Educational Technology

By Dylan Lysen, Manhattan (KS) Mercury

While many K-State students have gone home for the holidays, some have already gone back to class. The university’s winter intersession classes — shortened courses offered between fall and spring semesters — began on Tuesday, with several more beginning next week. The courses span different topics, including masonry, computer science, dance and even social media. Andrew Smith, an instructor with 25 years of journalism experience, said the social media course provided through K-State’s journalism school is one of the many that are only online. While some intersession courses are traditional lectures, online courses offer recorded lectures and discussion topics on message boards.

http://themercury.com/articles/short-classes-give-students-a-jump-on-spring-semester

by eSchool News

Student-teacher interaction is one of the most important things when creating a positive and effective classroom environment–in fact, it ranked higher than educational technology use, according to both teachers and students in a new survey. The survey from online learning service provider Quizlet seeks to outline how teachers and students, including Generation Z students (those born in 2001 or later), feel about technology in their classrooms. Eighty-seven percent of surveyed teachers said interaction with students is an important part of their teaching environment.

http://www.eschoolnews.com/2016/12/15/gen-z-educational-technology/

BY MATTHEW LYNCH, Edvocate

We all know how wildly popular Pokémon GO was when it first launched (and continues to be). With as many as $5.7 million spent daily on the in-app purchase and 21 million active users, it’d be an understatement to say it is an overwhelming success. Augmented and virtual reality (VR) are the technologies behind Pokémon GO. It’s estimated that over the next several years the growth in VR will surpass that of smartphones. Up until now, virtual reality has been widely used for entertainment purposes. However, the applications extend to other facets, including that of education. VR allows for high-impact learning experiences, and as this new age of affordable VR tech presents itself, the opportunities for improving education abound. Educators are well aware of the positive impact out of classroom experiences have on learning.

http://www.theedadvocate.org/how-virtual-reality-is-changing-education/

By Vicki Davis, Edutopia

The past year saw ideas both good and bad spreading ever faster. How can we make our best teaching ideas go viral? But at a minimum, every teacher should care about classroom best practices. Those should be like gold. If I find something bottle-flippingly awesome in my classroom, shouldn’t I share it with my networks? Shouldn’t it go viral just as fast and far as Chewbacca mom? To be fair, lesson plans are being shared in some places. There are bubbling communities of educators at Teachers Pay Teachers and on many OER websites, where people are excitedly sharing and iterating on great educational resources. Amazon even entered the space earlier this year. Although many rush to condemn these efforts, and mainstream education media generally ignores them, I predict that one day education best practices will go viral. Things stay the same faster than ever. With a few exceptions (noted above), we’re seeing more irrelevant materials, faster.

https://www.edutopia.org/article/2016-awesome-painful-viral-vicki-davis

by Sanjay Kaul, Pioneer Press

It’s only a matter of a few years when on-line education becomes the most sought-after mode in the world. Age will no longer be a barrier and everyone will be able to join the learning curve from wherever they want. Today out of every five people living on the planet, two have access to the internet and what’s even more amazing is that nearly all of them have a smartphone. Pushed by the likes of edX, Khan Academy, Coursera, Udacity, Udemy et al, Massive Open Online Courses (MOOC) has emerged as a popular genre, growing into a full-fledged “for- profit” and “not-for-profit” industry. Two main formats are now available, one based on the connectivist approach known as cMOOC, where content could be repacked as per need and requirements. The other goes by the name of MOOCx, an extension of traditional and blended thinking with a clearly specified syllabus driven by recorded lectures and films through expert providers.

http://www.dailypioneer.com/columnists/oped/the-world-caught-in-net-enabled-for-learning.html

by Vinay Devnath, Story Pick

Your career is never done for, even if you are well past what you think is your “due date”. This wouldn’t have been true a few decades ago. The only way you could get a job was if you went into a specific field and studied and worked hard to gain experience. Any other course other than the one you chose was not really accessible. Today, it is common to see people foray into education they find interesting even when they are in middle age. The truth is, that starting afresh is never too late. Yes, there is always insecurity gnawing in the form of a doubt, but there are many reasons that will put your mind to rest and with resources like edX, the leading nonprofit online learning destination founded by Harvard and MIT, there are plenty of courses and programs from top universities and institutions that you can access for free.

http://www.storypick.com/start-afresh/

By Matthew Rascoff, EdSurge

Tis the season of giving, eating and reflecting, a time to look back on 2016 and to make bold predictions about what next year may hold. In our fourth year-end personal statement roundup, we’ve again asked thought leaders to share their outlooks on education, but with a twist. They have to frame their thoughts as a response to some of the finest college application essay prompts, inspired by the very same ones that high school seniors are feverishly working on now! Here’s what Matthew Rascoff, vice president of the Office of Technology-Based Learning and Innovation at University of North Carolina, had to say. The highs and lows are inevitable. It helps just to know, for individuals or for a sector, that they are natural. We are definitely ready for the Boom Bands to start playing in 2017.

