Educational Technology

BY SEAN MCCRACKEN, Erie Times-News

More and more, universities and colleges are making their programs available online, and higher education in northwestern Pennsylvania is no exception. A recent Pew Internet and Elon University survey showed a majority of Internet researchers, experts and users agreed that online education will be more prevalent in 2020 than it is today. That could mean more video conferencing to get faraway experts into largely traditional classrooms. But it will also likely mean much of the work that was done in the classic college class will move online. That work is already under way at Edinboro University of Pennsylvania, Gannon University, Mercyhurst University and Penn State Behrend, all of which offer online programs and classes and are planning to offer more in the near future.

http://www.goerie.com/article/20120802/NEWS02/308029937/Online-programs-growing-in-Erie’s-universities

Parneet Gosal, Seedwalker/Business Insider

First and most obviously, a 100% of universities in the U.S. are using some form of social media to encourage school spirit, entice potential students, and share learnings materials, with the universities below emerging as the winners. Next, universities are increasingly testing distance learning and participating in e-learning programs. What’s behind their growth? On-demand access to learning for passion learners i.e. ordinary people like you and me who are interested in learning more about a particular topic out of sheer curiosity. No one is looking over our shoulder, we can learn at our own speed.

http://www.businessinsider.com/6-predictions-on-the-future-of-higher-education-2012-8

by Michael B. Horn and Heather Staker,  THE Journal

When online learning was in its infancy, most states were on relatively equal playing fields in terms of allowing for blended learning, meaning education programs that combine online learning with learning in brick-and-mortar schools. No state expressly forbade blended learning, and that left space for schools and students to begin experimenting. But as online learning has matured, a wider variance is emerging among policy environments. Some states are downright prohibitive of the main policies that are optimal for the development of blended learning, others have proactively carved out friendly policies, and most are somewhere in the middle.

http://thejournal.com/articles/2012/08/02/the-good-bad-and-ugly-of-blended-learning-policies.aspx

By Steve Kolowich, Inside Higher Ed

Online education not only gave nontraditional students a chance to enroll in collegiate programs from afar; it has also given universities that historically have not enjoyed the prestige of the Ivies a chance to build a reputation on fresh territory and build reliable revenue streams. But, now that higher education’s traditional heavyweights are creating online courses and offering them for free to anyone who wants to register, those universities that have made names for themselves in the market for “conventional” online programs are trying to sort out how these high-profile “MOOCs” (i.e., Massive Open Online Courses) could affect their own positions in an online market where many have staked their futures.

http://www.insidehighered.com/news/2012/08/02/conventional-online-universities-consider-strategic-response-moocs

by Todd Bishop, GeekWire

Microsoft employee Kevin Wang is a rare person in the computer science industry. He graduated from UC Berkeley with a degree in electrical engineering and computer science, then studied education at Harvard and became a teacher in the Bay Area, building and teaching a computer science curriculum for grades 7 through 12. In 2009, that background led him to found TEALS, which stands for Technology Education And Literacy in Schools. The unique program turns computer science vets into part-time volunteer teachers, working with existing faculty to teach CS in high schools — many of which otherwise wouldn’t be teaching the subject, at least not in a meaningful way. Kevin Wang was a computer science teacher at Woodside Priory School in the Bay Area before he joined Microsoft. “There’s just a huge black hole in computer science,” says Wang, a 32-year-old resident of Seattle’s Ballard neighborhood, describing the issue as critical to the country’s long-term competitiveness.

http://www.geekwire.com/2012/kevin-wang/

By Ben Steelman, Star-News

For adults who want to teach themselves a foreign language, there’s Rosetta Stone, Pimsleur and all the other self-help programs on the market. For kids, there’s Muzzy. Muzzy is a large, green, hairy but cuddly being from another planet. Muzzy is also a language-learning program, developed by the BBC, that’s supposed to mimic how children naturally pick up language. Muzzy software, CDs and DVDs sell for between $89 and $199 on commercial websites. Now, however, youngsters and their parents in the Wilmington area can use Muzzy for free online. All they need is a New Han­over County library card.

http://www.starnewsonline.com/article/20120728/COLUMNIST/120729688?Title=Bookmarks-8211-Kids-get-help-with-foreign-language

BY DAVID MARKUS, edutopia

When email and online, real-time chat for consumers came along in the 1970s, the brave new path to the virtual classroom was plain to see. Today, 45 of 50 states plus the District of Columbia have a state virtual school or online learning initiative, full-time online schools, or both. Fifty-seven percent of public secondary schools now provide access to online learning for students. And the impact on the learning process — while still a focus of research for K-12 students — is increasingly being seen as positive. A U.S. Department of Education analysis of more than 40 studies, including five focused on K-12 pupils, found that “students who took all or part of their classes online performed better, on average, than those taking the same course through traditional face-to-face instruction.” Another study, by the National Survey of Student Engagement, reported that the online-learning experience yielded deeper use of “higher-order thinking, integrative learning, and reflective learning.”

