Techno-News Blog

by Kulmeet Bawa, ET Rise

Much of today’s established working population comes from an era that offered only static learning using limited resources. Most of us had to be self-motivated and acquire skills on the job to emerge as high-performers. The modern generation of learners, on the other hand, use technology to shape their careers in a more deliberate and thoughtful manner by signing up on websites and apps such as Coursera, edX, Byju et al. Learning has become an immersive experience for them.

https://economictimes.indiatimes.com/small-biz/startups/newsbuzz/education-needs-innovation-to-keep-it-fresh-can-social-learning-environments-provide-the-boost/articleshow/63242961.cms

by Meghan Bogardus Cortez, EdTech

Chatbots assist people daily with everything from ordering pizza to dealing with customer service issues. So, it’s no surprise that higher education institutions are embracing them to interact with their No. 1 customer: students. Whether it’s navigating the admissions process or scheduling classes, universities have embraced artificial intelligence to streamline student interactions and offer timely support.

https://edtechmagazine.com/higher/article/2018/03/universities-deploy-chatbots-aid-students-admissions-process-and-beyond

by Matthew Lynch, Tech Edvocate

If you’re on the hunt for a new job in education technology, or just simply curious about the opportunities that might be out there, you should explore some new roles. Whether you’re looking for a job, looking to hire, or just looking, consider checking out the following resources in education technology career building.

http://www.thetechedvocate.org/10-resources-for-finding-edtech-jobs/

by Urcoo
When people think of a college student, they often imagine an unmarried High school graduate in their late teens or early 20’s attending full time on campus. The reality is different, with diversity increasing in many key areas in recent years. Here is a breakdown of student demographics at American universities.

https://blog.ucroo.com/blog/2018/2/28/united-states-student-demographics

by Digital Marketing Institute

As microlearning begins to prove successful among employers, the educational sector is now recognizing that the way people learn is changing, while the platforms they learn on are also evolving. Focused on specific learning outcomes, microlearning is a means of teaching and delivering content to learners in small, succinct bursts. It offers a way for learners to be in control of what and when they learn. For educators looking to offer working professionals with valuable skill-honing opportunities, microlearning offers a way to stand out from the crowd. In this article, we look at 7 reasons microlearning can successfully upskill graduates and professionals.

https://digitalmarketinginstitute.com/the-insider/06-03-18-7-reasons-to-use-microlearning-in-higher-education

by Matthew Lynch, Tech Edvocate

Educators can have a challenging time adapting their teaching style to match every student, especially when there are students with learning disabilities in their classroom. A learning disability presents a unique obstacle to traditional teaching methods. It can be difficult in a contemporary classroom for teachers to give students the attention and instruction they really need. Now, they might be able to receive that instruction through the use of artificial intelligence. Artificial intelligence is rapidly growing more useful by the day. Researchers are developing cognitive systems that can help to support those with disabilities in the unique ways that suit them. These AI programs may be able to present material in a fresh way that can help students to better understand independent of teacher instruction.

http://www.thetechedvocate.org/using-artificial-intelligence-help-students-learning-disabilities-learn/

by Matthew Lynch, Tech Edvocate

With over 80% of higher education students using some form of an online learning tool, and with the number of learners enrolled in online degree courses expected to hit 5 million by 2020, there is no denying that universities need to ensure that they are providing excellent quality in their online educations. An unforgettable online learning experience should be engaging, stimulating, and enjoyable. Here are three edtech tools that you can use to create these experiences for your students.

http://www.thetechedvocate.org/create-unforgettable-online-learning-experiences/

By Rhea Kelly, Campus Technology

Forty-two percent of managers believe that the adoption of robotics and automation will result in the elimination of jobs. And just 18 percent said that automation will help to create jobs. According to the report, a mix of hard and soft skills is key for employees to outperform robots. About 40 percent of managers, however, said that their employees are currently lacking in both areas. The soft skills that will best separate humans from robots include:

• Creative thinking (cited by 30 percent of respondents);
• Critical thinking (29 percent);
• Communication (21 percent);
• Decision-making (21 percent); and
• Negotiation (20 percent).

https://campustechnology.com/articles/2018/03/06/more-than-half-of-us-employees-fear-losing-their-job-to-robots.aspx

