Educational Technology

By Kacy Zurkus, CIO

Parents have plenty of things to worry about when they send their kids off to college: money, physical safety, their happiness, empty-nest syndrome, their future. Do they now have to worry about identity theft and data security, too? In a word, yes. Colleges and universities have been the target of phishing scams for years. And while they continue to get better at dealing with information security threats, the ways our institutions of higher learning defend themselves against cybercriminals are as myriad as the forms of cyberattacks they face.

http://www.cio.com/article/2945418/security-and-privacy/how-higher-education-deals-with-security-threats.html

By Jeffrey R. Young, Chronicle of Higher Ed

The average amount that college students spend on course materials appears to be declining. But not necessarily because textbooks are cheaper. A growing number of students, surveys show, simply skip buying required course materials. A survey of undergraduates on 23 campuses by the National Association of College Stores, expected to be released on Thursday, found that students spent an average of $563 on course materials during the 2014-15 academic year, compared with $638 the year before. The decrease is due in part to the rise of textbook-rental programs, which cost less, association officials note. But more students than in the past avoid acquiring course materials altogether, unless they see that the professor is making heavy use of the materials.

http://chronicle.com/article/For-Students-Textbooks-Become/231455/

by Marie Bountrogianni, Huffington Post

Ask an employee from just about any industry in Canada, and they’ll tell you: there is a huge gap between the training required to move up the career ladder and the training provided by their employers. A recent survey found that while 71 per cent of employers agree they have a responsibility to provide career management programs for their employees, only 29 per cent actually offer them. So how do we close this gap in training needs? Continuing education can play a huge role. As Dean of The G. Raymond Chang School of Continuing Education at Ryerson University in Toronto, I meet and talk to professionals from all disciplines who are passionate about learning, and are looking for the newest information or skills that will lead them to the next big break in their career. Here are six continuing education trends that can help to close Canada’s training gap.

http://www.huffingtonpost.ca/dr-marie-bountrogianni/adult-education-second-career_b_7737592.html

by Edsurge

A white paper from Extension Engine outlines four revenue models, based on a survey of 136 US colleges and universities. The most popular revenue source, used in 71 percent of the schools in the survey, comes from offering for-credit online courses that students pay for. Fifty-eight percent of schools compete for grants to support research on new online pedagogy and course delivery, but the report says “expenditures on these efforts are typically high and go largely unrecouped.” The less popular—but more “novel”—strategies, according to the report, involve the use of MOOCs as a recruiting tool for pre-matriculated students, and as a new way to maintain an active alumni community (and generate more donations).

https://www.edsurge.com/n/2015-07-07-four-ways-universities-make-money-from-online-courses

by Mark S. Valenti, EDUCAUSE Review

Concurrent with the development of the active learning space came a change in student demographics as the Millennial Generation arrived on campus. Often referred to as digital natives, millennials grew up with the Internet and hundreds of television channels; as a result, their expectations are completely different from those of previous generations of students. Millennials have influenced, and will continue to influence, higher education in a number of ways. As students, digital natives have forced higher education leaders to communicate and educate in new ways that meet millennials’ needs. For many decades, institutions offered education in a space of their choosing, on a schedule of their choosing, and in a style of their choosing. Millennials no longer accepted that model, demanding that education be offered in a space of their choosing, on a schedule of their choosing, and in a style of their choosing. Those spaces, schedules, and styles are often radically different from the offerings of traditional higher education.

http://www.educause.edu/ero/article/beyond-active-learning-transformation-learning-space

by Marty Heisey, Lancaster Online

They are taking them for the flexibility they provide in their course schedules during the school year, said Hempfield High School Assistant Principal Bill Brossman. Some students use the summer to take courses required for high school graduation, and then enroll in more advanced placement courses that suit their academic proclivities, school officials say. Others, free up time for athletics or the arts.

http://lancasteronline.com/news/local/growing-number-of-high-school-students-taking-summer-school-courses/article_9cfe5fdc-249f-11e5-aa30-1faf6786a944.html

by Thomas Claburn, Information Week

Whether you’re preparing for a new career or experimenting with magic powers, it’s worth knowing how to program. The best way to learn to program is through trial and error by working on projects that interest you. There’s no substitute for solving problems mostly on your own, and for seeking out help only when necessary. The DIY approach makes concepts real and memorable because you’ve implemented them, rather than reading material that may be forgotten. What follows are a few of what, in my opinion, are the best educational options out there to reach a moderate level of skill as a programmer. Feel free to tell us about others you’d recommend in the comments section below

http://www.informationweek.com/cloud/software-as-a-service/10-great-websites-for-learning-programming/d/d-id/1321154

by AOL

An all-boy club for anything sounds weird to many of us nowadays, but that’s exactly what was going on … in a library of all places. The Timmins Public Library in Ontario denied letting girls into a summer session on robotics. That was until this Change.org petition by Cash Cayen went online and got over 30,000 supporters. Cash says the library wouldn’t let her join the session because it was only offered to boys. They did offer to put her on a waiting list. This all comes as the effort to get women and girls interested in the world of science and engineering continues to gain traction. And it seems to be working. A study by the National Science Foundation found girls are earning math and science credits at roughly the same rates as boys.

