Educational Technology

by the Daily Comet

The clear advantage there is that those who might fall behind in a traditional classroom can spend the time they need to spend on a particular lesson without slowing everyone’s progress. And those who might work ahead can do so without being held back by the class as a whole. “Now they’re working on their own level, not competing with anyone else,” said Tobey Naquin, whose two children are enrolled in eLearningK12, which has offices in Houma and Thibodaux. “The advanced student can move on and not be held back. The one that struggles cannot move on until they master that skill.” In addition to the advantages it can offer the students, online learning can offer families more flexibility by allowing children to take their studies with them on vacation, for instance.

http://www.dailycomet.com/article/20150903/OPINION/150909893?Title=Online-learning-offers-another-alternative

By: Cassie Lipp, University of Cincinnati

While statistics may be a difficult subject for many students, UC’s Chris Swoboda makes it easier for students to learn by breaking his Statistical Data Analysis I and II courses up into small online modules and units. Swoboda, an assistant professor in the School of Education, said making the courses available online has made the course accessible to more students, and it also creates an environment that allows them to personalize their learning experience. The course formats include extensive use of discussion boards, online tests and quizzes, web links, electronic feedback on homework, and instructions for Lynda.com and other web-based resources. Course videos include recorded lectures, tutorials for sample problems and explanations for discussion board questions.

http://www.uc.edu/profiles/profile.asp?id=22152

by the Hechinger Report

It’s a matter of “re-paradigming,” say faculty and administrators at some of the nation’s top teachers colleges, describing the task they face. They need to get teacher candidates to “re-think” how they use devices that most have grown up with. In essence, instructors must tell their students, “You can’t take that into a school and use it the way you know how to use it,” said Laurie Mullen, former associate dean at Ball State University Teachers College in Muncie, and the newly appointed dean of the College of Education at Towson University in Maryland. Although there are more than 2,100 schools of education nationally, graduating more than 190,000 new teachers annually, there are no national standards for teachers of educators when it comes to integrating educational technology into the curriculum, according to the American Association of Colleges for Teacher Education, a voluntary national association of teacher preparation programs.

http://www.usnews.com/news/college-of-tomorrow/articles/2015/09/01/teachers-colleges-struggle-to-blend-technology-into-teacher-training-lesson-plans

By Greg Thompson, THE Journal

Transforming a mishmash of educational technologies into a coherent “blended learning” model is fast becoming the holy grail of modern education. With so much software and hardware already in place, making blended learning work is less about acquiring technology, and more about changing mindsets. Susan O. Moore, supervisor of blended learning at Meriden Public Schools (CT), breaks the implementation of blended learning into five stages.

http://thejournal.com/articles/2015/09/01/13-keys-to-successful-blended-learning.aspx

By: Collin Binkley, The Associated Press

The newest classroom at Harvard University’s business school has no desks or chairs. Instead, the professor teaches facing a towering digital screen that stretches from wall to wall, filled with the live video feeds of up to 60 students tuned in from their computers. In the futuristic classroom, housed in a television studio 2 miles (3 kilometres) from campus, class plays out like a giant video conference. Students can jump in to ask questions or respond to their classmates. The professor can stop a lecture to quiz individual students, or send the group a quick online poll. The project, called HBX Live, is a departure from the genre of online courses that are recorded in advance to be taken later.

http://www.brandonsun.com/business/breaking-news/at-harvards-new-virtual-classroom-students-tune-in-to-class-from-computers-anywhere-323672331.html

by the Independent

The Kentucky Department of Education (KDE) announced Friday that all 173 of the state’s public school districts have met the national goal of 100 kb of Internet bandwidth for each K-12 student. It is believed to be the first state to do so. “This is just another way Kentucky is leading the nation in public education,” Commissioner of Education Terry Holliday said. “Our teachers told us they needed a faster, more reliable system to take advantage of all of the great digital instructional resources and other technology-based education tools and supports that are available. So, I’m glad we were able to meet the need and do what is best for student learning.”

http://www.dailyindependent.com/news/enhanced-school-technology-enhances-learning/article_06dfe47a-50dd-11e5-9070-abd4f63a66fc.html

By Bridget McCrea, eCampus News

Who says you can only use the flipped teaching method in your own class or with other teachers in your school or district? Not Andrew Thomasson and Cheryl Morris, that’s for sure. For the last few years, this enterprising duo has been flipping their English classes, co-moderating a weekly Twitter education chat, presenting at conferences, planning lessons, and collaborating regularly from opposite sides of the country. The pair joined forces in 2012 after Morris, who teaches sixth grade English and History at Del Mar Middle School in Tiburon, Calif., was introduced to the flipped learning concept.

