Online Learning Update

By AV Network

WNC’s distance education program serves a vast rural 18,000-square-mile area, and half of its roughly 4,800 students take courses entirely online. Rural students used to drive hundreds of miles roundtrip to one of the satellite campuses to watch transmitted pre-recorded video of lectures. But when budget cuts forced WNC to close several of those campuses, the college needed to find a new and more cost-effective way of reaching distance learners. WNC now uses Mediasite for lecture capture on its three remaining campuses, allowing students to access live or on-demand webcasts on their desktops or mobile devices. After the first two months, faculty created more than 135 presentations that received over 2,200 views. Currently, the college offers 10 flex courses, allowing students to view lectures online or attend in-person depending on their schedules and locations.

http://www.avnetwork.com/av-technology/0002/community-college-uses-live-webcasts-to-create-flex-courses/92081

By CANDICE FERRETTE, Newsday

Public and private colleges are taking the lead in online learning, but opportunities to blend Web coursework into kindergarten through 12th-grade curricula are underway. The move to online shakes the traditional business model of education and changes the role of teachers and professors, but holds potential for improving learning and democratizing education, Silverman and other experts agreed. “In the next 10 years, 50 percent of college classes will be online and 25 percent of K to 12 will be online,” said panelist David Kuntz, vice president of research and adaptive learning for Knewton, a Manhattan-based start-up technology company that partners with schools to create personalized online educational plans.

http://www.newsday.com/long-island/panel-at-nyit-classroom-learning-migrating-online-1.6400665

By Cherise M. Newsome, The Virginian-Pilot

Virtual public high school courses have been around about a decade in the region, but a new state law requires students to take one online course before graduating, beginning with this year’s freshmen class. State education leaders said the experience will help prepare students for college and careers. But students of all grade levels can take such courses.

http://hamptonroads.com/2013/11/students-dip-feet-online-learning-now-required

by Olivia Drake, Weslyan Connection

Andy Szegedy-Mazak, the Jane A. Seney Professor of Greek, professor of classical studies, spoke about his experience teaching a massive open online course (MOOC) during a Academic (Technology) Roundtable lunch Nov. 6. Szegedy-Mazak is one of seven Wesleyan faculty teaching a MOOC throughout the Coursera platform. In early 2013, Institutional Research administered a survey to more than 200,000 students enrolled in Wesleyan’s Coursera course offerings. About 28,170 students, or 13.6 percent of those invited, participated in the survey.

According to the report:

* Wesleyan Coursera students reside in 171 countries and every continent other than Antarctica. One-third of all students reside in the U.S.

* 81 percent of survey participants who are U.S. residents age 25 and above have at least a college degree.

* The median reported income for U.S. respondents is between $70,000 and $79,900.

http://newsletter.blogs.wesleyan.edu/2013/11/08/courseradata/

by Daniel Randall, et al Brigham Young University; Brainstorm in Progress

“We will present our design for an open badge system currently in use in an undergraduate technology course for education majors. Our design is an attempt to use badges and an open online course to not only enhance student learning but also to encourage continued learning once our course has ended. Open badges can provide a credential for learning that occurs in a non-traditional setting, a space in which few institutions are providing credentials. This makes open badges a textbook example of a disruptive innovation. However, since badges can also be used in a traditional setting, universities and other traditional credentialing institutions can adapt by using open badges to enhance their current course offers and encourage lifelong learning in a non-traditional setting.

http://cain.blogspot.com/2013/11/using-open-badges-adn-open-course-to.html

by Brainstorm in Progress

Michael Caulfield discussed how MOOCs are being used. “The “wrapped MOOC” has gained attention over the past year as a way to integrate MOOCs into traditional education. This presentation will present results of interviews with practitioners of this method to show that in practice most educators are not “wrapping” the cohort experience, but are instead using the MOOC as robust OER. This trend is discussed in terms of “distributed flip” and “distributed blend” models, as well as David Wiley’s joking but correct observation that MOOCs are distraction from the potential of DROOL (DistRibuted Open Online Learning). Implications include a hidden but high demand for robust, course-level OER, and the possible desirability of approaching blended learning from the online experience “backwards”, as opposed to the traditional model which emphasizes the online refitting of an existing or assumed face-to-face experience.”

http://cain.blogspot.com/2013/11/open-ed-13-oers-rule-moocs-drool-moocs.html

by Aleda Johnson, the Penn

When online education began at IUP approximately 10 years ago, there were only about seven professors who taught those classes, according to communications media professor Jay Start, who was the first professor to teach an online class in the College of Education and Educational Technology. Today, there are 75 professors who will teach at least one online class next semester. With graduate and undergraduate courses in 33 different academic areas, adult, part-time, full-time and transfer students can take online classes along­side those who just wish to gain extra experience for the workforce, according to the Office of Adult and Continuing Education website. Online classes cost about $365 per credit, according to the Office of the Bursar’s website. That’s about $1,093 per class for part-time students. For an on-campus, three-cred­it class, on the other hand, students can expect to pay about $1,220.

