Online Learning Update

by Patrick Clark, Fox2

Mathew Schweitzer is making sure his students are prepared in case of a snow day Friday. “Seems a little overwhelming right now, but I think the idea of being out May 22nd period, I think come April or May we’re going to like that,” says history teacher Matthew Schweizer. A lot of students at Gibault High School are going to enjoy the end of the school year in May. That’s because Gibault is changing the snow day forever. “I was thinking, I don’t get any snow days this year,” says senior Blake Braun. “I don’t get to stay at home. But I do get to stay at home. I get to wake up later than normal, and because there`s no set time limit I can go sledding. I can go out to eat with my friends if I want to.”

http://fox2now.com/2013/12/05/high-school-gets-rid-of-snow-days-thanks-to-e-learning/

by Chris Kenrick, Palo Alto Weekly

In the fast-moving world of online learning, the Foothill-DeAnza Community College District has been tapped to help pave the way for an “education ecosystem” that aims to integrate all 112 of California’s community colleges. The initiative is part of Gov. Jerry Brown’s push to expand online education as a way to boost access, degree completion and transfer to four-year universities for hundreds of thousands of students, including many turned away from community colleges during recession-era budget cuts.

http://www.paloaltoonline.com/news/2013/12/13/foothill-deanza-to-play-big-role-in-statewide-online-education-system

by Michael B. Miller, University of Nebraska-Lincoln

The common themes identified from student interviews were (a) strategies of instructors in virtual classroom instruction, (b) intrinsic motivation of students’ engagement in virtual classroom, (c) factors that facilitates completion of online tasks, (d) creation of sense of community, (e) domains of engagement in virtual learning environment, and (f) technologies that enhances students’ engagement. Findings suggest that students believe that technology is important to their engagement in an online course. Technology is important to this “classroom” to keeping students engaged in the couse through either videos, interactive websites, or other interactive technologies such as Skype or Elluminate Live. These types of connections is what keeps the students engaged and what students are looking for from their instructors and their courses.

http://digitalcommons.unl.edu/cehsedaddiss/168/

By Alan Collins, Fox Alabama

Tim French and his wife Hannah toured UAB’s campus for the very first time on Friday. He will be picking up his masters in Advanced Safety and Engineering. “The old hillbilly from Tennessee is going to be standing down there, grinning ear from ear and it will be easy to spot me. I will have a grin on my face,” French said. French is the safety director for the U.S. Army’s Second Infantry Division in South Korea. For 18 months, French got up as early as 3:30 a.m. every Monday to participate in the live chats that were held in the States on Sunday afternoons.

http://www.myfoxal.com/story/24217076/online-learner-travels-from-south-korea-to-accept-degree-from-uab

By Paul Glader, Forbes

The 37 million college dropouts in America come with many different types of stories and with some famous names in their ranks, including Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates, Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg and Apple co-founder Steve Jobs. But these guys also hold keys to a simple fix to America’s dropout rate: technology. From my experience and that of others I know, many students are often a few credits or classes shy of a degree when opportunity knocks. Bureaucratic policies at home institutions sometimes hinder rather than help people to complete their degrees once they’ve left campus. Giving them simpler ways to complete the degrees via online courses could cause a nice, positive pop in college graduation rates nationwide.

http://www.forbes.com/sites/berlinschoolofcreativeleadership/2013/12/14/dropout-redemption-online-courses-as-a-tool-to-increase-college-graduation-rates/

by North Dallas Gazette

A new generation of online course providers is marrying the lofty goals of Massive Open Online Courses (MOOCs) with a tangible benefit to students. MOOCs were originally created to spread access to education by putting lectures and course materials from top-notch professors on the Web. However, they do not address rising college costs. As budgets shrink on campuses, from New York to California, students are struggling to pay for classes and to get into them. To address this problem, Education Portal, an online education platform, has created the next generation MOOC: a new type of online course that allows students to learn independently and earn low-cost, transferable credit. By taking courses from a third-party, students bypass high costs at their schools while still transferring credits that apply toward their degrees.

http://northdallasgazette.com/2013/12/13/next-generation-moocs-tackle-budget-cuts-at-state-universities/

by Justin Ferriman, LearnDash

Not too long ago I shared some random elearning facts that you should know. This post is along the same lines, except in relation to mobile learning (often referred to as “mlearning”). Mobile learning is hot right now, and it will only continue to gain in popularity – as evident by its growth in various sectors, such as in K-12 education. The mobile learning facts below, originally shared by Vantage Path, further demonstrate the vast use of mobile learning and the expectations in the years to come.

http://www.learndash.com/9-surprising-mobile-learning-facts/

by Selena Larson, ReadWriteWeb

A recent informal poll by a recruitment strategy expert Brad Petersen at Success Communications Group yielded some interesting insights. One respondent claimed that while some managers are slanted towards giving more weight to someone with a traditional college degree, they try to approach the topic of education equally. “The person who usually gets an online degree or certification is juggling full time work, maybe didn’t have the opportunity to go to full-time college (like me) and typically has more real world experience,” the recruiter said.

