Educational Technology

Hallie Busta, Education Dive

Jonathan Finkelstein, Credly’s founder and CEO, is optimistic that the market will become more open to these credentials. Traditionally, whether students complete 25%, 50% or 90% of their programs, they receive the same level of recognition from their institution — none at all. This has created a population of “some college, no degree” students who have invested significant time, effort and resources into their postsecondary education, and who have gained skills and competencies but have no way of demonstrating what they’ve learned or of unlocking the labor market value of these abilities.

https://www.educationdive.com/news/credlys-ceo-on-how-colleges-can-prepare-students-for-skills-based-hiring/568078/

KVOA

Just under 45,000 students attend the University of Arizona during this fall semester, according to the Arizona Board of Regents.  However, some students are not coming onto campus at all thanks to a big rise in online classes.  “It’s broadening our borders beyond the main campus,” Associate Vice Provost for Digital Learning Melody Buckner said. Campus officials say the number of undergraduates taking one or more online classes is up more than 45 percent compared to a year ago.

https://kvoa.com/news/2019/11/25/arizonas-public-universities-see-spike-in-students-taking-online-classes/

Facility Executive

The survey found respondents have overwhelmingly shifted their belief that online education will materially impact the nature and number of higher education institutions in the U.S. In 2012, 33% believed online education will have an impact on higher education, that figure rose to 74% this year indicating that higher education professionals underestimated the extent online learning would transform education. This has led to administrators placing a higher priority on developing the classroom of the future and ensuring facilities can endure the growth of online learning.

https://facilityexecutive.com/2019/11/what-are-current-trends-in-higher-education-facilities/

Triple Pundit

Online learning reduces the negative environmental impacts that come from manufacturing and transportation. The materials needed for traditional education institutions (textbooks, desks, electricity, buildings) are dramatically reduced. This reduces waste and conserves natural resources. Additionally, online learning saves money and time for both the learning institution and the student.

https://www.triplepundit.com/story/2015/4-unsung-environmental-benefits-online-education/35151

Christopher Pappas, ELearning Industry

The human attention span is already short. But those who suffer from attention deficit disorder must deal with a litany of other issues, including impulsivity, lack of concentration, and trouble following through. Thus, you must take their unique traits and learning needs into consideration when designing your eLearning course. Here are 8 top tips to help online learners with attention deficit disorder focus on the eLearning activities and immerse themselves in the eLearning content.

https://elearningindustry.com/how-develop-online-courses-learners-with-attention-deficit-disorder

Niamh Coomey, Minnesota Daily

This year, Big Ten university libraries have begun work on creating a more collective system of books across institutions, including the University of Minnesota. Earlier this semester, library leaders within the Big Ten Academic Alliance released a statement outlining their intent to create a more coordinated and accessible system of shared library materials.  A report by the Online Computer Library Center in collaboration with the BTAA earlier this year suggested three action areas for the project going forward: policy, content and technology. The BTAA has formed committees around those three distinct areas to discuss how to move forward with this project, Lougee said.

https://www.mndaily.com/article/2019/11/n-big-ten-libraries-begin-creating-shared-collection

Tomorrow’s Teaching and Learning

Video games are not widely used to develop graduate skills, but they are utilised by some educators to support the teaching of subject material. Using games in such a manner does not preclude skills development, however, and those educators who leverage games to develop students’ disciplinary knowledge understand this potential, as the examples in the following excerpt illustrate.

https://tomprof.stanford.edu/posting/1756

Kathleen Walch, Forbes

There is no question that the world’s economies are undergoing a revolutionary shift as we move from one age of industrialization to another — something that many in the industry are calling Industry 4.0. The transition between each wave of industrialization is not necessarily a clean one. If new job categories are not created before old job categories are retired, then the transition can be a messy one. However, it’s clear that we’re already embarked on the transition, and now it remains to be seen what the future will create with the new capabilities that are being developed.

