Techno-News Blog

by Robert Klecha, Business Because

After two years of growth through 2015 and 2016, applications to online MBA programs remained ever popular last year, according to the GMAC 2017 Application Trends Survey Report. This steady rise coincides with the growth of the global digital economy and is symptomatic of shifting preferences towards flexibility and mobility. With online programs having applicants with the highest level of work experience after Executive MBAs. 33% of applicants have 10 or more years of work experience, showing busy business leaders are looking online to upskill themselves. One area which is particularly in need of skilled employees is data analytics—making sense of big data and putting it to use—with a recent report from e-skills UK and SAS claiming the demand for data-savvy staff will increase by up to 23% per annum over the next five years.

https://www.businessbecause.com/news/mba-distance-learning/5087/online-mba-data-analytics

By Joshua Kim, Inside Higher Ed

Will more higher ed people go permanently mobile? If you are as clueless as I was about the digital nomad life, here is the quick and dirty summary. Digital nomads, as you would expect, combine global travel with laptop mediated employment. They work wherever they live, and live wherever they work. Anyone who has gone full digital nomad does not have a permanent address, a lease, or a mortgage. What they do have is the need to earn an income by working. The digital nomad either works remotely for a single employer, or strings consulting and freelance jobs together in the digital gig economy. The digital nomad life is such a thing that companies such as Roam have been started to cater to this creative wandering class. Roam has live / work spaces in Bali, Miami, London and Tokyo – with more on the way. For $500 a week you get a sparsely furnished private bedroom and bathroom, good WiFi, and access to a communal kitchen. You also get a community of fellow remote workers and freelancers, all working together on their separate projects.

https://www.insidehighered.com/blogs/technology-and-learning/learning-designers-digital-nomads

by John Mason, the Sociable

Taking online classes is a great way to help yourself advance in your career while you learn something new. But there’s also the fact that life moves faster than ever, which means you can easily become overwhelmed juggling classes, work, friends and any other obligations you have in your life. Do yourself a favor and learn how to find and maintain balance while enrolled in online courses to jumpstart your career.

Tips for Working Full-Time While Taking Online Classes

by Meghan Bogardus Cortez, EdTech

Though cryptocurrencies like bitcoin seem to have an uncertain future, the same can’t be said about blockchain, the electronic ledger and database technology used to store them. At universities, blockchain is poised to help in aspects of data management, credentialing and research. From boosting security to enhancing access, the e-ledger tool has a lot of possibility. Here are four ways experts think blockchain has a place in higher education:

https://edtechmagazine.com/higher/article/2018/03/4-things-experts-want-you-know-about-blockchain-higher-ed

by Ingrid Lunden, Tech Crunch

With traditional university programs getting more expensive and competitive, we’re seeing a boom in the number of alternative programs that are taking advantage of the internet and more flexible teaching and learning formats to fill the gap in the market. The latest development comes from Coursera. Today, the online education startup with 31 million students and some 2,700 courses is adding six new full degrees — including its first bachelors’ degree — in partnership with five top universities.

Coursera teams with 5 universities to expand its full masters and bachelors degree programs

by Harry Pettit, Daily Mail
DeepMind software can predict what other AIs will do in a virtual setting
It can even understand whether they hold ‘false beliefs’ about an object
This so-called ‘theory of mind’ is only found in humans, apes and some birds
Google’s AI may one day lead to robots that can think more like humans.  The software is capable of predicting what other AIs will do, and can even understand whether they hold ‘false beliefs’ about the world around them. DeepMind reports its bot can now pass a key psychological test that most children only develop the skills for at around age four.  Its proficiency in this ‘theory of mind’ test may lead to robots that can think more like humans.

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-5449483/DeepMind-AI-learning-understand-thoughts-others.html

by Dom Galeon, Futurism

The state of Washington has put its foot down on the U.S. Federal Communications Commission’s (FCC) net neutrality repeal, passing a new law that instead safeguards these protections. On Monday, Washington Governor Jay Inslee signed House Bill 2282, which state legislators from both parties passed in February, protecting net neutrality within the state. “This is not a partisan issue,” Republican representative Norma Smith, one of the bill’s co-sponsors, said in an earlier statement. “This is about preserving a fair and free internet so all Washingtonians can participate equally in the 21st century economy.”  The repeal will officially end these restrictions by April 23rd.