https://www.edsurge.com/news/2016-12-28-unbundling-higher-ed-tech-the-place-we-will-go-in-2017

by China Daily

Cindy Mi is 33 and founder of a startup that aims to give Chinese kids the kind of education American children receive in top US schools. Called VIPKid, the company matches Chinese students aged five to 12 with predominantly North American instructors to study English, math, science and other subjects. Classes take place online, typically for two or three 25-minute sessions each week. Mi is capitalizing on an alluring arbitrage opportunity. In China, there are hundreds of millions of kids whose parents are willing to pay up if they can get high-quality education. In the US and Canada, teachers are often underpaid－and many have quit the profession because they couldn’t make a decent living. Growth has been explosive. The three-year-old company started this year with 200 teachers and has grown to 5,000, now working with 50,000 children. Next year, Mi anticipates she’ll expand to 25,000 teachers and 200,000 children.

http://www.chinadaily.com.cn/business/2016-12/28/content_27795511.htm

by Dave King, Oregon State; Evolllution

Oregon State University is in the first phase of a year-long initiative to identify innovative ideas that will have a positive impact on learner success and future revenue generation for the institution. In the world of innovation, there are a couple of fundamental ways to look at the process of generating new ideas. Some ideas focus on sustaining innovation, the ideas that are needed to maintain the growth and success of the core enterprise. However, there is an additional form of innovation that tends to be outside the realm of the day-to-day efforts of what can be called the “mothership.” In some cases, these new innovations may be disruptive innovation similar to the ideas described by Harvard’s Clayton Christensen.

http://evolllution.com/managing-institution/higher_ed_business/mapping-higher-eds-future-introducing-the-innovation-initiative-2/

by Daniel Seaton, Glenn Lopez, Dustin Tingley and Isaac Chuang, EDUCAUSE Review

The breadth and detail of educational data — particularly from MOOCs — poses challenges and opportunities for higher education institutions. Chief among these challenges is finding ways to separate the sea of data into meaningful categories and present them in usable forms. The Harvard/MIT edX Data Pipeline is an open-source effort to manage MOOC data among higher education institutions. Using the project’s tools, institutions can make online course data usable by stakeholders from institutional and course administrators to students and researchers and thereby improve the educational experience and outcomes.

http://er.educause.edu/articles/2016/12/harvard-and-mit-turn-mooc-data-into-knowledge

By Youki Terada, Edutopia

A look at the research that made an impact in 2016, from growth mindset in science class to effective stress-reduction strategies for teachers and students. In 2016, we learned more about how teachers feel about their profession, from the reasons why they started teaching in the first place (#1) to why they leave (#6). We learned that science students do better when teachers share stories about the struggles scientists face instead of portraying them as geniuses (#3). We’re also learning more about why U.S. students are falling behind students in other countries (#12). Here are 15 studies published this year that every educator should know about.

https://www.edutopia.org/article/research-highlights-2016-youki-terada

BY MATTHEW LYNCH, Edvocate

Virtual reality has been on the radar since Morton Heilig’s Sensorama in the 1950s, and head mounted versions of the technology were even around in the 1960s. But it wasn’t until recently that its use has become less of a novelty and more of a commonality. Console games and smartphone adapters have brought the potential of virtual reality into the lives of everyday people. And soon, that technology will enter the classroom. Now, the big question is how these emerging technologies will transform education as we know it. While that question might not be fully answered for some time, it is easy to see the potential.

http://www.thetechedvocate.org/why-virtual-reality-has-the-potential-to-transform-education-as-we-know-it/

by Cade Metz, Wired

Neural networks are the machine learning models that identify faces in the photos posted to your Facebook news feed. They also recognize the questions you ask your Android phone, and they help run the Google search engine. Modeled loosely on the network of neurons in the human brain, these sweeping mathematical models learn all these things by analyzing vast troves of digital data. Google trains these neural networks by feeding them massive collections of existing translations. Some of this training data is flawed, including lower quality translations from previous versions of the Google Translate app. But it also includes translations from human experts, and this buoys the quality of the training data as a whole. That ability to overcome imperfection is part of deep learning’s apparent magic: given enough data, even if some is flawed, it can train to a level well beyond those flaws.

https://www.wired.com/2016/12/2016-year-deep-learning-took-internet/

by Assal Habibi, University of Southern California

Over the past two decades, several investigators have reported differences in the brain and behavior of musicians compared to nonmusicians. Music training has been found to be related to better language and mathematical skills, higher IQ and overall greater academic achievement. Also, differences between musicians and nonmusicians have been found in areas of the brain related to hearing and movement, among others. Our findings suggest that music training during childhood, even for a period as brief as two years, can accelerate brain development and sound processing. We believe that this may benefit language acquisition in children given that developing language and reading skills engage similar brain areas. This can particularly benefit at-risk children in low socioeconomic status neighborhoods who experience more difficulties with language development.

