Educational Technology

by Mike Lenox, Forbes

I predict that we will see a bifurcation in the higher education market. A cost leader (or leaders) will emerge catering to the mass market. They will leverage technology to provide an effective and efficient education. They will cater to the population who may not have had access to higher education thirty years ago. The emergence of the cost leader position will be bad news for the many for-profit online universities that have arisen in recent years and for numerous non-selective residential universities. This is where the shakeout will be most disruptive. The entry of high reputation universities into the MOOC space where they (currently) provide courses for free could be a game changer for this tier of players if someone figures out accreditation and degree granting. This disruption will play out over years, if not decades, as struggling colleges fight to stay alive and student attitudes towards online education evolve.

http://www.forbes.com/sites/darden/2013/03/29/the-imminent-shakeout-disruptive-innovation-and-higher-education/

by Stanford University

Online technology is not just for distance learners. It can be used to enhance education for on-campus students, too, because providing lecture material by video in advance can free up classroom time for more interactive discussion. “When I heard about online education, my first reaction was to say, wait a minute, that’s so impersonal,” said Maya Adam, a lecturer in human biology. “The magic for me is the performance of a great lecture and that inspiration you get from a really great teacher. What was surprising to me was the fact that I had more of that. I had the ability to engage the students more.” Charles Prober, senior associate dean in the Stanford School of Medicine, said this realization was incorporated into the very name of his school’s online effort.

http://news.stanford.edu/news/2013/march/online-education-faculty-032913.html

by Vivek Wadhwa, Washington Post

We are headed back to the one-to-one model with instruction geared towards the individual rather than the group. Adaptive learning platforms, such as the one Knewton is developing, start by understanding a student’s strengths and weaknesses and then suggest an appropriate learning path. These keep improving their recommendation engines by keeping track of what videos students with different backgrounds and strengths watch and how they perform on tests. There are thousands of apps that teach subjects such as history, geography, music, mathematics, and science. Adaptive technologies stand to make these standalone apps more effective and personalized. One app that I tested on the Aakash tablet is by a company with offices in the U.S. and India called Mango Learning. It teaches students math through games, which grow more challenging at each level.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/national/on-innovations/in-education-innovation-moocs-are-only-the-beginning/2013/03/29/88d77ae6-97ef-11e2-814b-063623d80a60_story.html

by Cyrus Farivar, ars technica

Goodreads, the literary social networking site, has just been acquired by Amazon for an undisclosed price. Users of the site share what they’re reading and discuss books with other users. In an announcement on Thursday afternoon on the Goodreads website, the small San Francisco startup’s founders gushed about the giant book retailer. “We truly could not think of a more perfect partner for Goodreads as we both share a love of books and an appreciation for the authors who write them,” wrote the company’s co-founder, Otis Chandler. “We also both love to invent products and services that touch millions of people.

http://arstechnica.com/business/2013/03/in-further-effort-to-conquer-the-literary-world-amazon-buys-goodreads/

By ROY FURCHGOTT, NY Times

Sometimes even a four-inch smartphone screen may not seem enough. If so, would 200 inches do? The iPower Sight can — according to the manufacturer, iPowerUp — take what is on your phone, tablet or computer screen and enlarge it, projecting an image up to 200 diagonal inches from a device that is itself pocket-size. Both measures may be a shade optimistic. No doubt the projector is small, at about 4 by 4 by ¾ of an inch and just over three ounces, but you would still need a pretty big pocket. And while it can project a focused image at up to 200 inches, you wouldn’t want to do that unless you had a completely darkened room and a nicely reflective projection screen. It was easy enough to watch an image enlarged to around 50 inches on a white wall on an overcast day. Considering the size of the projector, the quality was quite good.

http://gadgetwise.blogs.nytimes.com/2013/03/29/a-big-picture-from-a-small-projector/?partner=rss&emc=rss

by Cengage

“Education extends to wherever we happen to be. Learning’s wrapped all around us.” — Curt Bonk

