Educational Technology

Diane Mulcahy, Harvard Business Review
How well do universities prepare students to work independently in the Gig Economy? Today’s graduates are joining a workforce where the Gig Economy — including consultants, independent contractors, freelancers, side giggers, and on-demand workers — makes up an estimated 30-40% of the U.S. workforce. They’re also facing an economy in which alternative work arrangements are growing faster than traditional full-time jobs, and are only projected to keep growing. The recent news that the majority of Google’s workforce is made up of independent and temporary workers rather than full-time employees is just one example of the rapid transformation of the corporate workforce.

https://hbr.org/2019/10/universities-should-be-preparing-students-for-the-gig-economy

https://www.insidehighered.com/blogs/higher-ed-gamma/why-higher-education-will-change?mc_cid=9cfca997f9&mc_eid=879d6835e3

Gil Press, Forbes

Recent surveys, studies, forecasts and other quantitative assessments of the progress of AI, highlighted the growing reluctance of US consumers to chat with chatbots, the growing expectations of AI as a critical business component, and the growing employee skills gap due to the deployment of new technologies. 86% of consumers prefer to interact with a human agent; 71% said they would be less likely to use a brand if it didn’t have human customer service representatives available; only 30% believe that chatbots and virtual assistants make it easier to address customer service issues; only 29% of consumers looking for a quick answer would choose chat over all other channels, down from 50% in 2018, and 40% chose the phone or voice option first [CGS survey of 1,000 US consumers]

https://www.forbes.com/sites/gilpress/2019/10/02/ai-stats-news-86-of-consumers-prefer-to-interact-with-a-human-agent-rather-than-a-chatbot/#5f8180232d3b

Penn State

Four new faculty fellows have joined Penn State Teaching and Learning with Technology (TLT) for the 2019-20 academic year: Ed Glantz, Siu Ling “Pansy” Leung, Pierce Salguero and Priya Sharma. Each member of the cohort will undertake a project intended to enhance unique spaces where students learn. “This year’s group of faculty fellows brings a diverse set of perspectives to our theme of learning spaces,” said Kyle Bowen, director of innovation with TLT. “Learning spaces can be physical, digital, virtual, blended or data-informed places where students interact with course material. Each of our fellows is taking an innovative approach to improve learning spaces, and our staff is eager to support their work.”

https://news.psu.edu/story/590910/2019/10/01/academics/teaching-and-learning-technology-faculty-fellows-focus-learning

By Jeff John Roberts, Fortune

Google is exerting a growing presence in the country’s classrooms. On Thursday, the company announced plans to offer its homegrown Information Technology support course to community colleges in eight new states via a $3.5 million education grant. The program will now be offered through community colleges in Arizona, Florida, Kentucky, Louisiana, Minnesota, New Mexico, Virginia and West Virginia. Those states come in addition to schools in Illinois, Michigan, New York, Ohio, Texas, Colorado, and Wisconsin, which have offered the course since earlier this year.

https://fortune.com/2019/10/02/google-expands-coursera-it-training-certificate-course-community-college/

University of Nebraska – Tomorrow’s Professor

So, how is a community of learners formed in an online course? What are the typical characteristics and practices? Taking an online course is more than sitting in front of a computer. Connecting with fellow students and the faculty member is crucial to get the most out of the experience (Rovai et al, 2004). Instructors might encourage students to reach out to classmates with similar life circumstances as the first step to building relationships in the online environment. Fellow students could be cohorts in the same graduate degree program or students from a variety of other disciplines taking a required general course, e.g. statistics or research methods. Students may also form their own communities from the online courses. If your instructor has asked you to introduce yourself to your classmates, your classmates may have provided information about shared interests or work experiences.

https://tomprof.stanford.edu/posting/1741

Jon Marcus, Hechinger Report

Middle-class high school students give a number of reasons for forgoing higher education, according to an analysis of federal data by the Georgetown Center for Education and the Workforce: 4 percent cited family obligations, 6 percent planned to take a gap year before enrolling, 8 percent said they weren’t ready and 20 percent said they just didn’t want to go. Fully a quarter of middle-class high school students who don’t plan on college said it was because of the expense.

