Educational Technology

Chris Westfall, Forbes

How important is upskilling and leadership training? The World Economic Forum reports that 42% of the core skills required for jobs will change by 2022. And many of those changes are already in evidence today. Fostering a safe and successful recovery means expanding access to the digital skills that can get people working again – and make companies more efficient. Clearly, upskilling and training is vital to the future of work – and to your future career success.

https://www.forbes.com/sites/chriswestfall/2020/10/28/how-to-upskill-corporate-training-and-development-the-4-missing-links-in-online-learning/#3e02e4982e9c

Hannah Juneau, Lion’s Roar – Southeastern Louisiana University

Noel Milton, an instructor of biological sciences, believes that the biggest advantage of online classes is that she is able to teach her students time management skills. However, Milton mentioned that the biggest challenges with online classes are handling the workload and not being able to maintain the same relationship with her students.

http://lionsroarnews.com/24667/instructors-perspectives-on-distance-learning/on-campus/

MarketScale
No one needs reminding that we are in the year 2020, yet we continue to offer education and certifications in virtually the same manner as we have for millennia. Should we really continue to argue whether this is the superior teaching and learning method? What if, instead, we acknowledge that online education is here to stay–and that the charge for education professionals is to ensure that this method of instructional delivery is at least equal to traditional face-to-face instruction? Here are the top five things educational institutions can do to make online education more effective—and valuable—today, tomorrow, and into the future.

https://marketscale.com/industries/education-technology/5-ways-online-education-more-effective/

John Richards and Chris Dede, EDUCAUSE Review

Profound changes in underlying technology (digitization), in combination with root and branch organizational adaptation (reengineering, or what is often called “digitalization”), have altered the global, socioeconomic environment. These forces of change and adaptation have produced what we are calling “the synergistic digital economy.” Students and workers in the synergistic digital economy no longer expect that their jobs will represent a progression through a single career during a lifetime. They instead expect that their current job or career will, at some point, disappear or evolve, forcing them to prepare for novel jobs in several new careers at unpredictable points throughout their lives. The requirement to prepare for a lifetime of changing employment is not optional.

https://er.educause.edu/articles/2020/10/the-60-year-curriculum-a-strategic-response-to-a-crisis

Philippa Hardman, University World News

For institutions choosing to invest strategically in hybrid or more flexible learning to enhance what they can deliver to students and the overall performance of the university, learning design becomes a key part of the process. The objective is to use technology to create an environment in which students feel seamlessly connected to their peers and educators. To achieve this requires a systematic and imaginative approach to redesigning course modules. Simply migrating established practices onto digital platforms without adapting the design and delivery approaches is not enough.

https://www.universityworldnews.com/post.php?story=20200928134607579

Hallie Busta, Education Dive

Two startups run by ed tech experts are tailoring videoconferencing software for use in virtual college classrooms, but their approaches differ. The limits of traditional videoconferencing software in education applications have been on display in recent months. Two companies emerging to address the need for tailoring are taking divergent approaches: tweaking an existing platform with add-ons or creating a new company entirely. Dan Avida, CEO and  his spouse – Daphne Koller (co-founder of Coursera) – are launching Engageli, a company borne from the pandemic, is taking the latter approach. ClassEDU, whose co-founder and CEO Michael Chasen — who also co-founded and led Blackboard — cited Zoom’s wide uptake and scalability as reasons creating an add-on for the software, rather than building a separate platform, was “a no-brainer.”

https://www.educationdive.com/news/these-companies-are-redesigning-zoom-university/587876/

Michael Horowitz, Campus Technology

Higher ed’s response to the novel coronavirus has exposed issues of pedagogy, equity and more — but also offers opportunities to reshape the future.  Earlier this year, as the news of coronavirus began spreading as rapidly as the virus itself, colleges across the country had to quickly decide the most effective and, more importantly, safest course of action for their students and faculty. This fall, while some colleges pivoted to e-learning, others sought to create a hybrid model as a handful of students returned to campus. While we hope these uncertain times are not long-lasting, our response is sure to alter the landscape of higher education moving forward.

https://campustechnology.com/articles/2020/10/20/covid19s-lasting-effects-on-the-higher-education-landscape.aspx

