April 16, 2015
By Michael Lafreniere, eCampus News
Today, the software is a web-based application commonly known as an LMS. With an appropriate LMS, video delivery, conferencing integration, and white board integration with digital inking capabilities, a teacher can collaborate with colleagues and students through the broadcast of synchronous instruction and learning activities online and in-class. The teacher can facilitate collaborative, shareable, personalized note-taking spaces, as well as track student engagement across multiple sections—class and student level insights that assist the teacher much like intentional formative assessment. At the end of the course, the same data collection can be used in the creation of student portfolios of learning outcomes, which are ideal for course and program improvement, as well as, accreditation.
http://www.ecampusnews.com/technologies/collaboration-lms-math-377/
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By Liam Tung, ZDNet
AWS developers who want to extract meaning and forecasts out of their data now no longer need other hosted machine learning platforms. Public cloud giant Amazon Web Services (AWS) on Thursday unveiled its first product for machine learning – simply called Amazon Machine Learning – to make it easier for AWS developers to extract value from the troves of transactional and operational data their hosted systems collect. The move by Amazon follows IBM’s recent launch of hosted Watson Analytics and Microsoft’s Azure Machine Learning, with all three now looking for ways to help developers embed machine learning intelligence into their apps. Google’s own machine learning offering, Prediction API, was launched in 2012.
http://www.zdnet.com/article/watch-out-watson-here-comes-aws-machine-learning/
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by Ed Bott, ZDNet
Microsoft has been expanding the reach of its Office franchise over the past year, releasing apps for iOS and Android, occasionally even at the expense of its Windows division. But the latest Office expansion comes inside the browser, where anyone with an Office.com account, free or paid, can now link Dropbox accounts for seamless creation, viewing, editing, and sharing of online Word documents, Excel spreadsheets, and PowerPoint presentations.
http://www.zdnet.com/article/office-online-and-dropbox-together/
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April 15, 2015
By Chet Bembenek, THE Journal
The Columbus School District in Wisconsin serves a small community south of Madison, with only three schools and 1,300 total students — about 30 percent of whom qualify for free or reduced-price lunch. In other words, we’re just a typical small school district trying to make the most of our limited ed-tech budget. Despite our modest means, we have a fairly robust technology infrastructure. A 10-gigabit fiber backbone connects our three school buildings, all of which have wireless access. We have 100 Mbps of bandwidth out to the public Internet, and we’re bumping that up to 300 Mbps soon. We’re also on our way to having one device for every student in grades 1 through 12 next year. We’ve built out our IT infrastructure with the help of a few simple strategies. Here are five recommendations based on our experience.
http://thejournal.com/articles/2015/04/09/5-key-ways-to-stretch-your-tech-budget.aspx
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by eCampus News
Arizona’s Sun Corridor Network announces two 100 gigabit connections to Internet2. The Sun Corridor Network, Arizona’s high-speed research and education (R&E) network, is now providing 100 gigabit per second (100G) connections to Internet2, for academic researchers at Arizona State University (ASU), Northern Arizona University (NAU) and the University of Arizona (UA). The two Internet2 connections—one located in Phoenix and one in Tucson—aim to benefit Arizona’s public universities by facilitating high-performance, data-intensive research and collaboration among peers at national institutions to enable discovery, knowledge and information sharing.
http://www.ecampusnews.com/top-news/arizona-universities-internet-981/
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by eCampus News
Arizona State University (ASU), Cengage Learning and Knewton announced a partnership to co-develop what ASU is calling “Active Adaptive” learning solutions, which leverage Knewton adaptive technology in new ways. These innovators in higher education will co-develop a solution from the ground-up utilizing adaptive technology paired with content and active learning activities, with the aim of empowering instructors to spend more time supporting and inspiring learning, and less time managing and lecturing students. ASU recognized the need for a new, customized way to deliver materials to students, allowing them to learn using instruction and content uniquely tailored to their individual needs in an environment that meets the University’s goals of having students take a more active role in their own learning.
http://www.ecampusnews.com/business-news/adaptive-knewton-asu-563/
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April 14, 2015
By Bryan C. Hassel and Stephanie Dean, eSchool News
For rural schools, technology is a solution but also another challenge. Technology makes it possible for each of us to do more, learn more, and be more connected. That’s true for education in general, but its potential seems particularly compelling for rural schools, which struggle to offer an array of learning opportunities, to transport students to a central facility, and to get the best combination of teachers from small candidate pools.