It’s no secret: education can happen anytime and anywhere a person wants it to happen. Though it’s easy enough to pick up some information by simply reading a website or watching a video, people are embracing more formal settings for online learning in greater and greater numbers. Whether they’re enrolling in a MOOC simply to satisfy their curiosity on a topic, or they’re matriculated in an online degree program at a traditional university, we can see that people around the world recognize the power and opportunity afforded by the synergistic relationship between technology and education.

http://blog.cengage.com/?top_blog=cultivate-an-engaging-online-learning-environment-via-tec-variety

by Harvard Extension Hub

Henry Leitner, senior lecturer on computer science at Harvard University and the associate dean of information technology and chief technology officer for the Division of Continuing Education, talks with Jenny Attiyeh of ThoughtCast about the technological advancements in online education at Harvard. In this video Henry Leitner discusses why online education has become mainstream.

http://www.extension.harvard.edu/hub/spotlight/henry-leitner-future-online-learning-harvard

 by BARRY LANDO, Huffington Post

A few weeks ago, I decided to apply to go back to college — to one of the 20 top liberal arts colleges in America. It turned out to be deceptively simple: No SAT exams, no mammoth tuition fees, no huge student loans, no nail-biting wait to see if I was admitted. I simply signed up and now I’m now taking a course at Wesleyan given by Michael Roth, the president of the University, a brilliant, entertaining lecturer, an expert, among other things, on the Enlightenment and Modernist thought. The current fees for tuition and housing at Wesleyan are about $60,000 a year. I’m taking this course for free. Wesleyan is located in Middletown Connecticut. I’m taking the course in my home office in Paris. Professor Roth is not here on sabbatical. He’s on my computer screen. Whenever I want him.
<a href=”http://www.huffingtonpost.com/barry-lando/massive-open-online-courses_b_2973053.htm

by Keith Devlin, Huffington Post

One feature MOOCs offer, that is phenomenally powerful educationally, is to separate credentialing from the learning process. When the marks a student receives on each assignment or test count towards the final grade on which a credential is awarded, as familiarly happens in K-12, the awarding of course grades can no longer be used as an effective way for a student (and an instructor) to gauge progress. The grade becomes more important than the learning. But in a MOOC, the two can (and should!) be kept separate. Since a student can take a MOOC as many times as she or he wants, with the only cost being time (learning time!), the student can elect which iteration of the course to take for a credential.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/dr-keith-devlin/massive-open-online-courses_b_2946591.html

By Zach Miners, ComputerWorld

The growing use of handheld devices and social media among students is creating a technology tipping point for schools that could completely break down the barriers between teaching platforms within five to 10 years, Bill Gates said Thursday. Tablet computers, smartphones, e-readers, digital textbooks and the accessibility of digital video including YouTube are playing major roles in changing the way students are learning at both the K-12 and higher-education levels, Gates said during a Thursday keynote at the education arm of the South by Southwest conference in Austin, Texas. “Finally there are people looking at whether textbooks should be fully digital,” he said, speaking to an audience of teachers, administrators and representatives of educational technology companies.

http://www.computerworld.com/s/article/9237429/Bill_Gates_Schools_are_at_a_technology_tipping_point_

 by Martha Heller, CIO

A few weeks ago, I posted a blog rich with career advice from leading CIOs. The blog was a hit, so I am at it again. Herewith: round two of career advice from CIOs!  IT is the place where everything comes together, so we see things through a different lens than other executives. From our unique vantage point, we are able to spot business opportunities, trends, and cultural issues that impact the organization, which other executives may not see. So, it is wise to remember, as CIO, that your influence expands way outside your functional area.

http://blogs.cio.com/cio-role/17911/words-wisdom-leading-cios

by K-22 Blueprint

Check out this new map from the One-to-One Institute, showing the locations of 1:1 programs throughout the country.

http://www.k12blueprint.com/content/whos-doing-11-where

by Jeff Dunn, Edudemic

There’s a popular fast-talking video making its way around the web that showcases how Mincraft may very well be “the ultimate education tool.” Whether you agree or not, the video raises some interesting ideas. Basically, the Idea Channel folks (who made the video) posit that Minecraft is such a valuable tool because it’s so customizable. They talk about how video games have long been used in education but how Minecraft offers a new approach by letting the player construct the game. In other words, a teacher could build his or her own video game tailored to the lessons being taught in the classroom. The students could then enter that custom game and explore, learn, and even build upon it themselves.