By Dian Schaffhauser, Campus Technology

Here’s a university that started planning its degree programs with the end in mind: making sure students had what they needed to find and keep a good job in their field. To get a bead on opportunities in the field of business analytics education, Montclair State University turned to a team of internal data experts to figure out what a new education program should cover — the very same people who would eventually be teaching its courses. In a paper published in 2015 in Information Systems Education Journal, three faculty members described how they used data to map out curriculum for a proposed business analytics program. Development of this kind of program was being undertaken in a highly competitive atmosphere. As the paper noted, graduate and undergraduate programs on business analytics had already been introduced at 130 institutions in just the previous five years. What set this effort apart, however, was its intended emphasis on “competency-based instruction” — if they could pinpoint just what that meant in this context.

https://campustechnology.com/articles/2018/03/08/using-data-to-expose-industry-needs-and-design-degree-programs-accordingly.aspx

by Abby Norman, Futurism

Donald Highgate, director of research at Superdielectrics Ltd. and his team have set out to make that vision a reality. Highgate’s team has created a material that amps up the potential of supercapacitors – devices that can both charge up and release their energy rapidly.  Their capacitance for storing energy is “super” because it’s both electrostatic and electromechanical. Therefore, supercapacitors (also called “ultracapacitors”) are kind of like a mashup of normal capacitors and a normal battery. Highgate has teamed up with researchers from Bristol University and Surrey University to create a supercapacitor that’s not just better than traditional batteries, but that could one day be superior to lithium-ion batteries. So how do they plan to do it? Here are four things to know.

4 Things to Know About the Gadget That Will Charge Devices in Seconds

by JENNIFER LEWINGTON, Globe and Mail

Last fall, University of Alberta school of business accounting professor Michael Maier experimented with his traditional lecture delivery, giving students the opportunity to watch short videos on technical topics outside of class time.   His use of videos is one example of how business professors at U of A – and elsewhere – are experimenting with technology to imagine variations on the traditional lecture format. On mid-term exams last fall, the class average in his accounting course was 82 per cent – about 10 percentage points higher than average scores in the lecture-based classes he has taught over the past eight years.

https://www.theglobeandmail.com/report-on-business/careers/business-education/professor-on-online-activities-they-get-students-talking-more-and-me-talking-less/article38232748/

By Scott Jaschik, Inside Higher Ed
Many proponents of online education have speculated that the digital learning environment might be a meritocracy, where students are judged not on their race or gender, but on the comments they post. A study being released today by the Center for Education Policy Analysis at Stanford University, however, finds that bias appears to be strong in online course discussions. The study found that instructors are 94 percent more likely to respond to discussion forum posts by white male students than by other students. The authors write that they believe their work is the first to demonstrate with a large pool that the sort of bias that concerns many educators in face-to-face instruction is also present in online education.

https://www.insidehighered.com/news/2018/03/08/study-finds-evidence-racial-and-gender-bias-online-education

By Ellie Bothwell, Times Higher Education
One in three students globally is enrolled in private higher education institutions, according to research that reveals the huge growth and wide reach of private providers.  The analysis, the first study based on comprehensive data on the size and shape of private higher education internationally, finds that private institutions have 56.7 million students on their books, or 32.9 percent of the world’s enrollment. Times Higher Education logoWhile the U.S. has historically towered over the rest of the world in terms of the size of its private sector, the proportion of students in the country in private higher education stands at 27.5 percent, lower than the global average, and it now accounts for only a tenth of global private enrollment.

https://www.insidehighered.com/news/2018/03/08/survey-finds-global-boom-private-higher-education-enrollments

By Dian Schaffhauser, Campus Technology
Here’s a university that started planning its degree programs with the end in mind: making sure students had what they needed to find and keep a good job in their field. The concept of student success holds many meanings, with data at the core of all of them. For some schools it’s wrapped around the notion of alerts pinned to particular student activities: Gosh, he hasn’t logged into the learning management system in two weeks; inform the instructor to reach out. Or, oh, she’s not using her meal card; notify her adviser for follow-up. For others, it’s all about targeting “best-fit” students and better managing recruitment and enrollment funnels. But, really, in this era of accountability, maybe the ultimate definition of student success ought to be somebody graduating with the smarts, skills and connections needed to get a good job in a given field.

