Techno-News Blog

John Fingas, Engadget

Teachers don’t always know how well their methods work. They can ask questions and hand out tests, of course, but it’s not always clear who’s at fault if the message doesn’t get through. AI might do the trick before long, though. Dartmouth College researchers have produced a machine learning algorithm that measures activity across your brain to determine how well you understand a given concept. The team started out by having rookie and intermediate engineering students both take standard tests as well as answer questions about pictures while sitting in an fMRI scanner. From there, they had the algorithm generate “neural scores” that could predict a student’s performance. The more certain parts of the brain lit up, the easier it was to tell whether or not a student grasped the concepts at play.

https://www.engadget.com/2019/06/23/ai-studies-brain-activity-to-show-understanding/

Caroline Knorr, Common Sense Media
If managing your kids’ summer schedules is running you ragged, you may want to consider the online option. Apps, websites, and even full-fledged virtual camps offer a wide range of summer learning opportunities, and can provide the ideal activity during a “staycation” or a fill-in between other activities. Online learning also gives kids something unique: individual attention. You, a babysitter, a grandparent, or even an older sibling act as virtual camp counselors, leading — and even learning alongside — your kids. With many of the virtual camps below, you can mix and match activities to tailor the experience to your kids’ interests. Expect to be more involved if you go for the free, choose-your-own-adventure camps. But fee-based camps call for some adult participation, too. Check out these offerings:

https://poststar.com/lifestyles/parenting/online-camps-to-entertain-and-educate-kids-all-summer-long/article_b559be21-c338-5b95-a5ef-468d19463b19.amp.html

Anne Ball, VOA

A new report from the Strada Education Network, Lumina Foundation and Gallup says that American adults who hold certificates and certifications, but no college degree, report better employment and lives than those without certificates. Lumina says that five percent of individuals without a college degree have a certificate. The report is based on the Strada-Gallup Education Consumer Survey of U.S. adults. The survey looked at Americans’ educational experiences and attitudes. It involved almost 64,000 participants, ages 25 to 64. No one in the group had a college degree nor were any in college. All were working.  It found that adults without a college degree, who have a certificate or certification, have higher full-time employment rates than others with no credentials. The report says they have higher yearly wages. It also says they believe their education path was valuable, and would advise others to follow.

https://learningenglish.voanews.com/a/non-degree-certificates-buy-high-value/4963956.html

By Ramona Schindelheim, Working Nation

“[Higher] education costs are rising in the U.S., as is student debt,” says American venture capitalist Mary Meeker. The average annual cost of a private four-year college (tuition and on-campus housing) is more than $50,000 and a public college averages just over $24,000 a year, according to the National Center for Education Statistics. More than two-thirds of the class of 2018 borrowed money to go to college, according to Student Loan Hero. 2018 graduates owe an average of $29,800 and 14 percent of their parents owe an average of $35,600 in loans taken out through the federal government. Education costs chartBecause continuing your education after graduating from high school is getting more and more expensive, Meeker says “post-secondary education enrollment is slowing, and online education learning institutions are expanding their reach.” That reach is expanding as the skills needed to get a good, relevant job continues to change.

https://workingnation.com/mary-meeker-internet-trends-online-education-workforce-trends/

Isaac Ben-Israel, The Next We

With the use of AI growing in almost all areas of business and industry, we have a new problem to worry about – the “hijacking” of artificial intelligence. Hackers use the same techniques and systems that help us, to compromise our data, our security, and our lifestyle. We’ve already seen hackers try to pull this off, and while security teams have been able to successfully defend against these attacks, it’s just a matter of time before the hackers succeed. Catching them is proving to be a challenge – because the smart techniques we’re using to make ourselves more efficient and productive are being co-opted by hackers, who are using them to stymie our advancements. It seems that anything we can do, they can do – and sometimes they do it better.

https://thenextweb.com/podium/2019/06/22/hackers-are-turning-our-ai-security-systems-against-us-but-they-can-be-stopped/

Dhawal Shah, Class Central

According to Forbes, Coursera’s 2018 estimated revenue is around $140 million. (In our analysis of Coursera in 2017, Class Central estimated Coursera’s 2017 revenue in the range of $100 million.) By the end of 2018, Coursera had an active catalog of 3100 courses and 310 Specializations, 12 master’s degrees announced, and over 1,500 enterprise customers (including over 60 Fortune 500 companies), up from 500 at the end of 2016.

https://www.classcentral.com/report/coursera-monetization-revenues/

Rhea Kelly, Campus Technology

In a recent survey, 90 percent of faculty reported that textbook affordability is a concern for their institution. Yet just 40 percent said their school has a program focused on reducing textbook costs. That’s according to the second annual FlatWorld Textbook Affordability Study, in which the learning materials publisher polled 786 faculty members at two- and four-year institutions across the country about their attitudes toward textbook costs.

https://campustechnology.com/articles/2019/06/20/survey-majority-of-faculty-acknowledge-that-textbook-affordability-is-an-issue-on-their-campus.aspx

MIKE MACCHIAROLA, eSchool News
Studies consistently reveal the importance of career and technical education (CTE) programs as a method to reduce dropout rates and to keep students focused on high school graduation. Across Pasco County Schools, where we educate 75,000 students, the vision for our CTE program is to provide broad exposure to CTE experiential learning opportunities while equipping students to be life-long learners.

https://www.eschoolnews.com/2019/06/21/vr-ar-cte-programs/

Mattew Lynch, Tech Edvocate

Many factors play a role in early withdrawal from university, mostly to do with financial and personal reasons. Universities and colleges also lose students when they decide to study at other schools, or take online courses at other schools or decide to take their sophomore year off. Technology in the form of machine learning is being used by universities to improve their student support and retention rates. The value of machine learning for the improvement of retention rates lies in its predictive power. Machine learning algorithms are able to analyze vast data sets and identify students who are at risk of abandoning their studies.

https://www.thetechedvocate.org/using-machine-learning-to-predict-student-outcomes/

By Rhea Kelly, Campus Technology
At the start of the spring 2020 semester this January, Penn State World Campus will have a new artificial intelligence tool for answering the most common requests from its undergraduate students. A virtual assistant will help academic advisers at the online institution screen student e-mails for certain keywords and phrases, and then automatically pull relevant information for the advisers to send to students. For instance, the AI will be trained to assist advisers when students inquire how to change their major, change their Penn State campus, re-enroll in the university or defer their semester enrollment date, according to a news announcement.

https://campustechnology.com/articles/2019/06/20/penn-state-world-campus-taps-google-cloud-to-build-virtual-advising-assistant.aspx