Techno-News Blog

By Sri Ravipati, Campus Technology

Fifteen coding bootcamps, or accelerated computer programming programs, have formed a new coalition and announced their commitment to publish student graduation and job placement data in a single, standardized framework. In a move to be fully transparent, the 17-member Council on Integrity in Results Reporting (CIRR) is also mandating truth in advertising disclosures on all outcomes data promoted in marketing and admissions materials. CIRR members will release graduation and job placement data on a semi-annual basis. The first round of results from 2016 will be published on March 29, in accordance with CIRR definitions, documentation and validation requirements. The reporting will be publically available on the individual members’ websites.

https://campustechnology.com/articles/2017/03/02/largest-coalition-of-coding-bootcamps-to-publish-data-on-job-outcomes.aspx

BY LAURA ASCIONE, eCampus News

The report notes that the number of non-traditional students is projected to increase more than twice as fast as traditional students from 2012 to 2022, according to the CLASP Center for Postsecondary and Economic Success. And because non-traditional students are among the fastest-growing student groups, this means schools face retention challenges. Only 37 percent of at-risk students said they feel confident they will accomplish their educational goals, and 33 percent of those at risk participate in extra-curricular activities, compared to 62 percent of non-traditional students who are not at risk of not graduating. The at-risk group spends less time on campus–10 hours per week compared to the 16 hours per week that non-traditional on-track students spend on campus.

http://www.ecampusnews.com/campus-administration/support-non-traditional-students/

by Robyn Scott, WQED

Online learning is extremely convenient. It allows me and my students to work from home in pretty much any location in the country; it gives students the opportunity to work with educators who live in other areas and allows adult students to maintain full-time employment while studying. However, many students are feeling the social isolation that comes with this type of learning environment. There are several ways to combat loneliness and still be part of an online academic community.

https://ww2.kqed.org/learning/2017/02/28/5-ways-to-combat-loneliness-and-isolation-in-online-learning/

By Liam Tung, ZD Net

Chinese smartphone maker claims breakthrough in charge times with new Super mCharge tech. Chinese smartphone maker Meizu has shown off its new Super mCharge tech fully charging a 3,000mAh battery in 20 minutes. Meizu unveiled the new battery tech on Tuesday at Mobile World Congress, offering a peek at the next generation of its mCharge quick-charging technology for lithium-ion batteries. That performance compares with Qualcomm’s recently announced Quick Charge 4.0 tech in the new Snapdragon 835 processor, which in tests with a 2 750mAh battery delivered a 50 percent charge in 15 minutes, or an estimated five-hour charge in five minutes.

http://www.zdnet.com/article/phone-battery-quick-charge-breakthrough-meizu-says-its-zero-to-full-in-20-minutes/

by Online Course Report

MOOCs – or Massive Open Online Courses – are picking up momentum in popularity – at least in terms of initial enrollment. There are now thousands of MOOCs available worldwide from several hundred colleges, universities and other institutions of higher learning. For your convenience, we’ve compiled a list of 50 of the most popular MOOCs, based on enrollment figures for all sessions of a course. The ranking is based on filtering enrollment data for 185 free MOOCs on various elearning platforms.

https://www.onlinecoursereport.com/the-50-most-popular-moocs-of-all-time/

BY LAURA ASCIONE, eCampus News

The number of institutions offering no online or hybrid courses or programs is declining. The report predicts soon will be in the single digits as a proportion of all institutions. More institutions now offer online programs, and the number of programs offered also is increasing. Comparing data from the 2013 and 2016 surveys, the proportion of institutions that offered five or more fully online programs increased from 15 percent to 25 percent. “No matter the modality, students are starting to expect flexibility to not just be an option but the norm in their educational experience,” according to the report. “Online or on ground, technology is pervading the classroom.” The report offers a number of recommendations to help CIC member institutions develop and deliver online programs. The recommendations are not one-size-fits-all, but are intended to act as guideposts to build a more robust online presence.

http://www.ecampusnews.com/online-learning/flourishing-online-program/

By Sri Ravipati, Campus Technology

Trolls are commonplace online, with close to a third of American internet users witnessing harassment online and nearly half personally experiencing it. To help combat internet trolls, Google’s technology incubator Jigsaw and Counter Abuse Technology Team last Friday launched Perspective, “an early-stage technology that uses machine learning to help identify toxic comments,” according to the blog post announcement. Perspective works by reviewing comments and scoring them based on how similar they are to comments that are typically considered negative or “toxic,” the blog post explained. “To learn how to spot potentially toxic language, Perspective examined hundreds of thousands of comments that had been labeled by human reviewers. Each time Perspective finds new examples of potentially toxic comments, or is provided with corrections from users, it can get better at scoring future comments.”

https://campustechnology.com/articles/2017/02/27/google-debuts-troll-fighting-ai-tool-to-moderate-online-comments.aspx

