Techno-News Blog

Riia O’Donnell, Education dive
“Micro-internships,” or project-based internships, are emerging as a way for students to get a foot in the door and for employers to test talent before making a commitment. Lasting just days or weeks, micro-internships can create a more meaningful experience, too, according to Jeffrey Moss, CEO of Parker Dewey, a platform that enables such arrangements. Rather than longer programs that involve a fair bit of busy work, micro-internships often focus on one, substantive project. This could have an intern writing a blog post or compiling research, for example, he said. For many companies, these are tasks that are important, but don’t always get done.

https://www.educationdive.com/news/how-micro-internships-work-for-students-and-companies/556022/

By Kelsey Piper, Vox

Five years ago, the technique for deepfakes was invented. Here’s what we’re capable of now.  In the past five years, machine learning has come a long way. You might have noticed that Siri, Alexa, and Google Assistant are way better than they used to be, or that automatic translation on websites, while still fairly spotty, is hugely improved from where it was a few years ago. But many still don’t quite grasp how far we’ve come, and how fast. Recently, two images made the rounds that underscore the huge advances machine learning has made — and show why we’re in for a new age of mischief and online fakery.

https://www.vox.com/future-perfect/2019/5/31/18645993/ai-deepfakes-gan-explained-machine-learning

By Kelsey Piper, Vox

Five years ago, the technique for deepfakes was invented. Here’s what we’re capable of now.  In the past five years, machine learning has come a long way. You might have noticed that Siri, Alexa, and Google Assistant are way better than they used to be, or that automatic translation on websites, while still fairly spotty, is hugely improved from where it was a few years ago. But many still don’t quite grasp how far we’ve come, and how fast. Recently, two images made the rounds that underscore the huge advances machine learning has made — and show why we’re in for a new age of mischief and online fakery.

https://www.vox.com/future-perfect/2019/5/31/18645993/ai-deepfakes-gan-explained-machine-learning

BY LAURA ASCIONE, eSchool News

Each Transformation Award winner uses online courses and adaptive learning tools to meet the varying needs of their students, who represent different demographic, economic and geographic backgrounds. The winning programs use online learning to overcome challenges in unique and inventive ways, whether through providing students with the means to earn a high school diploma after dropping out, filling teacher vacancies, helping students recover credits, differentiating instruction based on real-time progress data, or providing students with access to a wider variety of elective course

https://www.eschoolnews.com/2019/05/31/7-programs-that-are-transforming-education/

Matthew Lynch, Tech Edvocate

What if you could have an artificial intelligence assistant to take down your notes for you? You could just sit back and give your full attention to the lecture secure in the knowledge that at the end of the lecture, you will have everything that was said organized in notes.In the business world, there are already a few companies that have developed solutions to automate note-taking at meetings.  As far as we could ascertain, there is room for the development of AI solutions that would automate note-taking for students. Such solutions, especially if they could summarize the important aspects of a lecture, would be invaluable to students who could then focus all their attention on the lecture while knowing that notes are being created for them.

https://www.thetechedvocate.org/could-artificial-intelligence-automate-student-note-taking/

Jon Marcus, Hechinger Report

With the number of 18- to 24-year-olds down and expected to remain flat through at least 2035, according to the U.S. Census Bureau. Twenty-nine percent of undergraduate and 77 percent of graduate students are 25 or older, the U.S. Department of Education reports.  Among these older students, more than half are parents, according to the Institute for Women’s Policy Research. Two-thirds have low incomes, compared to 36 percent of their traditional-aged classmates. Fifty-seven percent work at least 20 hours a week, versus 39 percent of younger students. And 44 percent, compared to 19 percent of traditional undergrads, enroll part-time.

https://hechingerreport.org/universities-that-are-recruiting-older-students-often-leave-them-floundering/

By Dian Schaffhauser, Campus Technology
A researcher in Germany has developed technology for automatically detecting the usability and user-friendliness of virtual environments. Previously, said Patrick Harms from the Institute of Computer Science at the University of Göttingen, the only way to check these aspects of virtual reality and the virtual world was through manual testing. Harms wrote about his results in the May 2019 issue of ACM Transactions on Computer-Human Interaction.

https://campustechnology.com/articles/2019/05/29/new-tech-tests-usability-of-virtual-apps.aspx