http://thepenn.org/2013/11/05/professors-see-benefit-in-iups-growing-online-education/

By Joshua Bolkan, Campus Technology

Nearly half of all state colleges in the United States offer at least five undergraduate degrees online, but only 15 percent of private colleges do the same, according to two new surveys from Learning House. “There has been a lot of discussion about the impact of MOOCs,” said David Clinefelter, chief academic officer at Learning House and a co-author of the reports, in a prepared statement. “But in these two surveys, we discovered that institutions, private and public alike, are more focused on offering additional online programs.

http://campustechnology.com/articles/2013/11/05/report-public-institutions-lead-private-in-adoption-of-online-courses.aspx

By Jeffrey R. Young, Slate

Free online courses do big numbers these days. So-called MOOCs, or massive open online courses, typically get tens of thousands of sign-ups to watch video lectures delivered by tweedy academics, some more photogenic than others. But imagine how many students would tune in—or make it through the class without dropping out—if instead of bookish professors, Hollywood stars delivered the lessons. That’s one idea under consideration by leaders of EdX, the nonprofit provider of MOOCs started by Harvard University and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. “From what I hear, really good actors can actually teach really well,” said Anant Agarwal, CEO of EdX, who was until recently a computer-science professor at MIT. “So just imagine, maybe we get Matt Damon to teach Thévenin’s theorem,” he added, referring to a concept that Agarwal covers in a MOOC he teaches on circuits and electronics. “I think students would enjoy that more than taking it from Agarwal.”

http://www.slate.com/articles/technology/future_tense/2013/11/udacity_coursera_should_celebrities_teach_moocs.html

by David Blake, Huffington Post

Right now, for online learning services like MOOCs, only a few rankings or review sites are available. CourseTalk is an early entry into the market. It focuses on customer reviews. There is definitely space yet for a Yelp, Angie’s List or Consumer Reports for online education to emerge. MOOCS.com is starting to provide much more detailed reviews and reports about some popular MOOCs. But we shouldn’t get carried away about the importance of rankings. Ranking an educational program, whether traditional or not, in terms of whether it gets you a job or gets you promoted is not the only value that should be considered or even be given top priority. Education is also a value in itself.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/david-blake/a-yelp-for-online-learning_b_4193050.html

by Steve Kolowich, Chronicle of Higher Ed

Now Stanford is looking to reclaim some leadership in the MOOC movement from the private companies down the street. For some of its offerings it has started using Open edX, the open-source platform developed by edX, an East Coast nonprofit provider of MOOCs. And Stanford is marshaling its resources and brainpower to improve its own online infrastructure. In doing so, the university is putting its weight behind an open-source alternative that could help others develop MOOCs independently of proprietary companies.

http://chronicle.com/article/With-Open-Platform-Stanford/142783/

by Allison Littlejohn, the Conversation

Researchers from the Caledonian Academy at Glasgow Caledonian University have been funded by the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation to investigate what strategies and behaviours people adopt while studying on MOOCS in the hope of adding some evidence to the debate. The Harvard MOOC will be subject to investigation as part of this work as it reflects the priorities of the Gates Foundation. Work roles are evolving rapidly so learning for work has to be personalised and self-regulated. That could well mean that MOOCs have the potential to become an integral part of an individual’s career. But organisations have not yet taken advantage of the widespread social, semantic technologies – such as Twitter, Facebook, Linkedin – that could support self-regulated learning. The MOOC environment provides new structures and mechanisms for learning through interaction and feedback. However, a MOOC is still structured as “course”, which has a long tradition of accepted values and norms. Learners put in a certain amount of study time, receive information from tutors and can even take tests.

http://theconversation.com/developing-countries-and-the-mooc-learning-revolution-19355

By TAMAR LEWIN, NY Times

Coursera, a California-based venture that has enrolled five million students in its free online courses, announced on Thursday a partnership with the United States government to create “learning hubs” around the world where students can go to get Internet access to free courses supplemented by weekly in-person class discussions with local teachers or facilitators. The learning hubs represent a new stage in the evolution of “massive open online courses,” or MOOCs, and address two issues: the lack of reliable Internet access in some countries, and the growing conviction that students do better if they can discuss course materials, and meet at least occasionally with a teacher or facilitator.

http://www.nytimes.com/2013/11/01/education/us-plans-global-network-of-free-online-courses.html

By Megan O’Neil, Chronicle of Higher Ed

Carnegie Mellon University is convening a high-powered consortium of educators, researchers, and technology-company executives that will spearhead efforts to develop standards and promote best practices in online education. The Global Learning Council—to be led by Carnegie Mellon’s president, Subra Suresh—will also look for ways to leverage education-technology resources and disseminate data in an education landscape that some think is being turned on its head. “In the last few years there has been a lot of discussion thanks to the development of technology about the delivery of education in a scalable way to large numbers of students across national borders,” Mr. Suresh says. “The missing piece is how much are students learning amid all this technology? The other piece is what are the metrics, best practices, and eventually standards, if you will, that are collectively developed and acceptable for those who engage?”