By Dian Schaffhauser, Campus Technology

For virtual reality to succeed in education, there’s more required than just cool experiences. Anybody who has watched the education segment for any length of time also knows that the initial “cool” factor isn’t enough to sustain the market. Last year’s NMC/CoSN Horizon Report on K-12 education gave VR two to three years to hit the tipping point. As a recent FutureSource report noted, a big question is whether this new technology can be integrated deeply enough into the curriculum and help achieve specific learning outcomes in order to drive mainstream adoption.

https://campustechnology.com/articles/2017/02/27/immersive-education-vr-comes-of-age.aspx

by WP Explorer

Fortunately, the WordPress community is thriving, and there are many people out there willing to help you learn the ropes. A quick Google search reveals thousands of articles and tutorials, along with dedicated YouTube channels such as WPCrafter, Tyler Moore, and WPBeginner. These resources are fantastic, but often you’ll find the best way to make progress is to take part in a more structured course. That’s why we’re going to recommend five excellent online courses for WordPress in this article. Each is designed with beginners in mind, and will arm you with the knowledge you need to start creating your own websites.

http://www.wpexplorer.com/online-courses-wordpress-beginners/

By Chris Foley and Lisa Canada, US News

You don’t always need to commit to a full degree program to advance your career. Shorter and sometimes less costly, a graduate certificate might be a better option to get ahead. Think of a graduate certificate as a set of courses devoted to a specific topic, designed to build on top of a bachelor’s degree. The certificate may be meant to go deeper into topics already explored in the bachelor’s degree – like adding cybersecurity skills to a computer science degree – or to expand into a new area, like adding competency in human resources for someone in management with any bachelor’s degree. Some certificates might not require an undergraduate degree at all – for example, programs may consider work experience instead – and may take 18 or fewer hours of coursework and about a year to complete. Now, nearly one-fourth of the diplomas awarded by colleges and universities are certificates, according to Georgetown University’s Center on Education and the Workforce.

https://www.usnews.com/education/online-learning-lessons/articles/2017-02-24/3-signs-an-online-graduate-certificate-is-enough

By Dian Schaffhauser, Campus Technology

Kessler International queried 300 students who attend college in person and online and found that nine in 10 (86 percent) admitted to cheating in some way in school. More than half (54 percent) thought cheating was OK, and some suggested that it was even necessary to stay competitive. Among those who acknowledged cheating, nearly all (97 percent) said they’d gotten away with it. What forms of cheating are popular? Three-quarters of respondents (76 percent) said they’d copied text from somebody else’s assignments. Slightly more (79 percent) admitted to plagiarism from internet sources. Nearly as many (72 percent) said they’d used their mobile devices to cheat during class. A smaller number (42 percent) said they’d purchased custom term papers or essays online. And 28 percent said they’d had a “service” take their online classes for them.

https://campustechnology.com/articles/2017/02/23/9-in-10-students-admit-to-cheating-in-college-suspect-faculty-do-the-same.aspx

by Sandra Larson, Bay State Banner

“Every time music gets played, someone gets paid,” John Kellogg is fond of saying. The musician, lawyer, book author and Berklee College of Music professor follows the statement with his signature advice for anyone involved in music performance and production: “You should get paid, not played.” Kellogg’s music business wisdom has accrued over a multi-faceted working life that spans songwriting and singing with the band Cameo in the 1970s, decades as an entertainment lawyer representing star R & B and rap acts, and educating students at University of Colorado and now at Berklee, where he also is assistant chair of the music business/management department. So far, nearly 70,000 people from around the world have accessed “Introduction to the Music Business,” a six-week course offered four times per year on the EdX platform, or the shorter “Music Business Foundations” offered every few weeks on Coursera.

http://baystatebanner.com/news/2017/feb/22/berklee-college-music-professors-online-courses-pr/

By Rick Levin, Forbes

President Trump has sounded a note that resonates with many Americans: good middle class jobs are disappearing. He’s right. Adjusted for inflation, the incomes of the bottom 60% of the income distribution are not much higher today than they were 30 years ago. President Trump blames globalization, and in particular the liberalization of trade which has allowed manufacturing jobs to migrate overseas. But the stagnation of incomes for most Americans is not primarily attributable to the loss of jobs in manufacturing. It is new technology — in particular the growing and now ubiquitous use of computers — that has widened the wage gap between higher and lower skilled jobs — not simply in manufacturing, but in the service sector as well. Some of the most in-demand jobs require training in cybersecurity, computer systems operations, web development, data analytics, data science, and digital marketing.

https://www.forbes.com/sites/schoolboard/2017/02/22/the-fall-of-manufacturing-and-rise-of-technology-makes-lifelong-education-more-important/#429c9d25700d

By Charlie Osborne, ZDNet

A hacker has compromised at least 60 universities and US government organizations, utilzing SQL injections as his weapon of choice. Rasputin, believed to be a Russian hacker, is most well-known for the December 2016 attack against the US Electoral Assistance Commission through an unpatched SQL injection (SQLi) vulnerability. At the time, the hacker offered to sell access to the system to a Middle Eastern broker, and according to researchers, the hacker is also attempting to sell access to systems he has compromised in his latest round of attacks. Universities are a top target, with Cornell University, New York University (NYU), Purdue University, Michigan State University, the Rochester Institute of Technology, and the University of Washington among those affected in the US.

