April 30, 2021
Phil Cox, eCampus News
Traditionally, hybrid learning is defined as the combination of face-to-face and online delivery of course materials. The disruption of COVID-19 meant that all the face-to-face interactions for my classes took place online. However, I find that offering a blend of asynchronous and synchronous instruction has been key to the success of my virtual classroom. Here are a few of the benefits of this approach, along with some strategies and tools that I will continue using in the coming school year, regardless of where learning takes place
https://www.ecampusnews.com/2021/04/16/3-ways-online-learning-has-forever-altered-my-instruction/
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Rhea Kelly, Campus Technology
Dartmouth College has deployed an artificial intelligence solution from Aisera to enhance communication with students and faculty during COVID-19. The virtual assistant, dubbed the Dart InfoBot, can answer support requests in natural language either via Slack or on the institution’s client services portal. Aisera’s AI Service Desk automates answers to common support questions, providing a user experience that’s designed to be personalized, context-aware and conversational, according to the company. Using the self-service technology with its user base of 10,000 faculty and students, Dartmouth was able to improve auto-resolution of support requests by more than 60 percent, with a mean time to resolve of just 50 seconds.
https://campustechnology.com/articles/2021/04/12/dartmouth-employs-ai-virtual-assistant-to-support-students-and-faculty.aspx
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Alex Saad-Falcon, Information Week
Machine learning models are not infallible. In order to prevent attackers from exploiting a model, researchers have designed various techniques to make machine learning models more robust.
All neural networks are susceptible to “adversarial attacks,” where an attacker provides an example intended to fool the neural network. Any system that uses a neural network can be exploited. Luckily, there are known techniques that can mitigate or even prevent adversarial attacks completely. The field of adversarial machine learning is growing rapidly as companies realize the dangers of adversarial attacks.
https://www.informationweek.com/big-data/ai-machine-learning/how-to-ensure-your-machine-learning-models-arent-fooled/a/d-id/1340630
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April 29, 2021
Natalie Schwartz, Higher Ed Dive
The pandemic reinvigorated calls to upskill large swaths of the population, and its harm to the economy also highlighted the need for states and colleges to remove potential cost barriers to postsecondary education. “Finances will no longer be the barrier to getting a college degree if you’re over 25,” said Mike Hansen, president of the Michigan Community College Association. “As we start to see increasing requirements of higher skills … you’ll also see therefore the demand pick up for adult students to come back.”
https://www.highereddive.com/news/what-other-states-can-learn-from-michigan-about-serving-adult-students/598562/
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Nic Napier, Indiana Daily Student
Indiana lawmakers are considering an amendment to Senate Bill 414, which deals with various education changes, that would require a report from public college campuses on student perspectives of free speech. It is unclear if this will be a one-time report or a recurring practice. The bill originally did not include a requirement for reports on students’ perceptions of free speech on campuses. The amendment was added to the bill after being passed through the House Education Committee, and it passed the Indiana House of Representatives Tuesday.
https://www.idsnews.com/article/2021/04/indiana-free-speech-college-lawmakers
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Jennifer Brown and Christopher Lynch, Lompoc Record
Online instruction opens access to those who need flexibility in classes for childcare, for scheduling conflicts and because of socio-economic pressure. The pandemic has only increased the reasons remote access is needed, with many families having faced a dual pandemic of COVID-19 and economic loss. Many of our student parents no longer have childcare, or face other circumstances preventing them from immediately returning to campus. Online coursework must not be considered an inferior or cheaper option. Getting online right requires a significant investment in course development guided by professional course designers who focus on achieving and assessing learning outcomes. Best practices show that developing a quality online course takes about 10 weeks to build with the faculty member working closely alongside an instructional/course designer, and research has shown that in-person instruction improves after working with instructional designers.
https://lompocrecord.com/opinion/columnists/jennifer-brown-and-christopher-lynch-quality-online-education-for-higher-ed-requires-public-investment/article_512e95ce-fae0-5d0b-917c-3a2f9232ad74.html
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April 28, 2021
Scott Jaschik, Inside Higher Ed
President Biden wants $109 billion for two-year colleges, $80 billion addition for Pell Grants, $62 billion for retention and completion efforts and $39 billion for two free years at minority-serving institutions for most students.
