Techno-News Blog

By Dian Schaffhauser, Campus Technology

Expanding on the preview of its annual ranking of IT issues for higher education released last fall, Educause announced its full report on the key issues, trends and technologies poised to impact higher ed in 2017.

The top 10 IT issues for 2017, reiterated in today’s report:

Information security;

Student success and completion;

Data-informed decision-making;

Strategic leadership;

Sustainable funding;

Data management and governance;

Higher education affordability;

Sustainable staffing;

Next-generation enterprise IT; and

Digital transformation of learning.

https://campustechnology.com/articles/2017/01/18/educause-announces-top-it-issues-trends-and-tech-report-for-2017.aspx

by Rimma Kats, eMarketer Daily

Digital assistants are becoming a part of everyday life, and many people—primarily teens and millennials—use them regularly. Accenture polled 25,996 internet users worldwide ages 14 and older and asked about usage voice-enabled digital assistants. For the most part, younger respondents use voice-enabled digital assistants more frequently than their older counterparts. For example, nearly a third of respondents ages 14 to 17 said they use them regularly. Respondents ages 18 to 34 are more interested in AI than older respondents, but just 23% of these older millennials use the technology regularly.

https://www.emarketer.com/Article/Hey-Siri-Do-Homework/1015057

by Coursera

Coursera has released a map of learning regions across the US based on relative popularity of online course topics on Coursera. Coursera analyzed data on online course enrollments among 5 million online learners in the United States to track the share of learners in each state interested in a variety of topics. While business and computer science are the most popular topics overall in most states, trends in relative interest between states tell a different story – one of a vibrant, diverse nation in which 12 distinct learning regions emerge. Check out the learning regions above, and be sure to scroll over your state to see the five most popular categories of online courses as well as what specific topics of interest make that state unique.

https://about.coursera.org/united-states-of-knowledge

by Knowledge@Wharton

Cryptocurrencies such as bitcoin may have captured the public’s fancy – and also engendered a healthy dose of skepticism — but it is their underlying technology that is proving to be of practical benefit to organizations: the blockchain. These uses are merely the tip of the proverbial iceberg for a nascent technology whose development stage has been compared to the early years of the internet. “We’re very early in the game,” said Brad Bailey, research director of capital markets at Celent, at a recent Blockchain Opportunity Summit in New York. He likened the blockchain’s current status to the web of the early 1990s, heralding a coming wave of new ideas and uses. “This will impact the world.”

http://knowledge.wharton.upenn.edu/article/blockchain-next-great-hope-hype/

BY AARON SMITH, Pew Research Center

Nearly nine-in-ten Americans today are online, up from about half in the early 2000s. Pew Research Center has chronicled this trend and others through more than 15 years of surveys on internet and technology use. On Thursday, we released a new set of fact sheets that will be updated as we collect new data and can serve as a one-stop shop for anyone looking for information on key trends in digital technology. To mark the occasion, here are four key trends illustrating the current technology landscape in the U.S.

http://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2017/01/12/evolution-of-technology/

BY MATTHEW LYNCH, the Tech Edvocate

A professional opinion, in any field, is still simply an opinion. Well researched, backed with experience, studies, and insight, but in the end, it is an opinion. Educational professionals have differing opinions about the definition and merit of personalized learning and therefore the role it will play in the future of education. Personalized learning is a goal for all educators, past, present and future. Providing personalized learning experiences which allow all students equal access to quality education according to their needs and interests is an ideal all educators embrace. The question, how? Will there be systems available to offer highly personalized education in the future? Let’s take a look at what the experts are saying.

http://www.thetechedvocate.org/is-personalized-learning-the-future-of-education/

BY MATTHEW LYNCH, Tech Edvocate

Now nearly every young student has access to a computer or smartphone in some capacity. According to an article by Education World, the U.S. EdTech was an estimated $8.38 Billion in 2014, with no end in slowing down in sight. This is an industry that is growing at an accelerated rate to parallel the rate at which technology is now advancing. With the rate at which the tech market is growing, educators have to ask whether or not these ESo instead of the EdTech Marketplace providing students with useful tools for students, it can turn into a futile attempt for technology to help students engage with content in a meaningful and productive way. In effect, the EdTech Marketplace stands to lose by not giving their audience the tools they need.

http://www.thetechedvocate.org/how-big-is-the-edtech-marketplace/

By JULIA E. DEBENEDICTIS, CRIMSON

According to the report, described as “one of the largest surveys of MOOCs to date,” 2.4 million “unique users” around the world have participated in an edX class. Of those users, 159,000 have earned at least one certificate. The report details disparities between on-campus courses, or “residential courses,” and online ones—namely that students spend considerably more time on standard classroom-based courses. Most online certificate earners spend less than 50 hours completing a course, and one percent of certificate earners get certificates with “less than 23 minutes online,” according to the report. Researchers estimated that the average semester-long residential course takes approximately 168 hours, or 12 hours per week. “There still is a way in which this report reminds you how heterogenous [edX] still is,” Ho said. “The punchline is there’s no physical classroom like this in the world.”