https://hechingerreport.org/the-students-disappearing-fastest-from-american-campuses-middle-class-ones/

by JONATHAN SHAW, Harvard Magazine

How can professional teachers and educational institutions integrate peer learning into their pedagogy? This was the subject of the eighth annual Harvard Initiative for Learning and Teaching (HILT) conference, which convened hundreds of professors, administrators, and learning and teaching specialists from around the University—and beyond—on September 27 at Harvard Law School’s Wasserstein Hall. “Every year, the attendees of this conference have found that we all have a lot to learn from each other,” began Provost Alan Garber.

https://harvardmagazine.com/2019/10/hilt-conference-peer-learning

Eli Zimmerman, EdTech Magazine

Academic and university success are intertwined, and through communication, data analytics and personalized learning tools, institutions and students can win together. Innovations in artificial intelligence are helping to solve for this problem. For example, universities are beginning to experiment with Netflix-style academic video hubs to make it easier for students to personalize their learning to fit what they want to study. The applications are still relatively new, as AI as a curricular tool is still in its infancy. However, Schroeder maintains there are opportunities to use this technology to help students create a learning environment that works for them. By combining these three focus areas, universities can work with students to promote academic achievement on a personal level while maintaining financial success as institutions.

https://edtechmagazine.com/higher/article/2019/10/roadmap-student-success-and-technology-can-get-you-there-perfcon

By JOSHUA KARSTEN | STARS AND STRIPES

In just the past year, 80% of sailors chose online and distance education programs over the traditional classroom courses provided by NCPACE IL. “We recognize that sailors are interested in pursuing advanced degrees, and we support their ability to further their personal educational goals,” D’Antonio said. “This change ensures funding remains available to the greatest number of sailors.” The program will be transitioned to a virtual model, to accommodate demand among sailors for online and distance-learning courses, he said.

https://www.stripes.com/news/us/navy-scraps-instructor-led-college-at-sea-program-as-demand-falls-costs-rise-1.601232

Study International

Online education, from primary school to PhD, is booming. In the US, government data from 2018 shows that during 2016-17, students enrolling exclusively online grew by 15.4 percent, or about one in six students. More than 6.3 million students took at least one distance education course in the Fall 2016 semester, comprising 31.6 percent of all higher education enrolments, according to an annual survey by the Babson Survey Research Group and the Online Learning Consortium. In the UK, online learning made up eight percent of all taught provision at UK higher education providers.

https://www.studyinternational.com/news/working-professionals-love-online-degrees-heres-why/

by Emory Craig and Maya Georgieva, EDUCAUSE Review

VR, AR, and MR are revolutionary developments for higher education and society at large. They will bring new opportunities for learning, research, science, work, and entertainment. As we move toward a future of immersive technologies and artificial intelligence, we need to anticipate new ethical challenges and develop practices and policies for a world of deeply immersive experiences. We’re facing not just a new technology but a new way for people to experience the world and connect with each other. It will be up to us to engage our students in a conversation for a very different world — one that shifts from the Information Age to the Experiential Age.

https://er.educause.edu/blogs/2018/4/vr-and-ar-the-ethical-challenges-ahead

IBL News

edX announced on September 30 the launch of its eleventh MOOC-based degree, reaffirming its role as an OPM (Online Program Manager) company. The new degree is top-ranked, as the #5 online graduate engineering program according to U.S. News & World Report. The Master’s in Electrical and Computer Engineering from Purdue University School of Electrical and Computer Engineering will cost $22,500, that is, 30 credits at $750 each. The current online master’s program in Purdue costs nearly $40,000. The lower price point was made possible in part due to the support from edX and the ability to offer courses at scale, according to Dimitrios Peroulis, school’s head.

https://iblnews.org/edx-announces-its-eleventh-online-degree-a-masters-in-electrical-and-computer-engineering-from-purdue/

Pamela Eddy, Harvard Business Review

Central to the future of community colleges is the ability to build partnerships and collaborations that create efficiencies, while also addressing shared needs. Without this type of reinvention, community colleges run the risk of becoming obsolete. The strong history of community colleges as sites of innovation and nimbleness provides hope for a future in which these institutions will make an impact on communities and, most important, help change the lives of students and their families.