http://www.edutopia.org/stw-online-learning-new-breakthroughs

by next gen skills

The Lords Committee report on STEM skills in higher education was published this week, with worrying findings on the teaching of Mathematics and Computer Science. Policy makers should seize on these statistics and articulate and clearer vision and more fundamental vision for technology and hi-tech skills. Without a doubt STEM postgraduates play an important role in driving economic growth by innovation, research and entrepreneurship. It is difficult to see how the UK will drive economic growth through education and hi-tech industries without more graduates. The Committee confirmed that many students starting STEM degrees, even those with A-level maths qualifications, lack the maths required to undertake studies in subjects such as engineering and physics and are having to take remedial courses. The lack of key skills extends from too few young people studying maths beyond GCSE to too few students taking postgraduate degrees in science, technology, engineering, computer science and maths subjects.

http://www.nextgenskills.com/lords-university-stem-findings-underline-computer-science-and-maths-challenge/

By Jinny Gudmundsen, Detroit Free Press

“Summer slide” is a term used to describe how some kids forget what they learned in school over the summer vacation break. For families looking to add a little learning back into their kids lives before they head back to school, here are two free websites that can help.

PowerMyLearning – to some of the best free educational games, activities, simulations and videos on the web for kids. Kids can access more than 1,000 digital materials presented to them by age and/or subject matter.

Wonderopolis – Offering a “Wonder of the Day@,” this site offers something new each day for kids and families to think about, view and imagine. One day, the “wonder” will be about the Milky Way, showing time-lapse photography of it in the night sky. On another day, the “wonder” will be about how to make Dream Catchers.

http://www.freep.com/article/20120726/NEWS09/120726046/Websites-help-ease-kids-back-into-school-mode

by Kelli Easterlin, Richmond County Daily Journal

For four weeks out of the summer, Richmond County Transitional School opens its doors to any kids (middle school through high school) who are interested in trying computer programming and game design. The workshop is free, and kids come to as many sessions during the four weeks as they want. “That’s how we start to gauge who’s really taking an interest in this,” said Epps. “We have about 10 kids here right now, but we’ve had as many as 24. The ones who really get into just keep coming back, and we have to push them out the door when it’s time to go at 1 p.m.”

http://www.yourdailyjournal.com/view/full_story/19591602/article-Students-embrace-technology–design-their-own-games

by Christopher Steiner, Technology Review

It’s widely accepted that creativity can’t be copied by machines. Reinforcing these assumptions are hundreds of books and studies that have attempted to explain creativity as the product of mysterious processes within the right side of the human brain. Creativity, the thinking has been, proves just how different people are from CPUs. But now we’re learning that for some creative work, that simply isn’t true.

http://www.technologyreview.com/news/428437/can-creativity-be-automated/

by: Bianca Da Silva, College Classes

Salman Khan is known for allowing students the opportunity to enroll for online courses which tackle subject matter ranging from mathematics to art, but he is now going to take his offerings a step further by allowing his students to enroll for summer camp. The Khan Academy summer camp will be held in Palo Alto in California, and it will last for about two weeks- just enough time for students to really get their hands dirty.

http://www.collegeclasses.com/khan-academy-offers-summer-camp-offline/

by Tom Simonite, Technology Review

The U.S. Internet’s infrastructure needs to be redesigned to allow the NSA to know instantly when overseas hackers might be attacking public or private infrastructure and computer networks, the agency’s leader, General Keith Alexander, said at the annual Def Con computer hacking conference in Las Vegas. It was a symbolic appearance that he said was motivated by a need to interest the hacker community in helping to make the Internet more secure. Alexander, who is also commander of the U.S. Cyber Command, described the Internet as “at great risk from exploitation, disruption, and destruction.”

http://www.technologyreview.com/news/428644/nsa-boss-wants-more-control-over-the-net/

by Virtual College (UK)

If universities do not invest in online learning, they will lose custom to institutions in other nations. This is according to the Higher Education Academy, which penned an article in the Guardian pointing out that there is a huge amount of digital information available presently. It argued there is “too much information and not enough knowledge” currently and suggested that academic centres have a role to play in helping their students understand this modern world. People increasingly have to find their way through the “mass of information available via the internet” that is accessible through Twitter, Facebook, mobile phones and laptops until it becomes a “meaningful interaction”, it continued.