GARY MICHELSON AND HAL PLOTKIN, EdSource

Would you pay for a textbook when you could get a better one for free? The answer coming from many college administrators might surprise you. By embracing a new “embedded in tuition” textbook-pricing scheme and ignoring the benefits of getting textbooks through a freely accessible digital library, many college administrators are burdening students with unnecessary costs while also sacrificing an opportunity for tech-enabled collaborative innovations. But there is a much less expensive alternative. Open educational resources are teaching and learning resources that reside in the public domain or are released with an intellectual property license that allows their free use and, often, re-purposing as well as continuous improvement with thousands of educators around the globe contributing to their content.

https://edsource.org/2020/transform-higher-education-make-textbooks-free/641561

Lara Sorokanich, Fast Company

In recent years, much of the investment in online learning has focused on companies such as Coursera, which offer users affordable college courses and professional development. While these more traditional education platforms have seen huge spikes in users and funding during the pandemic, consumers have also demonstrated a growing appetite for online classes geared toward entertainment and enrichment. MasterClass is adding more content, while Airbnb and Instagram Live have emerged as learning hubs, with influential instructors teaching everything from dance to poetry writing to cocktail making.

https://www.fastcompany.com/90560954/coursera-saw-a-398-increase-in-users-between-march-and-april-heres-how-online-learning-is-taking-off-across-platforms

Ray Schroeder, Inside Higher Ed
Universities are still reeling from the impact of the pandemic; many are closing their campuses after Thanksgiving and moving online. Spring terms will be delayed, break canceled, and online strategies remain at the forefront of delivery modes for the rest of 2021. What lies ahead?  What is the right path for your institution? Is it possible to return to the pre-pandemic normal? Will that approach sustain you through 4IR? Can you somehow maintain a balance of the “old” normal with the “new” normal? Or is the best path for your institution to embrace the future and advance astride business and industry as they move into 4IR?

https://www.insidehighered.com/digital-learning/blogs/online-trending-now/will-2022-bring-return-normal-after-mostly-online-2021

Associated Press

This is an even faster acceleration of digitization than the early days of the pandemic in the spring when content creation rose 230% compared with the previous year. The rapid growth is occurring globally. Content creation in the Americas has grown 767% year over year, while Europe is up by 848%, Asia is up by 930% and Australia is up by 293% during this same year-over-year period. As professors juggle their increasing workload, they are using more of their weekends to create asynchronous classes. Over the summer, professors uploaded six times more classroom content uploads to Panopto on Saturdays compared to the previous year. Sundays saw an increase of eight times more content uploads from last year. The number of professors working on weekends grew 463% this summer compared to last year.

https://www.oaoa.com/news/business/university-professor-workloads-spike-as-fall-courses-are-delivered-online/article_b955d936-f316-56e3-8430-c2051ae2a9ed.html

Lucy Foster, Entrepreneur
The most popular courses on Coursera give an idea of what the world wants to learn. The most well-enrolled MOOCs – or Massive Open Online Courses – tend to be in business or technology. Online courses to improve time management and remote work are also on the rise.  Coursera has released its 10 most popular titles as of 2019 , which are a good indication of where the world of work is heading. There are no prizes for guessing digital skills and artificial intelligence, which occupy seven of the top 10 spots.

https://www.entrepreneur.com/article/358518

Registered Nursing

RegisteredNursing.org discussed the future of nursing education with department chairs, leaders, and faculty from top nursing schools and they tend to agree – students can expect more online learning and high-tech virtual simulations from nursing school in 2021. Nursing education leaders from renowned schools such as Johns Hopkins University, Baylor University, and University of San Francisco, as well as from regional schools such as Lakeland Community College and Augusta Technical College, all weighed in when asked, “In light of the changes that nursing students have seen in 2020, what will nursing school look like in 2021?”

https://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/leaders-from-top-nursing-schools-predict-more-online-learning-simulations-in-2021-301150572.html

Ray Schroeder and Eric Olsen, Helix Education

COVID has accelerated the evolution and adoption of a lot of new technologies across higher ed. What has the pandemic done to the blockchain movement specifically? Ray Schroeder, associate vice chancellor of online learning at University of Illinois Springfield, and senior fellow at UPCEA, returns to the Enrollment Growth University show to remark on the acceleration of the blockchain movement during COVID-19 and how the blockchain can assist in new university collaborations.

