by Juli Clover, Mac Rumors
Apple today published a new entry in its online Machine Learning Journal, this time covering an on-device deep neural network for face detection, aka the technology that’s used to power the facial recognition feature used in Photos and other apps. Facial detection features were first introduced as part of iOS 10 in the Core Image framework, and it was used on-device to detect faces in photos so people could view their images by person in the Photos app. Implementing this technology was no small feat, says Apple, as it required “orders of magnitude more memory, much more disk storage, and more computational resources.”

https://www.macrumors.com/2017/11/16/machine-learning-journal-face-detection/

By Sean Moody, KSL

Rep. Justin Fawson, R-North Ogden, suggested an online program that parents could opt their children in or out of. The main module, he said, would cover the basics of reproductive health. If parents wanted their kids to learn about other topics, they could choose to include other online modules. Fawson spoke with the Utah State Board of Education Standards and Assessment Committee earlier this month about how that change could look. “I tend to feel that we should educate our kids to a point where they can make good decisions, but I also respect parental involvement and parental opt-in,” Fawson said.

https://www.ksl.com/?nid=148&sid=46198847

by NBA.Com

Stephen Curry list of accolades on the court includes a pair of Kia MVP, a pair of NBA championships, multiple All-Star appearances and many more. Off the court, he’s looking to add to his list of accomplishments, too, as he will soon be serving as a professor of sorts. In an interview with ESPN.com’s Chris Haynes, Curry said he will be partnering with MasterClass.com to teach, via video, classes on basketball fundamentals including shooting, using ball screens, finishing on either side of the rim and more. The class is geared toward beginners and intermediates, Haynes reports, and Curry is seeking to help players advance with the overall acceleration of their games. Curry also wants to help players understand the maturation process needed in shooting a lot of his specialty — 3-point shots.

http://www.nba.com/article/2017/11/16/stephen-curry-golden-state-warriors-teach-online-basketball-class#/

by Ken Salomon Christopher Murray, Thompson Coburn

Behind the scenes of the turmoil in Washington this year, congressional staff have been hard at work on the next iteration of the Higher Education Act. At long last, the curtain-raising for HEA reauthorization is expected within the next few weeks. The HEA, which has not been reauthorized since 2008, governs a huge range of federal higher education policy. Everything from college access to student debt, from campus sexual assault to student data will be addressed by Congress when it takes up its rewrite of the law. So what should you expect to happen?

https://www.thompsoncoburn.com/insights/blogs/regucation/post/2017-11-16/the-rising-sun-of-hea-reauthorization

By Dian Schaffhauser, Campus Technology
When September’s massive storm knocked out access to electricity, clean water and communications for the entire island, Universidad del Sagrado Corazón needed to get up and running fast. Thanks to an extraordinary IT team and the resources of the cloud, the school was back in action within a few weeks.

https://campustechnology.com/articles/2017/11/16/after-hurricane-maria-puerto-rico-university-turns-to-the-cloud-to-restore-student-services.aspx

By Matthew Lynch, Tech Edvocate

Teachers, administrators, and edtech companies have a common goal: to meet student needs. Sometimes, though, it can seem like educators and edtech companies are working against each other. Avoid coming across as the panacea for everything. Honesty is a great policy to practice when touting your edtech. If you lie or even exaggerate about your product, you will be found out. You can’t be the solution in every situation, so don’t say that you are. In summary, provide educators what they want in edtech, and everyone benefits.

http://www.thetechedvocate.org/teachers-administrators-want-edtech-companies/

BY LAURIE DETWEILER, eSchool News

Tools to memorize and to benchmark references are both great for making learning stick. And great teachers build their teaching on them. It is so important to help children understand that they are not just studying to get a good grade, but to learn. As teachers and parents, we need to foster that love.

