Online Learning Update

by Ashley MacQuarrie, Think Tank 12

“You are really required to have a lot independence, to schedule yourself and be self-motivated,” said Laurel. “You have a level of control over your day that you simply don’t have in a brick and mortar school. In an online school, you tell you to go from class to class, not the bell.” Online students must schedule their day themselves, initiate tasks themselves, and decide how much time they will spend on each subject. They have to be comfortable directing their own learning, a skill that many high school students lack when they get to college. They also need to show initiative in reaching out to their teachers for help when they need it. As Laurel pointed out, this is more similar to the college professor-student relationship than it is like the traditional high school teacher-student dynamic. Online teachers often have office hours as well, which students must take into account, just like a college professor.

http://blog.k12.com/online-high-school/why-colleges-online-students

by ROBINSON MEYER, The Atlantic

EdX, then, is more of a mystery. As a non-profit, it’s not concerned with, well, profit. But it is concerned with its own survival, so, this month, it debuted a new way of making money. So far in October, EdX has announced partnerships using the Open EdX code with the nations of France and China. Both countries will adopt EdX’s software for their own national MOOC networks—and, for an ongoing fee, EdX will supply technical support and advice. I talked to Anant Argarwal, the president of EdX, about these new national deals earlier this month. He saw them as an expansion of a contract EdX already holds with the International Monetary Fund, in which EdX hosts and administers courses for that bank for a fee. “From a business standpoint, does it make sense to give [the platform] away [like this]?” he said. “The answer is yes.” Especially since organizations will then pay you to advise how they should use the platform.

http://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2013/10/harvard-and-mits-online-education-startup-has-a-new-way-to-make-money/280700/

by Mary Beth Marklein, USA TODAY

Colleges are ramping up strategies to ensure that the student who gets the grade for taking an online course is the same person who does the homework and completes the exams. The impetus is a federal law, passed in 2008, requiring colleges that are eligible for federal student aid for online programs to take steps to discourage financial aid and academic fraud. Federal regulations require students to have secure log-ins and passwords for online course offerings, but industry experts expect more stringent standards to come. “We don’t know when and how, but they’re probably going to tighten up,” says David Richardson, CEO of Louisville-based Learning House, founded in 2001 to help schools develop online degree programs and courses.

http://durangoherald.com/article/20131022/NEWS05/131029871/-1/s

By Anne VanderMey, Fortune/CNN

Though they may yet wreak havoc on brick and mortar institutions (particularly on expensive middle-tier liberal arts schools offering no clear route to employment), online education seems to be a ways away from becoming the terrifying disruptor many thought it would be. If anything, right now MOOCs and other online courses are augmenting current offerings rather than destroying them. As for killing the physical campus, when I floated that scenario to Ng, he didn’t jump at the idea. He said he still values the “coming of age experience” provided by four-year universities, and the support system they provide. We’re still a long way from knowing exactly what MOOCs are capable of. But will they one day live up to the hype and destroy the traditional university as we know it? Says Ng: “I hope not.”

http://tech.fortune.cnn.com/2013/10/28/why-online-education-wont-kill-your-campus/

by  Ryan Cordell, Chronicle of Higher Ed

On a basic level, the DPLA is rapidly growing. At the opening reception for DPLAFest, Executive Director Dan Cohen announced that the library just surpassed 5 million items in its collections. The DPLA is not only a library for researchers—though it certainly is that—but is also deeply interested in expanding access to research materials for K-college classrooms and public libraries. To that end, the DPLA announced a new, 1 million dollar grant from the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation which will enable the DPLA “to build curricular resources and implement hands-on training programs that develop digital skills and capacity within the staffs of public libraries.”

http://chronicle.com/blogs/profhacker/a-report-from-dplafest/53133

by C.M. Rubin interviewing Michael Horn, Huffington Post

From the US Department of Education’s 2010 meta-analysis that showed that online learning was, on average, more effective than traditional face-to-face learning and that blended learning was the best of all to the more recent RAND study of Carnegie Learning’s math program, increasing amounts of research are emerging to show its effectiveness. But just as there are great online learning programs, there are also bad ones. What seems more clear is that just because something is online or blended, does not make it necessarily good or bad. Instead, effectiveness for each individual learner is far more determined by whether the program is driving the right instructional approach for each student at the right time based on the particular learning objective at hand. Online learning has unbelievable potential to help accomplish this personalization, but not all online programs do it. Indeed, the meta-analysis that showed that on average online learning is better, also showed that a key reason why is the increased time on task. Motivating students and personalizing for their needs seems critical.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/c-m-rubin/got-tech_b_4159856.html

By Mackenzie Mount, Sierra Club

Around the world, MOOCs are functioning as low-impact information carriers–and making eco-awareness more accessible. Jonathan Tomkin, of the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, has already had 60,000 students register for his free course, Introduction to Sustainability: “You reach students who don’t have access to anything like this,” Tomkin says. “The potential of online education to help with environmental awareness is clearly a positive thing.” But will it cut into classic brick-and-mortar institutions? There’s also been impassioned debate about how effective a class can really be if students aren’t there in person. Administrators worry about how schools will stay financially viable if their product is offered for free. Rodrigues may have dropped out, but he’s doing well as a web developer. He still takes online classes to keep his skills sharp. “The universities have to evolve to absorb this new medium,” he says. “The fact that they’re free helps, but the ability to take classes at your own pace is the most important thing. This is the future of learning.”

http://sierraclub.typepad.com/greenlife/2013/10/eco-ed-online-classes-change-the-world-for-better-and-worse.html

by Lal Tawney, University World News

To understand how online delivery affects transnational education, it is important to understand the impact that innovations in online delivery, and educational technology more widely, are currently having on the higher education sector. These impacts will be felt around the world and transnational education programmes need to adapt to the changing environment to remain competitive. One of the most high profile examples of innovation in educational technology is the recent emergence of massive open online courses, or MOOCs. While the disruptive impact of MOOCs is widely acknowledged, opinions differ as to what their lasting impact is likely to be on the sector. MOOCs certainly do expand access to higher education, but have been criticised for their low completion rates and the fact they fail to engage with struggling students.

http://www.universityworldnews.com/article.php?story=20131023162554457