by Paul Glen and Maria McManus, EDUCAUSE Review
Technical and non-technical people—geeks and non-geeks—often have disproportionately negative experiences working together. They are thus avoiding each other at the moment when they most need to collaborate.
http://www.educause.edu/ero/article/geeks-and-non-geeks-contraxioms-collaboration-higher-education
Share on Facebookby Mark Askren, EDUCAUSE Review
IT professionals in higher education spend much of their time focusing on demand, resources, and constant change. The author suggests that they need to be investing more time in assessing, advancing, and defining their own careers.
http://www.educause.edu/ero/article/cio-defining-career-future
Share on Facebookby Sara Grossman, Chronicle of Higher Ed
Instructure, a company that sells course-management software, announced on Wednesday that it had won $30-million in venture-capital funds, and some observers said the company was gaining ground on Blackboard, which has long dominated the market for learning-management systems, or LMS. The choice of which software a college uses to manage class activity—for both online and in-person courses—has become increasingly competitive in recent years, said Casey Green, director of the Campus Computing Project, which conducts an annual survey of campus-technology leaders. He said that a few years ago Blackboard controlled about 70 percent of the market, but by 2012 it had only around 45 percent.
Share on FacebookBy Kevin Hartnett, Boston.com
The “MOOC revolution” in higher education— the advent of massive online open courses—is causing massive anxiety in American universities, where professors are worried about the consequences of computers replacing campuses as places where people learn. Two hundred years ago, higher education faced a different distance-learning technology, one as cutting-edge as MOOCs, that also augured a revolution in the way we think about knowledge. “A textbook is something anyone can read no matter who they are or where they’re from. It allows education to occur on a global, universal scale,” says Hansun Hsiung, a fourth-year graduate student at Harvard University who studies the rise and spread of textbooks in late-18th-century Europe and Japan. Today it might seem that there’s nothing more boring or conventional than textbooks, but 200 years ago they were a radical idea.
Share on Facebookby ANDY KESSLER, Wall Street Journal
Anyone who cares about America’s shortage of computer-science experts should cheer the recent news out of Georgia Tech. The Atlanta university is making major waves in business and higher education with its May 14 announcement that the college will offer the first online master’s degree in computer science—and that the degree can be had for a quarter of the cost of a typical on-campus degree. Many other universities are experimenting with open online courses, or MOOCs, but Georgia Tech’s move raises the bar significantly by offering full credit in a graduate program. It comes just in time. A shortfall of computer-science graduates is a constant refrain in Silicon Valley, and by 2020 some one million high-tech job openings will remain unfilled, according to the Commerce Department. That’s why Georgia Tech’s online degree, powered by Udacity, is such a game-changer. For the same $7,000 a year that New York City spends per student on school buses, you can now get a master’s from one of the most well-respected programs in the country. Moore’s Law says these fees should drop to $1,000 by 2020—a boon for students and for the economy.
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424127887324659404578504761168566272.html
Share on Facebookby Grace, CostofCollege
The State University of New York’s new agreement to offer massive open online courses (MOOCs) opens the possibility of obtaining a SUNY degree at about one-third discount off full price.SUNY announced Thursday that it signed an agreement to partner with Coursera, a website with 3.7 million users that is a leader in offering what are called “massive open online courses.” Universities worldwide, including private schools in New York like the University of Rochester, upload video lectures and course materials onto the website in an effort to enhance educational access. Exact details are still to be worked out, but students could be granted prior learning assessment credits for MOOC courses taken through a SUNY campus or even elsewhere. These “would essentially act as transfer credits” that would require a fee, but not a tuition charge for each course. Presumably the credit transfer fees would be minimal, well below tuition costs.
http://costofcollege.wordpress.com/2013/06/03/moocs-may-discount-the-price-of-a-suny-degree-by-30/
Share on Facebookby Suzi Parker, TakePart.com
Professor John Covach teaches a MOOC class about the history of rock music at the University of Rochester. Covach, director of the Institute for Popular Music at the university, told TakePart that MOOCs open up higher education to the world. “A lot of people first think that college students would be the most likely students for these courses,” he said. “But if you think about it for a second, you’ll realize that those students already have access to college-level courses. Those who benefit the most are those who are not currently in school, either because they are already in a career or because they perhaps cannot afford school, or maybe just cannot commit the time to regularly-scheduled classes.” MOOCs, which have become the 21st century education trend, may shake up studying in ways that forever alter the way students learn.
