Techno-News Blog

Christopher Brooks, Susan Grajek and Leah Lang, EDUCAUSE Review
In the past decade, institutions have recognized the importance of advising, early alerts, degree planning, and other services to help students attain their academic goals affordably and efficiently. A wide range of new applications and technologies to support student success are now available and may prove invaluable to help students adapt to fully remote learning.  EDUCAUSE data from 2019 reveal that many, but far from all, institutions, students, faculty, and staff are ready and able to use these technologies during the pandemic.

https://er.educause.edu/blogs/2020/4/institutional-readiness-to-adopt-fully-online-learning

Eileen O’Grady, Boston Globe

How do you teach jazz, violin, and ceramics over Zoom?  In his first two online lectures, Liang noted that some of history’s greatest artists produced their best work during times of turmoil, like famine and war, while others thrived artistically in times of isolation. “They are on the backs of giants, other artists who have gone through the same situations and used tremendous artwork to respond to the challenge of the time.”

https://www.bostonglobe.com/2020/04/08/nation/during-coronavirus-crisis-arts-programs-face-challenge-online-learning/

Elizabeth Redden, Inside Higher Ed

Colleges announce shifts to their summer sessions and consider tuition discounts or fee waivers in some cases.  A flurry of colleges has made the formal, if inevitable, announcements in the last 10 days that summer sessions — or at least the first scheduled sessions for those that have multiple summer start dates — will be online-only due to the COVID-19 pandemic. For colleges that already had extensive online summer course offerings, the transition may be relatively smooth, but those that didn’t may face questions about quality and tuition pricing from skeptical students.

https://www.insidehighered.com/news/2020/04/10/colleges-move-summer-classes-online-some-consider-tuition-reductions-technology-fee

Meredith Kolodner, Hechinger Report

For many students, the switch from the classroom to studying at home is mostly a disorienting inconvenience. They miss their friends, their freedom and learning from a human being instead of a screen, but their chances of graduating are unlikely to change.For low-income students, though, the situation can be dire. Earning a degree is challenging in the best of circumstances — graduation rates for low-income students have remained stubbornly low for decades.

https://hechingerreport.org/how-do-you-manage-college-online-quarantined-with-eight-people/

Natalie Schwartz, Education Dive

How state and federal governments respond to the coronavirus pandemic could make it harder for U.S. universities to recover from the economic fallout of the crisis, according to new research from Moody’s Investors Service.  If the U.S. does not quickly stem the outbreak, international students will likely be wary of coming here for their education, the analysts write. The nation’s public universities are also at a higher risk of declining government support than are foreign institutions.  The report is yet another dire prediction that the pandemic will cause the U.S. higher education sector to struggle in the 2021 fiscal year and beyond.

https://www.educationdive.com/news/moodys-higher-eds-recovery-from-coronavirus-impact-partly-depends-on-gov/575749/

Lilah Burke, Inside Higher Ed

A new survey suggests more than 60 percent of Americans have lost income amid the pandemic and recession. Those seeking more education are looking online.  These results are the second weekly batch in a multiweek longitudinal study. The share of respondents who have lost income is up 15 percentage points from the previous week’s results. Strada’s data suggest that degrees and credentials are not insulating Americans from the economic effects of the pandemic. Two-thirds of associate or vocational degree holders and 63 percent of bachelor’s degree holders reported lost income, compared to only 54 percent of participants with some college experience but no degree.

https://www.insidehighered.com/news/2020/04/09/americans-are-losing-income-and-preferring-online-education

TERESA VALERIO PARROT and ERIN HENNESSY, Hechinger Report

The fallout from coronavirus-driven closings is going to underscore how shortsighted and harmful this attitude is, and it’s going to force presidents’ hands with campus constituencies. Closures are going to be even more shocking because Covid-19 has the potential to wipe out any semblance of a runway or timeline that institutions assume they have before presidents and boards are compelled, finally, to make these critical decisions.

