Techno-News Blog

BBN News

In the digital era, modern technologies like augmented reality and virtual reality have transformed business practices, entertainment, and day-to-day lives. Likewise, immersive technologies have evolved education by enabling immersive learning experiences. However, education isn’t limited to academics. Learning new skills, traveling to exotic locations, and exploring interactive stories are non-conventional forms of education that are offered by immersive technologies. Hence, immersive technologies are being widely adopted across the globe.

https://www.bbntimes.com/en/technology/ar-and-vr-the-future-of-smart-education-is-here

Newsie (NZ)

The Education Ministry has forecast a shortage of up to 2000 teachers by 2025 and schools in the NetNZ network believe their model could help.  Darren Sudlow from NetNZ said it had been helping schools, most of them in the South Island, share teachers for many years and there were probably about 360 schools involved in similar networks around the country.  “What it means is you are locating specialist teachers in various parts of the country and you’re able to enrol students into those courses, it means you don’t have to actually have your teachers located on site in your school,” he said.

https://www.newsie.co.nz/news/166352-online-resource-rollout-can-address-teacher-shortage-network.html

Amit Gautam, People Matters
Learning libraries are fast becoming a ‘must-have’ solution for any business looking to offer impactful employee training, especially in times of an economic slowdown. In this article, we explore whether companies can do without learning libraries today. Can businesses do without online learning libraries today? The world of work is changing and fast. Given today’s rapidly evolving technological landscape, businesses are scrambling to upgrade their service or product portfolio to gain a competitive edge, while focusing on enhancing the skill set of their workforce to address the widening skills gap brought upon by new and emerging technologies like automation, Artificial Intelligence (AI), Blockchain and so on.

https://www.peoplematters.in/article/guest-article/can-businesses-do-without-online-learning-libraries-today-23697

Kyle Hathaway, UI Scroll

The David O. McKay Library has more than books that tell stories. It also holds the stories of the people who work there, including Ina Rodino’s. Rodino, BYU-Idaho’s online learning librarian, works with the online curriculum designers and makes sure online students have access to the resources they need. This includes being constantly available for students who are looking for online research help. “My hours are more open than most librarian hours, so I can meet with students when they have time,” Rodino said. “We have chat that’s available 24/6 so that students can always get help when they need it.”

https://byuiscroll.org/meet-the-online-librarian/

By Jeffrey R. Young, EdSurge

EdSurge recently connected with the company’s new CEO, Gabriel Dalporto, who joined the company after eight years at LendingTree, an online lender. He described the company’s focus as refining its process for developing Nanodegree programs, the company’s name for short-term online courses for tech professionals that mix videos with project-based assignments.

https://www.edsurge.com/news/2019-11-07-how-udacity-could-return-to-its-higher-ed-roots

By Rhea Kelly, Campus Technology
A recent report found that four out of five working learners do some of their learning online, and more than half (53 percent) are enrolled in courses that are entirely online. In fact, 42 percent of respondents said that “offering fully online classes and coursework” was their most important factor when choosing a school for continued education. The 2019 Working Learner Index, produced by child care and education benefits company Bright Horizons, is based on a survey of more than 31,000 workers who are going back to school while on the job.

https://campustechnology.com/articles/2019/11/07/fully-online-courses-are-no-1-requirement-for-many-working-learners.aspx

Elliott Levine, EdTech

Online learners deserve the same engaging experience as traditional learners — and colleges have good reason to make it happen. Statistics indicate the global online education market is expected to top more than $130 billion in the next few years. Meanwhile, on-campus enrollment is dropping, and the number of students turning to online education is steadily growing. But there is more to these trends than meets the eye.

https://edtechmagazine.com/higher/article/2019/11/are-colleges-and-universities-meeting-online-learning-challenge

Ireland Higher Ed Minister Mary MItchell, Dublin City University

Minister for Higher Education Mary Mitchell O’Connor says lifelong learning needs to be the “norm so that we are adaptable to new technologies”.  She also said it was the government’s ambition to position Ireland as a “global leader in education provision”. Ms Mitchell O’Connor made her remarks as she officially opened the World Conference for Online Learning 2019, which is being hosted by Dublin City University at the National Convention Centre in Dublin’s city centre.

https://www.dcu.ie/news/news/2019/Nov/Minister-tells-World-Conference-Online-Learning-lifelong-learning-needs-be-norm

By John Lauritsen, WCCO

With snow in the forecast, school districts are thinking about snow days in the months ahead. Some districts are already turning to online learning when schools are closed. State law allows up to five E-learning days a school year when there’s bad weather. And just like the weather, student reaction to E-Learning at Eden Prairie is both hot and cold.

https://minnesota.cbslocal.com/2019/11/04/minnesota-school-districts-considering-online-snow-days/

Ilker Koksal, Forbes

Online education brings countless benefits from lower fees and location freedom to extra flexibility in terms of choosing your courses and the time you want to invest in studying. According to the eLearning Industry, North America alone will constitute 40% of the market, which will equal to $120 billion by 2025.  As the world itself and business go through intensive a phase of globalization and the transformation of formats and approaches of existence and activity – which will lead to a change in the needs of employers and society, which will inevitably change educational trends – online learning will most often be in demand and as a result will be improved and developed at a great pace!

https://www.forbes.com/sites/ilkerkoksal/2019/11/04/personal-development-scaling-in-online-education/#17263a5e6534

Matthew Lynch, Tech Edvocate

The explosion of Massive Open Online Courses (MOOCs) is one eLearning trend that we’ve experienced in the past decade. And New trends are being predicted for 2020, but what are the trends that have stood the test of time? Gamification, Personalized Learning, mLearning, APIs, transition from Flash to HTML5.  Follow the link for details.

