Online Learning Update

by Peter McGraw and Joel Warner, Huffington Post

Massive open online courses, or MOOCs, are garnering lots of attention these days. Some see large-scale, web-based classes as the new frontier for colleges and universities, a great leap forward that could revolutionize higher education. Duke University professor of psychology and behavioral economics Dan Ariely and his colleagues at the Center for Advanced Hindsight, on the other hand, see MOOCs as the perfect way to test Dan’s academic funny bone. Will the jokes that work in a traditional college classroom work in a class of say, several thousand online students? We threw similar questions at the thousands of students subjected to the jokes each week. Using the five-point scale, we asked them how funny and how offensive they found each of Dan’s wisecracks. We also asked them to predict Dan’s own ratings: how funny did their teacher consider each of his own jokes?

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/peter-mcgraw-and-joel-warner/a-professor-walks-into-a-_b_3283684.html

by Bailey McCann, civsource

A new report from Connected Tennessee, a local broadband consortium in partnership with the East Tennessee Educational Technology Association, shows that online education is important at all levels of schooling even K-12. According to the report, students that become comfortable with technology early on, learn better and are better prepared for jobs of the future. Online learning is also helping minorities in Tennessee get ahead. Data in the report shows that half of the minority population in Tennessee goes online for e-learning, that number is significantly higher than caucasians in the state. Hard to reach populations like rural residents are also getting online, 39% of rural residents in the state go online for coursework or work related activities.

http://civsourceonline.com/2013/05/16/tennessee-education-report-shows-online-learning-essential-for-k-12/

by Sami Edge, Daily Emerald

Classes can be a serious strain on both your calendar and your wallet. Are they educational? Yes. Necessary? Yes. Expensive? Absolutely. Time consuming? Without a doubt. As technology improves and more courses are offered online, students are increasingly turning to web-based courses to alleviate the time constraints imposed by the traditional university structure. For out-of-state students, the benefits are seemingly twofold: not only do online courses save transit time — sometimes, they’re also half price. At the University of Oregon, online courses follow one of two fiscal models: tuition based, or self-supporting. In accordance with the Oregon University System, tuition-based online classes differentiate in price according to residency status and credit load and are managed through individual UO departments. Self-supporting courses, however, are offered through a department in conjunction with the office of Academic Extension and follow a set fee determined by Academic Extension. This results in a set price, regardless of residency status.

http://dailyemerald.com/2013/05/16/online-courses-offer-economic-incentive-to-out-of-state-students/

by JON MARCUS, Times Higher Education (THE)

A merged model: San José State has been experimenting with combining classroom and online education, and it cites impressive improvements in the proportion of students who advance to the next level. It is also at the centre of one of the biggest debates in US higher education, thanks to an experiment that is combining conventional and online learning. As administrators and politicians push to provide online courses that they say will take the pressure off underfunded and oversubscribed conventional ones, some academics – including philosophy scholars at San José State – are pushing back. In some disciplines, the professors say in an open letter, online courses are turning faculty members into glorified teaching assistants. In the California State Senate, a bill has been introduced that would open the door for students who cannot get into entry-level courses to sit the same subjects provided by online players (including for-profit companies) approved by a committee of academics.

http://www.timeshighereducation.co.uk/news/can-san-jos-show-us-academy-the-way/2003779.article

by Lorenzo Perez, U Virginia

U.Va.’s decision last summer to enter into a partnership with Coursera, which also offers an online platform for courses offered by Stanford University, Princeton University and other leading institutions, marked an effort to expand the reach of its academic offerings to a global audience eager to sample free, noncredit versions of the course offered on Grounds. Attrition in online participation in MOOCs is common. Of the 72,781 students who initially enrolled for Green’s online course, for example, only 9,140 remained active after 10 weeks. The thousands who remained, however, spanned the globe.