http://edudemic.com/2013/03/minecraft-in-education-pros-and-cons/

By Mary Grush, Campus Technology

The Yosemite Community College District covers an area of 4,500 square miles, serving six California counties. Given the huge distances involved, it’s no surprise that its two colleges are blazing the trail for better access to education through telepresence and simulation technologies. Modesto Junior College, in the heart of the state’s Central Valley, recently updated its telepresence offerings beginning with its flagship nursing program, which connects MJC to Columbia College classrooms in the Sierra foothills.

http://campustechnology.com/articles/2013/03/27/immersive-health-education-from-a-distance.aspx?=CT21

By Paul McCloskey, GCN

A group of ex-Google employees has started a company that wants to expand the use of big data to spot fraud — a blight that costs taxpayers over $125 billion a year, and affects public-sector agencies involved in payments, collections and benefits — before it occurs. San Francisco-based Sift Science says it has developed an algorithm that uses machine-learning techniques to stay ahead of new fraud tactics as they are introduced into its customers’ networks. “Many anti-fraud technologies follow a set number, maybe 175 to 225 rules, against which to measure user behavior,” Sift Science co-founder Brandon Ballinger told GigaOm. “The problem is fraudsters don’t follow the rules and change all the time.”

http://gcn.com/articles/2013/03/26/sift-science-machine-learning-anti-fraud.aspx

By Danaè Quirk Dorr, Campus Technology

When Associate Professor and Chemical Education Researcher Danaè Quirk Dorr noticed a correlation between student learning styles and achievement in her large organic chemistry course, she decided to flip her classroom and crunch the numbers to see if there was a better way to reach all her students.

http://campustechnology.com/articles/2013/03/27/flipping-to-adapt-to-multiple-learning-styles-at-minnesota-state-university.aspx?=CT21

By Joshua Bolkan, THE Journal

Blended Schools Network (BSN), a non-profit focused on online learning, will launch a massive open online course (MOOC) to help teachers improve their curation of online learning materials and strengthen their professional networks. The five-week course, Today’s Blended Teacher: A MOOC Made for Community and Curation, will feature panel discussions and free course materials.

http://thejournal.com/articles/2013/03/27/blended-schools-network-to-launch-mooc-for-online-teachers.aspx

by Jonathan Haber, Huffington Post

This week, the Degree of Freedom web site took at look at the components that make up a MOOC (Massively Open Online Course) with the goal of determining how they compared to equivalent components in traditional classroom-based college courses.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/jonathan-haber/moocs-and-what-makes-a-cl_b_2938875.html

by Dawn Casey-Rowe, Edudemic

Visit this site to examine ten top teacher led Learnist boards. From “Using Learnist in the High School Classroom” to “Speech and Drama” Learnist sites.

http://edudemic.com/2013/03/top-10-learnist-boards-teachers/

By: B.L. Ochman, Ad Age

I was an early proponent of QR Codes, but now I have to admit that they are history. Invisible ink and augmented-reality apps are replacing the clunky codes. The new technology is superior in that you don’t have to take a picture of the code, which then records your contact information and sends you to a website, video or document, or sends you a text message giving a web address. With the new apps, you just run your smartphone over the content and get the enhanced features immediately. Here’s a sampling of the new technologies that will surely supplant QR Codes, permanently.

http://adage.com/article/digitalnext/qr-codes-dead-toppled-easy-apps/240548/

by Jim Cook, Dothan Eagle

States across the South are doing more to increase K-12 school students’ access to online courses, according to a recent Southern Regional Education Board report. According to the report, nearly all of the 15 SREB states are offering online coursework to students, and for many students, taking courses online has become as commonplace as bringing pencil and pen to school. Here in Alabama, about 26,000 students in grades 9-12 are taking online courses through the state’s ACCESS program. Students have about 75 courses to choose from, which they take through web-based content and e-mail contact with instructors. The program also offers video teleconferencing classes, but only about 6 percent of the students in the program use this service.

http://www.dothaneagle.com/news/education/article_b5bd3822-9621-11e2-959f-001a4bcf6878.html