Washington State Passes Law Protecting Net Neutrality

by Meghan Bogardus Cortez, EdTech
Short, tailored programming makes it easier for businesses to support employees looking to continue education. Partnerships between businesses and universities have been integral to helping college graduates meet the changing technological demands in the workforce. But, what about people already in the workforce? How do they keep up? Allowing professionals to more easily seek out additional education was the impetus behind edX, a nonprofit company that MIT and Harvard established in 2012 to offer free versions of their online classes.  Evolving from the MOOCs it traditionally offered, MIT announced Digital Plus Programs, which allow enrolled professionals to seek out certificates, an EdSurge story reports. Instead of allowing for open enrollment, however, the online courses are only available to companies and organizations that pay for their employees to further their education. Each course is capped around 50 students, according to EdSurge.

https://edtechmagazine.com/higher/article/2018/03/online-university-programs-and-microcredentials-enhance-professional-learning

by Thomas Nugent, Business Because

Online MBAs offer opportunities for women in business, career progression, and flexible learning.   A labyrinth of opportunity is opening up for students in search of an MBA, but who struggle to find the time amid family and work commitments—distance learning manages to conjure up more hours in the day. Learning through fortnightly live sessions, connecting with tutors, lecturers, and groups of students in an interactive, online learning environment, students glean knowledge they can translate directly back into their working life—time, location, and travel to and from campus are no longer an issue. Here are 5 reasons you should study an Online MBA in 2018:

https://www.businessbecause.com/news/mba-distance-learning/5066/5-reasons-study-mba-online-2018

by Matthew Lynch, Tech Edvocate

Over the last two-decades, technology innovations have proliferated at an exponential rate. From tablets to affordable virtual reality options, companies have created a fantasy list of technology devices that can be used in education. I am grateful for these advancements, but I am anxious to see what we create next. While pondering this, I decided to come up with a wish list of technologies that education needs, but have not been created.

http://www.thetechedvocate.org/3-technologies-education-needs-not-created/

by WSVN

A survivor of the shooting at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School will finish out her senior year online to give her extra time to advocate for increased gun control laws. Samantha Fuentes was among those students who returned to Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School Wednesday. However, instead of returning for class, she returned to withdraw and become an online student. “I’m withdrawing from school, so I can finish it online,” she said. “I feel mixed opinions, or mixed emotions. I mean, I want to be part of Stoneman Douglas, and I want to live out the rest of my high school career normally, but there is no such thing as normal anymore.” Fuentes was shot in both legs, and has several pieces of shrapnel lodged in her leg and face.

Stoneman Douglas survivor to take online classes while advocating for gun control

By Doug Lederman, Inside Higher Ed

Coursera is now putting much of its energy into — and staking much of its future on — academic programs launched in conjunction with some of the world’s leading universities, with Arizona State University, Imperial College London and the Universities of London and Michigan joining its degree-program ranks today. The company and its campus partners believe these new credentials can take advantage of the platform’s extensive reach of 31 million users to drive down the costs of recruiting students (and hence the tuitions they charge) and help the universities begin to slice their degree programs into shorter-term credentials. At the same time, he says, the company and its university partners are focused on “redesigning the degree to make it extremely compelling to learners around the world, and a formidable answer to any emerging credentials that might challenge the degree.”

https://www.insidehighered.com/digital-learning/article/2018/03/06/coursera-purveyor-moocs-bets-big-university-degrees

By Cait Etherington, eLearning Inside

At least some online schools are not only meeting but far exceeding the achievement levels of students in traditional on-premise schools. Davidson Academy is one of the online K-12 schools demonstrating the potential online schools have to offer an outstanding education to high-achieving students. This week eLearning Inside News talked to Stacy Hawthorne, Director of Online Learning at the Davidson Academy in Nevada, to learn how they have built a high-achieving online school for profoundly gifted students. This is the second part of a two-part series (we published the first part of this interview on March 29).

Research is the Key to Building a High-Achieving Online School

by Autumn A. Arnett, Education Dive

P.K. Agarwal, regional dean and CEO of Northeastern University–Silicon Valley said there will be a shortage of one million STEM workers in the next five years. So the challenge, he said, is taking people with bachelor’s degrees and re-skilling them to fill those gaps. At Northeastern, the approach is to not just equip students with additional credentials, but to provide six months of paid workforce experience through a co-op program to help ensure graduates are ready to hit the ground running once they’re hired. He identified three key things students should leave college having. “You need high-quality experiential learning, that’s one leg of the stool. The second part is that you need a network, … and third is that we also are very passionate about the fact that soft skills are very critical,” Agarwal said.

