Educational Technology

By Dian Schaffhauser, Campus Technology

Career and technical education (CTE) will get a boost if bi-partisan legislation moves ahead. Recently, United States Senators Michael Bennet (D-CO) and Orrin Hatch (R-UT) introduced a bill that would expand dual and concurrent enrollment in multiple directions. The Workforce Advance Act would allow states to invest dollars in increasing the number of courses offered and encourage school districts to bolster their CTE programs by incorporating college credit opportunities. The move came at the same time the House Education & the Workforce Committee voted to reauthorize the Perkins Career and Technical Education Act, which forms the baseline funding for CTE in this country.

https://campustechnology.com/articles/2016/07/27/senate-bill-proposes-shot-in-arm-for-cte.aspx

By Joshua Bolkan, Campus Technology

Poll Everywhere has updated its clicker-free response system, also dubbed Poll Everywhere, to offer live surveys. Poll Everywhere allows presenters to ask audiences questions, which the audience can then answer through mobile devices, Twitter or a browser. As a result of the update, teachers or students will now be able to give multi-question surveys to a class and get real-time results, embedding the surveys directly into PowerPoint, Keynote or Google Slides presentations.

https://campustechnology.com/articles/2016/07/28/poll-everywherre-adds-live-surveys.aspx

by ECN Magazine

The VESSS program is an online Earth System Science course featuring a NASA scientific research and data-learning experience. In order for students to be selected for the summer academy at NASA Langley, they had to successfully complete seven web-based modules and a final project during the course of the school year. Students selected to participate in the summer academy were immersed in NASA-related research through interaction with scientists, engineers and technologists. The students were tasked to design a mission to explore the Earth systems through the launching of a satellite mission. The program is a partnership between the Virginia Space Grant Consortium and NASA Langley Research Center. Hampton University’s Center for Atmospheric Research and Education provided funding to offer the online course and Thomas Nelson Community College partnered to provide three dual-enrollment college credits.

https://www.ecnmag.com/news/2016/07/earth-becomes-fertile-learning-ground-vesss-program-students

By Tara García Mathewson, Education Dive

Arkansas created the Virtual Arkansas program in response to statewide demand for online courses at the K-12 level, but it hired its teachers for their content area expertise and few had experience teaching in the online format. According to eSchool News, the state responded by sending teachers through Leading Edge Certification’s Online and Blended Teacher certification, composed of eight modules including ones about online assessment, pedagogical strategies, and project-based learning options. Teachers are asked to research digital learning tools and test them before incorporating them into their classes, and they develop custom assessments and create collaborative presentations during the training, which teachers generally complete in four to eight weeks over the summer.

http://www.educationdive.com/news/virtual-arkansas-instructors-go-through-intensive-training-in-online-ed/423534/

BY LAURA DEVANEY, eCampus News

Students spend less on course materials than a decade ago, as number of materials purchased remains steady. Ease of access and lower costs are two major drivers for the increase in digital course materials among college students, according to a twice-yearly national survey. The preference for digital course materials by college students is gradually increasing, although not as quickly as some predicted, according to the National Association of College Stores’ (NACS) survey of college students in the U.S. and Canada. The study, Student Watch: Attitudes and Behaviors toward Course Materials: 2015-2016 Report, notes that 40 percent of students still prefer a printed textbook format. However, 26 percent now prefer a print/digital bundle – a print textbook with a digital component such as online access and support – up from 24 percent a year ago. Convenience (56 percent) and lower cost (45 percent) remain the top reasons for purchasing digital.

http://www.ecampusnews.com/curriculum/digital-course-materials/

by Merris Stansbury, eCampus News

Researchers from the University of California Riverside and zyBooks recently presented findings at the American Society for Engineering Education (ASEE) annual conference that shows students demonstrate integrity in learning and ignore online cheating opportunities—if they feel like they’re really learning.The study reveals that most college students make a legitimate attempt to answer questions in homework assignments, even when a short-cut to the answer is available to them through the click of a button. The paper also discusses teaching practices that can have a negative impact on honesty such as assigning excessive work. Experts were also able to compare response data to the makeup of the questions themselves to determine which types of questions are most effective.

http://www.ecampusnews.com/research/student-online-cheating/

BY STEPHEN NOONOO, eCampus News

In Arkansas, as in most states, student interest in online learning is skyrocketing. While most students still take at least some of their courses in a face-to-face setting, the need to scale online learning opportunities for thousands of students has required new infrastructure, new curriculum, and, of course, new teachers. The state’s official response was to create a new program, called Virtual Arkansas, to manage its online courses and work with districts to find students who want to take them. The idea is to provide a full range of services, from catering to students in rural areas looking for a hard-to-find class to districts turning to online in the face of teacher shortages or budget cutbacks. Currently, about 30,000 students in the state take courses through Virtual Arkansas and the program employs dozens of teachers, whose experience with blended learning might be spotty at best.

http://www.eschoolnews.com/2016/07/28/how-this-state-is-turning-its-virtual-teachers-into-online-learning-experts/

by Tomas Laurinavicius, Huffington Post

Simply put, online certifications deliver incredible returns for the investment, both in terms of time and resources. While a college or university degree takes three to five years to finish, online certification programs run for no longer than a few weeks or a couple of months, depending on the field of study. Increased employer recognition and the tangible benefits that follow from having a certification to your name have made this a popular choice for professionals around the world. According to Upwork, 54 million people did freelance work in 2015, with the number as high as 75 million in 2016. That’s 24% of the population of the United States! The pull of a freer lifestyle and flexible working hours have been the main reasons an increasing number of professionals are opting for freelance careers.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/tomas-laurinavicius/why-online-certifications_b_11081630.html

By Sean Coughlan, BBC

The debate about access to computers should move to how they are used, says OECD research. There are strong social divisions in how young people use digital technology, according to international research from the OECD. The economics think tank found that in many countries wealthy and poor pupils spent similar amounts of time online. But richer youngsters were much more likely to use the internet for learning rather than games. The study argues that even with equal access to technology a “digital divide” persists in how the internet is used. The OECD report, based on data from more than 40 countries mostly in Europe, Asia and South America, looked at how teenagers used online technology at home. Access to the internet and digital technology are seen as important to educational achievement.

http://www.bbc.com/news/business-36835585