Techno-News Blog

Susan Adams, Forbes

Maggioncalda doesn’t foresee the demise of the old-fashioned classroom, but he is staking Coursera’s future on his belief that technology will continue to change the way people learn. High-quality affordable online classes will prove the most effective way for working people to gain new skills like data analytics and programming languages like Python, he believes. “I think almost every degree will move online,” he says. “It is so efficient, so compelling; it will be highly personalized and powered by data. We’re going to have virtual and simulated learning experiences that will transport students into totally different learning environments that will give them access to things they can only get in the virtual world.”

https://www.forbes.com/sites/susanadams/2018/10/16/this-company-could-be-your-next-teacher-coursera-plots-a-massive-future-for-online-education/

John Kroger, Inside Higher Ed

If we were to create a higher education report card for the entire higher education system, what elements would we grade? That depends, of course, on what you think the purpose of higher education is in our country. For discussion’s sake, let me suggest that there are three core and unequivocal roles our system must perform. First, we must conduct research that advances knowledge. Second, we must provide accessible, high quality undergraduate education, with good learning, development, and employment outcomes, to a large percentage of our population. And third, we need to run high quality graduate and professional degree programs that meet the specialized needs of our society. If you had to give a grade for how we are doing in each area, what grade would you assign?

https://www.insidehighered.com/blogs/leadership-higher-education/higher-ed-report-card

Michael T. Nietzel, Forbes

It takes institutional courage to quit the ratings rat-race and replace merit awards, which go disproportionately to middle or upper-class students, with need-based aid that enables poor students to attend college. Franklin and Marshall College summoned that courage, when it ended almost all merit scholarships, redirecting those funds to students in financial need. The results? The percentage of Pell recipients more than doubled, overall enrollment held steady, and for those who care, Franklin and Marshall continues to fare well in national ratings. More colleges need to follow its lead. Declining confidence in higher education is not merely a partisan issue. It signals that real reforms are necessary. Changing how we finance institutions and fund students are two changes that can restore some lost confidence.

https://www.forbes.com/sites/michaeltnietzel/2018/10/16/two-things-college-leaders-can-do-to-restore-confidence-in-higher-education/#427237ca88cb

By Mark Lieberman, Inside Higher Ed
Google announced its latest higher education foray Wednesday: technology courses developed in-house and delivered to students at 10 four-year institutions. Students at eight institutions can enroll this semester in two introductory courses on computer science and data science. The company developed the curriculum and provides the content and materials; institutions supply faculty members to lead in-class projects. Google is also accepting applications for additional institutions that want to offer the introductory computer science and data science courses. Priority consideration will go to institutions with no existing computer science program or one that’s at capacity.

https://www.insidehighered.com/quicktakes/2018/10/18/google-brings-computing-courses-10-colleges

By Scott Jaschik, Inside Higher Ed
Massachusetts Institute of Technology on Monday morning announced a $1 billion plan to create a new college of computing within MIT, and to promote teaching and research on computing and artificial intelligence. MIT’s announcement says the effort “marks the single largest investment in computing and AI by an American academic institution, and will help position the United States to lead the world in preparing for the rapid evolution of computing and AI.”

https://www.insidehighered.com/quicktakes/2018/10/16/mit-announces-plan-1b-effort-computing-ai

By Dian Schaffhauser, Campus Technology
A mixed team of seven Penn State undergraduates — one in the College of Arts and Architecture and six from the College of Engineering — received $30,000 to continue development of an application to help students figure out the shortest path to graduation. “LionPlanner” won first place in a competition that challenged students to use artificial intelligence to solve real problems. The multi-phase contest was put on by the Nittany AI Alliance, a group of faculty and companies working together to give students opportunities to learn more about AI.

https://campustechnology.com/articles/2018/10/15/ai-team-at-penn-state-gains-30k-to-define-fastest-path-to-graduation.aspx

By Mike Tomei, Campus Technology
Have you ever met an AV support department whose members feel like they’re well-staffed, are 100 percent caught up on all projects, are easily able to satisfy the support demands of the campus community, and have plenty of free time to plan for future classroom installs? No? Me neither. AV support folks are always stretched thin and pulled in many different directions. With classroom AV technology in its heyday — active learning classrooms, VR/AR and collaborative technology pushing us way past standard “hang and bang” classroom projects — the increased level of classroom AV design and installation coordination inevitably results in backend staffing and support burdens.

https://campustechnology.com/articles/2018/10/15/benchmarking-higher-ed-av-staffing-levels-revisited.aspx