BY LAURA ASCIONE, eCampus News

Adults are quickly taking over a larger and larger part of the student population at colleges and universities–and understanding adult learners is key to institutional success. The idea of the “traditional student,” who graduates high school and enrolls in a university, graduating in four years, is transforming. The majority of today’s learners are adult learners–those juggling school with work or family responsibilities, or those seeking new skills or a complete career change. Many institutions are focusing on adult learner programs to help boost their growth and revenue as enrollment projections decline.

https://www.ecampusnews.com/2019/05/27/heres-why-understanding-adult-learners-is-absolutely-critical/

by Katalin Wargo, EDUCAUSE Review

As at many colleges and universities across the nation, the teaching and learning landscape at William & Mary, a midsized liberal arts institution, is rapidly evolving. Online and hybrid programs are being woven throughout the William & Mary experience at such a fast pace that we have had to stop and ask ourselves what exactly we want that experience to be. As a continuation of our work on a contextualized approach to the digital learning environment, William & Mary’s University eLearning Initiatives created a new model of faculty development for online course design. The model deliberately cultivates human-centered digital learning by emphasizing connection, which we know to be difficult to foster within digital environments without intentional design.

https://er.educause.edu/blogs/2019/5/a-human-centered-approach-to-empowering-faculty-for-excellence-in-online-course-design

By Dian Schaffhauser, Campus Technology
A majority of students prefer Apple’s Mac and view organizations that offer Mac computers as more modern and desirable places to work. That’s the primary finding in a survey sponsored by Jamf, which produces software specifically for managing Apple devices. In a commissioned survey, the company queried 2,244 college and university students in five countries. Sixty percent of respondents work on a PC but a slight majority of those (51 percent) said they’d prefer to use a Mac if upfront cost were no object. Why Mac? A majority said they like “the brand” (64 percent); the “style and design” (60 percent); the “ease of use” (59 percent); and “reliability” (57 percent). Fifty-one percent said they prefer the price of the PC.

https://campustechnology.com/articles/2019/05/29/new-tech-tests-usability-of-virtual-apps.aspx

By Dian Schaffhauser, Campus Technology
Carnegie Mellon University has moved forward in its efforts to release education tools into the world. Last week, the institution officially introduced OpenSimon, a community and collection of tools dedicated to “[catalyzing] a revolution in learning and teaching” for higher education and K-12. According to the university, the software that will eventually be made available under open source licenses represents an investment of $100 million in research and development. OpenSimon includes tools for multiple audiences: those teaching as well as those doing research or developing educational technology products.

https://campustechnology.com/articles/2019/05/15/first-wave-of-carnegie-mellon-learning-tools-now-available.aspx

Ray Schroeder, Inside Higher Ed

Blockchain is evolving into a robust platform that may shake many aspects of higher ed. We all have heard much about the potential for blockchain, particularly how it might serve as a distribution, validation and secure ledger of transcripts and associated certifications. MIT did the early work on this. Two years ago they began offering the distribution of diplomas via the Blockcerts Wallet app. While that sounds geeky cool, it represents much more than a technological advance. Substantively, it shifts control of transcripts from the registrar to the student. No longer can an unpaid parking ticket delay the delivery of your transcript to a prospective employer.  How can you prepare to adopt blockchain into your institution?

https://www.insidehighered.com/digital-learning/blogs/online-trending-now/emergence-blockchain

Ruth Reynard, Campus Technology

Those of us in education have heard about integrated instruction for some time. Also known as “interdisciplinary instruction,” the term is used to explain approaches to teaching and learning that support problem solving and critical thinking. Bringing various academic disciplines together can help students think more deeply and more holistically about a topic or a project solution. Therefore, rather than presenting content in a linear fashion with prescribed beginning and ending points, an integrated approach not only encourages, but expects intersection points where related content can be part of the learning process. Topics and subjects are not seen as completely separate entities in an educational journey; instead, they are integrated at points, to make more sense of the whole.

https://campustechnology.com/articles/2019/05/29/why-integrated-instruction-is-a-must-for-todays-tech-enabled-learning.aspx

Stan Schroeder, Mashable

Need more convincing that it will soon be impossible to tell whether a video of a person is real or fake? Enter Samsung’s new research, in which a neural network can turn a still image into a disturbingly convincing video. Researchers at the Samsung AI center in Moscow have achieved this, Motherboard reported Thursday, by training a “deep convolutional network” on a large number of videos showing talking heads, allowing it to identify certain facial features, and then using that knowledge to animate an image.  (ed note: We all must inform others that this technology has arrived – it has the power to mislead and to bring about very serious consequences).