https://www.eschoolnews.com/2017/11/16/4-tips-learning-retention/

BY NICK MONTGOMERY, eSchool News

Improving the hiring process starts with tracking the basic statistics. For example, measuring how many applicants you receive, and how many applicants get through each hiring phase, including the application, screening and interviewing processes. Tracking provides insights into which jobs are going unfilled and why. In addition, you should track “time-to-hire” statistics to determine whether you are filling jobs as quickly as possible. These data points should include how long it takes you to fill a job and how long applicants sit in your applicant pool after they apply. Best practices suggest making an offer within 30 days or less from when the teacher applies. If you don’t, the odds of a teacher rejecting your offer increase by 60 percent.

https://www.eschoolnews.com/2017/11/16/data-help-hire-best-teachers/

by Sophie Wade, Huffington Post

The static, one-off pre-work learning format is being quickly supplanted by new education models such edX’s MicroMasters programs to provide for evolving job and ongoing career development requirements. New access, availability and pricing options greatly improve opportunities for workers to augment knowledge and qualifications to match with existing and future employment specifications.

https://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/updating-education-for-the-evolving-job-market-learning_us_5a0b67e9e4b06d8966cf335f

by Guy Dixon, Globe and Mail

MOOCs have become another option, along with the plethora of online courses already offered directly by postsecondary institutions, for busy adults looking to dip into online learning, whether for work or pleasure. And as a result, this has led to rapid changes in adult learning. The design of online classes has evolved dramatically in the past five years. And what is required of students online has also changed dramatically. Prospective students who choose to study online have a few key issues to consider.

https://www.theglobeandmail.com/report-on-business/four-tips-for-adult-digital-learners/article36984396/

BY MATTHEW LYNCH, tech Edvocate

Educational technology has been disrupting traditional instructional practices in executive education, and for good reason. Learning was once the exclusive domain of schools and universities, especially when it came to delivering executive education in business schools. That meant either taking a sabbatical from your job or choosing a B-school near you. You had to be physically present in the classroom. Edtech, however, is changing that approach by providing customization and interactive experiences for learners. Educational technology also delivers learning at lowered costs.

http://www.thetechedvocate.org/edtech-transforming-executive-education/

by Chloe Cornish, Financial Times

Mr Thrun, who stepped down as chief executive in 2016, and is now company president, is a fan of adaptability. “You very carefully analyse what’s happening and you change course,” he says. To date, some 18,000 students have graduated with nanodegrees, ranging from programmes for artificial intelligence and deep machine learning, to robotics and digital marketing. Course prices vary: Udacity’s four-month introduction to self-driving car engineering, for example, costs $800, while a four-month course teaching a programming tool called React is $499. Other, longer courses cost up to $2,400.

https://www.ft.com/content/51c47f88-b278-11e7-8007-554f9eaa90ba

By Paul Bowers, Post and Courier

Richland County School District 1 launched its Virtual Program this fall, offering a full slate of high school courses to students who can now opt out of ever setting foot in a traditional classroom. A spokeswoman said the district set aside $500,000 for the program in its first year but is not spending the full amount. The new virtual school aims to serve “home schoolers, teen parents, and the academically gifted student, as well as aspiring professional dancers, artists or athletes who must train or practice during the day,” according to the school district website. It is open to students inside and outside of the district.

http://www.postandcourier.com/news/richland-school-district-launches-first-of-its-kind-virtual-school/article_a7e2ba5e-c49a-11e7-bf02-efe636fc5079.html

By Teresa Stepzinski, Tallahassee News

Clay County schools Superintendent Addison Davis recently visited with third-grade students and teachers at Tynes Elementary School in Middleburg to get their opinions about online learning tools. The district has upgraded its technology, expanded WiFi access in classrooms and increased the number of Google Chromebooks for students to use during classroom lessons.  The district expanded access for students and teachers to instructional technology for the 2017-18 school year. Each core classroom districtwide now has WiFi access. The district currently has a total 2,951 WiFi access points — an increase of more than 1,000 installed by its information technology team since the first day of classes.