https://www.forbes.com/sites/cognitiveworld/2019/11/24/is-ai-a-job-killer-or-job-creator/#1340fa3437e8

Tara Chklovski, Forbes

Today, AI algorithms are changing everything from how we navigate the world around us to how we think about our humanity. In the words of author and media theorist Neil Postman, “A new technology does not add or subtract something. It changes everything.” In 1992, Postman was writing about the rise of computers, but also about the printing press, the steam engine and television. These revolutions led to incredible benefits while fundamentally altering society. We should expect AI to do the same. And instead of ignoring or fearing this change, we should analyze the negative consequences and address them.

https://www.forbes.com/sites/forbesbusinesscouncil/2019/11/22/its-on-all-of-us-to-build-ai-for-good/#5791f66c7882

Lila Burke, Inside Higher Ed

On a clear and sunny day, the perfect temperature, a few students and administrators from Stanford University’s Graduate School of Business run into each other on campus. After a brief discussion — what room they’re headed to, why they came in today — the crowd disperses. Each individual teleports away. If that last phrase didn’t give it away, this scene does not take place on Stanford’s campus in Northern California, but on a virtual campus Stanford built with the virtual reality company VirBELA.

https://www.insidehighered.com/digital-learning/article/2019/11/22/stanford-conducts-classes-virtual-world

John Naughton, the Guardian

Last week, the New York Times had the idea of asking three prominent experts in the field to talk about the bias problem in artificial intelligence. The three experts were all women. One, Daphne Koller, is a co-founder of the online education company Coursera; another, Olga Russakovsky, is a Princeton professor who is working to reduce bias in ImageNet, the data set that powered the current machine-learning boom; the third, Timnit Gebru, is a research scientist at Google in the company’s ethical AI team… the most trenchant and perceptive critiques of digital technology – and particularly of the ways in which it has been exploited by tech companies – have come from female commentators.

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2019/nov/23/to-secure-safer-future-for-ai-we-need-benefit-of-female-perspective

Abigail Hess, CNBC

The tech industry offers some of the highest-paying opportunities in the country.  According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, the median annual wage for a worker in high-tech industries (sectors with high concentrations of workers in science, technology, engineering and mathematics occupations) is about $70,230. The median annual wage for workers outside of tech is closer to $34,800. One reason tech wages remain so high is the result of a skills gap, in which the lower supply of workers with tech skills does not meet the higher demand from employers. So what tech skills are employers looking for the most?

https://www.cnbc.com/2019/11/24/top-20-tech-skills-of-2019-and-the-easiest-one-to-learn-in-2020.html

By Yasmin Ahmad Kamil, SI News

Recruiters and would-be employers say the limited pool of AI-trained candidates has slowed hiring and impeded growth in some companies, while reports suggest it can delay broader adoption of the technology and see certain markets develop quicker than others. While companies are on the prowl for talent, global demand currently exceeds supply, with many tech giants scooping talent from university grounds. In an effort to create a skilled AI workforce in underserved communities, Sameer Maskey has founded two AI schools in Nepal and the Dominican Republic through Fusemachines, a New York City-based AI solutions and services provider.
https://www.studyinternational.com/news/ai-skills-gap-fusemachines/

By Dian Schaffhauser, Campus Technology
A multi-year pilot in Maryland that aimed to redesign the curriculum for introductory statistics using adaptive learning technology and active learning pedagogy found a spark of success among students in four-year institutions. The “Adaptive Learning in Statistics” (ALiS) study involved numerous players: Ithaka S+R; Transforming Post-Secondary Education in Math (TPSE Math); the William E. Kirwan Center for Academic Innovation at the University System of Maryland; the University of Maryland, College Park (UMCP); Montgomery College; the Urban Institute; and adaptive learning platform provider Acrobatiq.

https://campustechnology.com/articles/2019/11/21/adaptive-flipped-approach-to-introductory-statistics-lifts-outcomes-in-4-year-schools.aspx

