Techno-News Blog

by Matthew Lynch, Tech Edvocate

It appears that the trend of incorporating digital devices and edtech products into the classroom is here to stay. Learning how to use technology in the classroom is quite a process for many educators, and they make some mistakes along the way. Without the proper training on how to handle their new devices and incorporate them into the classroom, teachers might be guilty of making these five common mistakes with their technology.

https://www.thetechedvocate.org/5-mistakes-that-teachers-make-with-technology/

Michele Goetz, Forrester

In 2019, Forrester predicts that firms will address the pragmatic side of AI now that they have a better understanding of the challenges and embrace the idea that “no pain means no AI gain.” The AI reality is here. Firms are starting to recognize what it is and isn’t, what it can do and what it cannot. And they are seeing the real challenges of AI versus what they assumed the challenges would be. Firms will focus their attention on the data foundations, take creative approaches to building and holding on to AI talent, weave intelligence into business processes, and begin to establish the mechanisms to understanding why AI is acting the way it is.

https://go.forrester.com/blogs/predictions-2019-ai-artificial-intelligence/

Natalie Schwartz, Inside Higher Ed
The rise of emerging technologies is transforming America’s job market, with some projections estimating that automation could displace as many as 30% of To address the needs of a growing population that will require new skills in order to compete in the workforce, some colleges and universities are reevaluating how they design their curriculum. And successfully preparing workers for the changing economy requires colleges to engage in unorthodox and bold thinking, said Waded Cruzado, the president of Montana State University, during a panel session about the future of the workforce held Wednesday at the annual Educause conference, in Denver. Machines will perform almost half (42%) of all task hours in the workplace by 2022, compared to 29% today, leading to some 75 million jobs being displaced and 133 million new roles emerging, according to the World Economic Forum. Colleges will need to create a comprehensive agenda to teach new skills that meets the demand of these learners, said Karen Stout, president and CEO of Achieving the Dream, a nonprofit focused on improving outcomes for community college students.

https://www.educationdive.com/news/how-colleges-are-adapting-to-workforce-development-mandates/541133/

BY LAURA ASCIONE, eCampus News
At EDUCAUSE’s annual conference, a panel of four female IT leaders sat down for a frank discussion on gender bias and workplace advancement. The session addressed issues such as conscious and unconscious gender bias, how to identify role models and mentors, and how to build the skills necessary to lead an IT team. The topic comes at a time of heightened tensions around gender bias and sexual harassment in the IT field, and the conversation was especially timely given the atmosphere of outspoken protest against gender inequality.

https://www.ecampusnews.com/2018/11/21/6-pieces-of-advice-for-women-aspiring-to-it-leadership/

MATTHEW HALLIDAY, Globe and Mail
He is among the growing number of Canadian students who are not only taking advantage of the flexibility of online education but also using it to dramatically open up their living options. No home location is too remote for online students as long as they’ve got an internet connection. “The typical bread and butter for universities has long been the Grade 12 graduates, but Canada’s demographics are changing,” says Tina Reed, director of recruitment and partnerships for Contact North, a provincially funded organization that works with universities and colleges in Ontario to deliver distance education to that province’s small and remote communities.

https://www.theglobeandmail.com/business/article-living-in-the-middle-of-nowhere-is-no-obstacle-for-online-students/

By Cara Brennan Allamano, HR Dive

In our study, we found offering online learning as a resource during the onboarding phase can make a difference. For companies that were able to turn new hires into productive employees in less than 6 months, we noticed 67% offered online learning as the primary L&D resource at their organization. Our research also confirms a strong connection between engagement and learning. Offering a wide variety of on-demand online courses—from technical and leadership skills to personal development—can help keep employees engaged on the job. We discovered employees at high-engagement companies spend more time learning than people at low-engagement companies. 52% of high-engagement companies have employees who spend an average of 31–50 hours learning per year compared to only 20% of low-engagement companies.

https://www.hrdive.com/news/new-data-how-learning-impacts-engagement-and-productivity/541080/

JENNIFER LEWINGTON, Globe and Mail

Experts say the flexibility of online learning is especially attractive to women juggling work, family and personal demands. “It is really about fitting the learning pattern to the lifestyle,” says David Porter, chief executive officer of eCampusOntario, a non-profit, government-funded agency that publishes a directory of 16,000 online courses and 700 programs at colleges and universities across the province. According to Statistics Canada (which does not track gender splits in online learning), women accounted for 56 per cent of students on campus at colleges and universities in 2013-14, but the ratio is higher in distance learning, as reported by individual institutions and agencies. For example, women account for two-thirds of participants in online offerings, according to the Ontario College Application Centre.

https://www.theglobeandmail.com/canada/education/article-why-women-dominate-the-online-learning-space/

