Educational Technology

By Bill Fitzgerald, THE Journal

As part of our work for the Common Sense District Privacy Evaluation Initiative, we spend a lot of time reading through the text of privacy policies and terms of service of educational software. However, we are also looking at the mechanics of how these policies are articulated and delivered. Over time, as we evaluate more policies, we will be looking for possible patterns or correlations between technical and stylistic details, and the contents of policies. To be clear, we do not think we will find any direct correlation between policy structures and whether terms are good or bad (although if we could see that predictably, that would make everyone’s life a whole lot easier). However, even based on what we’ve seen so far — and we are in the early stages of this analytical work — we are seeing some potential indicators that will help us highlight specific elements of policies and analyze them more efficiently. To get a better sense of our process and how we’re carrying out this work, I’ve outlined a few of the primary ways we are analyzing privacy policies here.

https://thejournal.com/articles/2016/06/23/privacy-by-the-numbers-a-deep-dive-into-the-structure-of-privacy-policies.aspx

By David Raths, THE Journal

K-12 schools are beginning to see the educational value of virtual and augmented reality and are investing in these technologies even though price points are still aimed at higher-end markets. In the Methacton School District in a Philadelphia suburb, a high school oceanography class recently visited the Great Barrier Reef, while a Spanish class traveled to cities in Spain and Mexico. The students and their teachers were taking part in the Google Expeditions Pioneer Program to test out a virtual reality (VR) platform built for the classroom using Google Cardboard, which requires only a smartphone, an inexpensive cardboard phone holder and an accompanying app. Chris Lloyd and Layla Lyons, teachers who work as technology integration specialists in the district, said the expeditions were a nice complement to topics that certain classes were working on and the technology itself was fairly straightforward to deploy.

https://thejournal.com/articles/2016/06/15/augmented-and-virtual-reality-where-is-the-educational-value.aspx

By Mary Grush, Campus Technology

In a recent blog post, AAEEBL president Trent Batson pondered “The Edinburgh Challenge: If ePortfolios are so great, why aren’t more people using them?” Here, we talked with Batson about a reframing of the notion of ‘ePortfolio adoption’ and how that may ultimately help promote the technology. Mary Grush: Where are we in ePortfolio adoption today? Trent Batson: The numbers are encouraging. Educause, in its annual survey of undergraduate use of information technology — which is sent to undergraduate students in 55 countries — shows that well over 50 percent of students use ePortfolios at some point in their college careers, and ten percent use ePortfolios in all or nearly all of their courses. It would be hard to find an institution in any of those 55 countries that doesn’t have an ePortfolio program in some form or other.

https://campustechnology.com/articles/2016/06/21/eportfolio-changing-the-rhetoric-of-technology-adoption.aspx

By Joshua Bolkan, Campus Technology

Global shipments of wearable devices will grow 29 percent over 2015 to hit 101.9 million units this year according to a new forecast from market research firm International Data Corp. (IDC). The segment will continue to see strong growth, according to the company, at a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 20.3 percent through 2020, when it will ship 213.6 million units. The market leaders throughout the forecast period will remain watches and wrist bands.

https://campustechnology.com/articles/2016/06/22/report-wearable-shipments-to-top-100-million-this-year.aspx

By Michael Hart, Campus Technology

In the game, which is intended to help students learn Japanese — although it is designed to teach other languages as well — players go on “quests” to learn new words by watching game characters talk to each other. For instance, as one character walks away, another that is left behind says, “Sayonara.” The hope is that the player understands “Sayonara” means “goodbye.” At that point, the player can drag the word from a speech balloon into an inventory of terms that can later be used to construct sentences. In one group, students were connected via a chat interface with another player who could, if they wanted, offer advice on how to play. The second group played a version of the game in which they were definitely required to collaborate on quests. The research group found the students in the second so-called “high-interdependence” group spent more time communicating and, as a consequence, learned more words.

https://campustechnology.com/articles/2016/06/22/research-suggests-students-learn-more-when-working-together-in-virtual-reality-games.aspx

By Dian Schaffhauser, Campus Technology

A day after the a federal appeals court upheld net neutrality rules put into place last year by the Federal Communications Commission (FCC), the guy who heads that agency had a chance to try out virtual reality (VR) and to ask questions of Stanford University experts about how VR might affect future policy decisions. FCC Chairman Tom Wheeler visited the university specifically to check in on the Virtual Human Interaction Lab. The mission of that lab is to understand the impact of VR on interactions among people residing in digital worlds. Wheeler used the visit to emphasize the importance of “unfettered access to the entire web,” as he said in a prepared statement regarding the DC Circuit ruling. “Virtual reality shouldn’t have gatekeepers,” he told those participating in his Stanford visit. “It starts with an internet that is fast, fair and open.”