http://jacksonville.com/news/metro/clay/2017-11-11/clay-students-log-learning-expanded-technology-access-educational

by Mattew Lynch, tech Edvocate

The inclusion of technology in the classroom has been shown to improve student participation, information retention, and overall test performance. One reason for the success of educational tech is that it boosts student confidence. Students who are secure in their abilities, work harder and take their educations seriously. You may wonder how technology boosts student confidence in the classroom. Well, here are nine ways.

http://www.thetechedvocate.org/9-ways-technology-boosts-student-confidence-classroom/

by Kristilynn Turney, Study.com

The boom of online learning for K-12 began in the 1960’s. The University of Illinois began the movement by creating an Intranet where student could access course materials and listen to recorded lessons. By 1999, universities began offering online courses and in 2009 the number of online learners grew by 187%. Wow! During this time, online learning became commonplace for K-12 learning as well. In this lesson, we will discuss the advantages and disadvantages of online learning. We’ll also go over some techniques for success with elementary and secondary students in online learning.

http://study.com/academy/lesson/online-learning-in-the-k-12-classroom-advantages-disadvantages.html

by Karla Lant, Futurism

Quantum computing: it’s the brass ring in the computing world, giving the ability to exponentially outperform and out-calculate conventional computers. A quantum computer with a mere 50 qubits would outclass the most powerful supercomputers in the world today. Surpassing the limits set by conventional computing, known as achieving quantum supremacy, has been a difficult road. Now, a team of physicists at the University of California Santa Barbara (UCSB) and Google have demonstrated a proof-of-principle for a quantum computer that may mean quantum supremacy is only months away.

https://futurism.com/google-just-revealed-how-theyll-build-quantum-computers/

by Joseph Hong, Diverse Ed

For-profit colleges drew attention again this week after troves of newly public data showed the overwhelming impact the institutions have had on student borrowers. The Century Foundation, a nonpartisan think tank, published data acquired through a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request, consisting of nearly 100,000 applications for loan relief filed by students who say they have been defrauded by their colleges or universities. The data collected includes all complaints filed as of August 15, 2017. According to the accompanying report, nearly 99 percent of these complaints were submitted against for-profit schools.

http://diverseeducation.com/article/104845/

By Brittany Loeffler, Uloop

You don’t need a classroom anymore to learn essential skills to jumpstart your career. Millennials are taking online courses to learn important skills in our now-digital world. They are studying skills that are not taught in classrooms, right from the comfort of their own home, for free. Millennials are known for rejecting the standard 9-5 job in an office and taking on more freelance work. Taking online courses to learn and increase digital skills gives recent college graduates the ability to work from home with multiple clients and make a living on their own terms. Interested in learning more about how you can make money right from your computer? Take a look at the list of online courses and platforms linked below to get started.

https://www.uloop.com/news/view.php/252563/Mostly-Free-Online-Courses-to-Increase-Your-Digital-Skills

by Nanette Miner, ATD

In fact, it is 30 percent harder to design training for the online environment because there is one more entity that needs to be designed for—the technology. By using classroom training design as the benchmark, we know that learning is typically designed for two entities: the facilitator and the participant. The facilitator’s role is to lead the class and make logical connections between the segments of content. The participant’s role is to practice with the content and interact with one other learners during any activities that are designed to bring the content to life. In the online environment, though, the facilitator’s and participant’s roles are a bit different. What’s more, there is the third role of the technology itself, and perhaps someone who is managing the technology in a supporting capacity.

https://www.td.org/Publications/Blogs/Learning-Technologies-Blog/2017/11/30-Percent-Harder-to-Design-for-the-Online-Learning-Environment

by Matthew Lynch, tech edvocate

Amazon is a recent newcomer to education, and edtech companies should take note and care about this new direction for the global retailer.  In an arena where Microsoft, Apple and Google have been the main players, Amazon is quickly moving ahead in education. As the world’s largest retailer, Amazon’s mission has been clear: reach out globally, put the customer first, and offer the greatest product selection with the best service. That’s what they are doing in education, too. Now edtech companies can take advantage of Amazon’s strategy by partnering with Amazon Web Services.

http://www.thetechedvocate.org/edtech-companies-care-amazons-emergence-education/