http://news.virginia.edu/content/class-2013-uva-faculty-students-give-online-education-mostly-positive-grade

by the Deccan Herald

The first free, open, online platform for courses from multiple UK universities and other leading organisations has announced a further five partners today, including the University of Glasgow, University of Strathclyde and the British Museum. The new partners are joining FutureLearn, which was launched in December 2012 and includes several universities as well as the British Library and the British Council. Each is committed to providing engaging and entertaining courses through the online site. The University of Glasgow will initially offer two courses that are drawn from the broad base of its world class academic provision. Strathclyde will initially be offering two or more courses over the first six months of the FutureLearn programme.

http://www.deccanherald.com/content/332573/free-online-courses-multiple-uk.html

by Georgia Tech College of Computing

The Georgia Institute of Technology College of Computing announced today that it will offer the first professional Online Master of Science degree in computer science (OMS CS) that can be earned completely through the “massive online” format. The degree will be provided in collaboration with online education leader Udacity Inc. and AT&T. All OMS CS course content will be delivered via the massive open online course (MOOC) format, with enhanced support services for students enrolled in the degree program. Those students also will pay a fraction of the cost of traditional on-campus master’s programs; total tuition for the program is initially expected to be below $7,000. A pilot program, partly supported by a generous gift from AT&T, will begin in the next academic year. Initial enrollment will be limited to a few hundred students recruited from AT&T and Georgia Tech corporate affiliates. Enrollment is expected to expand gradually over the next three years.

http://www.cc.gatech.edu/news/georgia-tech-announces-massive-online-masters-degree-computer-science

by Online Education

Today, one in every 88 American children is on the autism spectrum. Autism affects more than 2 million people in the U.S. and tens of millions worldwide. But it hasn’t always been this way. Statistics show a tenfold increase in autism in the past 40 years, and prevalence rates are increasing 10%-17% each year. With autism on the rise, many schools struggle to meet the needs of autistic students. Often, autistic adults do not take the next step to go on to college or meaningful employment, even though they may be incredibly gifted. Letting students fall behind should not be an option. If traditional classrooms struggle to effectively educate autistic students, what can online education offer autistic learners? Tech tools and virtual learning environments present an opportunity to better serve autistic students with flexibility and resources that are well suited to guide them in learning. The more educators learn about working with autistic students, the better equipped teachers and students will be for success.

http://www.onlineeducation.net/2013/04/05/autism-and-online-learning-a-guide-for-teachers

By Associated Press

The blurring between traditional universities and the new “Massive Open Online Courses” reached new levels Tuesday when Georgia Tech announced it will offer what it termed a first-of-its-kind computer science degree taught entirely over an open online platform. Georgia Tech will charge about $7,000 for the master’s degree, even though the courses that lead to the degree are available to anyone for free through Udacity, a MOOC platform currently offering 26 courses taught by partners including Georgia Tech. But while students can take MOOCs for free, only accredited universities like Georgia Tech can award credit and degrees for such coursework. Georgia Tech is betting that students will happily pay $7,000 for such a credential, given that the cost of the on-campus computer science master’s, or even the current online version of that degree, runs about three times higher than that for Georgia students, and between six and seven times higher for out-of-state and international students.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/business/technology/in-blurring-of-online-courses-traditional-georgia-tech-to-offer-full-open-online-masters/2013/05/14/6fed6eb2-bcea-11e2-b537-ab47f0325f7c_story.html

By Steve Kolowich, Chronicle of Higher Ed

Yale announced on Wednesday that it would soon offer MOOCs through Coursera, the Silicon Valley-based company. Yale plans to offer four courses beginning in January, focusing on constitutional law, financial markets, morality, and Roman architecture. The move was a long time coming. Yale, which in 2007 became among the first institutions to make its course content available free on the Web with its Open Yale Courses lecture series, has taken a distinctly deliberate approach to MOOCs. Last fall it convened a faculty committee to recommend a broad online agenda that would encompass MOOCs as well as other forms of online teaching.

http://chronicle.com/blogs/wiredcampus/yale-joins-the-mooc-club-coursera-looks-to-translate-existing-courses/43849

by Coursera

Want to learn a few tips on how to learn the material in your classes more effectively? Read below to learn about the principles behind Mastery Learning, written by our Course Operations MOOC Pedagogy Specialist, Relly Brandman.

