Online Learning Update

By Peter Reuell, Harvard Science

The solution, Harvard researchers say, is to test students early and often. By interspersing online lectures with short tests, student mind-wandering decreased by half, note-taking tripled, and overall retention of the material improved, according to Daniel Schacter, the William R. Kenan Jr. Professor of Psychology, and Karl Szpunar, a postdoctoral fellow in psychology. Their findings are described in a paper published this week in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. “What we hope this research does is show that we can use very strong, experimentally sound techniques to describe what works in online education and what doesn’t,” said Szpunar.

http://news.harvard.edu/gazette/story/2013/04/online-learning-its-different/

By Francesca Di Meglio, Business Weekly

Stanford University’s Center for Professional Development will expand its Online Innovation and Entrepreneurship Certificate Program, which was launched in September 2012, by rolling out new courses throughout the year. It unveiled its latest, Building Business Models, on April 2. The brainchild of School of Engineering Professor Robert Sutton and Graduate School of Business Professor Hayagreeva Rao, the certificate program is unique because it tackles a subject rarely covered by online courses and is more interactive than most, says Kristin Brennan, program manager of professional education at the center.

http://www.businessweek.com/articles/2013-04-04/stanfords-online-innovation-program-expands

By DAN ARIELY, PBS News Hour

The class is just starting but I am already learning a lot from it. I have learned that some students feel that it is their basic human right to get free education (they call it free but of course free in this case is a shorthand for “someone else should pay for it,”) while the majority feels privileged to live in a time when such adventures are possible. I am also learning how generous and helpful the students can be toward each other in the discussion boards. And above all, I feel more connected to about 140,000 more people on this planet, across 138 countries. It is truly a privilege. And if you want to join this adventure, all you need to do is to check out my class on Coursera.

http://www.pbs.org/newshour/rundown/2013/04/the-plusses-and-pitfalls-of-teaching-online.html

By Linda L. Briggs, Campus Technology

When it comes to secure testing online, even high-tech solutions rely on an old standby: a human proctor. But is such an approach sustainable in the long run? Human proctoring “has been around for over 100 years” and works very well, says Peg Wherry, director of online and distance learning at Montana State University. There’s already a well-established system for exam proctoring, created by schools that were offering distance learning–mail-correspondence courses, essentially–long before computers arrived on the scene. This proctoring network is generally available to other colleges and universities. Although Wherry has years of experience with online learning programs at multiple institutions, MSU’s distance-learning program is just beyond its pilot phase; online courses for undergraduates were offered to a small group for the first time in fall 2012. At testing time, online learners select human proctors from a list furnished by the university, or offer up their own proctor for approval.

http://campustechnology.com/articles/2013/04/04/keeping-an-eye-on-cheaters.aspx

by Betsy Corcoran, EdSurge

On helping students who currently are not served by colleges: “In California, we have 470,000 students waitlisted to get into community colleges. They’re willing and eager to pay for education. But they can’t get in.” Udacity aims to help support students who are not yet in college, who have to make up work to quality for college and who want to continue learning once they leave college. On Udacity’s program with San Jose State University: Although the program with San Jose State is a pilot for only 300 students, it’s “all set up to scale.” Udacity is offering classes such as remedial math and statistics; students get credits that they can take into the UC university system. The programs cost the university 10% of the cost of a traditional program. Udacity is currently not making a profit on the program, Thrun conceded.

https://www.edsurge.com/n/2013-04-02-udacity-s-sebastian-thrun-on-the-future-of-education

By Nick Anderson, Washington Post

Stanford University will team with a nonprofit founded by the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and Harvard University to develop an open-source Web platform for free online college courses. The Stanford alliance with the nonprofit venture edX, announcement signaled a new twist in what has become a race to open up Stanford has been central in the emergence of what are known as massive open online courses, or MOOCs, which have drawn interest from millions of people around the world. Two Stanford computer scientists launched the for-profit MOOC platform Coursera about a year ago, and Stanford offers several courses on that site. Another Stanford professor founded the for-profit MOOC provider Udacity.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/local/education/stanford-to-help-build-edx-mooc-platform/2013/04/02/5b53bb3e-9bbe-11e2-9a79-eb5280c81c63_story.html

By Cathie Norris, Elliot Soloway, THE Journal

Both Higher Ed and Lower Ed are pursuing personalized learning. But they are going in opposite directions. Higher Ed says… learner, here are opportunities for learning, you choose. Lower Ed says… learner, an algorithm knows best what opportunities you need for learning; it chooses. After keynoting the Institute of Applied Technology’s Technological Education Conference 2012 in Abu Dhabi on April 1, we served on a panel of faculty and high school students discussing the use of mobile devices in high school education. In response to a question about personalized learning, a high school student on the panel said, in effect, that it was important to him to be able to choose what he wanted to learn and when he wanted to learn and that mobile devices helped in that endeavor.