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Michael Kan, PC Magazine
Currently, SpaceX geo-restricts every Starlink dish to the subscriber’s registered residence. Hence, customers generally can’t use the dish at another location unless it’s nearby. But the tweet from Musk indicates the company will lift the restriction, enabling customers to move it from one place to the next. In the meantime, the company still needs more time to build up the Starlink satellite network, which currently numbers at more than 1,300 satellites. In March, SpaceX then filed an application with the FCC for clearance to operate Starlink on moving vehicles—including trucks, boats, and aircraft—in the US.
https://www.pcmag.com/news/movable-satellite-internet-spacex-to-lift-geo-restriction-on-starlink-dishes
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Neil J. Rubenking, PC Magazine
Chances are good you’ve never seen malware up close and personal. Even if you threw caution to the winds and visited a dangerous site or clicked a treacherous link, your antivirus software probably wiped out any offending program before the latter could say boo. So, you might wonder, just what does malware look like? Would I even recognize a malware program if I saw it? To be fair, a lot of malicious programs don’t look like anything at all. A virus, for example, tries its best to hide from view while infecting other files and computers. A bot sits quietly on your computer until it gets orders from the command and control center to spew some spam or participate in a DDoS attack on a major website. Trojans, by contrast, appear to be useful, legitimate programs, putting up a pretty facade to hide background activities like stealing your personal data. And when ransomware hollers for your attention, it’s bad news.
https://www.pcmag.com/news/the-many-faces-of-malware-a-tour-of-real-world-samples
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Kiana Burks, Texas State University Star
“One of my concerns is about how we get information about services available to all of the faculty,” Davenport says. “The other is addressing that faculty may be feeling overwhelmed because [of] very little time, I wish there was a way that we could incentivize participation in things like trainings.” Faculty Senate chair and professor in the Department of Physical Therapy Janet Bezner agrees there are faculty needs that have not been met in relation to online curriculum and says she is glad to address concerns with the Office of Distance and Extended Learning. “I think this conversation is exactly what we need, and I would also say, a broad-scale assessment of faculty needs has to be a part of this because we’re all different, our disciplines are different and our needs are different,” Bezner says.
https://www.universitystar.com/covid-19/faculty-senate-discusses-needs-regarding-online-courses/article_4ba38316-9ee6-11eb-9ffd-b70535955f31.html
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April 27, 2021
Jennifer Buckingham, Financial Review
Innovation is always on the agenda in education but the pandemic in 2020 made it a top priority. Many schools made a swift and more or less successful transition to online teaching. Innovative methodologies can be simple and powerful. The schools that did so most successfully were largely those that were already high functioning, with strong collaborative teaching cultures and robust systems in place. The widespread adoption of technology for teaching was not a disruptive force that changed the traditional stratifications in education systems. Education still needs to be evidence-informed. Innovation is not an excuse to disregard everything we know about effective teaching and learning. Otherwise, doing something is not better than doing nothing.
https://www.afr.com/work-and-careers/education/education-needs-to-be-evidence-informed-20210412-p57iku
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This report profiles key trends and emerging technologies and practices shaping the future of teaching and learning and envisions a number of scenarios and implications for that future. It is based on the perspectives and expertise of a global panel of leaders from across the higher education landscape.
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Sara Weissman, Inside Higher Ed
Enrollment at California Community Colleges fell even more than an already shocking national average last fall. Campus leaders hope to stem further declines as the COVID-19 pandemic continues. The California Community College system had a 12 percent enrollment decline from fall 2019 to fall 2020, a staggering figure for the largest college system in the country and a likely harbinger of the demographic and fiscal challenges that lie ahead for the sector nationally. The downward trend is occurring at community colleges across the country — the National Student Clearinghouse Research Center recently reported a 9.5 percent decline at community colleges nationwide — and is being compounded by the acute socioeconomic effects of the pandemic on students.
https://www.insidehighered.com/news/2021/04/15/california-community-college-fall-enrollment-plunges
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April 26, 2021
Shannon O’Connor, eCampus News
Through seed money provided by foundations and donors, Carthage College is offering teletherapy to expand access to counseling services. Survey data from the Spring 2019 National College Health Assessment by the American College Health Association indicated that in the previous year, three out of five students experienced overwhelming anxiety, and two out of five students were too depressed to function. Many struggled with these and other mental health concerns, including substance abuse. Student mental health has been a growing concern for higher-ed administrators in recent years… then the COVID pandemic took hold, bringing with it disruptions to all aspects of campus life, including decreased or no access for students to medical and mental health services. According to an April 2020 survey by Active Minds, a national mental health advocacy group, 80 percent of college students say the pandemic has negatively affected their mental health.