What is Mastery Learning?

“The instruction is the same as in the conventional class (usually with the same teacher)…The average student under mastery learning was about one standard deviation above the average of the control class (the average mastery learning student was above 84% of the students in the control class).1”

http://blog.coursera.org/post/50352075945/5-tips-learn-more-effectively-in-class-with-mastery

John Hechinger and Michael McDonald, Bloomberg News

Professors across the U.S. are criticizing a rush to offer free online college courses, challenging a movement designed to spread knowledge and reduce higher-education costs. Amherst College faculty voted last month against joining an initiative led by Harvard University and Massachusetts Institute of Technology. The provost at American University issued a moratorium this month on such massive open online courses, or MOOCs. At San Jose State University, the philosophy department refused to use a free Web course from a Harvard professor. As college costs soar, professors are concerned that MOOCs may primarily become a way for universities to reduce expenses. Even at Harvard, some faculty members said at a meeting last week that the movement could damage higher education by leading institutions to cut face-to-face instruction.

http://www.sfgate.com/business/bloomberg/article/Harvard-for-Free-Meets-Resistance-as-U-S-4517796.php

by Edsurge

Udacity’s Sebastian Thrun wrote on his blog that this kind of program is just why he started Udacity: “I grew up in Germany, a country that offers excellent education. Yet when I started my Master’s degree in computer science, I found myself among 1,200 other Master’s students with just five professors. Needless to say, I ended up mostly educating myself through books that were available at a nearby research institute. Today is my opportunity to give back.” Anyone will be able to take the Udacity courses for free but only those enrolled through Georgia Tech will earn credits toward its Masters’ degree. A pilot program will begin “in the next academic year” with a few hundred students recruited from AT&T and Georgia Tech corporate affiliates.

https://www.edsurge.com/n/2013-05-14-georgia-tech-udacity-to-offer-master-s-degree

By Margaret Andrews, Inside Higher Ed

In this corner: MOOC enthusiasts, envisioning how these large, online courses will increase access to higher education, reduce costs, and reinvigorate teaching and learning. In the other corner: MOOC critics, anticipating how MOOCs will eliminate meaningful interaction between faculty and students, reduce the quality of learning, and decimate the professorship. You’ve probably heard by now that Amherst declined to participate in edX and that San Jose State faculty pushed back on plans for another MOOC in their midst. Recently, there is (seemingly) more press about the potential future impact of these large online courses.

http://www.insidehighered.com/blogs/stratedgy/both-sides

by Andrew McGettigan, the Guardian

The British Museum, British Council, British Library and 21 UK universities have now joined what they hope is a higher education revolution – giving the public access to the world’s top institutions and their best academics. They have entered into partnership with FutureLearn, a company owned by Open University that will be launched in September as the UK’s “first free, open, online platform” for higher-level short courses. It aims to be the home-grown rival to similar platforms emanating from the US such as Coursera, Udacity and the not-for-profit edX. Such platforms offer “Moocs” – massive, open, online courses: a free or low-cost alternative to traditional higher education that, say the evangelists, will roll out elite education across the world.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2013/may/12/moocs-scourge-saviour-higher-education

By DEVON HAYNIE, US News

It’s been less than three years since MOOCs entered the public discourse, but the online classes are already causing quite a stir in the higher education universe as elite universities such as Princeton University, the University of Pennsylvania and the University of Michigan—Ann Arbor embrace the courses. “This movement has raised more awareness and enthusiasm for higher learning than I recall in recent history in this country,” says Ray Schroeder, director of the Center for Online Learning, Research and Service at the University of Illinois—Springfield. “It has allowed people to quickly and easily access learning in fields that otherwise they would have never pursued.”