http://www.virtual-college.co.uk/news/Universities-will-have-to-implement-elearning-newsitems-801416016.aspx

By Christie Nicholson, Smart Planet

With more than a trillion dollars in outstanding student debt in the U.S. and ever-increasing tuition costs some feel it’s time for higher education to make significant changes. Apart from the financial burdens, there is pressure for academe to embrace the new domain of online learning, which is rapidly gaining ground. Jeffrey Selingo is the vice president and editorial director at the Chronicle for Higher Education, and is currently working on a book about the future of higher education in the U.S. He feels that academic institutions failed to foresee the economic and technological disruption that swept nearly every other industry between 1999 and 2009. SmartPlanet spoke with Selingo about what happened in the last decade, what may be required in the coming decades.

http://www.smartplanet.com/blog/thinking-tech/q-a-why-higher-education-is-getting-left-behind/12493

by TFPL

In a recent survey TFPL conducted we found over 65% of respondents thought flexible time for learning was very important, in addition over 52% of those respondents felt that a set time and date for learning were the least important to them. This, I believe highlights the point that e-learning is an important consideration for the information and knowledge professional when looking at different methods to learn. We have taken this forward to develop an e learning offering to complement the instructor led training we provide enabling us to provide a blended learning service.

http://blog.tfpl.com/tfpl/2012/07/in-a-recent-survey-tfpl-conducted-we-found-over-65-of-respondents-thought-flexible-time-for-learning-was-very-important-in.html

by Allen Partridge, Adobe Captivate blog

The core of this widespread adoption of online learning resources the panel suggested can in fact be found in the emphasis on ‘learning’ rather than ‘teaching.’ Of course this is hardly a new idea, and hardly something of which mainstream brick-and-mortar educators are unaware. Cognitive theories of education that anchor approaches like Constructivism have been suggested as preferable approaches for many decades. Unfortunately traditional educational institutions, as well as certification bodies and most notably political administrations have long favored didactic instruction (basically drill and kill, lecture-centric approaches to education) because the results of these methods are far simpler to track and report.

http://blogs.adobe.com/captivate/2012/07/is-brick-mortar-education-going-to-be-left-in-the-dust-by-online-learning-flipped-classrooms.html

by Maria Rainier, Anthony’s Song

We all know that learning doesn’t stop once our traditional schooling ends. If that were the case, anyone in retirement now would have stopped learning anything new over thirty years ago. And learning certainly doesn’t stop once your time in the working world has ended, either. So, what do you do when your daily habits have changed, but your mind is still craving engagement? One of the best ways to cure your intellectual cravings is to take an online course in a subject you love. Many retirees may see going back to school as an unnecessary time-constraint, but there are plenty of reasons taking an online course or two can meet your schedule and intellectual interests perfectly. Here are a few of the top reasons every recent retiree should consider trying an online course.

http://anthonyssong.blogspot.com/2012/07/top-3-reasons-to-take-online-course.html

by Kurzwilai

Traditional American universities are suddenly running scared of YouTube, Xconomy reports, along with Vimeo, 5min, iTunes U, TED and the Internet Archive. Without YouTube, Sal Khan and Khan Academy could never have reached his 4 million unique viewers a month with their 3,200 videos, viewed 170 million times. Internet video sharing technology means that talented people from outside the education establishment can make and publish free educational videos that are sometimes just as compelling as — or more than —- what’s on offer inside university classrooms.

http://www.kurzweilai.net/can-anyone-catch-khan-academy-the-fate-of-the-u-in-the-youtube-era

By Charlie Osborne, iGeneration

UC Berkeley announced today that it has joined the online edX program and will be offering courses in the fall. Founded by the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) and Harvard University, the edX program was launched in May as a not-for-profit interactive study platform. The brainchild of the former Director of MIT’s Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Laboratory, Anant Agarwal, edX serves to offer free courses to learners around the world. Originally, specific MIT and Harvard courses were on offer. Now, however, the University of California, Berkeley has been added to the platform, making the academic institution the third “X” university to participate. UC Berkeley will offer two courses on edX this fall.

http://www.zdnet.com/uc-berkeley-latest-to-join-edx-program-7000001460/

by QR Code Press

Educators have been working to make leaning more interactive as technology begins to play a larger role in so many lives. Two Stanford University professors have taken the concept of interactive education seriously, founding a company called Coursera. The new company aims to revolutionize education by providing students with more interactive options online through the use of new technologies. Through the company, the two professors will work to bring some of the best courses from the world’s most prestigious universities to students around the world.

http://www.qrcodepress.com/coursera-aims-to-make-learning-interactive/8510795/