Educational Technology

by Andrew Smyser, Center for College Affordability

As online courses become more and more prevalent in the world of higher education, professors and administrators must heighten their awareness of new forms of cheating and attempt to overcome the challenges presented by students in a remote location. Without the familiarity of a classroom setting, even that of a massive lecture hall, there is little to no guarantee that the students enrolled for an online class are actually the ones doing the work or that they are doing the work without inappropriate outside help. While much of the information about cheating in online courses remains anecdotal, it is quite clear that it is becoming quite a large problem. Some of this however, can be avoided if professors rethink the format of the classes they offer online. Some students, of course, will always attempt to cheat the system, but, as it stands now, cheating in online courses is facilitated by a lack of employment of strategy to combat the problem.

http://centerforcollegeaffordability.org/archives/8499

by Diane Hamilton, Online Schools

A proctored exam is one that is overseen by someone to ensure that the student does not cheat. Although I teach many different courses, most of them do not require proctored exams. This is primarily due to the fact that I teach mostly graduate-level and doctoral business courses. I have found that undergraduate courses require more proctoring. Usually small quizzes are not proctored. It is used more for longer exams like mid-terms and finals.

http://www.onlineschools.org/inside-online-schools/how-proctored-exams-work/

By CourtesyThursday, Arbiter Online

Boise State University faculty and students are returning to classrooms and campus spaces this fall that make the most of available technology, and integrate it into teaching, learning and research. Boise State is creating tech-enabled learning spaces to deploy unique content delivery methods, support student, faculty and staff digital fluency, make additional eContent available, expand research capabilities, develop new support for online programming and to improve business processes.  “Faculty are not bound in traditional ways,” said Max Davis-Johnson, associate vice president in the Office of Information Technology (OIT) and the university’s chief information officer. “The technological changes enable learning and growth in a variety of physical and virtual spaces and at a variety of times. Learning isn’t about the technology, but the technology is empowering Boise State’s signature education.”

http://arbiteronline.com/2012/09/20/we-speak-digital-boise-state-is-fluent-in-classroom-technology/

by Linda Mumma, KFSN

A group of Fresno County schools are among the first in the nation to roll out a new tool in the fight against bullying. A smartphone app that allows students to anonymously report an incident to school staff. See it, text it, send it. That’s the message behind a new smartphone app designed by the Silicon Valley company Resiligence. Starting this month, 36 Fresno County campuses in eight school districts will launch TipNow, a unique mobile-based reporting system that allows parents, students and staff to send information anonymously to put bullying, theft, drug use and other suspicious behaviors to an end.

http://abclocal.go.com/kfsn/story?section=news/education&id=8804202

by Mind/Shift

Despite having to contend with deep budget cuts, schools are able to maintain current levels of technology growth, a surprising find from a recent survey by the Software & Information Industry Association. In its annual Vision K-20 Survey, which included 1,600 responders and comparisons over three years of data, SIIA found that education institutions are maintaining their level of investments in each of the five measures of progress: Enterprise Support, 21st Century Tools, Anytime/Anywhere Access, Differentiated Learning, and Assessment Tools. Although participants say current technology use lags behind their ideal level, schools are continuing to implement technology despite budget cuts. Some likely reasons: they’re using existing technology; they’re turning to free or inexpensive digital content and resources; they’re redirecting funds from things like print materials for digital resources.

http://blogs.kqed.org/mindshift/2012/09/despite-budget-cuts-schools-prioritize-technology/

By Carl Hooker, CIO Advisor

School has started for most of us around the country. Alarm clocks are set, bleary-eyed kids stumble their way to class, and iPads are being handed out. Just a typical day here at Eanes and at many districts across the country. As the amount of 1:1 schools and districts continue to grow with many different devices, but specifically the Apple iPad, I thought it might be good to reflect and share the laundry list of items we’ve prepared in getting ready for our rollouts (all high school students, 8th graders, and 2 grade levels at the elementary schools are 1:1 this year). I’ve already written about 10 things NOT to do in a 1:1 here (the list is growing in year 2), but what about things we SHOULD do?I’ve broken down the check list into three main categories: administrative, instructional, and technical. There are parts of each that intermingle, but needed some general categories to go off and these are the main three components.

http://www.schoolcio.com/Default.aspx?tabid=136&EntryId=4879

By Jennifer Howard, Chronicle of Higher Ed

Colleges aren’t the only enterprises interested in the possibilities of free, online courses. Publishers have begun to investigate whether so-called MOOC’s, or massive open online courses, can help them reach new readers and sell more books. For the moment, providers of the classes encourage professors not to require students to buy texts, in order to keep access as open as possible. So publishers can’t count on MOOC’s to generate a course-adoption sales. It’s the year of the mega-class—and The Chronicle is making sense of all the buzz. But online courses do have recommended-reading lists, and enrollments in the tens of thousands. If even a small percentage of those online students buy books, the sales could add up to a nice boost for a textbook.