http://thejournal.com/articles/2013/04/01/higher-ed-vs-lower-ed.aspx

By Ashford University

Online students have the flexibility to log in and complete their coursework at any time from virtually any place. What’s more, students save time and energy by taking courses online. Typically, they also realize cost savings associated with commuting, such as bus fare or gasoline, parking, and vehicle wear and tear as well as time away from work, child care and various other expenses. As Earth Day approaches on April 22, here’s something else they can feel good about: Online learning benefits the environment. Consider the energy consumption associated with on-campus classes, meetings and study groups. Environmental impacts range from electricity to lighting, heating and cooling campus facilities to the use of consumables, such as traditional textbooks and other paper products.

http://www.sacbee.com/2013/04/01/5307699/online-learning-benefits-the-environment.html

by Helen Hu, Diverse

A new wave of massive open online courses is evolving at a dramatic pace — and unleashing some soul-searching about higher education along the way. These MOOCs were pioneered in Canada by George Siemens and Stephen Downes. They gained popularity not even two years ago in the U.S. after a free online course in artificial intelligence given by Stanford University professor Sebastian Thrun was swamped with students. Thrun and others began launching MOOC ventures offering courses in science, math, humanities and other subjects taught by professors at major universities, including elite ones. People around the world signed up, sometimes in the tens of thousands — even more than 100,000 — for an individual course. Using technology to quiz students and stimulate interaction among them on a vast scale, Coursera, Udacity and edX, the three primary MOOC ventures, suddenly seemed to point the way to a new era of learning.

http://diverseeducation.com/article/52317/#

By Erica Breunlin, Milwaukee Business Times

With a potential 700,000 to 1 million Wisconsin residents sitting on partial college credit, the University of Wisconsin System is stepping outside traditional education models to help working adults and older students complete degrees and more importantly develop skills needed by today’s workforce. While the traditional measure of progress toward a degree is based on credit hours and seat time, defined as the number of hours a student spends in class, this new vehicle of learning, the UW Flex Option Program, emphasizes outcome measures. The program will debut at UW-Milwaukee late this fall with four degree tracks and one certificate opportunity – two nursing degrees, a bachelor’s degree in diagnostic imaging, a Bachelor of Science degree in information science and technology, and a certificate in professional and technical communication. UW Colleges also will roll out the flex option this fall through 23 general education courses within its associate of arts and sciences degree.

http://www.biztimes.com/article/20130401/MAGAZINE03/303279979/-1/Government/UW-System-to-roll-out-Flex-Options

By MARK ARMAO, Arizona Daily Wildcat

A UA chemistry professor was recently awarded a $50,000 grant to design a free online chemistry course for Google. The massive open online course (MOOC), which will be available in the fall to anyone with Internet access, is being created by Katrina Miranda, an associate professor of chemistry and biochemistry. “It’s really exciting to be potentially touching the lives of thousands or hundreds of thousands of people with this type of project,” Miranda said. Google has sponsored the creation of several MOOCs since the format originated about five years ago. “We’re very interested in experiments and explorations in this MOOC arena,” said Karen Parker, education program manager at Google.

http://www.wildcat.arizona.edu/article/2013/04/ua-chemistry-professor-receives-grant-to-design-course-for-google

By Daniel Weintraub, Healthy Cal

One day soon, a student with a laptop in her bedroom in Mission Viejo will be able to take a full-credit, certified class online from a community college across the county. Or from Cal State Fullerton. Or UCLA. The student will watch the professor’s lectures on her computer, ask questions via email or text message, and take exams, probably from home. At least that’s the vision of Senate Leader Darrell Steinberg, a Sacramento Democrat who wants to use technology to bust the bottlenecks that are blocking student access in California’s cash-strapped and over-subscribed systems of higher education. Steinberg is vowing to get California’s public universities ahead of – or at least caught up with – a revolution underway in higher education while ensuring that the state continues to offer consistent, high quality classes, whether students take them on campus or over the Internet.

http://www.healthycal.org/archives/11541

In a move that will help transform the delivery of distance learning, a diverse group of higher education and state leaders, accreditors, and regulators led by former U.S. Secretary of Education Richard Riley today unveiled plans for a new interstate reciprocity system that will significantly streamline regulations and allow universities and colleges to more easily offer online courses across the country.  The Commission on the Regulation of Postsecondary Distance Education’s report seeks to free higher education institutions from the maze of costly, inefficient, and inconsistent regulations and laws in different states that often make it difficult to offer online courses to students who reside outside an institution’s home state.  The plan also sets in place consumer protections to safeguard students.

