Online Learning Update

by Tony Wan, EdSurge

Do online courses work? It’s a question that’s been debated since, well, the dawn of the Internet. Dubious results and success stories alike have made headlines in recent years. Now, the venerable research institute, SRI International, is taking a crack at this question. In August, it published Phase 1 of an ongoing study to examine “to what extent, why, when, and how [italics in original] online learning models that target Algebra 1 work or do not work for different student populations.” Funded by the Gates Foundation, the report, “Supporting K-12 Students in Online Learning: A Review of Online Algebra I Courses,” looks at six popular online providers of Algebra I courses, which present “a mature segment of the online learning market.” These six providers offer fully-packaged courses designed as an alternative (and not a supplement) to traditional, in-person classes. The enrollments for these profiled companies range from 18,000+ in Michigan to half a million students around the U.S.

https://www.edsurge.com/n/2013-09-10-do-online-algebra-courses-work

By Todd R. Weiss, eWeek

Google is offering a free online course from Sept. 17 to 30 to help Web developers make their sites more accessible to visually impaired users. Google will offer a free online course Sept. 17 to 30 to teach Web developers and designers how they can make their Websites more accessible and friendly for blind and visually impaired users. The course, “Introduction to Web Accessibility,” will offer a host of practices and design elements that will allow sites to serve visually impaired users who wish to have better access to the online world, Eve Andersson, the manager of accessibility engineering at Google, wrote in a Sept. 9 post on the Google Developers Blog.

http://www.eweek.com/developer/google-gives-online-class-on-making-websites-accessible-to-the-blind.html/

by Thomas Arnett, Clayton Christensen Institute

Consider the following example of how education might evolve in the near future. Researchers and casual observers alike recognize that many of the best teachable moments and the best times for learning occur outside of the classroom. Given these realities, education could greatly benefit if we can leverage mobile instruction to foster learning during these out-of-school experiences. With reliable mobile connectivity, many more teachers could implement flipped classroom instruction—where students learn new content at their own pace at home and then come to class to practice and receive feedback on what they learned—without being constrained by unreliable home Internet. Likewise, if students all had reliable mobile connectivity, those who occasionally miss class would not need to be at risk of falling behind because teachers could instruct them and monitor their progress remotely. Additionally, when a class tours a museum or historical sight, teachers could use mobile devices to engage students and help them record their insights.

http://www.christenseninstitute.org/funding-the-internet-pipeline-for-online-learning/

By University of Maryland

The University of Maryland and Vanderbilt University will introduce a significant, new wrinkle in Massive Open Online Courses (MOOCs) next year – a two-part, two-semester collaboration offered through Coursera. It begins with Maryland faculty and concludes with Vanderbilt’s. The project demonstrates a collaboration that would be unmanageable outside of a MOOC platform, the organizers say.

http://www.sacbee.com/2013/09/09/5719543/umd-vanderbilt-team-up-for-a-new.html

By Joe McKendrick, Smart Planet

A new twist on massive open online courses — a “synchronous massive online course” (SMOC) — is now underway at The University of Texas at Austin. Unlike MOOCs, which are mainly off-campus, the university’s SMOC is offered both to registered students as well as off-campus participants. While many universities offer online courses, these are typically closed to non-enrolled participants. The SMOC, which launched this semester, represents another next phase in the disruption of higher education. The course, Introduction to Psychology, will be streamed two nights a week, live on the internet. Students are encouraged to ask questions and interact with the instructors and their classmates in real time through interactive chat rooms. Participants earn three hours of transferable academic credit that will appear on an official transcript of the university.

http://www.smartplanet.com/blog/bulletin/more-educational-disruption-synchronous-massive-online-course/29050

By Michael Gorman, Engadget

Udacity’s first partnership with an institution of higher learning might not have turned out as well as it hoped, but a setback at San Jose State University won’t cause the online learning portal to call it quits on college campuses. Quite the contrary, in fact. Today, Udacity announced the creation of the Open Education Alliance to “bridge the gap between the skills employers need and what traditional universities teach.” The alliance is comprised of both Silicon Valley heavyweights like Google, AT&T and NVIDIA and educators including Georgia Tech and Khan Academy. The OEA’s goal is to enlist the help of both companies and educators in building a new curriculum to help students learn what they need to choose and succeed in a modern career.

http://www.engadget.com/2013/09/09/udacity-open-education-alliance/

By DAPHNE KOLLER, NY Times

Finally, while we may all agree that online interaction doesn’t provide exactly the same experience as a physical interaction in a four-year college, that is not always the relevant question. There are many students who have little chance of obtaining a degree from a quality university (or, in the developing world, from any university) because of physical location, health reasons or financial means. For those students, a rigorous online course that allows engagement with other students around the world is a huge improvement over the current opportunities open to them. This free and open access to education is a moral imperative, and one that should not get lost in the discussion regarding how this transformation may affect the on-campus education of those students fortunate enough to have the opportunities that most people in the world would never otherwise have.

http://opinionator.blogs.nytimes.com/2013/09/09/digital-natives-a-defense-of-the-internet-community/

