Educational Technology

By Richard Chang, THE Journal

Classroom wearable technology in the United States is expected to grow at a compound annual growth rate of nearly 46 percent over the next four years, according to a recent report released by Research and Markets, a Dublin, Ireland-based market research firm. “Classroom Wearables Technology Market in the U.S. 2016-2020” covered the present scenario and the growth prospects of the scholastic wearables market, which includes devices such as smart glasses, smart watches, fitness trackers, wearable cameras and virtual reality headgear. To calculate the market size, the report documented classroom wearable devices by product, in K-12 schools, in higher education, by revenue in 2014 and 2015 and by shipments. The classroom wearables market appears to be a multi-billion dollar industry.

https://thejournal.com/articles/2016/04/29/wearable-technology-expected-to-flourish-in-classrooms.aspx

By Dian Schaffhauser, Campus Technology

Schools need to do a lot more to promote the study of computer science as a discipline. At the high school level, only about a quarter of schools have CS classes, and many of those focus on computer use or coding rather than CS principles. At the college level enrollment in such courses is often restricted to those in the major or bloated with extra fees. According to the Information Technology & Innovation Foundation, a non-profit science and technology think tank, while there’s a certain “groundswell of interest” in CS in the United States, it’s still not enough to address the high demand for skilled workers among employers.

https://campustechnology.com/articles/2016/05/31/report-wheres-the-computer-science-in-stem.aspx

by Alexander Sword, Computer Business Review

There are all sorts of skills required in learning to hack and taking an ethical hacking course can be the best way of ensuring you learn the most pertinent and useful ones. The Certified Ethical Hacker certification was created by EC-Council to provide a standardised qualification for ethical hacking, computer, network, application and internet security. It also covers skills for vulnerability assessments, penetration testing, computer forensics, intrusion detection and network security essentials. Training can taken either through online courses or through onsite classroom training at an EC-Council Accredited Training Center. For online learners all material is provided through video streaming with instructors, while on-site learning is a live session with instructors.

http://www.cbronline.com/news/cybersecurity/business/cyber-security-training-learn-how-to-hack-with-these-accredited-courses-4914146

by Sangeeta Motiani and DurgaPrasad Karnam, Huffington Post

While you should not leave your kids alone with devices for hours at a stretch, neither is it correct to assume that all technology use will “fry their brains” as some well-meaning parents seem to believe. With some involvement and intervention from you, you can use technology as a tool to not only engage your child but also nurture their curiosity and desire to learn. So forget overpriced summer-workshops and regimented schedules and unlock myriads of ways to learn with freedom. We’ve done some research for you and zeroed in on a list of 50 technology tools (all tried and tested by us) for your kids to explore this summer.

http://www.huffingtonpost.in/sangeeta-motiani-/50-online-learning-tools-_b_10304812.html

by Bob Smale & Julie Fowlie, Tomorrow’s Professor

When taking notes in lectures and seminars, you can try using a mind mapping technique for note taking, or you can use it to summarise your notes or handouts and other materials after the session. Doing this systematically will help you store ideas away in your brain for later use when writing up your work. Looking at your mind maps will help refresh your memory and you can always go back and add to them if there is more to say, perhaps from your reading around the subject. Mind mapping can also be used to enhance your powers of creativity. When writing up a formal report or essay, try to brainstorm all the main points first. Then order your points into a logical sequence and write around them. Your key words may become your subheadings. Similarly, you can use a mind map to structure the content for an oral presentation.

https://tomprof.stanford.edu/posting/1496

by Elyse Wanshel, Huffington Post

Elder care is about to become much more empathetic. Embodied Labs has come up with a new virtual reality program called “We Are Alfred,” which allows young medical students to feel what it’s like to be an elderly individual experiencing audio and visual problems. “[Medical students] are usually in their early 20s and not experiencing those kinds of challenges yet, so we decided to create something that would give them the experience of what it might be like to go through the aging process,” Carrie Shaw, the program’s creator and master’s student in biomedical visualization told University of Illinois at Chicago, where she studies. This could be empathy 2.0 for the average med student, who is 24.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/we-are-alfred-embodied-labs-carrie-shaw-virtual-reality-medical-students-elderly-geriatric-care_us_57505bbce4b0c3752dccbeaa

by Steven A. Rosenberg, Boston Globe

Finding a textbook in Barbara McNulty’s communications class requires some sleuthing. That’s because the weighty volumes are stacked at the bottom of a dark closet and haven’t been used in 10 years. Pens, notebooks, and lectures? Also scarce. Instead, students in the Groton-Dunstable Regional High School class learn almost entirely through digital platforms. They use computers to research and create projects at their own pace, while McNulty serves as a guide, traversing the classroom and assessing students’ work in real-time from their laptops.

