Online Learning Update

by Donald Clark, Plan B

MOOCs are a phenomenon, a wake-up call for Higher Education and wake-up calls, create a sense of urgency, the first step in the process of change. Here are ten MOOC flips that explain why they may be turning traditional Higher Education on its head. I want more and better Higher Education, not a system premised on scarcity and elitism. Like the flipped classroom, MOOCs may be the best thing that’s happened to Higher Education in the last two hundred years. It may encourage growth in higher education, based, not on the paper chase for degrees, the cramming, the poor teaching and primitive assessment but to a newer model, where students are drawn from a wider world and can try and take courses when they want from where they want. Are we in not the learning game? Can’t we celebrate access and low costs for learners? AMEN to the MOOC!

http://donaldclarkplanb.blogspot.com/2013/11/moocs-flipped-university.html

by Peter Stanford, the Telegraph

Will students of the future sit at home and learn off their laptop? “I think,” replies Boaler, “you have to weigh up the whole rounded experience of going to university – including the social side, the connections. That would be lost if we moved to a wholly Mooc-based system. “So this won’t be the end of universities, – but it may just be the end of universities that are doing a bad job. A high-quality, innovative Mooc by someone who really knows what they are talking about is going to be better than low-quality face-to-face teaching.”

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/education/universityeducation/10414989/University-education-maturing-of-the-Mooc.html

by Blair Hanley Frank, GeekWire

Bill Gates announced that the course Big History is now available for students who want to take it online. The course, which originated in David Christian’s classroom at Macquarie University in Sydney, Australia, is divided into 8 segments, starting from the beginning of the universe, and ending at the modern day. gatesharvard212Gates is personally funding the Big History Project to help bring the course to the masses. “Big History is my favorite course of all time. It blurs the boundaries between science, geography and history and literally tells the story of the universe,” Gates said in a press release. “David Christian made it so intriguing—I loved his course and wanted to talk to him about how we could make it more available.”

http://www.geekwire.com/2013/learn-history-bill-gates-online/

By CLAYTON M. CHRISTENSEN and MICHAEL B. HORN, NY Times

Like steam, online education is a disruptive innovation — one that introduces more convenient and affordable products or services that over time transform sectors. Yet many bricks-and-mortar colleges are making the same mistake as the once-dominant tall ships: they offer online courses but are not changing the existing model. Still, the theory predicts that, be it steam or online education, existing consumers will ultimately adopt the disruption, and a host of struggling colleges and universities — the bottom 25 percent of every tier, we predict — will disappear or merge in the next 10 to 15 years. Already traditional universities are showing the strains of a broken business model, reflecting demand and pricing pressures previously unheard-of in higher education.

http://www.nytimes.com/2013/11/03/education/edlife/online-education-as-an-agent-of-transformation.html

by C. S-W., the Economist

Massive open online courses, or MOOCs, offered by universities have the potential to shake up education. People yearn to learn, but many enroll on MOOC courses only to flunk out after a few lessons. MOOCs are ill-suited to their medium: they are long and lack interaction. That is why less formal alternatives are doing well. TED Talks have thrived. Coursmos offers videos that are shorter still, generally less than a minute in length and no more than three, which can be combined into several modules to produce a course that can be completed quicker than an entire TED Talk. Mindsy’s website hosts more than 5,000 courses provided by vendors, many of whom are specialised in e-learning. Tens of thousands of users pay $29 a month to access as many courses as they would like in that time, a model some have compared to Netflix, a popular online film-rental service.

http://www.economist.com/blogs/schumpeter/2013/10/short-e-courses

By JASON RUITER, Southern Maryland

Institutions of higher education can reduce costs and become more effective by using massive online courses and blended-learning classes, said William E. “Brit” Kirwan, chancellor of the University System of Maryland, in testimony before a Senate committee Thursday. Massive Open Online Courses, or “MOOCs,” are interactive, online courses that are available to thousands. They can eliminate textbook costs and reach those with less money, said Kirwan, former president of the University of Maryland, College Park. Maryland is experimenting with MOOCs as part of a $1.4 million grant from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation. The courses are being tested in a dozen classrooms across the state’s university system, with results expected next summer.

http://somd.com/news/headlines/2013/17353.shtml

By Kyla Calvert, KPBS

Elite universities have been experimenting with massive, open, online courses, or MOOCs, for a couple of years now. UC San Diego is joining them. On a spring day the seats in a UC San Diego auditorium were mostly empty. Stephen Mayfield has been teaching his Introduction to Biofuels class for three years. The seats, he said, really only fill up on test days. But his students aren’t exactly skipping class. Most just listen to the lectures online, ask questions over email or during office hours, he said. Mayfield thinks moving most of the class online this way is pretty exciting — but not because it makes his students’ schedules more flexible.