http://www.zdnet.com/article/lone-hacker-breaches-60-universities-federal-agencies/

BY MERIS STANSBURY, Campus Technology

New study reveals that collaboration is still not a prevalent online learning habit; mobile phones have yet to be used for serious learning. GoConqr surveyed over 2.5 million students and teachers currently using the platform from over 160 countries last year (2016) to better understand their online learning habits and how learning is changing in general. The study surveyed students and teachers ranging from secondary to postgraduate levels. Some of the key findings of the report reveal that students and teachers are using online platforms as an additional source to help with selected subjects. Also, despite the prevalence of social networking, online study tends to be a solitary activity, with 79 percent of those surveyed choosing not to study collaboratively when they are online. However, this percentage is decreasing over time as traditional learning methods are being replaced with online and blended teaching styles.

http://www.ecampusnews.com/online-learning/students-online-learning-trends/

by MIT

On Feb 1-2, over 200 students and faculty gathered in MIT’s Building 10 to discuss and share recent advances in education technology. This first-ever — and first of its kind — “Festival of Learning” was co-sponsored by the MIT Office of Digital Learning (ODL), the Teaching and Learning Lab, and the offices of the deans of undergraduate and graduate education. In her welcoming remarks, MIT Chancellor Cynthia Barnhart called the festival an important gathering of scholars and researchers working to reimagine the way we educate 21st century students — from digital content creation, to flipped or blended classrooms, to cracking the learning sciences code. “Clearly, the MIT community is energized about the transformations and experiments happening in this space,” Barnhart said.

http://news.mit.edu/2017/reimagining-education-mit-holds-first-festival-of-learning-0221

by Jarrett Carter, Education Dive

Brittany Bir, the chief operating officer of the U.S. campus for French coding school 42, says that education should be like children learning to walk and to talk and is better suited in the art of practice and doing, rather than listening under a professor. Bir, a former student of the coding academy, says that a typical day in the school is students receiving an assignment, interfacing with each other and researching online, and setting out to self-teach the curriculum. The Silicon Valley-based campus, which currently enrolls 250 students, is part of 42’s global effort to credential 10,000 learners in five years.

http://www.educationdive.com/news/professor-less-coding-school-looks-to-reinvent-teaching-and-learning/436759/

by Jarrett Carter, Education Dive

Michigan State University, Cornell University and Virginia Tech are among a list of 25 colleges victimized by international cyberattacker “Rasputin,” who recently hacked 60 domestic institutions and government agencies. According to Recorded Future, the Russian-speaking hacker infiltrated and sold SQL access to the institutions’ organizational network and files. “Rasputin” has also been identified as an agent responsible for hacking the U.S. elections in November.

http://www.educationdive.com/news/hacker-tied-to-us-election-controversy-infiltrates-25-colleges/436749/

by Matthew Lynch, Tech Edvocate

http://www.thetechedvocate.org/why-should-we-invest-in-stem-education/

While many careers today require STEM-educated employees, they aren’t necessarily requiring that those employees have a higher education degree. A report done by the Brookings Institution revealed that nearly half of STEM careers available to employees today do not require a four-year college degree, and those jobs pay ten percent higher than jobs that do require a college degree. This evolution in how we view the relation between jobs and education needs to be reflected in our children’s educational priorities. By investing in STEM education in k-12 schools, our education system can work to close the STEM skills gap that has left open a wide opportunity for employment. To ensure that our children and the next generation are job secure and have equal opportunities for their future success, it’s important that we invest in STEM education. STEM programs inspire children, boost creativity and work to create the next generation of scientist, engineers, and computer programmers.

by Jarrett Carter, Education Dive

A University of Southern California project using cameras and sensors to gather analytical data about student engagement and the intersections of teaching and learning is just one of a growing number of initiatives on campuses nationwide to harness the Internet of Things (IoT) to improve outcomes and create innovation within the burgeoning tech sector, Ed Tech: Focus on Higher Ed reported. Schools including Case Western University and Carnegie Mellon University are using IoT to develop innovative ideas, including measuring energy produced by people and machinery, and apps that can be helpful in specific surroundings as a way to improve the campus experience. Syracuse University has been researching machine-to-machine communication for more than a decade, and officials there say the work is a platform for higher education to pioneer technology that can make work and data processing faster and more efficient.

http://www.educationdive.com/news/college-campus-internet-of-things-iot-syracuse-usc-case-western-carnegie-mellon/436668/

by Knowledge @ Wharton

Donald Trump’s Federal Communications Commission is expected to roll back hard-fought rules on network neutrality — specifically the decision to make broadband as heavily regulated as landline phone service — but it will most likely take an act of Congress to do so, according to Wharton experts. The new FCC chairman, Ajit Pai, is a noted critic of regulations on net neutrality — the idea that all internet traffic should be treated equally — preferring to rely on competition to put curbs on the industry. Already, he has ended investigations into companies technically in violation of net neutrality because they let their customers stream digital content exempt from their data caps.

http://knowledge.wharton.upenn.edu/article/how-net-neutrality-will-fare-under-trumps-fcc/