https://hbr.org/2019/09/community-colleges-need-to-evolve-as-students-needs-do

Ashley A. Smith, EdSource

California’s newest two-year institution — the online-only Calbright College — opens on Tuesday and for the first time, and students will be able to register and enroll in programs that are intended to serve an entirely new adult and underemployed population. The new college was created to enroll so-called “stranded” Californians who are underemployed, working multiple part-time jobs or stuck in jobs that don’t pay living wages. The California Community Colleges system estimates about 8 million adults, between 25 and 34, fall into this category.

https://edsource.org/2019/californias-new-online-community-college-opens-after-months-of-planning/618006

By Hallie Busta, Education Dive
The National Association for College Admission Counseling’s (NACAC) Assembly voted to remove three provisions from its Code of Ethics and Professional Practices.  The vote during the association’s annual meeting last week was an effort by NACAC to get ahead of a two-year investigation by the U.S. Department of Justice’s antitrust division, which found several of the code’s measures limited competition and could lower costs for students if removed. They include banning incentives for early decision applicants and recruiting students who have committed to a college. Admissions experts say the changes will heighten competition for students, particularly among colleges struggling to fill their classes, and could make it harder to determine yields.

https://www.educationdive.com/news/colleges-just-got-a-lot-more-leeway-to-recruit-students/564016/

Register-Herald

Today’s college students bring a wide variety of needs and manage a constant juggle of responsibilities while pursuing a degree. According to the Department of Education, 74 percent of undergraduate students, described as the “new normal,” have at least one nontraditional characteristic such as being a first-generation student, having at least one dependent, or working either full or part time. Further, nearly half of students enrolled today are age 25 or older and are working to complete an unfinished degree, returning to advance their career or re-skill for a new opportunity.

https://www.register-herald.com/how-colleges-adapting-for-today-s-students/article_c1b4127e-6e5f-5fb4-9052-8e38cdc09ad2.html

By BRANDI VINCENT SEPTEMBER, NextGov
It’s all part of the House Committee on Science, Space and Technology’s work to support the development of a national artificial intelligence strategy.  As lawmakers consider the impact artificial intelligence will have on America’s workforce, experts across the government, industry and academia this week urged Congress to confront and prioritize issues around ethics, bias and the increasing interactions between humans and robots.

https://www.nextgov.com/emerging-tech/2019/09/experts-urge-congress-consider-implications-ai-bias-and-human-robot-interactions/160227/

Nicholas Chew, e27

Technology is changing the way that we learn, information is also more abundant to the masses. Breakthroughs of new technology innovations such as A.I. and Blockchain are giving more opportunities for the Edutech sector to grow. Let’s dig deeper into how Edutech can boost learning in the digital world.

https://e27.co/4-edutech-innovations-that-will-redefine-learning-habits-in-2019-20190928/

By Hallie Busta, Education Dive
In a new white paper, a workforce policy advisory board established by the Trump administration outlines the steps required to develop and successfully implement interoperable learning records (ILRs), which are compilations of peoples’ traditional and hands-on learning experiences. ILRs are already being piloted as a way to readily and securely share such information with educational institutions and employers by using vendor-agnostic technology that doesn’t require direct coordination or synchronization. The board sees broader potential for ILRs and suggests promoting that growth by creating a public list of pilot projects, developing a plan for implementing ILRs and bringing a basic ILR to market.

https://www.educationdive.com/news/white-house-working-group-outlines-future-of-universal-transcripts/563808/

Patrick Ow, Thrive Global

Just-in-time continuous learning through flexible short courses (online virtual learning and offline bricks and mortar), and continuous on-the-job learning and training will become a norm as new skills are constantly created to keep up with advances in technology, evolving business models, and organizational restructure. The role and relevance of colleges and universities in preparing our future generations for work and employment must be scrutinized and debated. They must respond to the ever-changing need of the demand side of the work equation because graduates are using less than half of what they have learned in universities at work. The half-life of knowledge is also decreasing.

https://thriveglobal.com/stories/major-challenges-facing-our-young-people-graduates-and-students-today/