Educational Technology

By Wayne D’Orio, Education Dive

Visits to campus counseling centers climbed 30% to 40% between the fall of 2009 and the spring of 2015, according to the Center for Collegiate Mental Health. Enrollment, meanwhile, grew just 5% during that time. That has helped push the ratio of counselors to students to around 740:1 at the smallest schools and 2,000:1 at larger colleges, according to a survey of more than 570 institutions by the Association for University and College Counseling Center Directors (AUCCCD).  And it has contributed to a bottleneck in access to critical mental health care that has campus health officials scrambling for ways to keep waitlists in check. For help, some are turning to telehealth services, which provide care through digital mediums such as text messages, phone calls and video chats.

https://www.educationdive.com/news/why-colleges-are-looking-online-for-mental-health-care/568294/

Brian Mulligan, Engineers Journal

Engineers are taking free online courses to gain new knowledge to address challenges in their work and to improve their employment prospects, writes Brian Mulligan.   So will this change the nature of engineering education? It has already started in CPD, where busy engineers take online courses in topics that are not available close by, saving them time and minimising disruption of their lives.

http://www.engineersjournal.ie/2019/12/02/engineering-education-online-the-future-is-now/

Steven Gray, Worth

Artificial intelligence is being adopted by companies in numerous industries and will displace jobs. It will also likely worsen gender and racial gaps. Nearly 11 percent of jobs held by women may be eliminated because of AI, warns the International Monetary Fund. McKinsey, meanwhile, estimates that 20 percent of women employed today could experience AI-driven job erosion in the coming decade. Preparing women to succeed in the age of AI must be a global priority as we work towards one key United Nations Sustainable Development Goal: to achieve gender equality, and empower women and girls.

https://finance.yahoo.com/news/women-win-age-ai-175928295.html

Edwin Cartlidge, Physics World

A technique for remotely entangling ions of strontium much more accurately and at far higher rates than previously possible has been unveiled by physicists in the UK. The team says that their scheme paves the way to scalable quantum computers made from multiple ion traps that are linked to one another via photonic interconnects. Quantum computers promise to greatly outperform even the most powerful conventional computers on certain tasks. While some progress has been made, many challenges remain – including how to achieve the quantum entanglement of large numbers of quantum bit (qubits).

https://physicsworld.com/a/entanglement-lights-the-way-to-scalable-quantum-computers/

Steff Chalk, 401KTV

Education benefits assistance is becoming increasingly important to today’s workforce. In addition, education benefits assistance is becoming an integral part of employers’ recruitment and retention of top talent. Technology is quickly changing the workforce and the way we work, creating the need for education benefits assistance and innovation in the workplace. As such, employers are racing to keep up. Employers are re-skilling workers in an attempt to stay a step ahead of the coming era of automation. In particular, frontline workers are vulnerable to automation, so employers are working overtime to level up their skills via education benefits to keep their workforce viable and competitive.

https://401ktv.com/education-benefits-assistance-employers/

Sarah Kim, Forbes
On November 27, the National Association of the Deaf (N.A.D.) won a landmark settlement with Harvard University that institutes a series of new guidelines to make the university’s website and online resources accessible for those who are deaf or hard of hearing. The settlement represents the most comprehensive set of online accessibility requirements in higher education and ensures for the first time that Harvard will provide high-quality captioning services for online content.

https://www.forbes.com/sites/sarahkim/2019/11/29/harvard-university-national-assoc-of-the-deaf-lawsuit/#3de2242e6699

by Teresa Umali, Open Gov
A new augmented reality learning app from the Centre for Digital Enterprise (C4DE) will help bridge the gap between online and practical learning for engineering students.  According to a recent press release, the newly-launched XR LearnHub, from Australia’s RMIT University, is the first augmented reality tool of its kind, which was designed specifically for workplace training and vocational education.

https://www.opengovasia.com/augmented-reality-app-makes-online-learning-more-engaging/

Alejandro Caballero, University World News

Around the world traditional, campus-based universities are facing headwinds as they try to expand student enrolment. The challenge is especially acute in more advanced developing countries where the college-age population is shrinking for the first time due to decreasing birth rates. In addition, the rise of the gig economy and the decline of lifelong professions are leading some young people to wonder if the classic four-year campus college degree is still worth it. Meanwhile, the appetite for digitally delivered higher education continues to grow.

https://www.universityworldnews.com/post.php?story=20191126141606776

Tony Bates, University World News

Changes over the past 50 years to higher education systems now require lecturers to be aware of the strengths and weaknesses of different teaching methods, how learning actually takes place, how to select and use technology appropriately and how to validly assess students. We can argue about the details, but the broad picture is overwhelming: post-secondary instructors need proper training to teach well.

https://www.universityworldnews.com/post.php?story=2019112809050642

IBL News

“In the last few years, MOOCs have been generally focused on micro-credentials and certifications; now, it is more about online degrees and corporate training,” Dhawal Shah, Founder and CEO at Class Central, explained in a video interview with IBL News.

https://iblnews.org/today-moocs-are-focused-on-online-degrees-and-corporate-training-says-dhawal-shah/

BY LAURA ASCIONE, eCampus News

“While the majority of recent college graduates believe that their education brought them value in obtaining employment, there remains a large minority that hold some reservations about the career preparation aspect,” says Dr. Larry Chiagouris, the report’s director. “If you consider that most companies would not be pleased to learn that more than a third of their customer base holds some form of negative perception, it’s clear that there is a path to improvement in this area.”

https://www.ecampusnews.com/2019/11/28/what-do-millennials-think-of-their-college-education/