https://www.thetechedvocate.org/5-elearning-trends-that-have-stood-the-test-of-time/

By Sascha Segan, PC Magazine

All of the US carriers have now launched some form of 5G cellular network. But what exactly is 5G, and how fast is it compared with 4G? Here are the facts we know so far. It’s messy. It’s very early days. And if you like new technology, it’s very exciting. The early 5G rollouts are more like a public beta test than a final product. AT&T, Verizon, and T-Mobile are all using technologies that only travel about 800 feet from a cell site, which means there isn’t much coverage. All four carriers are waiting for upgrades to their base stations that will improve coverage, speed, and reliability. Around the end of this year or the beginning of 2020, AT&T, Verizon, and T-Mobile all intend to launch 5G networks that use existing 4G spectrum, which will have slower speeds but broader coverage.

https://www.pcmag.com/article/345387/what-is-5g

Allison Dulin Salisbury, Forbes

Quantifying the value of a new era of educational investments starts with setting expectations about returns, and defining—with greater precision— their value in a particular corporate context. As the market evolves, we’re seeing five distinct categories—on-ramps, upskilling, reskilling, outskilling, and education as a benefit—that each have their own particular business proposition.

https://www.forbes.com/sites/allisondulinsalisbury/2019/10/28/as-pressure-to-upskill-grows-5-models-emerge/

By Mathew Wong, China.org

Computer-based teaching, in fact, is not new in China, particularly in cities where each classroom has been facilitated with at least one computer and students today are used to learning by means of electronic devices. However, with the “AI+” education model, big data comes to play a vital role in gleaning, analyzing and modeling student results to provide accurate feedback to educators and help predict students’ learning and memory curve.

http://www.china.org.cn/opinion/2019-11/01/content_75363181.htm

Spencer Irvine, Academia

Inside Higher Ed published its 2019 Survey of Faculty Attitudes on Technology, jointly conducted with Gallup. The survey discovered that there was a 2% increase in faculty members who taught an online course, going up to 46% compared to 44% in 2018. Inside Higher Ed pointed out that in 2013, that figure was 30% and it means “that the number has increased by half in six years.” Despite the uptick in faculty members teaching online courses, 36% of respondents said that they disagree with the idea that “online courses can achieve student learning outcomes at least equivalent to in-person courses at any institution.”

https://www.academia.org/survey-of-college-professors-shows-resistance-to-online-learning/

Matthew Lynch, Tech Edvocate

The growing trend of digital learning is benefitting society in many different ways. The widespread enrolment in online courses is contributing to the improvement in digital skills on a large scale. Society is benefiting as a whole from improved communication, technology, and collaboration skills. Online courses are making it easier to communicate with others and connect with people around the globe, creating a global community. This is one of the benefits of eLearning for society. Let’s look at some other benefits.

https://www.thetechedvocate.org/the-significance-of-elearning-in-the-modern-world/

Jonathan Shieber, Tech Crunch

Under the leadership of newly minted chief executive Gabe Dalporto, Udacity is committing to giving away free introductory technology training classes to 20,000 applicants every year. The program is focused on teaching front-end web development, mobile app development and data analytics. There are no prerequisites for applicants, but the scholarships are reserved for low-income individuals looking to learn programming skills.

https://techcrunch.com/2019/10/10/udacity-will-offer-100000-free-programming-classes-as-part-of-the-pledge-to-americas-workers/

Matthew Lynch, Tech Edvocate

According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, individuals born in the latter years of the baby boom era (1957-1964) change their career twelve times during their working life. Research company Gallup calls millennials the job-hopping generation. A recent Gallup report on the millennial generation reveals that 21% of millennials say they’ve changed jobs within the past year. There are many reasons why employees decide to make a career change, but whatever the reason, taking an eLearning course or two can smooth the process. Let’s discuss five ways that taking an online course can help with a career change.

https://www.thetechedvocate.org/career-change-is-the-new-normal-how-does-elearning-help/

National Student Clearinghouse

In the United States, approximately two million people each year enter postsecondary education for the first time. Eight years later, one-third of those who started have not earned any formal credential and are no longer enrolled.1 While it is true that more people have been going to college than ever before, the college completion rate hasn’t changed much. Because of this, we expect the number of people who start—but don’t finish—college to grow as well.

https://nscresearchcenter.org/wp-content/uploads/SCND_Report_2019.pdf

BY LAURA ASCIONE, eCampus News

A survey of more than 30,000 military veterans shows that they value non-degree credentials–here are 4 ways to better recognize new credential pathways.  Veterans without degrees are much more likely to hold non-degree credentials than their non-veteran peers, according to a survey.  Those non-degree credentials provide meaningful financial returns: veterans with certificates or certifications earn an average of $10,000 more per year than veterans with no postsecondary credentials.

https://www.ecampusnews.com/2019/10/29/veterans-say-non-degree-credentials-pay-off/

Dian Schaffhauser, Campus Technology

At Hawaii’s Kapi’olani Community College on the island of Oahu, a growing demand for online courses sparked a need for more faculty training, to help instructors create or convert their courses for online delivery. So when Instructional Designer Helen Torigoe was asked to “do something about training the online faculty,” she looked for a way to scale her experiences at a previous campus working individually with online instructors. When online instructors struggled through building their courses, she recalled, what really helped them was when they could see the course from the perspective of a student.

https://campustechnology.com/articles/2019/10/30/improving-online-teaching-through-training-and-support.aspx