Online Learning Update

by the Australian Financial Review

Will a new generation of students weaned on social networking regard online learning on mobile devices as a completely natural way to be educated? What will happen to the profession- and vocation-focused universities whose main task is teaching when teaching from the best academics in the world is on the internet for nothing? What will the impact be on international education, Australia’s $14 billion-a-year export earner, when international students can join a MOOC course in their own country? At this early stage no one is sure but there is an almost universal belief that higher education has entered an era of fundamental change. “Clearly the potential is enormous,” says University of Adelaide vice-chancellor Warren Bebbington. “The MOOCs are changing higher education in a way we don’t quite understand yet,” says Margaret Sheil, provost of the University of Melbourne. But she adds that when the best universities in the world are joining in to offer MOOC courses it is important for Melbourne to be part of it.

http://afr.com/p/national/education/free_online_courses_will_change_7ngMdHAbNt5JXJFgLqR79O

by Virtual College (UK)

A college in north Wales has claimed to have developed the world’s first ever online learning course, to be delivered via Facebook. The Coleg Harlech Workers’ Educational Association has launched a new online photography course, providing an overview of photographic techniques and compositional rules while encouraging students to post their own work on the social networking site, Western Mail reports. Developed by IT and innovation consultant Chris Headleand, lecture in creative technologies at the college, the course will go ahead following the success of its pilot scheme. According to Mr Headleand, all feedback has been positive, with students claiming that they felt more comfortable communicating with each other over Facebook.

http://www.virtual-college.co.uk/news/Welsh-college-launches-Facebook-elearning-course-newsitems-801453256.aspx

By Lauren Brett, Technique

Creating an education style that fits today’s high tech environment is nothing new to the world of higher education. Talks of Massive Open Online Courses (MOOCs) and their potential has been topic of discussion on several college campuses, including Tech. Provost Rafael Bras formally introduced the idea of MOOCs to the Tech community at a Town Hall forum. The forum featured a panel of faculty who are teaching courses through Coursera, which Tech partnered with earlier this year. Partnerships between universities and online education programs similar to Tech’s with Coursera are a trend on the rise. Stanford and Princeton have also partnered with Coursera, and MIT and Harvard have joined together to create edX. Georgia Tech Professional Education (GTPE), another Tech online education enterprise, has been working to develop online education options for the past 35 years and has online students in every continent both for credit and non-credit.

http://nique.net/news/2012/09/21/tech-showcases-virtual-education/

by Jere Downs, Courier-Journal

Colleges and universities that don’t have the stature of the 60 most prestigious research and Ivy League institutions are fast headed for “irrelevance and marginalization,” said Richard A. DeMillo, an expert in online learning who spoke at the IdeaFestival conference downtown Thursday. The proliferation of knowledge via online courses presents unparalleled challenges to colleges and universities, said DeMillo, an author and director of the Center for 21st Century Universities at the Georgia Institute of Technology.

http://www.courier-journal.com/article/20120920/BETTERLIFE03/309200095/idea-festival-higher-education-college-jere-downs-better-life

by Daniel Luzer, Washington Monthly

Some technology enthusiasts have become very excited about Massive Open Online Courses (MOOCs), free, non-credit classes that an unlimited number of people can take over the Internet. One of those people is apparently U.S. Senator Dick Durbin of Illinois (D), the Senate Majority Whip. Durbin, who has called the existing financial model of American higher education “unsustainable,” is a severe critic of for-profit colleges. Earlier this year he introduced a bill in the senate to prevent for-profit colleges from exploiting veterans’ benefits. But he’s not opposed to education innovation. He’s apparently taking a poetry class online.

http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/college_guide/blog/dick_durbin_tries_online_poetr.php

by James Goodman, Democrat & Chronicle

1,532 RIT students are now taking courses online, with some students enrolled in more than one of these classes. This fall, four-year and community colleges in the Rochester area are offering 556 online courses that have an enrollment of 15,859, with the actual number of students taking these courses being smaller since some take multiple courses. In addition, thousands more students are enrolled in courses that have an online component, such as the professor delivering the lecture online, so classroom time can be used for discussion. Online courses can connect students around the globe with a college. Hongqian Tan, who studied music at Nazareth College last school year, is now taking an online course from Nazareth about the history of piano music from her home in Shandong, China.

http://www.democratandchronicle.com/article/20120921/BUSINESS/309210024/online-learning-RIT

by NIU Today

Northern Illinois University President John G. Peters briefed trustees on “distributed learning,” a major ingredient of Vision 2020 that typically refers to online course delivery but also includes other modes such as videoconferencing. “Our goal is to provide an affordable way to meet this need and increase delivery of educational units to our region using distributed learning five-fold by 2020, from the current 16,000 credit hours to more than 81,000 credit hours,” Peters said. Vision 2020 grant seed money will be utilized in developing either a home-grown model or partnering for a turn-key, revenue share model to achieve this goal. Whatever the approach, competing institutions that already scale online delivery to meet the diversity of potential student users are growing in appeal.

http://www.niutoday.info/2012/09/20/peters-briefs-board-of-trustees-on-vision-2020-much-accomplished-challenges-lie-ahead/

by Khan Academy

In October 2010, Khan Academy began a volunteer driven effort to translate its video library into the world’s widely spoken languages. This involved both text translations (captions) and voice translations (dubbing/re-doing videos). In early 2011 Ben Kamens and Dean Brettle (one of KA’s passionate volunteers) integrated the Universal Subtitles widget to enable crowdsourced subtitling of videos on Khan Academy. Today we have 14,000+ subtitles in 50+ languages. For voice translations, we needed to find individuals who could not only be Khan Academy’s voice in another language, but also have the commitment to translate an entire topic’s playlist. The latter was key to ensuring consistency in voice within a topic. Khan Academy relies on an amazing group of “Advocates” for each of the languages it is supporting, to ensure the effectiveness and quality of the translations. Currently we have 7,500+ voice translations in over 23 languages.

http://www.khanacademy.org/about/blog/post/31954316115/translations-journey-2-years

By Alexandra Tilsley, Inside Higher Ed

The growth of the online education market appears to have spun off another, more surreptitious market – one that goes beyond the paper-writing services long available to less than honest students – and online educators are taking note. A handful of websites have sprung up recently offering to take a student’s entire online class for them, handling assignments, quizzes, and tests, for a fee. Prices for a “tutor” vary. Boostmygrades.com advertises a $695 rate for graduate classes, $495 for an algebra class, or $95 for an essay. When Inside Higher Ed, posing as a potential customer, asked for a quote for an introductory microeconomics class offered by Penn State World Campus, noneedtostudy.com offered to complete the entire course for $900, with payment upon completion, and onlineclasshelpers.com asked for $775, paid up front. Most sites promise at least a B in the course.

http://www.insidehighered.com/news/2012/09/21/sites-offering-take-courses-fee-pose-risk-online-ed