http://www.theedadvocate.org/music-training-speeds-brain-development-children/

By David Raths, Campus Technology

Rather than rely on a single LMS to manage all aspects of teaching and learning on its 17 campuses, the University of North Carolina system created an app store that gives faculty a chance to experiment with cutting-edge tech. Matthew Rascoff has a name for the enterprise learning management system: a “Swiss Army Knife of mediocrity.” As vice president of learning technology and innovation at the University of North Carolina General Administration, which oversees 17 university campuses with almost 225,000 students, Rascoff has observed that the most innovative faculty members at his institution use the LMS the least. Many professors working on experimental efforts hate the LMS and have sidestepped it, he noted.

https://campustechnology.com/articles/2016/12/21/building-an-app-store-for-learning-tools.aspx

By Matthew Lynch, The Tech Edvocate

Some of the biggest problems in education occur in the classroom and consequently, are issues that need to be sorted out by teachers. These issues broadly fall into two categories: student problems and parental problems. Did you know that EdTech can help to resolve many common in-classroom problems? No matter what type of problems you are facing in the classroom; EdTech can assist in the following ways.

http://www.thetechedvocate.org/how-to-solve-6-of-the-biggest-classroom-problems-with-edtech/

By Dian Schaffhauser, THE Journal

Although Discovery Education is known for hosting virtual field trips, the company has now begun to build virtual reality (VR) experiences into its digital content. Recently, the company announced the addition of three new VR components to its social studies products. Both Discovery Education Streaming Plus and Techbook will use content from a new, six-part American Heroes Channel series, “Blood and Fury: America’s Civil War” to enable students to explore Civil War themes through the eyes of soldiers. In “Desertion,” students will learn why soldiers deserted before they reached the battle and what could happen to them when they abandoned their posts.

https://thejournal.com/articles/2016/12/22/discovery-ed-adds-virtual-reality-to-civil-war-lessons.aspx

by AARON SAMS AND JUSTIN AGLIO, eSchool News

Although the term “flipped learning” is almost universally recognized, teachers apply it in many forms, in all grades levels, and in various school environments. If you are a teacher using flipped learning, the chances are that you share some similarities with other teachers who flip—as well as some differences. However, the major commonality among all flipped learning teachers is that every one of them is creating personal learning experiences for each student. We asked three flipped teachers — one from an elementary school, one from a junior high, and one from a high school — to describe what learning looks like in their world.

http://www.eschoolnews.com/2016/12/19/10-flipped-classroom/

BY LAURA ASCIONE DEVANEY,eCampus News

Women are sorely lacking in the IT industry, and universities are taking notice and taking action with an influx of trending partnership-based programs designed to help get women in STEM–and help them stay there. When it comes to STEM, many women report experiencing negative stereotypes in class, and many say they lack female role models. Two-thirds of women in a recent CDW-G survey said they struggled with confidence. The survey included 300 women who are current STEM college students, recent graduates, and those who chose to leave technology, science and math programs. Forty-eight percent of survey respondents said being a woman in STEM made their higher education experience harder, and 46 percent said they considered switching fields in college.

http://www.ecampusnews.com/stem/trend-women-university-stem/

By Allie Mitchell, Uloop

Online classes have their downsides of course. When it comes to online classes you need to be able to have a way to remember your assignments. That is quite possibly the number one downfall of students who take online courses — they simply forget that things are due or that the window to take a test is closing soon. Setting reminders for yourself would always be a good thing to do, even if you aren’t taking online classes. Online courses do pose a challenge for students, though. They tend to have students thinking that it is like taking the easy way out of taking regular classes. In reality, online courses can actually be much harder and require a little bit more attention. You don’t have someone teaching you face to face every other day and ALL of the work is truly on you. There may not be much buffer in your grade when it comes to online classes and usually courses that can be done from home usually require a good bit of writing.

http://www.uloop.com/news/view.php/223061/4-Ways-to-Carve-Out-Study-Time-for-Online-Courses

by Jarrett Carter, Education Dive

A new survey from University Business shows that an overwhelming number of college leaders have worked to strengthen student success capacity in the last year, and that it will remain among their top institutional priorities in 2017. The survey reveals student success among participants’ top four priorities for the upcoming year, with specific emphasis on recruiting and retaining low-income students, boosting graduation rates, increasing financial literacy and providing career development services for graduates. These areas outpaced controlling institutional costs and philanthropic development among more than 60 presidents and provosts from colleges around the country.

http://www.educationdive.com/news/survey-student-success-tops-institutional-priorities-for-2017/433035/