By Lawrence Biemiller, Chronicle of Higher Ed

The researchers also say, perhaps unsurprisingly, that what mattered most was how hard students worked. “Measures of student effort trump all other variables tested for their relationships to student success,” they write, “including demographic descriptions of the students, course subject matter, and student use of support services.” They go on to conclude, optimistically, that the university has learned from the spring experience: “The faculty members who taught these courses, although they had to contend with major difficulties along the way, believe that the content that has been developed has tremendous potential to advance students’ critical-thinking and problem-solving abilities.”

http://chronicle.com/blogs/wiredcampus/few-surprises-in-nsf-report-on-san-jose-state-u-test-of-udacity-courses/46535

By PATRICK RUPINSKI, The Tuscaloosa News

When Ken Randall retired in June after 20 years as dean of the University of Alabama’s law school, he said he planned to work in the private sector. But he did not join a law firm. Instead, he went to work for a company that is partnering with universities to develop and deliver interactive online classes to students around the world. It is cutting-edge, Randall said of his work with iLawVentures LLC. “Through technology, we are helping programs at bricks-and-mortar schools to reach people across the country and even around the world.” As a dean, Randall helped develop an online program that allowed attorneys to earn master’s degrees in taxation and business transactions from UA.

http://www.therepublic.com/view/story/175564e4fc73462ca15b527c37c60597/AL–Online-Classes

By Eric Berman, WIBC

Purdue is angling for an edge over other universities with the rollout this week of plans to beef up the value of Purdue research and education. Purdue and other universities are offering more and more classes online. President Mitch Daniels says Purdue needs to take the lead in thinking through the best blend of modern technology with the old-style residential college experience. He’s envisioning a future where students view most large lecture classes online, while reserving classrooms for hands-on work, special projects, team assignments, and areas in which a student is struggling.

http://www.wibc.com/news/story.aspx?ID=2036462

By Dana Afana, Dominique Payne, Eastern Echo

The debate over the merit of online learning has gained momentum in recent years. This is especially the case in Michigan, which has seen a growth to 192 school districts allowing online learning from just 12 in 2009. Eastern Michigan University has equipped itself with an entire program charged with the sole task of assisting in online degree programs and the undergraduate and graduate level. Professor Christine Tracy, an online course instructor at EMU, said that online education is challenging, especially for students who are not yet in college. “Online education demands a level of maturity and discipline that young students – those in grammar or high school – may not possess,” Tracy said.

http://www.easternecho.com/article/2013/09/online-classes-enable-diverse-learning-styles

By TVISI RAVI, the Daily Pennsylvanian

A year after the launch of the University of Pennsylvania’s first online courses, the Wharton School is now featuring part of its core curriculum on Coursera. The Wharton MBA Foundation Series consists of four core business courses — marketing, operation and information management, accounting and finance. Each of the four courses are set to begin on Coursera within the next few weeks and last from six to 10 weeks. “These classes are highly representative of the core required classes in the MBA,” Managing Director of the Innovation Group Don Huesman said.

http://www.thedp.com/article/2013/09/wharton-coursera-core-courses-created

By Steve Kolowich, Chronicle of Higher Ed

Until now, massive open online courses have mostly reinforced existing hierarchies in higher education. MOOC providers have recruited elite institutions and offered them and their professors the opportunity to broadcast their courses to the world. But now edX, a nonprofit provider founded by Harvard University and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, is joining forces with Google to create a spinoff Web site where ordinary folks—and professors at colleges that have not been invited to join high-profile MOOC consortiums—can not only sign up for a MOOC but also build one themselves. The new site, MOOC.org, will provide tools and a platform that “will allow any academic institution, business, and individual to create and host online courses,” says a blog post by Dan Clancy, a research director at Google. In an interview, Anant Agarwal, president of edX, referred to the site as a “YouTube for courses.”

http://chronicle.com/blogs/wiredcampus/google-and-edx-create-a-mooc-site-for-the-rest-of-us/46413

by Shreveport Times

While greater control of the learning experience may be an advantage for students in online classes, these classes also often require that students take greater responsibility for their learning. Participation in an online class usually means that the student has to take a more active role in the learning process. If students decide not to develop a specific routine for each online class, then requirements of the asynchronous online class may get lost in other time needs, including work schedules. Waiting until 2 or 3 a.m. to do the online assignment because of other time commitments usually is not the best approach. Online classes are tools in the education process, but students need to evaluate before they enroll in online courses their willingness to take more responsibility for the learning process and the skills needed to take that responsibility.

http://www.shreveporttimes.com/article/D4/20130908/OPINION/309080029/OUR-VIEW-Online-class-means-more-responsibility-student

By Ari Bixhorn, eCampus News

Crack open most massive open online courses (MOOCs) today and you’ll typically find three things – MOOC course documents (syllabi, eTextbooks, calendars), interactive elements (discussions, wikis, assignments, quizzes), and video lectures. Analysts predict that by 2016 lecture capture will become as ubiquitous as eMail on campuses. Video is critical, not only because it distinguishes MOOCs from earlier text-heavy open courseware initiatives, but also because the video lecture is the medium that allows MOOCs to bring a high fidelity in-class experience to massive audiences online. For many participating universities, this “bring your own video” approach is unnecessarily ratcheting up their MOOC costs. For example, the University of Pennsylvania recently cited video as one of the top contributors to an $800,000 price tag for developing 16 MOOC courses.