Carolyn Gentle-Genitty, Tomorrow’s Professor

Since students who choose online learning often have multiple other commitments, Gentle-Genitty makes very clear how much time students can expect to invest preparing for class, listening to lectures, doing homework, and taking part in chat rooms. “Very specific information gives students a realistic picture of the commitment they’re making,” says Gentle-Genitty. “I want them to understand that a three-credit course may translate into more than nine hours of work per week. If they know exactly when, on what weekday, we discuss their papers, they can become very efficient at structuring their own time. Structure is liberating.” Her course framework enables students to be organized and connected. It comprises a teaching presence, a cognitive space where students interact with content, and a social presence—online discussion forums and chat rooms—where she and her students interact, build personal connections, form teams, and work in small groups.

https://tomprof.stanford.edu/posting/1672

by Peter Hopkins, Big Think

W. Daniel Hillis is an inventor, engineer and author, Professor at the MIT Media Lab and Judge Widney Professor of Engineering and Medicine at the University of Southern California. Decentralizing knowledge and making information provenance transparent will be a revolution in the so-called “post-truth age”. The Underlay, a revolutionary knowledge graph, is being developed at MIT by Danny Hillis, SJ Klein, Travis Rich. “So the idea is that what we really need to do is we need to separate up two things. We need to separate the record of what different people said and who said it—the provenance of what was said—And then separately have in some sense a network of trust which is going to be different for different purposes…. A fact is a fact. It’s not copyrightable, to own truth.”

https://bigthink.com/videos/google-2-0-why-mit-scientists-are-building-a-new-search-engine

ADELIA CELLINI LINECKER, Investor’s Business Daily

Offering programs is not enough. A recent LinkedIn survey found that the No. 1 challenge facing talent development in 2018 is getting workers to make time for learning. “Yet, 94% of employees say that they would stay at a company longer if it invested in their career development,” the study stated. “The modern organization needs to meet learners where they already are — aligning development opportunities with employee aspirations, and engaging them through the platforms where they are already spending their time.”

https://www.investors.com/news/management/leaders-and-success/workplace-learning-close-skills-gap/

By Jeffrey R. Young, EdSurge
Alternative higher education programs don’t always work out. But one former Harvard University dean is giving it a try. That former Harvard dean, Stephen Kosslyn, opened an online two-year college this week with an experimental academic program promising something between a vocational education and a traditional general-education curriculum. Among its innovations: no homework. It’s called Foundry College, and it is a for-profit college that plans to seek regional accreditation so that its students can eventually qualify for financial aid. Its leaders hope to partner with employers and convince them to cover some of the tuition costs for students.

https://www.edsurge.com/news/2018-10-11-new-two-year-online-college-aims-to-grow-quickly-but-without-traditional-gen-ed-courses

Sandy Nelson, Las Cruces Sun

Not everyone has the resources to go to college for an MBA, but anyone with an internet connection and some self-discipline can learn business basics through the DreamBuilder program offered by the nonprofit small-business development and training organization WESST. DreamBuilder targets women who want to start their own businesses or need additional support to increase profitability. It’s one of a growing number of massive open online courses (MOOCs) that offer busy people a way to explore subjects that interest them — and often to earn credit for their efforts.

https://www.lcsun-news.com/story/money/business/2018/10/12/online-course-can-help-boost-business-savvy/1574044002/

By Corinne Ruff, Retail Dive
Walmart and the Walmart Foundation are giving $4 million in grants to three organizations working to increase workforce training, according to a company press release. Walmart is also expanding its education benefit, announced in May, to U.S. e-commerce associates. The funding, announced Wednesday, is part of the company’s five-year Retail Opportunity Initiative, which is a $100 million effort to improve training programs in retail and adjacent sectors. Walmart and the Walmart Foundation have so far funded more than $80 million in related grants. The funding is broken up in the following ways: $2.4 million will go to the Foundation for California Community Colleges to launch an online community college to serve adult learners; $1 million to edX will help launch a series of courses in new “MicroBachelors” programs; and $250,000 will help Code for America “explore the role government technology systems can play in improving access to quality jobs in the digital age, and identify opportunities where technology can improve outcomes for job seekers.”

https://www.retaildive.com/news/walmart-grants-4m-to-support-workforce-education/539446/

By Dian Schaffhauser, Campus Technology
According to a recent research project, developing an open education resources course costs, on average, about $11,700, to cover salary and benefits for the instructors involved. OER courses produced by individuals were half the price of those created by teams ($8,900 vs. $18,200). As the report covering the data noted, teams provided both benefits — greater confidence in course quality and faster time to course completion — and hurdles: They also took more time to coordinate the work, sift through team materials, review and comment, and work toward consensus. Those are a few of the results that came out of an extensive study examining the implementation of OER in colleges.

https://campustechnology.com/articles/2018/10/12/report-pegs-cost-to-develop-an-oer-course-at-11700.aspx