Eric Stirgus, The Atlanta Journal-Constitution

Kennesaw State University computer science student Rebekah Roepke said the courses in her major teach the technical skills necessary for a career in her field, but not all of the communication skills, the “soft skills” many employers say students are not learning in college. The core curriculum upgrade is one of several changes the system’s chancellor, Steve Wrigley, has pushed as part of a long-term plan to improve student success. The system earlier this month got approval from the regents to expand online learning opportunities and address barriers for working and adult learners through a new strategic plan.

https://www.ajc.com/news/local-education/georgia-system-upgrading-core-college-education-curriculum/kLUioX8rhTsJgfcXxNf1XO/

University Herald Reporter

Online education has grown visibly over the last few years. It has a tendency to offer inexpensive and flexible learning alternatives as compared to the standard education system. You can clearly take a look at online and get a possible diploma certificate upon completing your tasks. Online training is honestly the ideal manner to strike a balance among work, own family and research.

https://www.universityherald.com/articles/76941/20191129/which-is-better-school-online-or-a-standard-education.htm

Joshua Kim, Inside Higher Ed

Given all this growth in online learning (at the institution, program, and student level), why is it that the role of faculty is so seldom discussed? We often hear about the benefits of online education for students (flexibility, ability to work, etc.) and schools (enrollment and revenue), the advantages of creating new online programs for faculty gets less attention. Seldom do we hear university leaders saying things like: “We plan to grow our online education programs so that our professors can make more money, enjoy more flexible professional lives, and learn new skills to enhance their teaching.”

https://www.insidehighered.com/blogs/technology-and-learning/prioritizing-faculty-online-education

Above the Law and iLaw

As technology continues to integrate itself into the practice of law, law schools are the latest to get on board with the digital revolution. We sat down with Ken Randall, former Dean of the University of Alabama School of Law and founder of distance learning company iLaw (a BARBRI Company), to discuss the rise of hybrid J.D. programs and how iLaw is helping law schools to expand their offerings in today’s digital era.

https://abovethelaw.com/2019/11/how-online-learning-is-revolutionizing-legal-education-a-discussion-with-ken-randall-of-ilaw/

Matthew Lynch, Tech Edvocate

If you’re like me, you probably wonder what the future holds, especially in the arena of technology as it relates to education. As I read about the advancement of artificial intelligence, I can’t help but look to 2020 for what I think will be some of the most welcome trends in AI development.

https://www.thetechedvocate.org/what-i-expect-from-ai-in-2020/

By Matthew North, New Scientist

Artificial intelligence is getting better at reading your mind. An AI could guess what videos people were watching purely from their brainwaves. Grigory Rashkov at Russian research firm Neurobotics and his colleagues trained an AI using video clips of different objects and brainwave recordings of people watching them. The recordings were made using an electroencephalogram (EEG) cap and the video clips included nature scenes, people on jet skis and human expressions. The AI then tried to categorise and recreate the video clips from EEG data alone. In 210 out of 234 attempts, the AI successfully categorised each video, by providing tags such as waterfalls, extreme sports or human faces.

https://www.newscientist.com/article/2224866-ai-recreates-videos-people-are-watching-by-reading-their-minds/

Doug Lederman, Inside Higher Ed

New federal data show that more than a third of all 2018 college and university students took at least one online course, and that online enrollments continue steady growth as overall numbers dip. The proportion of all enrolled college students who took at least one online class continues to rise, edging up to 34.7 percent in fall 2018 from 33.1 percent the previous year. The rate of increase appears to be slowing ever so slightly, although online education remains the main driver of growth in postsecondary enrollments. These are among the conclusions one might glean from the latest federal data on distance education enrollments, drawn from the Education Department’s Integrated Postsecondary Education Data System.

https://www.insidehighered.com/digital-learning/article/2019/12/11/more-students-study-online-rate-growth-slowed-2018

Michael Miller, Eduventures

2019 IPEDS data shows Master’s programs now make up nearly 16% of completions across all levels of U.S. higher education. For several years, this market has been the primary sector of growth for many institutions—led in large part by the development of online programs. In October, the National Center for Education Statistics (NCES) released new data about the number of academic programs offered in specific fields of study and how many students completed those programs for the 2017–2018 school year. As a critical dataset for anyone interested in the health of online master’s programs, we’ve done some initial analysis.

https://encoura.org/2019-ipeds-update-five-insights-into-the-online-masters-market/

Knowledge@Wharton

Imagine software that creates its own software. That is what machine programming is all about. Like other fields of artificial intelligence, machine programming has been around since the 1950s, but it is now at an inflection point. Machine programming potentially can redefine many industries, including software development, autonomous vehicles or financial services, according to Justin Gottschlich, head of machine programming research at Intel Labs. This newly formed research group at Intel focuses on the promise of machine programming, which is a fusion of machine learning, formal methods, programming languages, compilers and computer systems.

https://knowledge.wharton.upenn.edu/article/ai-machine-learning/

Shailaja Neelakantan, EdTech

At Columbus State Community College’s Bridge to College Math course, there is no professor at the front of the room lecturing students. Instead, students sit in pairs at carrels — one at a computer and another with a notebook — as two math instructors make their way through the room. As this happens, a central workstation monitors the students’ computer screens to keep track of their learning progress. Instructors then analyze this information and tailor teaching to each student as part of an adaptive learning system — powered by AI and advanced algorithms — introduced at this Ohio community college seven years ago. The system has transformed Columbus State’s course completion rates, especially for historically disadvantaged students.

https://edtechmagazine.com/higher/article/2019/11/colleges-see-equity-success-adaptive-learning-systems