http://www.ecampusnews.com/top-news/video-tech-moocs-006/

by Harvard Magazine

During the summer break on campuses nationwide, providers of massive open online courses (MOOCs) were evidently hard at work developing their fall-term offerings and broadening their capabilities—and were the subject of still more comment and analysis as technology influences higher education. Some highlights appear here.HarvardX reported that combined enrollments in all 17 University courses offered through the edX venture with MIT exceeded 500,000 as of mid August, with “Introduction to Computer Programming” (160,000 registrants) and “Justice” (70,000) leading. The Extension School is experimenting by offering its enrolled students the edX versions of three courses for credit. Others can of course register for the edX courses on a noncredit basis. And Harvard College students enrolled in the equivalent campus courses can use the online materials and exercises as virtual “textbooks” and as supplemental learning aids.

http://harvardmagazine.com/2013/09/harvardx-edx-and-moocs-prove-effective

by Valley News

Balancing a career and a family can be difficult, and such a task gets even more complicated for professionals who decide it’s time to further their educations. Though it can be difficult to balance all three, many degree programs are now more flexible than ever. In the past, night school was the only way working professionals could simultaneously pursue their careers and further their educations. But thanks to advancements in technology, distance learning has enabled men and women to pursue their educations without committing to night school. Flexible hours that allow students to complete coursework on their own time as long as they meet deadlines for assignments has made online degrees more and more attractive to busy professionals. Students and professors can keep in touch via the Internet, and some online students have found it easier to work with professors online than in a classroom.

http://www.myvalleynews.com/story/73217/

By George Lorenzo, Campus Technology

In a New York Times feature article headlined “Two Cheers for Web U,” A. J. Jacobs wrote about his experience taking part in some massive open online courses (MOOCs). Among a good number of critical statements about MOOCS in general, Jacobs explained how the lack of teacher-to-student and student-to-student interaction in such online courses was probably the most disappointing aspect of his experience. He wanted to be engaged in what he said looked like, at first glance, a dynamic and exiting online learning experience. Instead, he said he was disappointed, finding that professors and students were out of reach and conversations were one-sided, faculty-only affairs.

http://campustechnology.com/articles/2013/09/05/reclaiming-the-original-vision-of-moocs.aspx

by Virginia Tech News

A new organization dedicated to supporting technology-enhanced teaching and learning throughout the university, is taking shape at Virginia Tech. Virginia Tech’s Plan for a New Horizon recognizes the universal need for technology enhancements in all types of learning environments, from traditional face-to-face classrooms, to virtual courses where students or instructors might never set foot on the Blacksburg campus. The realignment helps meet the aim of a networked university, as laid out in the strategic plan. “This intentional reorganization gives the university a better platform to increase quality and growth in distance learning and use of technology in the classroom,” Mark G. McNamee, senior vice president and provost, said. “The collaboration creates efficiencies and provides the prospect to explore new financial and tuition models to enhance enrollment.” Like Learning Technologies and the Institute for Distance and Distributed Learning, Technology-enhanced Learning and Online Strategies will work to incentivize innovation and support the technology needs of distance learning programs, online elements of on-campus courses, and hybrid courses.

http://www.vtnews.vt.edu/articles/2013/09/090613-it-tloslaunch.html

by Dottie L. King, Huffington Post

Saint Mary-of-the-Woods College is a pioneer in distance education and has delivered quality distance programs for over 40 years. During that time, the delivery of instruction has evolved and much has been learned about the needs of students learning in nontraditional settings. Advances in technology have enabled greater opportunities for student engagement with professors, peer students and content. As the second oldest distance education program in the nation, our college developed its programming alongside traditional campus classes, instilling our values and setting high standards for both types of students. Over the past decade, the field of distance education has exploded with many other colleges and universities adding distance programs in concert with their traditional offerings. Other educational enterprises have opened their doors with online programming as their only mode of education. Today, students have so many opportunities and choices for online education. Here are four things to consider when making your choice.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/dottie-l-king/distance-education-four-t_b_3865251.html

by Reeve Hamilton, NY Times

“The territory is so new here,” Mr. Gosling, a tenured professor, said the next morning. “Are we essentially televising a class or are we trying to make a kind of educational TV show?” The answer, he said, is probably somewhere in between, following a trend toward online courses intended to extend the reach of higher education beyond a university’s campus. As the class began, about 800 U.T-Austin students — not including roughly two dozen who had been chosen to be the studio audience — participated remotely, using computers or mobile devices. Students from outside U.T.-Austin were also able to sign up for the course. (The University of Texas at Austin is a corporate sponsor of The Texas Tribune.) The structure of the course invites a comparison to the massive open online courses, known as MOOCs, which are offered free — though typically not for credit — to anyone with an Internet connection. U.T.-Austin will launch its first four MOOCs this semester.

http://www.nytimes.com/2013/09/06/us/in-this-online-psychology-class-the-key-words-are-real-time.html