http://www.aol.com/article/2015/07/04/girls-petition-helps-change-boys-only-robotics-class/21204959/

by Eric Schwartzberg, Journal News

More children than ever in Ohio are learning via online schools, a trend that local parents say is more the result of wanting more for their child than it is about their local school district. Increased popularity for this option has seen enrollments totals blossom from 44 such schools serving approximately 17,000 students in 2004 to 27 e-schools serving 39,044 students in the 2013-14 school year. That simultaneous decrease in the amount of schools and increase in enrollment has bolstered class ranks, leading to numerous Ohio e-learning institutions graduating their largest classes ever, including Ohio Virtual Academy, an accredited, full-time, online public community school that in June graduated 750 students, the largest graduating class in school history.

http://www.journal-news.com/news/news/more-ohio-students-learning-via-online-schools/nmq2c/

by Tim Dodd, Financial Review

The University of Queensland (UQ) will again run its hugely popular massive open online course on English Grammar and Style, which 50,000 students enrolled in when it was first offered last year. The eight-week course will be run again starting on July 26 and promises to show students how to apply grammar and syntax to “produce coherent, economical, and compelling writing”. So far it has 10,000 enrolments, a number which is likely to rise sharply in the weeks up to the start date. So popular is the course that it is currently the highlighted MOOC on the edX website.

http://www.afr.com/technology/apps/education/mooc-watch-users-flock-to-online-grammar-course-from-the-university-of-queensland-20150703-gi1rav

by  Jackson Long, Courier-Gazette

For one local McKinney athlete, a lifelong passion for figure skating has transformed into exciting opportunities on the world stage. Emily Chan began figure skating just before she turned 4 years old, when she was drawn to the sport after attending a friend’s birthday party at an ice rink. “I loved it so much, my mom brought me back again and again and started taking lessons from my coaches,” Chan said. Now, having recently graduated from the Texas Online Preparatory School (TOPS) as valedictorian, competing in her first international competition and gearing up to attend the University of Texas at Dallas for biomedicine in the fall, Chan has her sights set on an ultimate goal.

http://starlocalmedia.com/mckinneycouriergazette/sports/skating-and-school-local-athlete-excels-on-ice-and-online/article_d074c6be-210a-11e5-a014-0b5a3cafe0c8.html

by Michael Bragg, Daily Progress

Christina Draper has a son in high school who does very well on his Standard of Learning tests, but his grades tell a different story. Her son, a student at Eastern View High School in Culpeper County, is smart, she said, but is easily distracted and can become a distraction to other students. “He has trouble sitting still in class, and because of that, he gets easily distracted and then he becomes a distraction to others, and then the teachers have to interrupt their lesson to get him to quiet down,” she said. Draper said her son has done homeschooling before and works better and stays on track in smaller settings. And now there’s a program Draper’s son has been accepted into that allows him to take high school classes in that smaller, independent setting and still be a public school student.

http://www.dailyprogress.com/news/education/as-virtual-virginia-gears-up-for-full-high-school-program/article_223c6708-2125-11e5-8b4b-b77f224731e7.html

By Leah Levy, Edudemic

Several weeks ago, we took a look at a number of excellent podcasts just begging to be used in History and STEM classrooms. This week, we’re detailing a few more excellent podcasts to add to the classroom library, along with further ideas for how you can integrate each type. Our goal: to spread a love and joy for podcasts the worldwide, and to promote a lot of learning along the way!

http://www.edudemic.com/podcasts-propel-learning/

by Thomas Claburn, Information Week

Millions of people have joined MOOCs — massive open online courses — but only a small fraction of these students end up earning certificates of completion. According to educational researcher Katy Jordan, the average completion rate for MOOCs is about 15%. To help understand why online learners fail to follow through — which matters to educators, online course designers, policymakers, students, and organizations paying for worker training — Kalyan Veeramachaneni, a research scientist at MIT’s Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Laboratory, and Sebastien Boyer, a graduate student in MIT’s Technology and Policy Program, have developed a technique that can help predict when students will drop an online learning course (an event they call “stopout”).