http://www.eschoolnews.com/2015/09/01/flipping-together-394/

By Tony Bardo, eSchool News

As high-speed internet service becomes more ubiquitous in American households, some readers might be surprised to find out that a “digital divide” exists in many of our schools. According to a 2014 blog post from FCC Chairman Tom Wheeler, “Forty-one percent of America’s rural schools couldn’t get a high-speed connection if they tried,”— where a high-speed connection is defined as offering speeds of 10Mbps or higher. Whereas he may have been right that they don’t have it, he was wrong to conclude they couldn’t get it. Indeed, many individuals living in urban areas are typically well served by fiber-optic, cable or DSL providers, unaware that high-quality satellite internet is available virtually everywhere, nationwide, and at affordable prices— no matter where you live, work, or go to school. So the digital divide in fact is a misnomer; it’s really a terrestrial digital divide as the FCC itself has now concluded.

http://www.eschoolnews.com/2015/09/02/satellite-technology-628/

BY ARIANNA MACNEILL, The Salem News

Someday soon when students get that automated message from the school district announcing a snow day, the news may not invoke the same jubilation it historically did. Instead of a day of frolicking in the snow, it may merely mean Beverly pupils will have to trudge through their schoolwork assignments at home. Local school officials aren’t making those plans now, but they are piloting a “virtual school day” Tuesday for Beverly High students in grades 10-12. Principal Sean Gallagher said students will log on at home for their first day, complete their assignments and file them online.

http://www.centerdigitaled.com/k-12/Snow-Day-Pilot-Will-Reveal-the-Potential-of-Online-Learning-Days-for-Massachusetts-School-District.html

by Collin Binkley, The Associated Press

The newest classroom at Harvard’s business school has no desks or chairs. Instead, the professor teaches facing a towering digital screen that stretches from wall to wall, filled with the live video feeds of up to 60 students tuned in from their computers. In the futuristic classroom, housed in a television studio three kilometres from campus, class plays out like a giant video conference. Students can jump in to ask questions or respond to their classmates. The professor can stop a lecture to quiz individual students, or send the group a quick online poll.

http://www.ctvnews.ca/sci-tech/harvard-launches-new-virtual-classroom-where-students-watch-class-from-anywhere-1.2542216

by Mark Pynes, Penn Live

Monday marked Day 62 without a state budget and the effects of that continue to mount. Not only is Chester-Upland School District in such a financial predicament that it won’t be able to make its Sept. 9 payroll with the absence of state dollars, hardships are starting to be felt across the entire educational spectrum from preschool to higher education. Lawmakers and Gov. Tom Wolf met once last week to try get talks moving on a two-month overdue state budget but a follow-up meeting scheduled for the next day was cancelled at the Democratic governor’s request because he said he needed more time to study an offer that Republicans put on the table.

http://www.pennlive.com/politics/index.ssf/2015/08/most_schools_in_session_but_a.html

By Jacob Batte, Daily Comet

Online education enrollment has skyrocketed as parents and families search for a more individualized education for their children. Nancy Toups, a former public school teacher who home schooled three of her children, started eLearningK12 with two other teachers in 1999, seeking to provide individualize education in an efficient manner. They started in Toups’ Thibodaux loft with less than 20 students. Now, enrollment is over 1,000 with students from across the country and locations in Thibodaux, Houma and Baton Rouge. Earlier this month, eLearningK12 received a perfect score in its evaluation from the state Department of Education.

http://www.dailycomet.com/article/20150831/ARTICLES/150839956/1320

3 tips for alternative credentialing3 tips for alternative credentialingBy Laura Devaney,To create a strategic framework to Eduventures is recommending that institutions focus on the following three priorities:

1. Define your alternative credentialing options, whether they are certificates, badges, formal statements of accomplishment, or endorsements of some kind.

2. Determine the aim of these credentials. Are they to validate mastery of a particular skill? Do they really only serve as a more structured pathway to degree attainment? Or are they simply to demonstrate commitment to lifelong learning?

3. Articulate ways which alternative credentials can augment traditional degrees or create a viable substitute to degree attainment.

When properly positioned to the market, this strategic framework can help define a value proposition that makes these programs a viable option for adult learners.

http://www.ecampusnews.com/top-news/alternative-credentialing-report-792/

by Christopher Pappas, eLearning Industry

Exploring a learning topic from a whole new perspective is a rare opportunity. Fortunately, TED talks offer the chance to dive into the minds of other educators, subject matter experts, and eLearning professionals. TED talks are inspirational and innovative speeches that delve into the presenter’s topic of choice. Each video features stories, tips, and helpful insights that you won’t find elsewhere, all packed into an 18 minute time limit. Here are the top 10 TED talks that eLearning professionals won’t want to miss!