https://www.educationdive.com/news/preparing-students-for-work-requires-revised-approach-to-education/517738/

by Lindsay McKenzie, Inside Higher Ed

Interest in open educational resources — freely accessible and openly licensed learning materials — is booming. But while OER’s growing popularity with faculty members has delighted supporters, it has also attracted the attention of commercial publishers. Macmillan Learning, Cengage, Pearson and McGraw-Hill have all recently introduced products that incorporate open educational resources into platforms that also include proprietary material. The development of these products has sparked concern among some OER advocates, who question whether OER that you pay to access is really still open. But publishers say they are adding value by making it easy for faculty members to adopt OER, by helping them find the best content and enhancing it with supplementary materials such as homework and exam questions.

https://www.insidehighered.com/digital-learning/article/2018/03/05/advocates-develop-framework-stewardship-open-educational

By Dian Schaffhauser, Campus Technology

When Americans think about the artificial intelligence “revolution,” they expect it to have a positive impact on life and work, but a negative impact on the workforce and the economy. While only nine percent believe AI will “decrease inequality,” seven times as many (63 percent) think it will increase inequality. And while 14 percent anticipate AI creating more jobs than it eliminates, five times as many (73 percent) predict just the opposite. However, while nearly a quarter (23 percent) are afraid they’ll lose their job to AI, three-quarters (77 percent) have no fears about that. Also, 76 percent “agree” or “strongly agree” that AI “will fundamentally change” the way we live and work over the next decade.

https://campustechnology.com/articles/2018/02/27/survey-in-an-ai-world-retraining-will-come-from-employers-not-higher-ed.aspx

by Mary Beth Faller,Arizona State University

ASU President Michael M. Crow says thirty years from now, by 2048, ASU will have created new ways of engaging with learners through technology, he said. But not recklessly. “We do need to be careful about technology. We’re finding ways to enhance learning, not replace learning. We’re finding ways to enhance reality, not replace reality,” he said. The new “national service university” model will be less rigidly connected to age than the current system of preschool and then K-12 followed by technical school or university and then a career. “We’re evolving a model capable of being of service to all learners, at all stages of work and learning, from all socioeconomic backgrounds, through education, training and skill-building opportunities,” he said.

https://asunow.asu.edu/20180301-creativity-asu-crow-community-conversation-lifelong-learning-future

By Amy X. Wang, Quartz

As crucial as a university degree has become for working in the modern economy, it is not the only route forward into a wildly lucrative and satisfying career—just ask famous dropouts Bill Gates, Oprah Winfrey, Michael Dell, Steve Jobs, Mark Zuckerberg. In the future, a single bachelor’s degree in a particular subject will no longer suffice for many of us anyway. As robots and automation sweep the global workforce, hundreds of millions of people—the majority of whom do not have the time or money to go pick up a brand-new four-year degree—will have to “re-skill” in order to land new jobs. The question that employees and employers alike face is how to get that done quickly, efficiently, and, most importantly to many, cheaply.

https://work.qz.com/1209523/how-to-get-a-world-class-education-for-free-on-the-internet/

by Joshua Kim, Inside Higher Ed

Open online learning at scale is not going to go away. In fact, I expect that scaled online learning opportunities will continue to grow. This will occur as providing open online education becomes a normal platform in any educational outreach activities. An ever greater number of organizations beyond colleges and universities, from companies to nonprofits to media outlets, will create and run open online courses. The spread of microcredentials, such edX’s MicroMasters, will drive the growth of open online education at scale. If this is how the future will unfold — see assertions No. 1 through No. 4 above – then shouldn’t we be thinking about how to prepare today’s students for tomorrow’s work force?

https://www.insidehighered.com/digital-learning/blogs/technology-and-learning/learning-learn-moocs-teachable-skill

by Dhawal Shah, Class Central

Udacity made a stunning announcement – the company’s revenues touched $70M in 2017, up from $29M in 2016. Revenue grew across the board in “consumer, business, government and non-profit customers and partners,” according to Udacity CFO Nikhil Abraham. Udacity still not profitable, but it seems to be investing heavily in growth. Udacity is a global company with over 400 employees and operations in seven countries. They are also hiring aggressively.

Udacity’s Revenues Reach $70 Million in 2017

by Matthew Lynch, Tech Edvocate

According to an online survey by Parents, children spend almost 55 days, or 1,314 hours, on screens each year. Parenting in an era of screen addiction is not for the weak. If you have ever tried to get a kid to put down the tablet, smartphone, or video game controller, you know just how challenging it can be. But, you cannot give in. Screen addiction is real and prevalent. It’s up to you to do something about it.

http://www.thetechedvocate.org/parenting-era-screen-addiction/