http://www.kpbs.org/news/2013/oct/31/uc-san-diego-professors-test-waters-massive-open-o/

by Sue Wolf, Edwardsville Intelligencer

Transportation, childcare, and work schedules are some of the problems that adult students must juggle while they are attempting to improve their lives by going back to school.  Clearly it is not an easy task to fit classes into hectic schedules, but those learners who are motivated to do so make time to attend. An article in the April/May edition of ON CAMPUS, the national publication of AFT higher education faculty and professional staff, addresses distance education and whether or not it boosts completion rates.   The students are online college students, primarily in Illinois, who are returning to finish degree programs that they left years ago. Professor Emeritus Ray Schroeder, taught the students in his Internet in American Life class during the spring semester. There are opportunities for adults to go back to the classroom during the day or in the evening. They can also take advantage of learning from home with the online choices at area colleges and universities. Motivated learners can make their dreams come true.

http://www.theintelligencer.com/local_news/article_b9505466-3c01-11e3-a7ab-0019bb2963f4.html

by Nishtha Kanal, Tech2

Massive Open Online Course provider Coursera has teamed up with the US State Government in order to take its learning offline too. The course provider has launched Global Learning Hubs with which Coursera users will be able to access the Internet and work with others in a group for free. The US Department of State has been named as a major Learning Hubs partner as well as Overcoming Faith Academy Kenya and Digital October. Bluebells School International and Lady Sri Ram College for Women of India have been named as partners too. These partners will be bringing Learning Hubs to more than 30 embassies, American Spaces, campuses and other physical locations worldwide.

http://tech2.in.com/news/web-services/coursera-brings-online-learning-offline-in-india/919346

By DOUGLAS BELKIN, WSJ

In the past three weeks, Georgia Tech received nearly twice as many applications for a new low-cost online master’s program as its comparable residential program receives in a year. The degree—which uses Massive Open Online Course technology—is the first of its kind, and its popularity suggests a growing demand for online learning. The Georgia Tech program is the first master’s degree from a top-ranked university based on the technology that drives MOOCs. The only difference is it is not “open,” or free, as a MOOC is traditionally defined. Students have applied from 50 states and 80 foreign countries, according to the school. To graduate, they will never have to step foot on campus and will pay about $6,600, compared with about $44,000 for residential students.

http://online.wsj.com/news/articles/SB10001424052702304470504579166112833252206

by Glenn Drexhage, University of British Columbia

A pioneering offering from the Faculty of Education and UBC Library is enabling UBC students, staff and faculty to develop their digital literacy know-how. The two units have introduced the University’s first LOOC, or local open online course, as part of UBC’s Master of Educational Technology (MET) program. As the name suggests, a LOOC is a localized form of a MOOC – or massive open online course. MOOCs have been a big topic in online education recently. UBC’s first MOOC – which it launched in January 2013 with Stanford University – attracted more than 130,000 registrants. of massive learning to UBC’s large, global and thoroughly excellent existing community,” explains David Vogt, Graduate Advisor for the MET program. He adds that the project could be expanded to all B.C. post-secondary campuses in the future.

http://news.ubc.ca/2013/10/30/loocing-into-the-future-of-digital-learning/

by KATIE COLLINS, Wired

Facebook could partner with providers of massive open online courses (MOOCs) in the future to help the content effectively reach remote communities in developing nations, says Matt Perault, Facebook’s head of global policy development. Speaking at the Transform Africa 2013 Summit in Rwanda, which Wired.co.uk is attending, Perault described MOOCs like EdX, Coursera and Khan Academy as “repositories for incredibly high-level educational content”, and suggested that partnerships with social networks could increase their potential to distribute content more widely.

http://www.wired.co.uk/news/archive/2013-11/01/facebook-moocs

by the University of Oklahoma

Now, the University of Oklahoma has launched its own online interactive learning community called Janux, a unique open platform that features some of OU’s top faculty and innovative social learning technologies connecting learners in real-time around the globe. The University of Oklahoma has partnered with NextThought to develop Janux Interactive Learning Community, available to anyone with Internet access. Janux was developed as part of OU’s broader efforts to use technology to improve the student experience and broaden access to higher education and academic content. “What OU is doing is genuinely exciting,” said Kyle Harper, senior vice provost at the University of Oklahoma. “It puts powerful new technology in the hands of professors and students. It opens OU’s amazing resources to the world. This is the future.”

http://www.sacbee.com/2013/10/30/5865397/the-university-of-oklahoma-launches.html

by Christina Farr, Venture Beat

Coursera is experimenting with ways to boost student engagement and completion rates. The business development team is forging relationships with employers, who might be willing to offer a bonus or promotion to workers who complete certain courses — that’s the reward aspect. Yin Lu, the head of growth and international strategy, is taking a slightly different approach. Lu introduced the Coursera “Learning Hubs” program, which adds a social layer to online learning. People who sign up for courses in a number of cities will be offered physical spaces to access the Internet while learning alongside their peers.