https://www.helixeducation.com/resources/enrollment-growth-university/what-does-the-blockchain-mean-for-university-partnerships/

Shawn Hubler, NY Times
Liberal arts departments, graduate student aid and even tenured teaching positions are targets as the coronavirus causes shortfalls. Ohio Wesleyan University is eliminating or phasing out majors in comparative literature, urban studies, journalism and 15 other subjects. The University of Florida’s trustees this month took the first steps toward letting the school furlough faculty. The University of California, Berkeley, has paused admissions to its Ph.D. programs in anthropology, sociology and art history. As it resurges across the country, the coronavirus is forcing universities large and small to make deep and possibly lasting cuts to close widening budget shortfalls. By one estimate, the pandemic has cost colleges at least $120 billion, with even Harvard University, despite its $41.9 billion endowment, reporting a $10 million deficit that has prompted belt tightening.

https://www.nytimes.com/2020/10/26/us/colleges-coronavirus-budget-cuts.html

Bill Koch, The Providence Journal

Money.  That’s the only reason we’re playing college basketball this year.  Canceling the 2020 NCAA Tournament was a decision that carried a minimum price tag of $375 million. It’s one that won’t be made again. Cash disbursements from the sport’s governing body to its 32 Division I conferences were slashed from the expected $600 million. It doesn’t take into account the revenue that vanished when most of those leagues were forced to abandon their respective tournaments. Cities and towns set to host games and welcome fans from various other locations suffered their own untold losses within local economies.

https://www.providencejournal.com/story/sports/2020/10/24/college-basketball-providence-college-university-of-rhode-island/6023037002/

Patrick Lévy, University World News

Open licences, sustainable business models and copyright retention must be ensured. A welcome development has been the more strident work on rights retention to ensure Green Open Access and the growing attention to non-commercial publishing venues – Diamond Open Access – in the quest to create a publishing system that is less dependent on a few commercial publishers and more diverse, community-driven and scholar-led.

https://www.universityworldnews.com/post.php?story=20201023083240218

Dian Schaffhauser, THE Journal
How much of the innovation that’s taking place right now in education will still be around when the instability of the pandemic has slowed down? That’s a question that the Christensen Institute has tried to understand in a new paper published today. The positive changes taking place in schools aren’t simply the ones that have to do with the virus, the report noted. They’re also tied to the other one confronting America right now: systemic racism, which “perpetuates inequality and injustice.” Both types of pandemics “deeply challenge our education system.”

https://thejournal.com/articles/2020/10/20/report-how-to-get-the-good-changes-to-last.aspx

Claudette Riley, Springfield News-Leader

More than a third of Missouri State students reported a problem accessing online learning, according to a mid-semester survey university conducted. Of the 35 percent reporting an issue, 17 percent complained of internet issues and 14 percent pointed to trouble with equipment, such as laptops, or software, including the Blackboard learning management system.

https://www.news-leader.com/story/news/education/2020/10/24/survey-third-msu-students-report-issue-online-learning/3710160001/

Rhea Kelly, Campus Technology

Since students have returned to school and remote learning this fall, there has been a dramatic increase in internet searches related to academic fraud — that’s according to data from Cisco Talos. In a recent blog post, the threat intelligence team detailed how essay mills operate and how academic fraud websites can lead to more serious cybersecurity threats. It’s a wild ride through falsified app reviews, shoddy workmanship and a rabbit hole of malicious activity.

https://campustechnology.com/articles/2020/10/23/podcast-the-link-between-academic-fraud-and-cybersecurity-risk.aspx

Rebecca Koenig, EdSurge

From professors to advisers to career counselors, colleges employ many people responsible for coaching students on how to meet their goals. But students don’t always take advantage of opportunities to receive this personalized guidance. Now that the pandemic has pushed many of these meetings into virtual spaces, though, some faculty and staff are reporting that more of their students are showing up—remotely—to office hours and advising meetings. That has some higher-ed leaders contemplating making virtual appointments a permanent option, even after the health crisis has passed.

https://www.edsurge.com/news/2020-10-22-virtual-office-hours-get-more-students-in-the-door-will-they-be-here-to-stay