http://chronicle.com/article/Can-MOOCs-Help-Sell/134446/

By LOIS LEE, Daily Pennsylvanian

With the increasing digitization of textbooks and learning platforms, some are questioning the effectiveness of these tools — especially when it comes to mandates for the use of access codes in classrooms. Access codes — which are one-time, individual codes that are necessary to use online course materials — are becoming a more common feature among classes at Penn. For many courses, such as writing seminars and calculus courses, the codes are already bundled inside the textbooks sold at campus bookstores. Unlike textbooks and other traditional means of learning, these codes cannot be borrowed from the library, bought used or shared between friends.

http://www.thedp.com/article/2012/09/students-question-effectiveness-of-access-codes

by Howard Rheingold, YouTube

In this video, virtual community pioneer Howard Rheingold interviews educator Jonathan Shaw about his groundbreaking experiments in online, collaborative learning in the arts. The Coventry MOOCs use transmedia narrative to teach transmedia narrative: teachers and students, physically co-present students and online participants from six continents, show, tell, remix, mashup, and discuss. I talked with Jonathan Shaw about what they have done to radically expand the scope and reach of photography education — and how they did it.”

http://youtu.be/TqQ6U8vjHLg

by Rip Empson, TechCrunch

The Domino Effect really seems to be kicking in, and it’s remarkable when you consider how quickly this has happened and how things looked six, or even three, months ago. Coursera emerged somewhat in the shadow of Udacity and EdX, but it’s reach has exponentially compared to its predecessors. MOOCs in and of themselves are still very new and very much experiments, which makes watching them develop both fun — and terrifying. Either way, it’s growth like this that have led many to conclude that MOOCs are not only here to stay, but they represent the future of education. As much as I want to picture this country’s top-tier institutions lining up for Coursera just as the cars do in the final scene of Field Of Dreams, I’m not sure we’re quite there yet. But there’s no doubt that MOOCs do indeed represent a new educational model.

http://techcrunch.com/2012/09/19/your-online-ivy-coursera-now-hosts-200-courses-from-33-schools-and-reaches-1-3m-students/

by Virtual School Meanderings

For me, the biggest black hole that we have in K-12 online learning – at least in relation to the level of activity that we see – is when it comes to full-time K-12 online learning. Regardless if we are talking about for-profit corporate cyber charter schooling or district-based programs specifically designed to address the needs of at-risk students or re-capture drop-out students. The vast majority of K-12 online learning research – at least what has gone through the peer-review process and been published in academic outlets – has focused on supplemental K-12 online learning. The vast majority of what we know about full-time K-12 online learning has been published or funded by corporations providing full-time K-12 online learning – and that is a problem given that for the last three to four years this is where the greatest growth within the field of K-12 online learning has occurred.

http://virtualschooling.wordpress.com/2012/09/19/virtual-school-mooc-research-into-k-12-online-learning-blogging-activity-2/

By Mary Grush, Campus Technology

Increasingly, institutions are seeing their students not only as consumers but also as creators of digital media–requiring a greater fluency in the use of new media tools. Ball State University (IN) has been on this track for years, under the leadership of Phillip Repp, vice president of IT. In recorded interviews, CT asked Repp and other campus leaders how to move students to “media fluency.”

http://campustechnology.com/articles/2012/09/11/from-digital-literacy-to-media-fluency.aspx

by Dian Schaffhauser, Campus Technology

To students who exist in a world of free content, Wikipedia, and peer-to-peer file sharing, the concept of academic integrity may seem a quaint notion: Isn’t everything ultimately sourced from something else? So, to emphasize its importance, one type of test management technology has surfaced in law schools all over the country from ExamSoft that could readily be used in other academic disciplines as well to maintain student honesty in the testing process. Use of the platform is also helping the students exposed to it to prepare for the high-stakes testing to come during their careers.

http://campustechnology.com/Articles/2012/09/19/Software-Code-of-Honor.aspx?=CTSEC&p=1

By Toni Fuhrman, Campus Technology

Every school that has developed a campus app knows the feeling: Creating native apps for a range of different operating systems–whether iOS, Android, or something else–can be an expensive, time-consuming pain. That’s what makes the work of five seniors in the College of Engineering at Drexel University (PA) so remarkable. The students have developed a conference-management app that works seamlessly across different mobile platforms. The potential of mobile devices as a collaborative tool at conferences and in classrooms is huge. But the diversity of device platforms makes this collaboration difficult–and sometimes impossible.