https://campustechnology.com/articles/2016/06/22/fcc-chairman-gets-educated-on-vr-at-stanford.aspx

By Jarrett Carter, Education Dive

eCampus News lays out three strategies to promote a successful branding campaign; digital archives and delivery systems are key for schools that want to expanding quality branding in recruitment, retention and community outreach. Building strong visual identity begins with feedback and support from campus stakeholders, and must be enforced with firm rules on presentation and usage. Making logos and marks accessible is critical to a successful branding campaign. Maintaining updated photo repositories and breaking down bureaucracy in securing these tools encourages institutional buy-in and support for branding guidelines.

http://www.educationdive.com/news/technology-key-to-university-branding-strategies/421329/

by Education Dive

As an educational model, differentiated instruction has been around since the time of Socrates. As a method of providing a classroom of students, often with differing abilities, instruction based on individual aptitudes for learning, it has been an effective alternative to repetitive rote memorization that is still widely practiced in many countries around the world. Today, with the widespread availability of new learning software and platforms, differentiated instruction can take on a revolutionary role under the guise of adaptive learning, and it could alter our thinking about education and the way students learn.

http://www.educationdive.com/news/study-examines-why-students-choose-for-profit-education/421361/

by Claire Groden, Inverse

Enter Amazon. The retail giant and growing media presence might be considering a foray into the online education space: four instructors who asked to remain anonymous say they’ve been approached by Amazon to post their courses on the company’s newest service. And after $173 million of investment, the highly leveraged Udemy is going to have to start showing revenue — not just a growing student count that many instructors say is dramatically exaggerated.

https://www.inverse.com/article/17307-growing-pains-at-online-education-startup-udemy-hit-as-amazon-rumors-swirl

by CBS San Francisco

Bay Area organizationsare helping refugees access free, online educational courses through Coursera via Stanford University, the University of California, and other major universities around the world. In an effort to increase access to education for refugees and non-profit organizations that serve refugee populations, Mountain View-based, Coursera.org launched the Coursera for Refugees program on Monday, in honor of World Refugee Day. Globally, a record 65.3 million people were displaced from their homes by persecution and conflict in 2015, according to the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees. Coursera, a for-profit, venture capital-backed provider of onlinecourses, is now offering thousands of courses to refugees, as well as specialized courses such as English for Business and Entrepreneurship via the University of Pennsylvania, Career Success via the University of California, Irvine and Python for Everybody via the University of Michigan.

http://sanfrancisco.cbslocal.com/2016/06/21/bay-area-organizations-help-refugees-access-free-online-educations/

By MATT HOFFMAN, Billings Gazette

This year, Montana Digital Academy took steps to add more on-the-ground support for students in the online program’s credit recovery courses. Now, a report from a Portland, Ore.-based education research group backs that decision up. Education Northwest found that schools with higher passing rates offered more in-school structure and support for students in credit recovery. Data from the 2013-2014 school year shows passing rates varied wildly from school to school, although many schools had very small samples.

http://billingsgazette.com/news/local/education/study-in-school-support-crucial-for-montana-online-classes/article_3d7c080e-b2d5-5d9c-be90-a7e3813af9b2.html

By tech2 News Staff

IBM India announced today that it will source entrepreneurs with high potential from India to invite them into its Global Entrepreneur program from Coursera’s series of courses under “Full Stack Web Development Specialization”. The series is being offered by the Hong Kong University of Science and Technology. According to the announcement, at least 20 participants taking the online course and meeting the criteria by IBM will be accepted in IBM Global Entrepreneur. The selected participants will be given $120,000 in credit to access IBM Cloud services in credit in addition to the invites to apply to represent their startup at IBM SmartCamp 2016, a mentoring Bootcamp and pitch competition between rising startups from all over the world.

http://tech.firstpost.com/news-analysis/ibm-to-give-2-4-million-to-entrepreneurs-in-india-taking-courses-from-coursera-322113.html

by Lucia Maffei, Tech Crunch

Google wants more people to learn to program — especially for its Android platform. While the company already offered a few programming courses, they were typically geared toward students with at least some rudimentary programming experience. Starting today, the Google Android Basics Nanodegree class is available on the online learning platform Udacity. It’s the first Android nanodegree class designed by Google for people with no programming experience at all. “Google, in partnership with Udacity, is making Android development accessible and understandable to everyone, so that regardless of your background, you can learn to build apps that improve the lives of people around you,” Shanea King-Roberson, program manager at Google, said in a blog post.