http://www.eschoolnews.com/2015/04/09/rural-education-683/
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By Pamela DeLoatch, Edudemic
Want to connect with your students in and out of the classroom? Consider bringing Facebook into your class as a collaborative tool. We all know that most kids, or at least those in the pre-teen and up category, are locked into many forms of social media. Instead of fighting it, why not meet them where they are, and use the benefits of Facebook to communicate and increase involvement? We’ve identified a number of resources for you to use as you determine why and how to make Facebook work in your classroom.
http://www.edudemic.com/every-teachers-must-have-guide-to-facebook/
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By Haley Hansen, Minnesota Daily
The comments and critiques students make on their course evaluation forms at the end of this semester may influence other students’ future class selections. Come fall, parts of students’ end-of-semester course evaluations will be available online for other students to view when deciding what classes to take, a policy change students have spent years advocating for. While the information online won’t be about individual faculty members, it will be about specific classes, which some say could help students make better informed decisions when enrolling in courses.
http://www.mndaily.com/news/campus/2015/04/08/course-evaluations-will-go-online-fall
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April 13, 2015
By Nick Valencia, CNN
Most days, 16-year-old Jason Zobott walks into Huntley High School in suburban Chicago around 7:30 a.m. like any high schooler might. It’s what he does the rest of the day that’s not so typical. Zobott is enrolled in Huntley High’s blended learning program, which merges Internet-based instruction with a more traditional classroom setting. One-third of the school’s 2,700 students are enrolled. In 2015, the school is working toward enrolling the majority of its students. “Having to work online makes it really accessible to do the work that I have to get done,” said Zobott, a top-ranked junior who balances a heavy load of extracurricular activities with schoolwork. “I can learn on my own. I can work at the pace I want to work. And I learn the way I want to learn.”
http://www.cnn.com/2015/04/07/living/blended-learning-education/
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By SOPHIE JANE EVANS, Daily Mail
More than 3,000 students are facing an unexpected decision after they received acceptance notices from the University of Florida – only to find they would have to spend a year taking online classes. The 3,118 unidentified applicants were presumably delighted when they were accepted as freshmen by the university in Gainesville for the fall after sending in applications for traditional first-year slots. But after reading their congratulations notices, they apparently realized they would need to agree to spend their entire first year taking classes on the Internet in order to attend the public college. The classes are part of a new program – the Pathway to Campus Enrollment (PaCE) – which started in 2015 and aims to accommodate a higher number of students, The Washington Post reported.
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-3028025/Thousands-student-receive-acceptance-notices-University-Florida-spend-entire-year-taking-ONLINE-classes.html
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April 12, 2015
by: Associated Press
Options for adult education are changing rapidly in Minnesota, and online offerings are a big reason. The St. Cloud Times (http://on.sctimes.com/1FglKci ) reports Minnesota-based choices available to adults now include software development courses with Prime Digital Academy as well as online Web development courses with Frontend Masters. Prime Digital charges about $12,000 for 18 weeks of its boot camp of classes, while Frontend Masters charges $39 per month or $390 a year for access. Also in Web and software development, groups Girl Code It Minneapolis and Twin Cities Geekettes are offering women a chance to learn how to code and break into a male-dominated field.
http://www.startribune.com/lifestyle/298790721.html
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By HANNAH SMATI, CRIMSON
The participation and completion rates of online courses offered by the Harvard and MIT branches of online learning platform edX varied across academic areas, according to a recent report based on two years of course data. The study reviewed data on HarvardX and MITx, subsets of a virtual learning platform founded jointly by the two universities in 2012. Covering data spanning from fall 2012 to summer 2014, the report analysis included 68 courses, 1.7 million participants, and 1.1 billion logged events, or “clicks.”
http://www.thecrimson.com/article/2015/4/6/edx-report-participation-completion/
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by iSchool Guide
Blended learning models and online courses are the latest trend in modern education. But an unexpected group of students may benefit from new technology in the classroom. Virtual programs can be tailored to specifically assist students with disabilities. According to Education Week, some schools are offering online speech therapy classes with video interactivity and other schools are compiling digital courses designed specifically with the needs of special education students in mind. In the past, existing online courses would be tailored for students with disabilities. While there isn’t a lot of evidence about the effectiveness of this new approach, some teachers are already touting the benefits of blended learning models and online courses for their special education students.