https://mashable.com/article/samsung-ai-deepfake-video/

Rina Caballar, Techopedia

Women make up only 22% of AI professionals worldwide, according to analysis done by LinkedIn and the World Economic Forum for its 2018 Global Gender Gap Report. In the more specialized area of machine learning, only 12% are women, based on a study done by Wired in partnership with Montreal startup Element AI. Artificial intelligence and machine learning continue to be male-dominated fields. But what would an artificially intelligent world designed and led by women look like? From making AI more human to automating the construction industry and reimagining the healthcare sector, here are seven women blazing the trail in the fields of artificial intelligence, machine learning and robotics.

https://www.techopedia.com/7-women-leaders-in-ai-machine-learning-and-robotics/2/33884

Douglas Merrill, Harvard Business Review

More than half of technology executives in the 2019 Gartner CIO Survey say they intend to employ AI before the end of 2020, up from 14% today. If you’re moving too slowly, a competitor could use AI to put you out of business. But if you move too quickly, you risk taking an approach the company doesn’t truly know how to manage. In a recent report by NewVantage Partners, 75% of companies cited fear of disruption from data-driven digital competitors as the top reason they’re investing. Answering these questions requires expertise in technology. But you can’t just add a tech expert to the board and count on him or her to keep the rest of the board up to speed.

https://hbr.org/2019/05/what-boards-need-to-know-about-ai

By Scott Jaschik, Inside Higher Ed

The University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign announced Friday that it plans to shut down its residential M.B.A. programs — full-time and part-time — to focus on its online M.B.A., which it calls the iMBA. The move still requires formal university approval, but the announcement is a sign of the shift going on in business education — in many cases away from traditional M.B.A. programs. Several universities have scaled back or eliminated such programs and focused instead on online or one-year master’s programs in business-related fields. Applications to the iMBA program have tripled from 1,100 when the program started in 2016. The total cost for the iMBA is $22,000.

https://www.insidehighered.com/quicktakes/2019/05/25/illinois-will-end-residential-mba-favor-online-program

by Eileen Belastock, EDSCOOP
According to Matt Renwick, author and principal of Mineral Point Unified School District in Wisconsin, student learning experiences require complex assignments that not only demonstrate content knowledge but should also gauge enthusiasm, communication skills and habits of mind. In a recent webinar hosted by edWeb.net, Renwick said that authentic assessments, a measure of meaningful intellectual accomplishments used instead of traditional multiple-choice standardized testing, are always about the connections we make with students, each other, and the broader community.

https://edscoop.com/how-technology-can-power-enthusiasm-and-self-directed-learning/

By James Paterson, Education Dive

Universities continue to be “highly vulnerable” to cyberattacks, but those most at risk also tend to have the financial resources to protect themselves, according to a new report from Moody’s Investors Service.  Institutions house a wide range of student records, sensitive research and medical information in potentially leaky networks. Additionally, that data is often dispersed among several campuses with “countless access points” on each; global interconnectedness also poses a risk. However, budget constraints may make it difficult for colleges to keep up their defenses as threats grow more complex. Moody’s identified 101 data disclosures at U.S. institutions in 2017, an increase from 15 in 2014. It expects the “upward trend” to continue.

https://www.educationdive.com/news/moodys-identifies-growing-cyber-threat-on-college-campuses/555513/

By Dian Schaffhauser, Campus Technology
A new whitepaper produced by a coalition of representatives from government, industry, education and nonprofits asserts that career readiness should be the first priority of American education, beginning in middle school. And that such a focus will lead to greater equity in the workforce. That’s according to “Career Readiness for All,” a report published by the Coalition for Career Development (CCD) that hopes to serve as a “starting point” for helping the United States understand that it needs to create a high-quality career development system.

https://campustechnology.com/articles/2019/05/06/report-career-planning-needs-to-start-in-middle-school.aspx

By  Mikel Amigot, IBL News

Chatbot–based customer services are increasingly in demand. Advancements in AI technology, natural language processing, neural networks and speech recognition are making chatbots more effective and affordable. However, they are still in an early phase of development. These revolutionary applications – which allow users to engage in interactive conversations using text or natural voice – have the potential to save businesses a fortune – over 8 billion annually by 2020 according to Juniper.

https://iblnews.org/2019/05/23/chatbots-gain-traction-among-business-now-a-course-about-them-on-edx/