controllers. Each of the three terms will cost US$800. The first term begins in mid-October.

http://www.linuxinsider.com/story/83896.html?rss=1

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Open Educational Resources Adopted Slowly, Report Shows

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by Education News

A recently-released report from Cengage Learning has examined open educational resources (OER) within higher education, including who makes use of the resources and why, as well as what the future holds for OER. The report, “Open Educational Resources (OER) and the Evolving Higher Education Landscape,” interviewed over 500 OER primary adopters, supplemental adopters, and non-adopters. Study results found that just 4% of higher education respondents use OER as primary materials. The majority of this use is within the topic of math with 13% and computing at 11%. Meanwhile, the lowest was found in English at 2% and psychology at 1%. In terms of supplemental material, OER is used by 5% of respondents overall. This includes 18% in computing, 13% in math, 8% in English, and 4% in psychology.

http://www.educationnews.org/higher-education/open-educational-resources-adopted-slowly-report-shows/

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Can more be done to retain women in engineering?

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BY LAURA DEVANEY, eCampus News

Although 20 percent of engineering graduates are women, only 11 percent of professional engineers are women, according to the National Science Foundation. Women account for 47 percent of the labor force, and more than 40 percent of all four-year degrees granted in the last 5 years–making women’s representation in engineering even more troubling. The numbers are a stark reminder that there is much work to be done to bring gender balance to the fields of engineering and technology.

http://www.ecampusnews.com/news/can-done-retain-women-engineering/

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September 25, 2016

The Challenge of Understanding MOOC Data

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By Dian Schaffhauser, Campus Technology

Plenty of scholarly research has come out about massive open online courses since edX’s official introduction in 2012. What’s lesser covered is how the institutions running the MOOCs have used the data to improve learning in their regular courses. Part of the reason for that is that the colleges and universities involved in edX don’t necessarily have the resources — expertise, tools or understanding — to exploit the torrents of data their courses generate. Four smallish eastern liberal arts colleges working with edX — Colgate, Davidson, Hamilton and Wellesley — formed a collaborative in 2013 to share the cost and expertise of developing their online offerings, encourage cross-teaching among faculty, bulk up on the amount of data available for research and build systems for managing the MOOC data.

https://campustechnology.com/articles/2016/09/14/the-challenge-of-understanding-mooc-data.aspx

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Raspberry Pi Sells 10 Million Micrcomputers, Debuts Starter Kit

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By Sri Ravipati, THE Journal

The Raspberry Pi Foundation has sold more than 10 million affordable microcomputers. To celebrate, the foundation is debuting a new starter kit. Since its launch in 2012, the foundation has sold more than 10 million of its $35 single board microcomputers to help students access computing and digital making skills. The “unashamedly premium” Raspberry Pi Starter Kit costs roughly $130, according to CEO Eben Upton.

https://thejournal.com/articles/2016/09/12/10-million-raspberry-pi-sold-company-releases-starter-kit.aspx

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Newest NMC/CoSN Horizon K-12 Report Emphasizes Kids as Creators

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By Dian Schaffhauser, THE Journal

Over the next year K-12 will be placing more emphasis on coding as a form of literacy and on students as creators. Schools that don’t already have makerspaces will want to get them and online learning will start to look like something that’s typical rather than out of the norm. Those are the “short-term” trends and technologies that surfaced in the 2016 K-12 Edition of the NMC/CoSN Horizon Report. This annual publication charts a five-year horizon among school communities around the world, summarizing the latest research and discussions of a group of 59 technology and education experts working with the New Media Consortium (NMC) and the Consortium for School Networking (CoSN).

https://thejournal.com/articles/2016/09/15/newest-nmccosn-horizon-k12-report-emphasizes-kids-as-creators.aspx

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September 24, 2016

Want to Cut Innovation Risk in Higher Ed? Follow These Indicators

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By Cristi Ford and Sharon Goodall, EdSurge

In higher education, it’s paramount that we be able to recognize patterns and trends early in the life of a cutting-edge project. Innovation initiatives need time to mature from development through evaluation, the higher-ed culture generally eschews risk, and, in an era of competing agendas, tight budgets and impatient stakeholders, projects need to fail fast or pivot so that institutions can maximize their investment dollars. Luckily, identifying leading indicators for success in higher-ed innovation is easier than finding unicorns—the next $1 billion startups—or understanding the nuances of digital currency. If you pay early attention to certain aspects of your innovation work, you can more clearly forecast results and keep the initiative steering toward success.

https://www.edsurge.com/news/2016-09-16-want-to-cut-innovation-risk-in-higher-ed-follow-these-indicators

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Game On: How Four Community College Professors Spawned the CUNY Games Network

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By George Lorenzo, EdSurge

When four professors from the Borough of Manhattan Community College (BMCC) started collaborating on game-based learning (GBL) in developmental math and writing instruction in the mid-2000s, they had no idea what they were setting in motion. Today, more than 160 GBL researchers and practitioners contribute to the dynamic CUNY Games Network (CGN), housed within the City University of New York (CUNY), with its more than 540,000 students on 24 campuses. The network links educators across disciplines who are interested in using games and other forms of interactive teaching to improve student success. And participants are showing that gameplay is serious business: data from BMCC classes suggests that when students have fun learning they appear to have more meaningful learning experiences.

https://www.edsurge.com/news/2016-09-13-game-on-how-four-community-college-professors-spawned-the-cuny-games-network

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Ask an Economist: How Can Today’s College Students Future-Proof Their Careers?

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by JOE PINSKER, the Atlantic

It is by now close to certain that there are millions of people currently in high school and college who are fine-tuning their skills for steady-looking careers that will, following technological breakthroughs, dissipate by the time they retire. A 2013 study out of Oxford—the one that’s most frequently cited in any discussion of the future of labor—estimated that just shy of half of American jobs were at risk of being swallowed up by advances in automation. In anticipation of changes like this, is there anything that today’s college students can do now to future-proof their careers? A panel of experts gives some (pretty dispiriting) advice to a generation that will come of age as automation does.

http://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2016/09/how-can-todays-college-students-futureproof-their-careers/499244/

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