http://www.usnews.com/education/online-education/articles/2013/05/14/explore-the-mooc-controversy

by Troy Onink, Forbes

Georgia Institute of Technology has announced a partnership with Udacity to offer an online Masters Degree in Computer Science for $7,000, down 80% from the existing cost of $40,000 for the on-campus, instructor led program. Suddenly, masters programs around the country will have to compete with Georgia Tech‘s $7,000 program, and that won’t be easy or fast in coming. The traditionally taught graduate degree in computer science at Georgia Tech is a very well regarded program that is in high demand and has very positive outcomes in terms of jobs and earnings. Georgia Tech graduates tend to do very well in earnings upon graduation, especially in computer science. Now students from around the world will be able to obtain the same degree online at an 80% discount – which is, no doubt, a sonic boom rattling the windows in the offices of college administrators across the country.

http://www.forbes.com/sites/troyonink/2013/05/15/georgia-tech-udacity-shock-higher-ed-with-7000-degree/

By J. Noah Brown, Inside Higher Ed

At this point, we have more questions than answers, including those related to the very nature of MOOCs. What exactly are they? It is difficult to quantify the seemingly eclectic collection of courses into a program of study, assess their relationship to quality, and most important, their impact on student learning. More vexing perhaps, what is the relationship between MOOCs and student success and completion? Already, significant numbers of students who sign up for MOOCs fail to complete them. The latter question is of particular concern to community colleges, but also to higher education in general because of the new imperative to increase educational attainment rates in America. While MOOCs have garnered considerable attention in the media and within higher education, it is premature to draw any conclusions about their eventual landing place in the community college ecosystem. But thanks to the extraordinary work of the Liberal Learning & America’s Promise initiative by the American Association of Colleges and Universities, we would do well to refresh our memory banks about the hallmark practices that result in student success and achievement.

http://www.insidehighered.com/views/2013/05/13/essay-community-colleges-and-moocs

By Bridget McCrea, Campus Technology

Creating videos, presentations, and lessons that college students access and interact with on their own time and terms is one thing, but developing learning content that requires both students and instructor to be online at the same time presents a whole different set of challenges for college professors and instructional technologists. Formally referred to as synchronous online learning (versus asynchronous learning, which is accessed and utilized at any time), the “live” learning environment happens in real-time on the Web and encourages interaction, commenting, Q&As, and other types of instant feedback.

http://campustechnology.com/articles/2013/05/08/the-dos-and-donts-of-synchronous-online-learning.aspx

By KEVIN ABOUREZK, Lincoln Journal Star

As educators across the country work to reduce class sizes, some at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln have been thinking about creating courses that could draw thousands. The trend toward massive open online courses — known as MOOCs — is a quandary for universities nationwide. On the one hand, it makes education freely accessible to everyone. On the other, it’s a threat to anyone who makes a living from education. At UNL, the issue is far from decided. In September, Chancellor Harvey Perlman charged a nine-member faculty committee with considering the question. “The responses range across the spectrum, as is often the case when technology has the potential to change the way we do things,” said Steve Goddard, task force chairman and head of the UNL Department of Computer Science and Engineering. “There’s excitement. There’s fear. It’s the unknown.”

http://journalstar.com/news/local/education/universities-debate-credit-for-free-online-courses/article_cc7035e4-eb08-54fd-96ec-c8d3096e3145.html

By Julie McWilliams, Penn News

Penn recently surpassed one million enrollments in Coursera, less than a year after the University first offered classes with the online learning platform. One million and counting. That’s the number of open online learning course enrollments Penn reached this month, less than a year after the University offered the first classes with the online learning platform Coursera. Penn is one of the founding partners and board members of Coursera, which offers free, open-access, non-credit classes to anyone with a computer. To date, 15 Penn professors from the schools of Medicine, Arts & Sciences, Engineering and Applied Science, and Wharton have shared their knowledge with students from 162 countries around the world. Additional courses will open this summer and fall, including classes from the schools of Design, Law, and Nursing, with 23 faculty members participating.

http://www.upenn.edu/pennnews/current/2013-05-09/latest-news/coursera-penn-surpasses-one-million-enrollees