http://elearningindustry.com/top-10-ted-talks-for-elearning-professionals

by Tom Lindsay, Forbes

But while the proposals differ, their differences are less important than what they share. What they all have in common is a fundamental misunderstanding of what’s driving the crisis that all sides seek to solve. They fail to understand that the factors composing the dilemma we face—tuition hyperinflation, burdensome student-loan debt, and poor student learning—are to some extent branches of the same tree, whose roots are found in the well-intentioned but what has proved to be catastrophically naïve assumption that virtually all high school graduates should go to college. Higher-education reformers look at this bleak picture and wonder why all the ostensible solutions to the higher-education crisis serve only to double-down on the misguided premise that produced the crisis in the first place. Until and unless we jettison our utopian expectations, increasing numbers of students will continue to pay more and more and learn less and less.

http://www.forbes.com/sites/tomlindsay/2015/08/29/higher-educations-faulty-economics-how-we-got-here/

By KIRK PINHO, Crain’s Detroit

Christine Greenhow, assistant professor of counseling, educational psychology and special education at Michigan State University’s College of Education is bringing the concept of telecommuting to the academy using robotic technology. During a spring course in the Educational Psychology and Educational Technology Ph.D. program, 13 of 15 students participated using iPads affixed on top of either a stationary robot that swivels to interact with another student or a robot that moves around the classroom to do the same. Greenhow, who used the robot technology that was developed by the College of Educational Psychology and Special Education/College of Education Design Studio, said she saw the need for a virtual classroom after Ph.D. students taking most of their classes online “felt a sense of distance” between themselves and the teacher, as well as their fellow students. “Online and on-campus students recorded that when their colleagues were in robot form, each group felt more physically there.”

http://www.crainsdetroit.com/article/20150830/NEWS/308309996/robots-tighten-gap-in-distance-learning

by Karen MacGregor, University World News

Student success is crucial to the purposes of open, distance and e-learning – but challenging to achieve compared with selective post-secondary systems – a study for the International Council for Open and Distance Education, or ICDE, found. Good practices include whole-institution strategies for student success and the mitigation of drop-out at course, qualification and institutional levels, solid data, honest admissions policies and accountability. Student Success in Open, Distance and e-Learning was published in April and draws on research findings from a survey of 53 ICDE member institutions. It was produced by a task group led by Professor Alan Tait of The Open University, UK.

http://www.universityworldnews.com/article.php?story=20150828121436196

by D. Frank Smith, EdTech

A new study on the mobile device habits of college students shows they’re leaving their desktops behind and venturing out into an increasingly mobile landscape — one in which higher ed infrastructure will have to evolve to accommodate. The survey from cloud provider Domo polled 2,228 higher ed students to see how they’re using their mobile devices on campuses. Although the survey found that millennials spend more time browsing the Internet on their mobile phone than on their desktop, cellphone web surfing won by only a 2 percent margin (45.7 percent versus 43.4 percent for laptops or desktops).

http://www.edtechmagazine.com/higher/article/2015/08/report-how-millennials-use-mobile-devices-college

by Penn State University

The Penn State Berks communication arts and sciences (CAS) program is blazing a trail toward an initiative in higher education by adopting a free online textbook, which can also be downloaded and printed, for all sections of the course Effective Speech (CAS100A). This online textbook, “The Public Speaking Project,” will be used in the University Open Educational Resources (OER) textbook pilot initiative. The adoption of this free text has a positive impact on every academic program at Penn State Berks, as all students are required to take Effective Speech. Many universities and colleges have been working to reduce textbook costs for students, while state legislatures are encouraging colleges and universities to find ways to limit costs for students.

http://news.psu.edu/story/367038/2015/08/27/academics/penn-state-berks-adopts-free-online-textbook-effective-speech

By Chris Havergal, Times Higher Education

In lists of the next big higher education technology trends, Minecraft may not figure too highly. But that could be about to change, with a series of projects at the University of Hull, in Britain, demonstrating the pedagogical potential of the world-building computer game. “Excavating” a medieval village and building public understanding of the work of a renowned Yorkshire architect are among the ways in which Minecraft has been used at the institution. Joel Mills, Hull’s technology enhanced learning adviser, has also run a massive open online course about the use of the game in teaching, which attracted 3,000 participants.

https://www.insidehighered.com/news/2015/08/28/university-hull-demonstrates-pedagogical-potential-world-building-game

by eCampus News

How can states and institutions redesign funding models to better support student outcomes and new innovations in practice and services? From an in-the-trenches perspective, Paige Francis of Fairfield University argues that nowhere is innovation most prevalent, or critical, than in IT, and that only when institutional budgeting transitions from capital expenditures to operational dollars will funding be “as nimble as the technology it supports,” and able to support innovation:

http://www.ecampusnews.com/funding/education-funding-innovation-572/