http://readwrite.com/2013/12/13/mooc-online-education-jobs

by Brian Mueller, et al; JOLT

Interrelated to the growth of online learning programs is the increasing reliance on adjunct faculty to teach these courses. This surge in the number of courses taught by adjunct faculty members has sparked debate concerning the relative effectiveness of adjunct versus full-time faculty. The current study examines student performance as a function being taught by either adjunct or full-time online faculty. Findings reveal a performance and satisfaction advantage for students in the course sections taught by full-time online faculty. Implications include the need for universities to examine faculty development, support, incentives, and community for online adjunct faculty in order to ensure excellence across all modes of instruction.

http://jolt.merlot.org/vol9no3/mueller_0913.htm

by Barbara Brown, et al; JOLT

High-quality online courses can result from collaborative instructional design and development approaches that draw upon the diverse and relevant expertise of faculty design teams. In this reflective analysis of design and pedagogical practice, the authors explore a collaborative instructional design partnership among education faculty, including the course instructors, which developed while co-designing an online graduate-level course at a Canadian University. A reflective analysis of the collaborative design process is presented using an adapted, four-fold curriculum design framework. Course instructors discuss their approaches to backward instructional design and describe the digital tools used to support collaboration. Benefits from collaborative course design, including ongoing professional dialogue and peer support, academic development of faculty, and improved course design and delivery, are described. Challenges included increased time investment for instructors and a perception of increased workload during design and implementation of the course. Overall, the collaborative design team determined that the course co-design experience resulted in an enhanced course design with meaningful assessment rubrics, and offered a valuable professional learning and online teaching experience for the design team.

http://jolt.merlot.org/vol9no3/brown_0913.htm

by Lydia Mbati, IRRODL

Web 2.0 technologies have a range of possibilities for fostering constructivist learning and observational learning. This is due to the available applications which allow for synchronous and asynchronous interaction and the sharing of knowledge between users. Web 2.0 tools include online social media applications which have potential pedagogical benefits. Despite these potential benefits, there is inadequate utilization of online social media applications in learning management systems for pedagogical purposes. Reasons cited for the limited uptake of online social media applications in learning management systems include the lack of consideration regarding the pedagogical benefits of these applications (Christie & Garrote-Jurado, 2009, pp. 273-279). There is limited information regarding experiences of the use of online social media that foster constructivist and observational learning. Using a qualitative meta-ethnographic approach, this article explores the experiences of students and instructors regarding online social media applications for constructivism and observational learning. Constructivist criteria (Baviskar, Hartle, & Whitney, 2009, pp. 543-544) and observational learning, based on Bandura’s (2001, pp. 265-299) social cognitive theory, formed the theoretical grounding for this research. The findings suggest that discussion forums are ideal for the stimulation of constructivism and observational learning in online learning programmes.

http://www.irrodl.org/index.php/irrodl/article/view/1579/2709

by Joshua Kim, Inside Higher Ed

Long after the MOOC providers pivot to whatever sustainable business model will come next, we will be enjoying the benefits of the infrastructure that was built to support this particular bubble. This infrastructure is not like that of previous bubbles. It is not fiber (bandwidth) and it is not newly cheap servers, open source databases, and flexible programming languages. This will not be a physical or technological infrastructure, as was built in the dot-com bubble (think YouTube, MySQL, cheap cloud storage etc.). The infrastructure left behind from the MOOC bubble will be cognitive.

http://www.insidehighered.com/blogs/technology-and-learning/cognitive-infrastructure-built-mooc-bubble

by Rice University

Free textbook publisher OpenStax College has added a sixth title to its growing catalog, which has already saved students more than $5 million. The Rice University-based nonprofit today launched Introductory Statistics, a revised and updated version of the free textbook that first authenticated its core open educational publishing methodology. Introductory Statistics, which is available for download today, is a new version of the free textbook Collaborative Statistics. The latter was released as a free online textbook in 2008 via Connexions, the parent organization of OpenStax College. Introductory Statistics is also the first OpenStax College title to debut with a full suite of ancillary learning materials — including online homework, quizzes and tests — from a third-party partner.

http://news.rice.edu/2013/12/12/openstax-college-offers-sixth-textbook-introductory-statistics-2/