https://www.bostonglobe.com/metro/2016/06/04/paperless-education/LlHobGE7iRIZV3pwN0cR9J/story.html

by Chloe Sorvino, FORBES

FORBES asked dozens of the richest self-made women in the country to talk about failure, breaking rules and what keeps them going. We’ve broken out the most intriguing responses. Sometimes called a “mother of the Internet,” Lynda Weinman sold her online learning platform, Lynda.com, to LinkedIn LNKD -1.05% for $1.5 billion in May and stepped down as executive chairman a month later. Worth $260 million, she is one of the most successful self-made women in the country. Getting to that point wasn’t so easy.

http://www.forbes.com/sites/chloesorvino/2016/06/05/a-qa-with-mother-of-the-internet-lynda-weinman-cofounder-of-lynda-com/#52d856b44c63

BY BEKEZELA PHAKATHI, Business Day Live

ONLINE learning is becoming increasingly popular, particularly among students who cannot access traditional places of higher education due to various constraints, including financial, geographical and political. Higher education has been under the spotlight in SA following last year’s #feesmustfall protests. According to University of the People (UoPeople), a US nonprofit online institution of higher education headquartered in Pasadena, an increasing number of South African students are seeking to enrol at the institution.

http://www.bdlive.co.za/national/education/2016/06/04/constrained-local-students-are-enjoying-opportunities-online-learning-offers

By Tara García Mathewson, Education Dive

Artificial intelligence software from Boston-based Cognii will use natural language processing to offer immediate feedback to Colorado State University psychology students on essay assignments. Xconomy reports the software works like voice-command programs on smartphones, where instead of answering a question, the program asks one and then determines how students could improve their response to be more accurate. The software is expected to help students during formative assignments, improving the quality of work they eventually submit to professors, and it will give instructors a new layer of insight into student performance, including analytics data.

http://www.educationdive.com/news/colorado-state-bringing-ai-into-online-psych-courses-next-fall/420305/

by Sadhana Chathurvedula, Live Mint

Some of the online education providers that have quickly scaled up operations through videos, online tests and chat forums are beginning to realize the benefits of mentoring and collaborative learning, usually associated with classroom learning. US-based Udacity Inc., one of the best-known education start-ups which provided only online classes so far recently launched Udacity Connect, a program where learners could interact with each others as well as with teachers. In a blog post, the company claimed learners in such a model were three times as likely to complete their program. Udacity is yet to introduce the program in India, which has both online-only education providers—the preferred solution since it is easier to scale up—and hybrid learning providers who offer a mix of online learning and offline sessions. The latter limits scale and is more difficult to implement.

http://www.livemint.com/Companies/FdshzhjaZOkYe1wf01rq7I/Online-vs-hybrid-The-big-divide-in-education-startups.html

by MICHAEL MCGRADY, Heartland

A South Carolina bill to expand public school students’ access to credit-bearing courses from public schools, colleges, nonprofit organizations, employers, and other course providers was introduced in the House on April 14, 2016. The bill failed to progress to the Senate in time to meet the crossover deadline of May 1 for the current legislative session. State Rep. Todd Atwater (R-Lexington) introduced House Bill 5216, the South Carolina Course Access Act. The bill was referred to the House Committee on Education and Public Works on April 14, 2016, but the state Department of Education opposed the bill in its current form. The Course Access Act is designed to provide students state funding and full class credit for completing state-approved courses which are offered by a number of course providers in a variety of formats.

http://news.heartland.org/newspaper-article/2016/06/02/south-carolina-house-introduces-bill-expand-course-options-public-schoo

By Joshua Bolkan, THE Journal

Shipments of virtual reality devices will expand by more than 2,400 percent this year according to a new forecast from International Data Corp. (IDC). Screenless viewers will grab the largest market share, according to the research company, at 74 percent. “Virtual reality (VR) is an increasingly hot topic at technology events, government meetings and consumer entertainment events, injecting a boost of much needed excitement into consumer IT and business applications markets,” said Neo Zheng, research manager, client system research, IDC China, in a prepared statement. Areas to watch within the virtual reality ecosystem include components, devices, platforms and content, according to IDC.

https://thejournal.com/articles/2016/06/01/report-virtual-reality-shipments-to-rocket-up-2400-percent-this-year.aspx

By Michelle Pacansky-Brock, EdSurge

Learning online requires students to be more accountable, and online research shows that self-efficacy impacts student success online. But when we focus on lack of student motivation as “the” problem, we oversimplify a more complex and important issue. When online classes are designed to support and encourage learning differences, align technology with pedagogy, and are facilitated by a present, empathetic and aware instructor, we can begin to see them as a tremendous opportunity for the diverse population of students in higher education.