http://www.informationweek.com/big-data/big-data-analytics/analytics-provides-better-online-learning/d/d-id/1321180

By Leila Meyer, THE Journal

Parents are spending more on school supplies this year, mostly for technology purchases, according to a new Consumer Pulse report from Rubicon Project. The survey, “Back-to-School Consumer Pulse Poll,” was conducted online in mid-June 2015 and collected responses from 1000 parents of K-12 and college students. It found that 56 percent of parents plan to spend more money on school supplies compared to last year, with K-12 parents planning to spend an average of $873 per child, and college parents planning to spend an average of $1,124 per student.

http://thejournal.com/articles/2015/07/07/report-technology-purchases-driving-up-back-to-school-shopping-budgets.aspx

By John K. Waters, Campus Technology

A growing number of colleges and universities have been experimenting with emerging virtual reality technologies, such as the Oculus Rift, and the virtual campus tour is emerging as a potential use case. But for the Information Technology Department at Oral Roberts University, the promise of the virtual tour pales in comparison with the potential of real-time, streaming, mobile telepresence tech. “Virtual reality presents too much of a learning curve,” said Michael Mathews, chief information officer at ORU. “The telepresence robot, on the other hand, is essentially just standard Web conferencing, but through an iPad mounted on a Segway. People just naturally get it. Students pick it up in minutes, and faculty don’t have to go to special training sessions or feel embarrassed about their level of expertise, because the students are the ones controlling it.”

http://campustechnology.com/articles/2015/07/01/telepresence-robots-attend-campus-tours-and-more-at-oral-roberts-u.aspx

by MARC LIGHTDALE, North Jersey

The school district is putting together a new online mathematics program this summer to extend and supplement lessons from the academic year. Called mZone, it will use online resources to help 20 students work on math instruction beginning in July. “Parents are excited to see that this district never rests on its laurels and we’re looking to lead the way,” Superintendent Adam Fried said. The school district charges $200 to cover the costs for staffing and material.

http://www.northjersey.com/news/education/district-plans-to-start-online-math-program-1.1366890

by Atlanta Journal Constitution

In Cobb County, students can take a “blended learning” program that combines online classes with direct teaching. Students can click through lessons at home and at Wheeler High School, which is staffed with teachers from 8 a.m.-9:30 p.m., Cobb spokeswoman Jennifer Gates said. For students making up a full class, that means 60 hours of online instruction and 60 hours with a live teacher at Wheeler. For students making up half a credit, it’s 30 hours of each.

http://www.ajc.com/news/news/local-education/how-georgia-students-are-taking-summer-school-onli/nmpzG/

by mattwriter, Say Campus Life

Online learning holds the future of higher education. Many university and college students find themselves with other obligations which include family and job commitments beyond that of getting a degree. It is therefore critical for them to take online classes and study on their own. The demand for online learning is also escalating due to many state institutions being unable to accommodate all the students that want to take classes in campus. Online learning programs offer many advantages which include….

http://www.saycampuslife.com/2015/07/01/top-5-benefits-of-online-learning-programs/

By David Raths, THE Journal

In a June 29 special session at the annual ISTE Conference in Philadelphia, the New Media Consortium (NMC) and the Consortium for School Networking (CoSN) released the 6th annual NMC Horizon Report K-12 Edition, describing emerging technologies that are likely to have the most impact on teaching and learning. The key themes that emerged involve students moving from passive recipients of information to active participants and collaborators who need new types of support and opportunities. Previous Horizon reports zeroed in on technologies to watch, but this year NMC chose to pull back and focus on trends in teaching and learning and how technological developments could impact them. The panel that worked on the report was composed of 56 education and technology experts from 22 countries on six continents.

http://thejournal.com/articles/2015/06/29/nmc-horizon-report-tech-solutions-must-support-shift-to-deeper-learning-approaches.aspx

by Beth Holland, Edutopia

Too often, conversations about digital portfolios center on the tools: how to save, share, and publish student work. Mastering the technical component of digital portfolios is critical, and students do need an opportunity to showcase their work to a broader audience. However, when we let the process of curate > reflect > publish serve as the sole focal point, digital portfolios become summative in nature and are viewed as an add-on at the end of a unit, project, or activity. For digital portfolios to be truly valuable to both teachers and students, they need to provide insight into not only what students created, but also how and why. If the ultimate goal is to develop students as learners, then they need an opportunity for making connections to content as well as the overarching learning objectives.

http://www.edutopia.org/blog/digital-portfolios-art-of-reflection-beth-holland