https://techcrunch.com/2016/06/22/google-and-udacity-launch-a-new-android-programming-course-for-beginners/?ncid=mobilenavtrend

by Rebecca Smith, Management Today

But which skills does Koller think students should be really swotting up on for future success? ‘One of the bigger ones we’re seeing is the ability to handle data,’ she says. ‘I don’t just mean big data, but data-oriented thinking and business analytics.’ Koller then points to an often overlooked set of skills as those that’ll always be valuable. ‘The whole range of soft skills is also very important,’ she says. ‘We’re getting to a point where the world is changing really fast so concrete skills that are important today might not be useful tomorrow.’ But the abilities to formulate a problem, work well within a team, accept responsibilities and be flexible don’t have a sell-by date. ‘All of those skills that I think for a while weren’t seen as important will be for a long time.’

http://www.managementtoday.co.uk/news/1399477/daphne-koller-soft-skills-overlooked-undervalued/

By Dian Schaffhauser, Campus Technology

“In a world where we can place people in empty seats in cars and empty beds in houses, why not place people in empty chairs in college classrooms?” That’s what a team of Harvard University students say about their new start-up called ALEX (Anyone’s Learning EXperience). The students recently won a Public Sector Innovation Award for their work from the Technology and Entrepreneurship Center at Harvard. The idea behind ALEX is this: Universities and colleges with empty seats in some of their courses make those available through the site, and employers that want employees to obtain continuing education can subsidize enrollment for their people. The platform matches company need with excess classroom capacity.

https://campustechnology.com/articles/2016/06/15/alex-wants-to-fill-classrooms-like-airbnb-fills-beds.aspx

by Clay Dillow, CNBC.com

In an effort to address the skills shortage, three-year-old Udacity (2016 CNBC Disruptor No. 12) has partnered with tech giants such as AT&T, Google, Facebook and Amazon to reinvent job training. The company — founded by Stanford professor and onetime Google VP Sebastian Thrun — has repositioned its focus from massive open online courses (MOOCs) to certification training on very specific skills. Students can earn what’s called a nanodegree and learn things like front-end web developing, iOS and Android programming, or machine learning in less than a year — and for less than $1,000.

http://www.cnbc.com/2016/06/20/udacity-reinvents-skills-training-with-the-nanodegree.html

By Jarrett Carter, Education Dive

Coursera President and Co-Founder Daphne Koller says that the college diploma of 15 years ago doesn’t provide the necessary skills for a job in the 21st century. According to her podcast interview with Recode, Koller says that expanding educational access with coursework designed for skill-building in key industries is the way to increase interest in education and career preparation. Koller says that artificial intelligence and virtual reality components of learning will replace traditional classroom lectures.

http://www.educationdive.com/news/courseras-koller-yesterdays-degree-doesnt-prepare-for-tomorrows-jobs/421277/

by eSchool News

A series of state-specific websites, grounded in work conducted by the American Institutes for Research (AIR), will offer students a new way to plan for life after high school. Its interactive features show the potential return on investment for a wide array of higher education choices. The first “Launch My Career” website, launched in Denver, will help students identify in-demand jobs across Colorado and in particular regions of the state, and will help students identify majors, as well as degree or certificate programs, that will help prepare them for those jobs.

http://www.eschoolnews.com/2016/06/20/air-research-fuels-launch-my-career-website/

by Louis Columbus, Forbes

56.4% of developers are building robotics apps today.

45% of developers say that Internet of Things (IoT) development is critical to their overall digital strategy.

56.4% of developers are building robotics apps today.

45% of developers say that Internet of Things (IoT) development is critical to their overall digital strategy.

27.4% of all developers are building apps in the cloud today.

24.7% are using machine learning for development projects.

These and many other insights are from the Evans Data Corporation Global Development Survey, Volume 1 (PDF, client access) published earlier this month. The methodology was based on interviews with developers actively creating new applications with the latest technologies.

http://www.forbes.com/sites/louiscolumbus/2016/06/18/internet-of-things-machine-learning-robotics-are-high-priorities-for-developers-in-2016/#1f4e1e835644

by the Sequitur

Your child’s middle school educational years are incredibly important. This is the time that students become more independent, more responsible for their education and more vested in their commitment to learning. In seventh and eighth grade, curriculum becomes more rigorous than it was in early educational years. Expectations rise as students are taught to develop and refine their study habits and gain more advanced analytical and problem-solving skills. The priority is to help online learners continue to grow their knowledge base while preparing for the demands they’ll need to meet once they advance to a high school education. Linked below are some of the things online middle school classes are designed to help students achieve:

https://www.thesequitur.com/how-online-middle-school-classes-prepare-your-student-for-higher-learning-1268946/