https://www.edsurge.com/news/2016-05-31-unpacking-the-problem-of-unmotivated-online-students

By Tara García Mathewson, Education Dive

Education technology startups have been flush with cash in recent years, thanks to enthusiastic investors ready to “disrupt” higher education, but 2016 has brought a slowdown to the sector that is sure to impact colleges and universities. The Chronicle of Higher Education reports higher ed leaders can expect fewer free or low-cost trials, as well as pitches from companies offering new, innovative products or services — though career services and learning analytics arenas are still growing. The startups that survive in a shrinking market with disruptive business models may present greater threats to traditional higher education because they will prove their strength, like Udacity, which is now valued at more than $1 billion.

http://www.educationdive.com/news/ed-tech-investment-is-down-but-what-does-it-mean-for-colleges/420139/

By Tara García Mathewson, Education Dive

Holly Moore, executive dean of South Seattle College’s Georgetown Campus, believes stackable credentials are a necessity in higher education, both for the success of students who need flexibility and because they can help institutions maintain connections with alumni and improve outcomes. In a Q&A with The Evolllution, Moore says institutional leaders must develop stackable programs based on conversations with employers and create a feedback loop so improvements can be made based on actual outcomes.  Beyond ensuring programs meet federal financial aid requirements, Moore recommends working closely with student services and financial aid departments to secure institutional buy-in for stackable programs and necessary financial support for students who choose them.

http://www.educationdive.com/news/are-stackable-credentials-now-a-necessity/420144/

By Leila Meyer, Campus Technology

Digital games can be powerful learning tools, helping engage students and improve learning outcomes. And while adoption in higher education has been slow, a growing number of college and university instructors are gamifying their courses, either by incorporating existing games or developing custom ones. We asked three game-savvy educators and technologists for their advice on introducing gamification to the college or university classroom.

https://campustechnology.com/articles/2016/06/01/12-tips-for-gamifying-a-course.aspx

by Matthew Prineas, Evolllution

The past decade has seen a steady growth in the disruptive potential of open educational resources (OER)—free, high-quality, openly licensed educational materials in a variety of media—to enhance access, improve outcomes and lower costs for students. There is evidence that the movement has reached a tipping point. With major support from the Hewlett Foundation and other funders, the focus has shifted to large-scale—program-wide or even enterprise-wide—adoption of OER as the core or even sole curricular educational content. What is also clear is that fully realizing the potential of OER to achieve these outcomes will require a strategic approach, adequate institutional resources and a willingness to transform more fundamental aspects of the traditional model of delivering education.

http://evolllution.com/attracting-students/accessibility/large-scale-adoption-of-open-educational-resources-as-an-institutional-differentiator/

by ERIK LORENZSONN, The Capital Times

That weird dynamic between in-game and real-life identities, said Norton, is a huge reason that video games are actually valuable tools — not just for play, but for learning. Creating games that make use of that “merged identity” to impart skills and knowledge to children and adults alike is an art that Norton and the team at Filament have been working to perfect for the last 10 years. Consider “Do I Have a Right?” a 2010 game from Filament that strives to teach children about the Bill of Rights. Players take on the role of a lawyer running a law firm. They greet new clients, hear complaints, let people know whether or not their complaint reflects a breach of their constitutional rights, and refer them to attorneys who can best handle their case.

http://host.madison.com/ct/business/technology/madison-s-filament-games-has-become-a-leader-in-the/article_d711fa19-0e1d-5d2b-ae27-df53357ab7c7.html

By Tara García Mathewson, Education Dive

Symantec’s 2016 Internet Security Threat Report found education tied with business for the second-most-breached subsector; 6.6% of all reported cybersecurity incidents in 2015 trace back to education institutions. Ed Tech reports the worsening ranking, up one place from the 2015 report, indicates IT leaders on campuses need to shift from avoidance to anticipation when it comes to threats. Holistic cybersecurity is a best practice that connects the work in the IT department with faculty, staff and student users to ensure the practices and technologies in place are not undermined by the people who use the networks.

http://www.educationdive.com/news/it-security-in-education-on-the-decline/420049/

by Caller Smart

CyberbullyingCyberbullying affects countless teens and adolescents. A 2015 random sample study of 11-15 year olds in the Midwest found that over 34% reported being the victim of cyberbullying in their lifetime. Other studies have found that 1 in 4 teens have been cyberbullied. Victims of cyberbullying are much more likely to use alcohol and drugs, avoid school and have poor grades, experience depression and low self-esteem, and may even contemplate suicide.

https://www.callersmart.com/articles/49/What-Is-Cyberbullying-and-How-to-Stop-It