http://www.ischoolguide.com/articles/10222/20150406/online-courses-blended-learning-models-special-education.htm
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April 11, 2015
by Carrie Lingenfelter, Yuma News Now
Arizona State University is piloting a series of environmental science games at ASU Online. Within each of the five story-based games, students will take on several leadership roles, with increasing responsibility, to help a community address challenging environmental and sustainability issues. Tahnja Wilson, senior manager for EdPlus at ASU, will guide the project. Wilson has taught online for more than 10 years. Her instructional design interests include gaming best practices and student/instructor engagement.
http://www.yumanewsnow.com/index.php/news/arizona-news/688-interactive-learning-asu-online-to-pilot-environmental-science-games
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by Joe Hoff, EDUCAUSE Review
Engaging first-year students in positive experiences can set the tone for the remainder of their educational careers. A major element of engagement is the social side — meeting other students virtually, learning about campus before the first day of classes, keeping up on events, communicating on specific topics, and asking questions quickly and conveniently. A mobile app that facilitates social engagement while letting administrators measure levels of use and track emotional trends and potential problems among the student body serves both communities.
http://www.educause.edu/ero/article/engaging-students-mobile-app
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By NATASHA SINGER, NY Times
As universities and colleges around the country expand their online course offerings, many administrators are introducing new technologies to deter cheating. The oversight, administrators say, is crucial to demonstrating the legitimacy of an online degree to students and their prospective employers. Some schools use software that prevents students from opening apps or web browsers during online exams. Others employ services with live exam proctors who monitor students remotely over webcams. But the rise of Proctortrack and other automated student analysis services like it have raised questions about where to draw the line, and whether the new systems are fair and accurate. The University of North Texas Health Science Center, for instance, is partway through a two-year pilot test of Proctortrack involving the 160 students enrolled in its online public health master’s degree program.
http://www.nytimes.com/2015/04/06/technology/online-test-takers-feel-anti-cheating-softwares-uneasy-glare.html
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April 10, 2015
By KSL, Mountain Heights Academy
There’s nothing quite like debunking myth and there is, in fact, something extremely satisfying about it. After all, there’s a reason why “Mythbusters” became such a popular TV show. By this time, everyone knows not to believe everything one hears — or reads — online. Let’s set the record straight by dispelling a few myths and misperceptions regarding online schools.
http://www.ksl.com/?nid=1268&sid=34088088
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by Jeff Charis-Carlson, Press Citizen
Steffen Schmidt has a voracious educational appetite. The Iowa State University political science professor, who answers to the nickname “Dr. Politics,” says he often finds himself digging into two or three MOOCs — massive open online courses — at a time. But he usually treats such online educational opportunities as scholastic snacks rather than full intellectual meals. Schmidt is working to make that user-friendliness a key component of the MOOC he is developing about the subject he knows best: the role of the Iowa caucuses in the presidential nomination process. When the course goes live in September, the Iowa caucuses MOOC will be ISU’s first official massive online offering. To create the course, Schmidt has been working for more than a year with ISU Web designers, technicians, videographers, online curriculum writers and other experts. He touts it as a “short, fun and free” discussion on the past, present and future of Iowa’s first-in-the-nation presidential contest.
http://www.press-citizen.com/story/news/education/college/2015/04/03/isu-online-course-caucuses/25261229/
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by CCTV America
When massive open online courses, known as ‘MOOCs’, first emerged there was talk of a new revolution in online learning that would make education more affordable and accessible. Some even suggested it could mark the beginning of the end of college campuses. However recent reports show that ‘MOOCs’ aren’t very effective at keeping students’ attention. Despite the reports, Harvard University continues to heavily invest time and money in releasing MOOCs.
http://www.cctv-america.com/2015/04/03/top-universities-continue-to-invest-in-massive-online-courses
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April 9, 2015
By Greg Thompson, THE Journal
In order to deliver personalized education, districts have to gather and share students’ statistics. Here’s how the strategic use of data can boost teaching and learning. When it seems like every week brings news of a massive theft of consumers’ private information, “data” is in danger of becoming a four-letter word. But if districts want to provide truly personalized education, gathering and sharing certain types of student data is absolutely necessary. According to Patricia Cotter, a veteran entrepreneur who recently completed her doctorate in work-based learning at the University of Pennsylvania, “Recent technologies like big data, the Internet of Things, mobile apps and improved storage have made it possible to acquire, combine, store, analyze, interpret and report findings during any phase of data management.”
http://thejournal.com/articles/2015/04/01/big-data-is-not-bad-data.aspx
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