https://www.ecampusnews.com/2021/04/05/teletherapy-expands-access-to-student-mental-health-support/
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Elizabeth Redden, Inside Higher Ed
Many colleges started using remote third-party proctoring services after the shift to remote teaching forced by the pandemic last spring. Not the University of Michigan Dearborn, which took the option of remote proctoring off the table. Proponents of eproctoring technologies see them as important tools for deterring cheating in an online-only education environment. Opponents of their use raise concerns about costs, student privacy and the implications of asking students to submit to remote surveillance.
https://www.insidehighered.com/news/2021/04/14/um-dearborn-closed-door-remote-proctoring
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Philip Rous, Yvette Mozie-Ross, Sarah Shin and John Fritz; EDUCAUSE Review
To be sure, moving nearly all teaching and learning online so quickly was challenging, especially at the undergraduate level, but one unexpected outcome was successfully recovering or “re-recruiting” 123 former students who (for one reason or another) left UMBC before finishing their degrees. Below, we describe why and how we planned and implemented the Finish Line near-completer reengagement program—which leveraged our predominantly online classes in fall 2020—and what we learned from the process. We then suggest ways to support adult learners, help them feel welcome, and foster their sense of belonging in the institution.
https://er.educause.edu/articles/2021/4/a-pandemic-silver-lining-helping-former-students-finish-degrees-online
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April 25, 2021
Teresa Anania, eCampus News
The proportion of students who were highly satisfied with their learning experience fell from 51 percent pre-COVID to 19 percent post-COVID, and 60 percent of instructors said they struggled to keep students engaged. To improve student success, institutions can apply learnings from the past 12 months to provide a higher-quality remote learning experience. Schools with better IT infrastructure and a higher IT support staff ratio will distinguish themselves from the pack. For example, investing in a chatbot can help students and parents find the information they need faster so they can focus on learning and not on troubleshooting. It can also free up administrators and IT support staff to answer more sensitive or complex needs, instead of handling simple or common questions.
https://www.ecampusnews.com/2021/04/13/3-lessons-from-1-year-of-remote-learning/
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Nikos Vaggalis, i-programmer
There’s a free new Google course on Coursera for learning to program with Python.No previous exposure to programming required. There are many Python courses out there, but when you get notified that Google is offering one then you just have to take it. I’ve been exposed to several courses planned by Google and administered by third parties such as Udacity; the Udacity Android Developer Nanodegree and Java Web Developer for example. The quality was always top class with regards to personnel, material and syllabus. This class is one more of the same. Addressed to total beginners who want to jump into coding, and do that with Python, the language used universally and in all IT roles, be it a hardcore dev or support personnel.
https://www.i-programmer.info/news/150-training-a-education/14493-a-crash-course-on-python-by-google.html
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Alisha Haridasani Gupta, NY Times
In a new study, women reported higher levels of fatigue associated with video calls than men. The solution, though, isn’t as simple as not having video calls. Now, research from Stanford University published on Tuesday found that women experience significantly more Zoom fatigue than men. The research, which hasn’t been peer-reviewed, suggests that video calls simply amplify the longstanding gender dynamics in group settings and exacerbate an already wide gender stress gap, with women consistently reporting more stress and stress-related health conditions than men, according to the American Psychological Association.
https://www.nytimes.com/2021/04/13/us/zoom-fatigue-burn-out-gender.html
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April 24, 2021
Associated Press
Coursera partners with 200 leading university and industry educators to offer thousands of courses across business, technology and data science. Tennessee labor officials are continuing to offer free online courses to help people without work during the COVID-19 pandemic advance their skills. The Tennessee Department of Labor and Workforce Development says the Coursera Workforce Recovery Initiative will run through the end of 2021. The department says thousands of Tennesseans took advantage of the program last year.
https://www.wvlt.tv/2021/04/12/tennessee-offering-free-online-courses-amid-pandemic/
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by Susan Fourtané, Fierce Education
Higher Education is experiencing more changes than ever before. This acceleration is part of the transformation of a university education for the 21st century, also called Classroom 3.0. The development from Classroom 2.0 to Classroom 3.0 adds the driving force of 3D and 3D technology into the classroom for colleges and universities. Many educators argue that 3D is the natural way of learning, and the way of learning in the years to come. Immersive technologies such as Augmented Reality (AR), Virtual Reality (VR), and 3D technologies such as holograms represent the next generation of learning.
https://www.fierceeducation.com/best-practices/classroom-3-0-instructors-leveraging-augmented-reality-holograms
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