https://hechingerreport.org/opinion-its-time-for-some-frank-talk-about-abrupt-college-closures/

Jeremy Bauer-Wolf
Almost three quarters of college and university presidents believe staff layoffs will be necessary as a result of the coronavirus pandemic, according to a new report from research firm ABC Insights. The survey, which is based on responses from 142 top leaders, shows most intend to “hunker down” and wait for the virus to pass. But more than half predict they will need to cut budgets across the board. Already, colleges’ finances have suffered as many institutions refund student fees and invest in new infrastructure for online learning1

https://www.educationdive.com/news/college-presidents-anticipate-cost-cutting-layoffs-from-coronavirus-surve/575647/

By Melissa McGowan, Chico State

As the University announced all classes would move to a virtual environment for the rest of the semester, RCE Director Jeff Layne reached out to ask for their help. Within 24 hours, the students produced a series of videos to support other Wildcats with the transition. “I would love to help out my fellow peers! I’ve been reading all of the updates from Chico State and wishing that I could do something,” said senior Ariana Valdivia, who is working toward her liberal studies degree online. “I consider myself an expert of online learning because I’ve been doing schooling online since 10th grade!”

https://today.csuchico.edu/online-learning-tips/

BY LARENDA MIELKE, etal; eCampus News
Institutions will need to make careful decisions in order to maintain operations in the middle of the coronavirus pandemic.  As the coronavirus outbreak intensifies, higher education institutions are making difficult decisions about closing campuses and moving courses online. Institutions need to think not only about the current term, but also about potential impacts on strategy and finances into the summer and fall terms.

https://www.ecampusnews.com/2020/04/07/coronavirus-on-campus-strategic/

Kirby Goodman and Greta Ferdinand, Colgate University Maroon-News

“Without altering our rigorous academic standards, the faculty are working to minimize any disadvantages for students in this online environment,” Wells said. “There’s not a lot that Colgate can do to shape home environments, of course, which is one of the reasons that Colgate granted every request from every student who wished to remain on campus. Colgate also made the decision to refund room and board charges for remote-learning students on financial aid for whom these charges were wholly or partially covered by grant aid; this refundable credit may help students who need to augment internet connectivity at home,” Wells said.

https://thecolgatemaroonnews.com/23380/news/admin-and-faculty-address-online-learning-obstacles/

NATHAN ALLEN, Poets and Quants
At the time the Mason School first announced the beginning of its online MBA program in April of 2015, both USC’s Marshall School of Business and American University’s Kogod School of Business announced online MBA programs in the same month. Suzadail was hired by the Mason School from Syracuse University where she had spent nearly 14 years, first as a program coordinator and eventually the Associate Director of Graduate Distance Learning. Since the launch of the online MBA in 2015, Mason has also launched an online Masters in Business Analytics and is set to launch a brand new online Masters in Marketing this fall.

https://poetsandquants.com/2020/04/06/one-b-schools-path-from-scratch-to-online-learning/?pq-category=business-school-news

Susan Grajek, EDUCAUSE Review

Institutions reported that bandwidth and/or Wi-Fi access is presenting students with the most difficulty, followed by acquiring the devices necessary to support remote learning.2 Most institutions are responding with equipment loans and access to free or very-low-cost services. Institutions report somewhat more students are having difficulty accessing institutional services (with the exception of advising services) than they are transitioning to fully remote learning. Most institutions have developed safety nets for students who need food, housing, and/or financial help. The particular types of support options available to students vary by institutional type.

https://er.educause.edu/blogs/2020/4/educause-covid-19-quickpoll-results-help-for-students

Charles Hodges, etal; EDUCAUSE Review

Well-planned online learning experiences are meaningfully different from courses offered online in response to a crisis or disaster. Colleges and universities working to maintain instruction during the COVID-19 pandemic should understand those differences when evaluating this emergency remote teaching.

https://er.educause.edu/articles/2020/3/the-difference-between-emergency-remote-teaching-and-online-learning