http://www.sheeo.org/projects/state-authorization-postsecondary-education

by Colleen DeVine, Edudemic

Decades after the Sloan Consortium funded the first large-scale online learning programs in the U.S., online learning has finally hit its stride. According to the 2012 Survey of Online Learning conducted by the Babson Survey Research Group, the number of students taking at least one online course has now surpassed 6.7 million, an increase of more than 570,000 students over the previous year. Moreover, thirty-two percent of higher education students now take at least one course online.

http://edudemic.com/2013/03/the-skills-both-online-students-and-teachers-must-have/

by Ariana Stone, Edudemic

For students at the K-12 or university level, the school library can be the most important stop on a research journey, whether it’s the first destination or the last. In order to keep up with modern challenges, some of the most innovative campus media centers in the U.S. are looking for ways to use technology to make the learning process smoother—both in person and remotely.

http://edudemic.com/2013/03/technologies-forever-changing-school-libraries/

By John Eger, UT San Diego

The California Senate introduced legislation last month that could reshape higher education by requiring the state’s public colleges and universities to give credit for online courses. The Senate’s concerns surely include some basic facts: The cost of getting a college degree is no longer affordable to most young people, and even if they can afford college, they cannot get the general education courses they need to progress in their academic career. Major problems to be sure. Allowing students to learn when and where it is most convenient for them is extremely attractive. Given the widespread availability of technology, it is not surprising that the “cyberschool” approach is fast becoming ordinary and acceptable at high schools and colleges in America, Europe and in other developed nations.

http://www.utsandiego.com/news/2013/mar/30/college-online-costs/

by Jeff Leek, Simply Statistics

I used peer-review for the data analysis course I just finished. As I mentioned in the post-mortem podcast I knew in advance that it was likely to be the most controversial component of the class. So it wasn’t surprising that based on feedback in the discussion boards and on this blog, the peer review process is by far the thing students were most concerned about. But to evaluate complete data analysis projects at scale there is no other alternative that is economically feasible.

http://simplystatistics.org/2013/03/26/an-instructors-thoughts-on-peer-review-for-data-analysis-in-coursera/

by Udacity

Udacity! What do you love about online learning? Udacity students have gotten in touch with us to rave about two things: flexibility and community. Our classes are awesome because you can learn at your own pace (we’re lookin’ at you, back button) and from anywhere you want (no one knows you took that quiz from the bathroom)! Now, while learning at your own pace and from your own place, you might be wondering about your classmates. Our passionate students love connecting for study sessions, helping each other through tough spots in the course, collaborating on group projects, and having fun along the way. Our study groups are a cornerstone of our student community, and they just got a little bigger! You can already start your own study group through the course forums and Meetup.com. We are delighted to introduce…Course Pods!

http://blog.udacity.com/2013/03/course-pods-new-way-to-connect-with.html

by James McCusker, the Herald

“There is no limit to the amount of good you can do if you don’t care who gets the credit.” While the original author of this quote isn’t known, it has been attributed to all sorts of prominent people: a 19th century Jesuit priest, a longtime CEO of Coca Cola, U.S. Presidents Harry S. Truman, Ronald Reagan and George W. Bush and many others. They all liked it and used it, and it is worth remembering. Despite the quote, though, getting credit has been the economic fulcrum of modern higher education. The cost of education is measured in credit hours as are graduation and degree requirements. And for both the academic supply side and the demand side — employers and society in general — it appears that what a student actually learns matters less than the credit, in the form of a diploma or degree, that they obtained. It doesn’t take the nose of a blue tick hound to detect a change in the economics, though. The demand for higher education in our economy is growing, but the costs of higher education have risen relentlessly over the past three decades.

http://www.heraldnet.com/article/20130329/BIZ/703299949

by GOLDY, the Stranger

The University of Washington will offer a new low-cost online bachelor’s degree completion program in early childhood and family studies. Pending final approval, the program will start in the fall. […] The Early Childhood and Family Studies degree, which is the first online-only bachelor’s completion program to be offered by the UW, will prepare individuals to work in child care, preschools, social and mental health services, parent and family support, and arts organizations.

http://slog.thestranger.com/slog/archives/2013/03/29/university-of-washington-to-offer-its-first-online-only-degree

by Sandra Müller, The Diamondback

While about 97 percent of all courses on this campus are still taught face-to-face, a new university commission is exploring ways to incorporate greater use of technology in classrooms. The 25-member Provost’s Commission on Blended and Online Education will make recommendations on how online and blended learning — a teaching approach that combines computer-based activities with in-person lessons — can fit into the university’s mission as a research university, said Gary White, public services associate dean and a member of the commission.

http://www.diamondbackonline.com/news/campus/article_1e841e6e-8c5b-11e2-b773-0019bb30f31a.html