http://www.thecrimson.com/article/2017/1/17/edX-report-shows-growth/

by Udi Tirosh, DIYPhotography

Four months ago, it was Stanford who made their photography course for free, and now comes Harvard’s turns. Harvard has an online learning platform – Alison – and their photography course has been uploaded in whole and accessible worldwide. There are 12 modules with an extra module as a bonus, so you can follow on your own pace. the course is estimated to take 10-15 hours for the average student. If you were wondering, here is the course description: Digital photography technology is continually changing, however, the principles behind good photography don’t. The online photo course gives you the opportunity to gain extensive knowledge and understanding of digital photography including topics such as exposure settings, how to read and use the histogram, how light affects a photograph, how the camera sensor and lenses work, and how to process a photograph using computer software.

http://www.diyphotography.net/harvard-putting-13-module-photography-course-online-free/

By University of Missouri Extension Report

University of Missouri Extension has developed an innovative online program with the focus on building better leaders. Leadership Online For Today is an interactive program that allows participants to improve communication skills, build relationships and networks, and develop a collaborative project to benefit a community or organization. The first program is set to begin the week of Feb. 6. MU faculty brainstormed leadership topics and those topics were then brought to millennials for feedback and suggestions. Extension leaders also talked with focus groups comprised of college students, Missouri 4-H members, Missouri FFA members and young professionals – all of who were in leadership positions.

http://www.boonvilledailynews.com/news/20170114/mu-extension-launching–innovative-online-program–leadership-online-for-today

BY MATTHEW LYNCH, Tech Edvocate

In the context of education, the trend of using game elements in non-game contexts, termed otherwise gamification, aims at increasing the engagement and motivation of students, capturing their interest to continue learning and influencing their classroom behavior. Although games are today often used in educational environments, the trend remains stigmatized and its use limited due for example to (1) inadequate access to technology, (2) lack of professional expertise in integrating new technologies, and (3) resistance to change. In order to change this, we need to understand the way gamification may facilitate learning systematically. Gamification in education may optimize the brain’s processing of new information. This may be facilitated by the general aspects of gamified lessons, with the audio-visual presentation, minimized bites of schematized information, short time lapses, and often repetitive patterns.

http://www.thetechedvocate.org/how-does-gamification-affect-the-learning-process/

By Sri Ravipati, THE Journal

The annual rate of students who will enroll in online tutoring services worldwide is expected to double over the next few years. The global K-12 online tutoring market is projected to grow at a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 12.75 percent from 2017-2021, up from a CAGR of about 6 percent from 2016-2020, according to a recent report from Technavio. The K–12 segment of the online tutoring market was valued at $63.57 billion in 2016 and is forecasted to be $120.67 billion by 2021. The London-based tech market research firm has identified the top three emerging marketing trends expected to impact the market between 2017 and 2021.

https://thejournal.com/articles/2017/01/12/online-tutoring-market-to-grow-12-percent-between-2017-2021.aspx

By Andrew Philips, Orillia Packet

An Orillia high school is offering twin styles of learning. The innovative blended learning course at Twin Lakes Secondary School is a unique entry, featuring both online curriculum and face-to-face learning with a teacher in a computer lab. “This is a regular class that we have in a computer room,” explained Robyn LaChapelle, who teaches the Grade 10 civics and careers class. And while many teachers are already using various forms of online learning in their classes, this marks the first formal e-learning course offered at Twin Lakes. “We thought. ‘Why not have a trial run in Grade 10?’” LaChapelle said. “This provides more availability since every student learns differently.”

http://www.orilliapacket.com/2017/01/13/twin-lakes-offers-lovely-balance-between-online-and-classroom-learning

by eCampus News

Twenty percent of U.S. four-year institutions now offer analytics programs, while just 2 percent of two-year institutions offer such programs, according to new research from data company Tableau. The increase in programs comes from a push to expand analytics offerings to ensure more students are prepared to work with data in their careers. The report, The State of Data Education in 2016, notes that universities also are offering interdisciplinary education in analytics by embedding basic data literacy into other fields–a move that reflects data’s growing importance across all industries.