AAAS

Dartmouth professor Petra Bonfert-Taylor and Rémi Sharrock from Institut Mines-Télécom (IMT) of France were named winners of the 2019 Annual edX Prize for Exceptional Contributions in Online Learning and Teaching today. The pair were chosen from among 10 finalists from across the globe for their Professional Certificate program in C Programming with Linux, which launched in 2018 on the edX platform and will be offered again in March 2020.

https://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2019-11/tsoe-di112119.php

Emiliana Vegas, Lauren Ziegler, and Nicolas Zerbino, Brookings

At the Center for Universal Education (CUE) at the Brookings Institution, we are studying innovations that can rapidly improve education progress, including innovations that use education technology. If the education sector stays on its current trajectory, by 2030 half of all children and young people around the world will lack basic secondary-level skills needed to thrive.[1] To change this dire prediction, we must make rapid, non-linear progress, or what CUE calls leapfrogging. Technology can help education leapfrog in a number of ways.

https://www.brookings.edu/research/how-ed-tech-can-help-leapfrog-progress-in-education/

Ray Schroeder, Inside Higher Ed
DIY has become pervasive in our culture. In part it is fueled by the internet, most particularly by YouTube. In part it is energized by time and money savings. It is further driven by the possibility of personalization and customization to meet individual needs just in time and just in place. More than 50 percent of the DIY-ers are between 24 and 44 years of age, and the numbers are growing. This trend is immutable now; it is continuing to grow in numbers and expand into new fields every year. Perhaps we have not been losing learners in the U.S. at all. In fact, there may be millions more postsecondary learners in the U.S. than ever before; they are simply not enrolling directly in colleges and universities, but instead choosing to DIY via MOOCs and other online, nondegree modes.

https://www.insidehighered.com/digital-learning/blogs/online-trending-now/rise-do-it-yourself-education

Jennifer Liu, CNBC

If you want to get ahead in your career in 2020, adopting a growth mindset should be at the top of your priority list. According to Udemy’s 2020 Workplace Learning Trends Report, a having a growth mindset — or the ability to continue learning in order to adapt to change — was ranked as the most important soft skill for career success. The online learning platform analyzed user data from its Udemy for Business service, which offers several course packages and is used by more than 4,000 companies as a resource for employee training.

https://www.cnbc.com/2019/11/21/10-top-soft-skills-to-master-for-2020-if-you-want-a-raise-promotion-or-new-job.html

The Language Conservancy

While online apps for language learners are not new, the ability to learn Indigenous languages from North America is.  The Lakota Language Consortium and its sister organization, The Language Conservancy, are proud to announce the release of an online learning platform for the Lakota language called Owóksape. Owóksape means “Place of Wisdom” in Lakota.

https://newsmaven.io/indiancountrytoday/the-press-pool/breakthrough-app-to-allow-for-online-learning-of-lakota-ZxTGwVOWj0eE6TltuLUXtg/

EINPresswire
Toronto: Growth in online learning continues in Canadian universities, colleges, and CEGEPs as they increasingly offer flexible access to post-secondary courses and programs throughout the country, according to a recent report released by the Canadian Digital Learning and Research Association. The results of the 2019 Tracking Online and Digital Learning in Canada survey can be found online at: http://onlinelearningsurveycanada.ca

https://www.einnews.com/pr_news/502730144/canada-s-post-secondary-institutions-are-expanding-online-learning

By Ashima Sitaula, Indiana Statesman
Mobile education, also known as m-learning, is a new way to use mobiles to access learning material. Online learning facilitates the learning process with the aid of mobile devices and tools such as your phone, laptop or tablet. Wherever and however you want, you can read! Educational systems are evolving with the introduction of digital education. Using portable devices (such as iPads, laptops, tablets, and smartphones) with wireless networks allows connectivity and remote learning, which enables teaching and learning to reach beyond the traditional classroom.

https://www.isustudentmedia.com/indiana_statesman/opinion/article_64a69304-0c06-11ea-b051-9f950c384d5b.html