Knowledge@ Wharton
Back in 2000, many enterprises wondered whether they needed a head of e-commerce. Today, the question has become: Do you need a chief digital officer (CDO) to drive business in the digital age? But that’s not the fundamental question, write Scott A. Snyder and Shaloo Kulkarni in this opinion piece. “By making sure you start with the right questions instead of the answer you will be more likely to put yourself on a path towards being a digital leader,” they add. Snyder is a senior fellow at Wharton and a partner, digital and innovation, at Heidrick & Struggles. Kulkarni is principal, digital transformation, at the firm.

http://knowledge.wharton.upenn.edu/article/do-you-need-a-chief-digital-officer/

By Natalie Schwartz , Education Dive
Penn State University announced this week that it is leading a group of 19 colleges in an effort to explore how emerging technology can be used to shape teaching and learning. The project, called the CoAction Learning Lab, involves a mix of public and private colleges including Arizona State University, the University of Central Florida and Western Governors University. The group’s first goal is to curate an online library of openly licensed resources to help institutions integrate new technology into their teaching. The collection could include sets of questions for colleges to ask vendors about learning analytics or how to implement more open-source materials in the classroom, The Chronicle of Higher Education reported.

https://www.educationdive.com/news/penn-state-leads-19-colleges-exploring-uses-for-new-tech-in-higher-ed/541669/

ALLISON SANCHEZ, UProxx

Virtual reality doesn’t just have the capacity to transport us to new worlds, it has the ability to help us more fully understand our very existence. The futuristic medium is compelling, visceral, and deeply immersive. And while these are all words to describe VR, they’re also words we wish got used more often to describe education. Bringing lessons to life — that’s the dream for most teachers. But taking words on a page or in a lecture and helping students really feel them can be a challenge. Which is why incorporating Virtual Reality in schools has become a huge priority for many educators. VR allows learning to cross over into the emotional cores of students in new and exciting ways. It’s a groundbreaking time for education, where what is possible is constantly shifting.

https://uproxx.com/life/virtual-reality-education-potential/

DAINA LAWRENCE, GLOBE AND MAIL

Online and distance education have been the bread and butter for decades for some Canadian postsecondary institutions, including Athabasca University in Alberta and Victoria-based Royal Roads University. But the country’s traditional halls of higher learning, known more for their on-campus offerings, are increasing their online programs as well to ensure they don’t lose or inconvenience students who want the flexibility of taking classes and programs online. Now, Canada’s traditional universities are knocking on the doors of Dr. Grundy and his online-centric counterparts to see what they can do to adopt more e-learning into their academic models. “We’ve certainly been open with people who want to explore the way we do it and there’s certainly increasing interest, for sure, from everybody,” he says.

https://www.theglobeandmail.com/business/article-outcast-mavericks-teach-traditional-universities-a-few-things-about/

Doug Lederman, Inside Higher Ed

The Education Department’s National Center for Education Statistics, published Tuesday shows that while overall postsecondary enrollment dropped by almost 90,000 students, nearly half a percentage point, from fall 2016 to fall 2017 — confirming data previously published by the National Student Clearinghouse — the number of all students who took at least some of their courses online grew by more than 350,000, a healthy 5.7 percent. The proportion of all students who were enrolled exclusively online grew to 15.4 percent (up from 14.7 percent in 2016), or about one in six students. The share of all students who mixed online and in-person courses grew slightly faster, to 17.6 percent in 2017 from 16.4 percent in 2016. And the proportion of all students who took at least one course online grew to 33.1 percent, from 31.1 percent in 2016. That last data point represents a steady march in the normalization of online learning, as the proportion of all enrolled students who had studied online stood under a quarter in 2012. But while fans of online learning are likely to be heartened by that slow but sure rise in acceptance, the pure increase in online enrollments — at a time of overall dips in postsecondary attendance — may be just as noteworthy.

https://www.insidehighered.com/digital-learning/article/2018/11/07/new-data-online-enrollments-grow-and-share-overall-enrollment

Scott Moore, Inside Higher Ed

The primary goal should be to deliver an excellent learning experience. The definition of “excellent” will vary by program, by institution, by faculty member and by student. You have one set of needs in a liberal arts undergraduate program and a different set in a master’s engineering program. However, the common goal should be the same: to deliver an excellent learning experience. It’s not that budget and standardization aren’t important, but there is such a thing as focusing on them too early and placing too high a priority on them.

https://www.insidehighered.com/digital-learning/views/2018/11/07/online-learning-should-prioritize-quality-and-mission-over

BY MARIA TEMMING, Science News

Animated characters can learn from online tutorials, too. A new computer program teaches virtual avatars new skills, such as dances, acrobatic stunts and martial art moves, from YouTube videos. This kind of system, described in the November ACM Transactions on Graphics, could render more physically coordinated characters for movies and video games, or serve as a virtual training ground for robots. “I was really impressed” by the program, says Daniel Holden, a machine-learning researcher at Ubisoft La Forge in Montreal not involved in the work. Rendering accurate, natural-looking movements based on everyday video clips “has always been a goal for researchers in this field.”