http://www.takepart.com/article/2013/05/31/will-moocs-change-education-21st-century
Share on Facebookby Hans de Wit, University World News
Much, if not all, of the debate in higher education seems to be focused these days on massive open online courses, or MOOCs, which according to several people should be considered nothing less than a revolutionary new model for higher education teaching and learning. In the meantime, a slower burning addition to international teaching and learning is already taking place with much less attention – ‘virtual mobility’, as it is called in Europe, or ‘collaborative online international learning’ (COIL), as it is more correctly referred to in the United States. While in MOOCs the teaching stays more or less traditional, using modern technology for a global form of delivery, in COIL the technology is used to develop a more interactive and collaborative way of international teaching and learning.
http://www.universityworldnews.com/article.php?story=20130528175741647
Share on Facebookby Adriana Maestas, Politic365
As MOOCs and other online educational resources become available, more Latino students are entering college. A recent study shows that Hispanic high school graduates are enrolling in college at a rate higher than their white counterparts. Data also shows that these students tend to face challenges completing college. And another study from 2011 shows that Latino students who take online classes are less likely to pass those classes and earned lower grades than Latino students who took comparable face-to-face (traditional) courses. Additionally, Latino students lag further behind the performance of white students in online courses. This could pose a problem for the growing Latino college student population. Yet despite some warnings of what the online course revolution could mean for Latino students, there are few Latinos who are actively engaged in the online learning professional arena. Politic365 had the opportunity to speak with two of the most prominent Latino voices in online education: former California State Senator Dean Florez, President and CEO of the 20 Million Minds Foundation and Emerson Malca, the co-founder of StudyRoom.
http://politic365.com/2013/06/01/moocs-the-open-education-debate-where-are-the-latinos/
Share on Facebookby Stephen Carson, MIT
MOOC pairs cutting-edge online assessments with legendary lectures and demonstrations by MIT professor Walter Lewin. Much attention is given to the automated assessments that play a key role in allowing massive open online courses (MOOCs) to scale, and rightly so, as these tools permit hundreds of thousands of learners to receive an unprecedented level of feedback on their work. A new MIT MOOC starting Sept. 9 — 8.01x Classical Mechanics — combines these cutting-edge assessments with lectures that have an unmatched pedigree in digital learning history.
Share on Facebookby CLAUDIO SANCHEZ, NPR
From New Mexico to New York, 10 state university systems have announced they are joining the ranks of elite institutions embracing the massive open online course, or MOOC, system. On Thursday, they unveiled a landmark partnership with Coursera, a for-profit tech company with 3.5 million registered students. It’s the biggest effort to catapult degree-granting institutions into the world of global education. The state universities of Tennessee, Georgia, Colorado, Kentucky, Nebraska, New Mexico, West Virginia and New York and the Houston University System are taking the plunge to offer online courses to students across the globe for free. Most of them already offer a catalog of courses online, which Coursera will format into modules for a fee of $3,000 to $5,000 each. That breaks down to between $30 and $60 per student, a fraction of what it costs to develop and deliver a traditional course.
Share on Facebookby Phil Hill, e-Literate
The big news is that Coursera, the largest of the MOOC providers, has signed with 10 public statewide systems. One key aspect of this announcement is Coursera’s full-fledged move into courseware as a new business line to complement their standalone courses. Courseware is the combination of “the curriculum, the course materials, the assessments and, in some cases, the analytics to track student progress and make study suggestions” as described in Michael’s post “MOOCs, Courseware, and the Course as an Artifact“. In essence, courseware is everything but the instructor and interactive discussion, certification and support. This is what is meant by “wrapping” around a MOOC.
http://mfeldstein.com/mooc-as-courseware-courseras-big-announcement-in-context/
Share on Facebookby Angela Gonzales, Phoenix Business Journal
Northern Arizona University is launching an online bachelor’s degree program for $5,000 a year, much less expensive option than its traditional degrees offered on its Flagstaff campus. NAU will start by offering online degrees in computer information technology, liberal arts and small business administration. This new personalized learning program enables students to earn an bachelor’s degree online by crediting their existing knowledge and tailoring coursework to their learning preferences, said Fred Hurst, senior vice president of NAU-Extended Campuses and creator of the personalized learning program.
http://www.bizjournals.com/phoenix/news/2013/05/28/nau-rolls-out-online-bachelors-degree.html
Share on FacebookBy Elyse Betters, Pocket-lint
Google on Tuesday announced an online mapping course to educate users about Google Maps, Maps Engine Lite and Google Earth. The course, titled Mapping with Google, starts on June 10 and lasts until June 24, although Google said it was a “self-paced, online course where you will watch videos (or read text lessons) and apply the skills you learn”. According to a post on the official Google Lat-Long blog, those who register will also receive an invitation to preview the new Google Maps. In addition, registrants have the opportunity to complete a project and earn a certificate.