https://campustechnology.com/articles/2018/03/08/using-data-to-expose-industry-needs-and-design-degree-programs-accordingly.aspx

by Autumn A. Arnett, Education Dive

“Ultimately, I think that there won’t be for-profit universities or institutions as we know them today. And by the same token, I don’t think there’s going to be traditional universities the way we know them today” either, said former University of Phoenix President Bill Pepicello in a recent phone conversation. Pointing to the industry-disrupting model initiated by Purdue University’s acquisition of Kaplan University, Pepicello predicts “the future of higher ed in general is going to be an institution that comes out of the morphing of for-profit and traditional institutions.” “What I predict is the Purdue-Kaplan thing will begin to develop a business model that looks more like a for-profit business model. Whether you’re a fan of for-profit or not, it does have a functioning business model, and in that fact, I think that’s where higher ed in the U.S. is suffering right now: The current business model is not sustainable,” he said.

https://www.educationdive.com/news/what-is-the-future-of-for-profit-higher-ed/

By Hector Molina, WWLP

The University of Massachusetts President Marty Meehan wants to improve access to online learning options. Meehan has outlined a five-point plan to keep UMass financially within reach for students of all backgrounds. Affordability is one of UMass top priorities. One affordability option is to offer more online courses. UMass already serves more than 30,000 students online, and plans to improve technology and work with students and industry to reach more people.

Improving online courses could help make UMass more affordable

by JACKIE MADER, Hechinger Report

Inside a rural high school, five Advanced Placement physics students furiously scribbled notes about a video of a Yale University professor speaking more than 1,200 miles away. With textbooks open, they watched a lecture about Newton’s Laws on a giant screen, while their classroom teacher simultaneously offered examples of those laws in action. When the lecture ended, they had yet another to chance to learn: A physics video chat with their tutor, a sophomore physics major at Yale. The unconventional flurry of both in-person and virtual academics in a school that had never before offered AP physics is part of a broader experiment that experts say could herald the future of education, especially for rural schools.

http://hechingerreport.org/can-online-learning-level-ap-playing-field-rural-kids/

by Mark Liebereman, Inside Higher Ed

Digital alternatives to traditional end-of-semester student evaluations seem more numerous by the day. One new tool hopes to advance that landscape with the help of artificial intelligence.  Hubert, launched last fall and currently in use by more than 600 instructors worldwide, appears to students as a chat bot that asks questions about the quality of the class and the teaching. The conversational messenger format is designed to make students feel more comfortable sharing honest praise and criticism, and the low amount of required effort allows instructors to collect feedback at several points throughout the semester.

https://www.insidehighered.com/digital-learning/article/2018/03/07/hubert-ai-helps-instructors-sort-and-process-student-evaluation

by E Kumar Sharma, Business Today

No discussion in information technology today is complete without reference to artificial intelligence or AI, in quickspeak. Needless to say, experts in AI are in great demand. Among them, Andrew Ng is often referred to as a go-to guru on AI. Andrew, wears several hats. He is the co-founder of Coursera, which offers online courses. He is also an adjunct professor at the Stanford University and was formerly the head of Baidu AI Group, and Google Brain. He calls AI, the new electricity. In response to an email from Business Today, he explains why and shares his thoughts on what companies need to do.

https://www.businesstoday.in/opinion/interviews/ai-is-the-new-electricity-says-courseras-andrew-ng/story/271963.html

by Times Higher Ed
Online learning platform Coursera is set to offer its first degrees from UK universities, including its first ever bachelor’s programme. The Californian company announced on 6 March that it would host a new public health master’s from Imperial College London, as well as a computer science bachelor’s from the University of London.  It also announced four new master’s degrees from US institutions, including computer science programmes from Arizona State University and the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, and public health and applied data science degrees from the University of Michigan. The new programmes, which bring the number of degrees available via Coursera up to 10, are all expected to launch later this year or in 2019.

https://www.timeshighereducation.com/news/coursera-offer-degrees-uk-universities

by Jacob Bane, EDUCAUSE Review

The need to ensure student identity and academic integrity is paramount across education sectors. Although this issue is not new, it has been brought to the forefront by the continued expansion of distance learning. Academic integrity is critical for the accurate assessment of student learning. It protects the integrity of an institution and ensures compliance — the Higher Education Reauthorization Act of 2008 requires institutions to verify that the student who registers for a course is the same student who completes the coursework.

https://er.educause.edu/blogs/2018/2/bolstering-academic-integrity-in-the-online-classroom