http://www.ecampusnews.com/big-data/data-analytics-advancing/

by Bernadette Tansey, Xconomy

Jamie Merisotis, president and CEO of the Lumina Foundation, sees bipartisan interest in education initiatives that help U.S. students and adults prepare for success in the 21st century labor market. Toward that end, Indianapolis-based Lumina has been supporting non-traditional education providers such as online learning programs, alternative credentials like badges and certificates, and other measures to re-invent post-secondary education. One of the big themes of the new Republican administration and the Republican-dominated Congress is paring back government regulations, Merisotis (pictured above) says. And that could advance Lumina’s mission. “Less regulation could encourage more innovation,” he says. Merisotis is mindful, however, that the Trump administration isn’t perfectly aligned with Lumina’s primary goal—to increase the percentage of Americans with post-high school education credits from 45 percent to 60 percent.

http://www.xconomy.com/san-francisco/2017/02/20/lumina-foundation-gives-odds-for-edtech-innovation-under-trump/#

By Dror Ben-Naim, EdSurge

Online courses are “smart,” one might assume, because they use technology to improve educational outcomes or, at least, create new efficiencies or extend the abilities of faculty and students. Yet, while technology exists in the world of higher education, it’s not clear that technology is actually making courses smarter. And in our rush to move courses online, we’re all too often putting innovation ahead of pedagogy. It turns out that what makes a course smart isn’t necessarily the use of impressive technology or data; it’s about the way technology enhances the practices of good teaching and learning. Here are four key attributes of a smart course:

http://www.edsurge.com/news/2017-01-13-what-makes-a-smart-course-smart

by Beth Kungel Borck, US News

Pursuing a degree online can be a great solution for those who cannot attend an on-campus program. I decided to pursue my MBA while living abroad in Saudi Arabia as a way to advance my career – and because class sessions for the U.S. program were held late at night for me, minimizing the effect on my family. But before you embark on this journey, you need to determine what your career objectives are and if the online programs you are considering will fulfill those needs. Here are three career-related questions to ask before pursuing an online education.

http://www.usnews.com/education/online-learning-lessons/articles/2017-01-13/ask-3-career-questions-when-choosing-an-online-program

BY MATTHEW LYNCH, Edvocate

Gamification has gained a lot of attention in the areas of development and training within larger business environments. It has reshaped how corporate training programs are delivered by finding methods to increase interest, maintain engagement, and make the information more accessible. But do the benefits of gamification end with these large-scale implementations? Can the principles be used to change how we design our own personal learning experiences, and, if so, to what benefit? The answers are “no” and “yes,” respectively. And here’s how it works.

http://www.thetechedvocate.org/gamify-your-own-personal-learning-experiences-and-watch-what-happens/

BY MATTHEW LYNCH, Edvocate

Walk into a classroom today, and you are going to see more gadgets than ever before. Gone are the days when a fancy calculator impressed you and having a computer in the room was a big deal. These days most students have an iPad, a Chromebook, or some other piece of technology at their fingertips. There are thousands and thousands of educational apps that attempt to make learning more engaging. Virtual classrooms are no longer something talked about in theory; they are now used all across the globe. But how much is too much? Do we have an EdTech problem, or is it a part of the solution to education?

http://www.thetechedvocate.org/does-our-edtech-obsession-get-in-the-way-of-teaching-and-learning/

By STEVE LOHR, NY Times

The robots are coming, but the march of automation will displace jobs more gradually than some alarming forecasts suggest. A measured pace is likely because what is technically possible is only one factor in determining how quickly new technology is adopted, according to a new study by the McKinsey Global Institute. Other crucial ingredients include economics, labor markets, regulations and social attitudes. The report, which was released Thursday, breaks jobs down by work tasks — more than 2,000 activities across 800 occupations, from stock clerk to company boss. The institute, the research arm of the consulting firm McKinsey & Company, concludes that many tasks can be automated and that most jobs have activities ripe for automation. But the near-term impact, the report says, will be to transform work more than to eliminate jobs.

https://www.nytimes.com/2017/01/12/technology/robots-will-take-jobs-but-not-as-fast-as-some-fear-new-report-says.html

by US Dept of ED

Issued in the last days of the Obama administration, the Department of ED published Reimagining the Role of Technology in Higher Education as supplement to the 2016 National Educational Technology Plan (NETP). It builds on the principles described in each of the NETP’s five sections—learning, teaching, leadership, assessment, and infrastructure—and examines them in the context of higher education. The supplement embraces the themes of lifelong learning, equity, and accessibility and supports the NETP’s assertion that technology must serve the needs of a diverse group of students seeking access to high-quality postsecondary learning experiences, especially those students from diverse socioeconomic and racial backgrounds, students with disabilities, first-generation students, and working learners at varying life stages – all with differing educational goals, but who all share the desire to obtain a postsecondary credential.

https://tech.ed.gov/higherednetp/