https://www.sciencenews.org/article/virtual-avatars-learned-cartwheels-and-other-stunts-videos-people

by Jill Dyche, CIO

Recently in a risk management meeting, I watched a data scientist explain to a group of executives why convolutional neural networks were the algorithm of choice to help discover fraudulent transactions. The executives—all of whom agreed that the company needed to invest in artificial intelligence—seemed baffled by the need for so much detail. “How will we know if it’s working?” asked a senior director to the visible relief of his colleagues. Although they believe AI’s value, many executives are still wondering about its adoption. The following five questions are boardroom staples:

https://www.cio.com/article/3318639/artificial-intelligence/5-questions-ceos-are-asking-about-ai.html

Hallie Busta, Education Dive
The blockchain and artificial intelligence are among several technologies and practices poised to impact higher ed. The way America goes to college is changing. Rising tuition and new workforce development pathways are encouraging prospective students to consider alternative post-secondary education options. Meanwhile, higher education is consolidating and the colleges remaining are taking programs online to reach a wider audience. And technologies such as augmented and virtual reality are changing the nature of instruction. Yet interest in addressing and even capitalizing on these changes has been measured among higher education leaders. Just 12% of college presidents ranked institutional research in information technology as an important area of development in the American Council on Education’s (ACE’s) latest American College President Study, according to ACE President Ted Mitchell during a presentation at Educause’s annual convention last week in Denver. That’s not to say transformation isn’t quietly underway. “It’s currently happening, and right under our noses,” said Mitchell.

https://www.educationdive.com/news/4-ed-tech-trends-colleges-should-be-ready-for/541384/

By: Adán Rubio, Daily Toreador

Hateful comments, hacking or threats are just some forms of cyberbullying one may endure. With the use of technology on college campuses, students may be more susceptible to this issue. With college students consistently being plugged in, cyberbullying may be a problem they have to face, whether it be on social media or through email. Most people may associate any kind of bullying with student interactions in high school or middle school. But anyone, college student or not, could fall victim to cyberbullying.

http://www.dailytoreador.com/news/college-students-at-risk-of-cyberbullying/article_0c745e24-e087-11e8-aafa-07fda0fcc38a.html

By: Mary Jane Pearson, Faculty Focus

Recent findings indicate that higher education enrollment is being outpaced by online enrollments while overall enrollment in higher education has declined over the last three years (Betts, 2017). Data analyzed from the U.S. Department of Education confirm that enrollment in online courses in higher education has more than tripled in the years from 2002 to 2014: 2002, 1.6 million; 2014, 5.8 million (Poulin & Straut, 2016). Robinia (2008), in a study on the efficacy of online teaching faculty, found that effective faculty supported the value of instructional expertise and peer/mentoring support. Mentoring adjunct faculty is beneficial as it helps them become connected and part of a community; they feel valued and inspired, and they are invested in the university in which they teach (Linton, 2017). Moreover, such mentoring should exist throughout the retention of the adjunct faculty member, and not be limited to only new adjunct faculty, to continue to achieve positive results with students.

https://www.facultyfocus.com/articles/online-education/an-online-mentoring-model-that-works/

Natalie Schwartz, Education Dive
Technologies such as artificial intelligence (AI) and virtual reality (VR) are rapidly expanding opportunities for teaching and learning, and they are giving college administrators new and different ways to track student outcomes. To learn more about the impact of these technologies, we attended a handful of panels on the topic led by higher education and technology leaders at Educause’s annual conference in Denver this week. From teaching with VR to tracking student success with AI, we explore how colleges and universities are using new technologies to conduct research, teach students and create smarter campuses.

https://www.educationdive.com/news/how-artificial-intelligence-and-virtual-reality-are-changing-higher-ed-inst/541247/

By Dian Schaffhauser, Campus Technology
Although educators have enthusiastically promoted personalized learning, there’s still “imperfect evidence” that it leads to improved outcomes for students. Likewise, curriculum for personalized learning is “underdeveloped,” and policies still exist that could “hinder” its success. In other words, it could be set up to fail, according to a recent RAND Corp. perspective. As the assessment suggested, educators “who want to use rigorous research evidence to guide their designs will find many gaps and will be left with important unanswered questions about which practices or combinations of practices are effective.”

https://campustechnology.com/articles/2018/11/05/evidence-on-value-of-personalized-learning-still-needs-to-catch-up.aspx

By Dian Schaffhauser, Campus Technology

In the coming year, IT organizations in colleges and universities expect to be grappling with “data-enabling” their institutions, funding, and setting up their units as institutional leaders and change agents. That’s what IT leaders told Educause in its latest survey to determine the top 10 IT issues for higher education.

https://campustechnology.com/articles/2018/11/05/it-security-tops-educause-issues-list-4-years-running.aspx