By Dian Schaffhauser, Campus Technology
Students like courses that use open education resources over their typical classes. In a recent research project, most (61 percent) reported that they experienced a boost in their learning experience; 59 percent said the quality of the instructional materials was better; 57 percent considered the caliber of teaching higher; and 54 percent claimed a stronger level of engagement. OER also made classes more affordable. Those results come from a study examining the implementation of OER in colleges. The work was commissioned by Achieving the Dream, a national nonprofit that works with a network of community colleges to help students succeed.

https://campustechnology.com/articles/2018/10/12/report-students-prefer-courses-that-use-open-educational-resources.aspx

by James Paterson, Education Dive
With enrollments declining and technology advancing, colleges are breaking ground on spaces that give students and faculty new ways to engage. Facing headwinds that are muddling their missions and their budgets and luring away prospective students, college and university officials are adapting their campuses in big and small ways that they hope will help them navigate it all. From soaring, high-tech innovation labs that attract new students, to small-scale huddle spaces and digital campsites that foster the soft skills bosses increasingly want, colleges are building anew or repurposing existing infrastructure to meet the learning needs of today’s college students. And flexibility is key.

https://www.educationdive.com/news/whats-the-blueprint-for-a-21st-century-college-campus/539281/

Russell Schrader, Education Dive

Russell Schrader, executive director of the nonprofit National Cyber Security Alliance, shares ways institutions can keep information, and the means of exchanging it, secure: “The biggest challenge is knowing what you have and who is accessing it — data integrity. The idea is that when you put data in, it stays exactly the same while you’re storing it, you know who’s taking it out, and it’s exactly the same way it was before [when they’re done]. It’s not just about access to data and dissemination of data, it’s what’s happening to that data at rest. A lot of colleges don’t have up-to-date, sophisticated data-management systems and hardware and software to do that, so they’re prone to attacks not only to exfiltrate data but also to change data. It’s certainly not unknown for institutions that pride themselves on having open and accessible systems to also pride themselves on educating an incredibly sophisticated group of students who are well-versed in cybersecurity and in coding.”

https://www.educationdive.com/news/how-campuses-can-play-better-defense-against-expanding-cyberthreats/539427/

Business Insider

The Association for Continuing Higher Education (ACHE) and Learning House released the findings of the Online Learning in Continuing Higher Education report.

Key findings include:

Disconnect between institutions offering online computer science and high student demand for these programs
Continuing Education (CE) units still play a significant role in online learning on their respective campuses
Fifty seven percent of ACHE members reported either maintaining or increasing revenue from online programs in 2017-2018
Institutions with five or more online programs are much more likely to report overcoming barriers such as the cost of developing and delivering online courses and the time and buy-in required of faculty

https://markets.businessinsider.com/news/stocks/survey-of-college-leaders-affirms-previous-reports-uncovers-mismatches-in-some-online-programs-student-services-1027597436

Mackenzie Peterson, Stoutonia

Online classes are something that is offered at many schools. They are convenient and flexible with busy schedules, there is zero commute, and it can help improve student’s self discipline. Yet, many students tend to not utilize this option and stick with traditional classes. There are many different reasons why students may not incorporate online classes into their schedule. One reason many students agreed upon was that they aren’t as interactive as they would like them to be.  Some professors gave their views as well. Professor of communication and emerging media Mitchell Ogden has taught many online classes in the past. He said, “I think online learning can really foster the discipline and habit of independent learning and exploration that can sometimes be harder to promote in a face-to-face classroom.”

http://stoutonia.com/online-classes-interactive-or-inactive/

BY TAYLOR NEWMAN, Daily Texan
We’ve all heard that online classes don’t work — you’re probably going to forget to watch them, zone out from your bed and won’t get direct student-professor engagement. But the reality is, the majority of online classes at UT are designed with this in mind and prove to be more beneficial than disappointing. Online classes yield a result heavily reliant on what students put into them. In remotely taught classes, students are less likely to reach out to their professors as they would in a physical classroom. Students may also be hesitant to respond in a class chat with hundreds of students watching. But students who do choose to engage in online classes and dedicate the necessary time to succeed in any class are just as, if not more, successful. Overwhelmingly, students responded that both of these courses were beneficial. In Government 312L, 84.4 percent of students said they “agreed or strongly agreed” with the statement that they “learned a great deal in the course” and for Psychology 301 it was 83.5 percent.

http://dailytexanonline.com/2018/10/08/online-classes-are-as-good-as-in-person-classes

By Lindsay McKenzie, Inside Higher Ed
Students in a political science class at California Polytechnic State University embarked on an unusual challenge last year. They drafted legislation to see if they could get it passed by the state Legislature. The bill became law this past summer. In the process, the students learned how lawmaking works and got invaluable experience on using the political process to push for change — even if it’s only incremental change — on a higher ed issue close to their hearts. The students in the California Bill Project class set out to write a bill that would benefit fellow California students but not cost the state any money.

https://www.insidehighered.com/news/2018/10/10/california-students-take-publishers-legislatively-reduce-textbook-costs