Peter Stokes and Sean Gallagher, Inside Higher Ed

Our hypothesis is that MOOCs are playing a role here – chiefly by confusing higher education stakeholders about what online learning really is. By and large, of course, online learning isn’t massive and it isn’t open. And by and large, it does actually involve real courses, genuine coursework and assessment, meaningful faculty interaction, and the awarding of credentials – namely, degrees. While some MOOC enthusiasts might believe that online learning appeared out of nowhere, sui generis, in 2012, the reality is that we’ve been bringing courses and degree programs online for more than 20 years. Hardly born yesterday, online learning has evolved slowly and steadily, taking these two decades to reach the approximately one-third of all higher education students who have taken at least one online course, and serving as the preferred medium of delivery for roughly one-sixth of all students. The pace of adoption of online learning – among institutions, students, faculty, and employers – has been remarkably steady.

http://www.insidehighered.com/views/2013/12/13/have-moocs-hurt-public-perception-online-education-essay

by Michael Horn, Forbes

Why people thought that the massive open online course (MOOC) providers would disrupt U.S. higher education by themselves by simply offering traditional university courses online for free has never made much sense. Yet judging from many of the pieces that have been published since Udacity announced its alleged “pivot” to focus on providing learning opportunities that integrate tightly with employer needs, that’s what many people thought. As a result, Udacity’s recent announcement, which didn’t only focus on doubling down on the link with employers, but also a change in its “course” experience as well as the ability for students to pay to have an experience beyond the classic definition of MOOC that is a more robust vision of online learning with human support and learning freed from the limits of time and place, makes Udacity not less audacious and disruptive, but even more so.

http://www.forbes.com/sites/michaelhorn/2013/12/12/the-audacity-of-udacity/

by Carl Straumsheim, Inside Higher Ed

The Georgia Institute of Technology has admitted its first 401 students to the low-cost online master’s degree program in computer science created in partnership with massive open online course provider Udacity, and the January launch will be the first step toward seeing how scalable such a program can be. The pilot launches Jan. 14, 2014, and may enroll as many as 10,000 students over the next few years. “We will judiciously increase the size,” said Zvi Galil, dean of College of Computing. Degree-seeking students may in the future number in the several hundreds, not thousands, he said, but at this point the university is operating on “assumptions on scalability, and nobody really knows.”

http://www.insidehighered.com/news/2013/12/13/georgia-tech-admits-first-cohort-ahead-online-masters-degree-program-launch

by Center for Digital Education

A Mississippi college student will finish up his degree online as he becomes the state’s youngest legislator. Twenty-one-year-old Jeramey Anderson from Moss Point, Miss., will represent District 110 in the state House next year, according to ClarionLedger.com. And from January to August, the democrat will be taking online classes from Tulane University through its Biloxi campus so he can finish his homeland security and public relations studies.

http://www.centerdigitaled.com/news/Online-Classes-to-Help-New-Legislator-Finish-College.html

By Greg Johnson, Penn Current

Through a partnership with online platform Coursera, roughly 1.6 million students from more than 162 countries have enrolled in Penn’s Open Learning courses. The University has featured 24 unique courses, 36 total sessions, and has 19 courses in the pipeline. Deirdre Woods, interim executive director of the Open Learning Initiative, says six of Penn’s 12 schools have delivered one or more Coursera courses, and four more schools will be delivering courses in the next six to 12 months. “We have courses all across Penn that really demonstrate Penn’s depth and breadth,” she says. As Penn moves into its second year of open learning, Woods says the University is analyzing the data from its MOOCs to understand trends in learning, and thinking about ways to expand other online offerings going forward. “Clearly we have a wealth of expertise and content that might be used in other formats,” she says.

http://www.upenn.edu/pennnews/current/2013-12-12/eye-future/open-learning-penn

by Chris Proulx, Forbes

The reality behind the hype is that online education has been disruptive for over a decade, well before MOOCs. Certainly since the economic downturn in 2009, we have seen an accelerated focus on agile work practices and more rapid adjustments in company strategy. This change has created opportunities for employees to drive their career growth by becoming masters at acquiring and applying new skills in short bursts. Much of this has come through on the job skill development, but individuals and organizations alike are also adapting their more formal training and education approaches so it aligns with the accelerating pace of business. Online business and technical education fills the gaps left by traditional executive education as offered by traditional business schools- which can be lengthy, costly and in some cases, overly broad for the specific needs today’s workforce.

http://www.forbes.com/sites/groupthink/2013/12/05/youll-never-guess-whos-disrupting-online-learning/

By Katie Lepi, Edudemic

Staying on top of the trends in the ever-evolving edtech world can turn into a full time job. One can easily get lost in the sea of acronyms, terminology, digi-speak, and new concepts. While we know that many of our fabulous Edudemic readers are the few staying ahead of the curve (or at least with it!), we also know that there are lots of readers who find us because they’re making their first steps into the edtech world. The handy infographic below takes a stroll through the alphabet to familiarize you with the A-Z of edtech terminology and online learning trends. Pick one that you’re not familiar with and do some research on it to keep yourself learning, or share it with your less tech-obsessed colleagues!

http://www.edudemic.com/top-online-learning-trends/