http://venturebeat.com/2013/10/31/coursera-learning-hubs-bring-a-social-layer-to-online-education/

by George Leef, Forbes

Technological change has made online coursework very competitive with the traditional means of teaching. Will it lead to dramatic change in college, or have only a minor impact? Consider the analogy to music. From the dawn of time until the early 20th century, when people wanted to hear music, they either had to play it themselves or go to a performance where someone else played. All music was live. Then the technology for recording and reproducing music developed. Primitive at first, the technology rapidly improved (remember that old commercial, “Is it live, or is it Memorex?”) and today humans spend far more time listening to recorded music than to live performances. Live music hasn’t disappeared and performances can be more exciting or moving than even the greatest recordings, but recordings give us fantastic variety, high quality, and complete freedom of choice at low cost.

http://www.forbes.com/sites/georgeleef/2013/10/29/will-online-education-render-traditional-college-obsolete/

by Betty Thomas, Charlotte Law Library

With the increasing number of classes going online, collaboration with an embedded librarian helps instructors improve students’ information literacy skills. Students learn to evaluate information that will not only help them with coursework but also carry over to their work and personal lives. While various community colleges are implementing alternative models of collaboration, embedded librarianship meets the needs of 21st century instruction and learning. Thomas and McIntosh plan to continue to collaborate and anticipate even more pronounced improvements in student outcomes in the coming year.

http://charlottelawlibrary.wordpress.com/2013/10/29/embedded-librarianship-a-collaboration-that-improves-student-learning-outcomes/

by Raymond Riley, world.edu

Nearly one-third of all students in higher education are taking at least one course online, according to Babson Survey Research Group, and this number represents a consistent increase for nine years in a row. There’s an ongoing debate in education about whether online education measures up to the traditional classroom experience. Some say yes, some say no, but most fall somewhere in the middle.

http://world.edu/chalkboard-meets-motherboard-combining-online-education-traditional-classroom/

By ANDREW CLULEY, WEMU

A University of Michigan professor of medicine and public policy is now offering an online class that shares the basic principles that have been used in shaping health care policy over the last several decades. Doctor Matthew Davis says there is a lot of information out about healthcare reform and people feel very strongly on the issue. Davis explains, the course is designed so anyone should be able to fit it into their schedule. Adding that he’s offered classes in health care before in either the medical school or the Gerald Ford School of Public Policy, but this online class is a chance to offer the class to a much broader group of people. People interested in cutting through all the information and misinformation about healthcare reform can turn to an online class from the University of Michigan. U of M is offering a free online class to help everyone get a better understanding of US health care reforms.

http://wemu.org/post/university-michigan-offers-free-healthcare-reform-course-online

BY MIZUHO AOKI, Japan Times

The latest trend in online education is taking the academic world by storm. The impact has been huge, drawing tens of thousands of students from all over the world. The explosion is having an impact on Japanese universities as well. Starting this fall, the University of Tokyo began providing two courses in English via Coursera, a for-profit U.S. MOOC provider. In April, Kyoto University will kick off its first course via edX, a non-profit MOOC platform developed by Harvard and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Next spring, 13 Japanese universities plan to provide courses via the first MOOC platform to be based in Japan.

http://www.japantimes.co.jp/news/2013/10/28/reference/online-courses-collegiate-equalizer/#.UnAoO3DYeog

By Joshua Kim, Inside Higher Ed

I give up. Despite my best efforts, I’ve come to the conclusion that it is a losing battle to get people to stop conflating MOOCs with online learning. We need to change the language. We need to rebrand. My nomination is that starting today, and once and for all, never say the word MOOC again. The thing formerly known as a MOOC will now be called a CaS. CaS: Course at Scale. Why CaS? Because a Course at Scale is a much more accurate description for what goes on in one of these course than calling it a MOOC. In fact, 3 out of the 4 words in MOOC are misleading.

http://www.insidehighered.com/blogs/technology-and-learning/rebranding-mooc-cas

By Carl Straumsheim, Inside Higher Ed

As ed tech companies and universities search for the most effective way to teach students online, some have found the term “course” no longer captures what it means to pursue an education. Enter the “learning experience” — a term being used to describe a module of higher education not anchored to a specific place or time. The name change is more than just semantics or corporate jargon, its creators argue, but a necessary shift as colleges and universities establish what does and does not work in online education. The traditional 90-minute lecture in particular has proven to be a poor method of delivering content online, and professors have been encouraged to follow the Khan Academy model and split their material into modules often covering no more than one concept. When those modules are freed from the time constraints of a semester or quarter, the end result bears only some resemblance to a course.

http://www.insidehighered.com/news/2013/10/28/online-course-providers-increasingly-using-term-learning-experience