http://campustechnology.com/articles/2012/09/13/students-create-cross-platform-conference-app-via-the-web.aspx

By Trent Batson, Campus Technology

A current scan of the ePortfolio marketplace. In the last three months, I talked with a large majority of global ePortfolio industry leaders. I was surprised at how much the industry had changed and how large the scale of implementation is compared to a year ago.

http://campustechnology.com/articles/2012/09/19/12-important-trends-in-the-eportfolio-industry.aspx

by Stephen Downes, MOOC.ca

 If you are looking for open online courses, please consult one of the sources below. If you are offering a MOOC (that is not from one of the sources listed) please send email to stephen@downes.ca and I will included it in the MOOC Course List.

http://www.mooc.ca/courses.htm

by the Connected Educator

As part of Connected Educator Month, we are sponsoring all sorts of events, activities, and free content to show you the how and the why of being a connected educator. One of the projects we’d like to see grow and grow is our brand new Connected Learning Manifesto.

This manifesto is a collaborative statement on connected learning – what is it? What do we believe about it? Who is a connected learner? Why is it important?

http://plpnetwork.com/2012/07/23/connected-learning-manifesto/

By Tanya Roscorla, Center for Digital Education

Students at Montclair State University don’t have to wait in nearly as many lines for computers in the New Jersey university’s five computer labs. An open-source tool developed by Montclair State University could help universities manage their computer labs more efficiently. The New Jersey university released its Computer Lab Availability tool as open source on Thursday, Sept. 13, so that other universities could benefit from it. On the public-facing site, the tool shows students how many computers in five labs are available, occupied or undergoing maintenance. On the back end, staff can set a computer into maintenance mode and pull usage reports.

http://www.centerdigitaled.com/news/How-to-Cope-with-Busy-Computer-Labs.html

by Tanya Roscorla, Center for Digital Education

At the course level, predictive analytics could help match students with appropriate programs, even down to the professors they should have. That’s what the institutions in the Regents Online Campus Collaborative are piloting this year with a predictive analytics tool from Desire2Learn. Predictive analytics also might test universities’ tolerance for risk-taking. Eventually, universities will have to ask themselves, “What are we willing to invest in being wrong about?” said John Fritz, assistant vice president of instructional technology and new media at the University of Maryland Baltimore County. “We’re going to be getting to the stage sooner rather than later where it doesn’t matter what you have access to or even what you think you’re predicting,” Fritz said. “What really matters is, ‘What are you willing to act on?'” Having common infrastructure also will be important, Fritz said. Universities have been creating their own custom analytics tools, including the University of Maryland, Baltimore County, which has now transitioned to Blackboard Analytics for Learn.

http://www.centerdigitaled.com/news/The-Future-of-Predictive-Analytics-Higher-Ed.html

by the American Council on Education

Among the projected cuts:

• While the Pell Grant is protected from the cuts during fiscal year 2013, most other federal financial aid programs, including the Supplemental Educational Opportunity Grant and Federal Work-Study, would be cut by 7.6 percent across the board.
• Funding for the National Science Foundation, the National Institutes of Health, and the National Endowment for the Humanities would sustain a 7.6 percent across-the-board cut to mandatory spending and 8.2 percent to discretionary spending.
• Federal college access programs, such as TRIO and GEAR UP, would also see an 8.2 percent cut.
• The 1 percent origination fee for unsubsidized Stafford student loans would be raised by 7.6 percent, to about 1.1 percent of a total loan.

http://www.acenet.edu/AM/Template.cfm?Section=HENA&CONTENTID=46890&TEMPLATE=/CM/ContentDisplay.cfm

by Nicholas Negroponte, Technology Review

I believe that we get into trouble when knowing becomes a surrogate for learning. We know that a vast recall of facts about something is in no way a measure of understanding them. At best, it is necessary but not sufficient. And yet we subject our kids to memorizing. We seem to believe that rote learning is akin to physical exercise, good for their minds. And, quite conveniently, we can test whether the facts stuck, like spaghetti to a wall. In some cases knowledge is so drilled in that you know and hate a subject at the same time. The closest I have ever come to thinking about thinking is writing computer programs. This involves teasing apart a process into constituent parts, step-by-step functions, and conditional statements. What is so important about computer programs is that they (almost) never work the first time. Since they do something (versus nothing), just not what you wanted, you can look at the (mis)behavior to debug and change your code. This iterative process, so common in computer programming, is similar to learning.

http://www.technologyreview.com/view/429206/emtech-preview-another-way-to-think-about/