Share on Facebookby Molly Philbin, Corsair
Santa Monica College has budget restrictions and heavy budget cuts that result in fewer classes for more than 30,000 students, reducing course offerings. Alertification, a website launched early this May, allows students to receive an alert through text or email as soon as a space becomes available in a previously filled class.
The website was built by University of California, Los Angeles graduate Brian Roizen and his younger brother, undergraduate Robert Roizen.
http://www.thecorsaironline.com/news/2013/05/28/website-sends-class-opening-alerts-to-your-cell/
Share on Facebookby Ronald Roach, Diverse
For all the efforts underway to make Massive Open Online Courses a major part of American higher education, only a few initiatives have targeted community colleges as a venue for them to reach and educate students. In a webinar titled “MOOCs and the Completion Agenda: Lessons in Learning, Assessment and Application,” two California-based community college leaders offered unique visions on how MOOCs could help two-year institutions improve student learning experiences. The American Council on Education organized the webinar on Wednesday, which included Dr. Daphne Koller, the co-founder of the MOOC-platform giant Coursera. Dr. Barbara Illowsky, professor of mathematics and statistics at De Anza College, told more than 350 webinar participants that in California MOOCs could help students prepare for and pass basic assessment exams in English, math and writing.
http://diverseeducation.com/article/53565/#
Share on FacebookBy David Talbot, Technology Review
The continued openness of the Internet depends in part on ensuring that Internet businesses treat all traffic in roughly the same way. This fall, Verizon will try to persuade a federal judge to throw out U.S. Federal Communications Commission regulations requiring “net neutrality”—the idea that all content and applications must get similar treatment on wired and wireless networks. But even beyond the court fight, the concept is under a diffuse and broad assault. Experts warn that the end of net neutrality would mean that deep-pocketed content providers could squeeze others out.
http://www.technologyreview.com/news/515031/all-data-packets-are-equal-some-more-than-others/
Share on FacebookBy Tom Simonite, Technology Review
Watson, the IBM computer system that attracted millions of viewers when it defeated two Jeopardy champions handily in 2011, is finally going to meet its public.
Last week, IBM announced that a version of the artificially intelligent software that gave Watson its smarts is to be rented out to companies as a customer service agent. It will be able to respond to questions posed by people, and sustain a basic conversation by keeping track of context and history if a person asks further questions. An “Ask Watson” button on websites or mobile apps will open a text-based dialogue with the retired Jeopardy champion on topics such as product buying decisions and troubleshooting guidance.
http://www.technologyreview.com/news/515296/trained-on-jeopardy-watson-is-headed-for-your-pocket/
By Ana Homayoun, the Mercury News
Research suggests that males tend to focus more of their online efforts on gaming, while females tend to spend more time socializing. Many girls now find their interpersonal relationships are even more intertwined with their academic experiences. Unlike whispers in the hallway or notes passed in the middle of class, rumors online leave digital traces, and the potential to go viral can cause intense panic and rash decision-making. School social networking puts even greater pressure on girls’ mental health. The statistics are overwhelmingly not in girls’ favor: Girls are twice as likely to be bullied electronically, and perceptions of school climate and culture can directly affect their overall wellness. Researchers at the University of South Florida found that girls who had negative perceptions of school climate were far more likely also to have greater self-reported mental health issues.
Share on Facebookby the Charleston WV Gazette
Higher education — the key to successful middle-class life — is on the brink of a major transformation in America, experts say. Wealthy families will continue sending their children to expensive, prestigious universities. But most average youths will learn through lower-cost online courses, perhaps mixed with partial classroom attendance. Two new books predict this impending change. They are Higher Education in the Digital Age by former Princeton University President William Bowen, and College (Un)bound by Jeffrey Selingo of the Chronicle of Higher Education. They outline this picture: Nearly 80 percent of America’s college students attend less-expensive state-owned institutions. But hard-strapped state legislatures have drastically cut taxpayer support for the schools — from an average of $10,195 per student in 2002 to $5,900 in 2012 — while college operating costs keep climbing.
http://www.wvgazette.com/Opinion/Editorials/201305260062
Share on FacebookBY KATHLEEN MEGAN, Courant
Among those teaching a MOOC course this past semester was Wesleyan President Michael Roth, who said in an email Thursday that he approached the class “with only curious skepticism about what folks could get out of an online class.” But, Roth said, the class “has been a wonderful surprise. I have been so impressed by the level of discourse among the students and by their excellent questions back to me … I will offer the class again for Coursera, and my teaching at Wesleyan in the future will be informed by my online experience.” However, as the novelty of MOOCs wears off, educators are asking hard questions about how the sites will make money and what colleges stand to gain. Academic powerhouses sense a pivotal moment of risk and opportunity. Some are plowing ahead. Others are holding back.
http://www.courant.com/news/education/hc-online-education-criticism-20130527,0,7896684.story
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