Tanya Basu and Karen Hao, MIT Technology Review

The coronavirus pandemic has turned back the clock to a kinder time on the web, before the novelty of virtual connection wore off. It’s like turning the clock back to a more earnest time on the web, when the novelty of having a voice or being able to connect with anyone still filled us with a sense of boundless opportunity and optimism. It harkens back to the late 1990s and early 2000s—before social media, before smartphones—when going online was still a valuable use of time to seek community.

https://www.technologyreview.com/s/615442/why-does-it-suddenly-feel-like-1999-on-the-internet/

Colin Wood, EdScoop

The Higher Education Course Recovery Consortium, which includes institutions such as Indiana Wesleyan University and Franklin University in Columbus, Ohio, is offering “deep discounts,” Manzer wrote, for entry into online courses this year. “More than one million seats are available through the end of 2020 in regionally accredited asynchronous online courses with flexible start times and offered in differing lengths, ranging from introductory, general education to highly specialized topics to meet specific major requirements,” Manzer wrote.

https://edscoop.com/need-online-courses-new-university-consortium-has-1-million-openings/

Natalie Schwartz, Education Dive

Four-year universities have long encouraged students coming straight from high school to enroll in their campus-based programs while guiding older learners to their online divisions, creating a divide between the two groups. But Generation Z, whose members were born in 1997 or later, may prove to be the force that can break down those barriers. At Western Governors University, an online institution that targets adult learners for self-paced programs that begin each month, students average 37 years old. Yet Gen Zers are the university’s fastest-growing demographic.

https://www.educationdive.com/news/gen-z-takeover-could-online-colleges-gain-traction-with-young-students/575484/

Business World

Udacity has created and released a free course in collaboration with Upwork, the online talent solution, to promote best practices for remote team management as many companies find themselves working with distributed teams for the first time. A one-hour course, Managing Remote Teams with Upwork will help managers and other team leaders learn the tools and develop the skills and strategies needed to hire, manage, and optimize remote teams.

http://bweducation.businessworld.in/article/Udacity-And-Upwork-Partner-To-Develop-Free-Course-On-Managing-Remote-Teams/06-04-2020-188355/

Elizabeth Williamson, New York Times

Amid those struggles, a Liberty student on Monday filed a class-action lawsuit in a federal court in Virginia, saying that Liberty and Mr. Falwell had “placed students at severe physical risk and refused to refund thousands of dollars in fees owed to them for the Spring 2020 semester,” according to a statement from the law firm filing the suit. The furor in Lynchburg centers on Mr. Falwell’s decision to open the campus to all students and staff at a time when most American universities were closing for fear of spreading the disease. For weeks before that decision, Mr. Falwell had derided other universities’ coronavirus responses as overreactions driven by a desire to harm President Trump.

https://www.nytimes.com/2020/04/16/us/politics/jerry-falwell-liberty-university-coronavirus.html

Valerie Strauss and Peter Kastor, Washington Post

This is not the story of how online education — by now a well-established system — is finally taking over the traditional classroom. Rather, it’s a story of how faculty members and administrators are struggling to adapt their courses to an online medium. The response is both individual (as faculty members adjust their courses and students respond to their new circumstances) and institutional (as universities scramble to provide resources and create new policies). And to understand what is happening at so many universities across America begins by looking at those three phenomena: faculty members who are using online education without actually becoming online educators, students who must suddenly take classes online, and universities finding a way to shut down most of their daily campus activities without destroying all that they do.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/education/2020/04/04/these-washington-university-faculty-had-rejected-online-classes-until-coronavirus-heres-how-they-made-switch/

By EDDIE RIVERA, Pasadena Weekender
While it remains to be seen how long it will last, the current world of communication and education no longer exists within hallowed halls. It lives in your phone, or your laptop or iPad. Everything from the classroom to the lab is down the virtual hallway. As this new world grows, so do related educational opportunities like after-school learning centers.

https://www.pasadenanow.com/weekendr/the-online-learning-world-expands/