http://chronicle.com/blogs/wiredcampus/new-council-to-develop-standards-best-practices-for-online-learning/48171

by Lauren Hepler, San Jose Biz Journal

Mountain View online education startup Coursera just nabbed two new hires from Facebook Inc. and Netflix Inc., according to a company spokesperson. The additions to the executive team come just months after the Stanford-bred purveyor of Massive Open Online Courses, or MOOCs, landed a $43 million series B funding round led by Silicon Valley venture capital firms Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers and NEA. Despite a total $65 million in funding, Coursera remains in the experimentation phase when it comes to rolling out products that actually generate revenue.

http://www.bizjournals.com/sanjose/news/2013/11/04/coursera-nabs-new-executives-from.html

By Tanya Roscorla, Center for Digital Ed

The University of Michigan is moving to a shared services model that it says represents the future for higher education IT. A shared services model has the potential to help university IT run more efficiently and focus more on teaching and learning technologies. While companies have been using a shared services model for decades, higher education is fairly new to this model because universities tend to be more decentralized. And that was the case at the University of Michigan until recently.

http://www.centerdigitaled.com/news/The-Future-Model-of-Higher-Education-IT.html

by Education’s Digital Future of Stanford Graduate School of Education

A growing clamor is calling for an accreditor to oversee the quality of college-level learning that occurs outside of college. The challenge could be taken on by an existing accrediting agency — or a new one — that develops a specialty in non-institutional providers like StraighterLine and Udacity. Or, with more of a trailblazing approach, an accreditor could approve individual courses rather than degrees. If either idea becomes a reality it would add a seal of approval for a constellation of online course providers and, perhaps, open the door for them to federal financial aid. The current accreditation system has taken plenty of hits lately. President Obama, Congressional Republicans, think tanks and Bill Gates are among many critics who say accreditors — who are outsourced gate-keepers for the federal government — need to do more to encourage innovation and competition.

http://edf.stanford.edu/readings/course-size-accreditation

by Karen Grava, University of New Haven

Some of the faculty who recently completed a special course sponsored by the College of Lifelong & eLearning (CLEL) began the class with great skepticism. Online classes, they said, were probably impersonal. Students wouldn’t be engaged. The quality wouldn’t be as good as an “on-ground” course, and the students wouldn’t work as much or be as good. The classes might be suitable for someone else, but for their material, online teaching just wouldn’t work. They learned they were wrong. “A colleague in the accounting department and I had discussions on the possibility of a good online course coming up to the quality and results of a good on-ground course,” said Robert McDonald, associate professor of accounting. “I was not sure that was possible. But I have changed my mind on that question. I think the University community is on the edge of a major transformation in which online courses will surpass on-ground courses in quality and effectiveness.”

http://newhaven.edu/Lifelong_eLearning/643322/

by Michael Guista, Lompoc Record

Brief discussions with my students have revealed interesting strategies. For example, if a student fears his work is being turned in too late for credit, he can turn back his computer’s clock and change the date and time of submission. The answers to many test questions can be found with quick Google searches. More industrious students go to sites revealing the correct answers. There are numerous potential solutions, but most are flawed. Cheating occurs in onsite instruction, but indicators are it happens at a lower rate. The best solution is probably to have all students be onsite for exams and show photo IDs, or at least come for one exam, perhaps the final, but it’s doubtful that many colleges will demand that. Right now, as teachers and administrators around the nation refuse to face the facts that online cheating is a truly serious problem, we are not about to have on-campus proctoring. But we can at least begin to talk about the problem objectively and openly.

http://www.lompocrecord.com/news/opinion/editorial/commentary/online-cheating-in-american-colleges/article_47fad2ee-4432-11e3-8c91-0019bb2963f4.html?comment_form=true

by Geoff Maslen, the Age

Overseas and domestic students are flocking to enrol in Open2Study’s new courses. Australia’s first open and free online learning platform has achieved 100,000 enrolments, with 53,000 students since it was launched just seven months ago. An offshoot of Open Universities Australia, Open2Study (https://www.open2study.com/) has lured more students to its courses than any university in the country, drawing them from more than 180 nations. In April, Open2Study began offering 10 free subjects, each taking four weeks to complete. It now has 32 courses available with 60 per cent of students enrolling from a mix of overseas countries, the top five being the US, India, Britain, Spain and Canada.

http://www.theage.com.au/national/education/students-flock-to-online-uni-courses-20131101-2wpoe.html

by: Rob Kelly, Magna Publications

When designing an online course it’s important to carefully consider which tools align with the course’s learning objectives and the types of communication that will occur. There are three types of communication that can occur in an online course—one to one, one to many, and many to many. In an interview with Online Classroom, Sara Ombres, faculty development instructor, and Anna Reese, production coordinator/instructional designer, both at Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University’s Worldwide Campus, talked about how they help instructors select communication tools to suit the situation.

http://www.magnapubs.com/blog/teaching-and-learning/selecting-the-appropriate-communication-tools/