Online Learning Update

by Sarah King Head, University World News

Leaders at three of North America’s top universities have highlighted the need for creative solutions and adaptability across the higher education system in the light of persistent global economic uncertainty, spiralling student loan debt and crippling institutional operating costs. But they also expressed considerable optimism. The senior administrators spoke with University World News, voicing their thoughts about trends and developments for higher education in 2014. While online and alternate learning modalities have been hailed as having the potential to make higher education more accessible to more students than ever before, it is increasingly being acknowledged that they are far from being a panacea. And yet it is clear that new technologies will continue to play an important and integral part of the post-secondary learning environment in 2014.

http://www.universityworldnews.com/article.php?story=20140109111215300

By DEVON HAYNIE, US News

Consider turning to free video resources, like Khan Academy, if you’re struggling with content in an online class. It’s never fun to feel stumped in class. But for online students, the experience can be particularly painful. Unlike their on-campus counterparts, students in online programs can’t ask their college roommate a question, or schedule an impromptu study session in the library or student lounge. Determining who to reach out to can be a tricky process, even when peers and instructors are an email or phone call away. To avoid falling behind in class, experts suggest students try the following five ways to find help as soon as they encounter a problem.

http://www.usnews.com/education/online-education/articles/2014/01/08/5-ways-to-find-academic-help-in-an-online-course

By Rhea Kelly, Campus Technology

The truth is, the underlying issues behind MOOCs in higher education are ongoing. As Athabasca University’s George Siemens told CT in our cover story, “A year from now we’ll be talking about something different from MOOCs, but in my view, we’ll still be asking essentially the same questions: How do we teach in digital networked environments? How do we teach when the power balance between a faculty member and a learner is different than it was in the past? How do we teach when learning can be tracked and measured and assessed outside the university or formal education?”

http://campustechnology.com/articles/2014/01/08/beyond-the-mooc-hype.aspx

By Gabriel Kahn, Slate

Five years ago, Southern New Hampshire University was a 2,000-student private school struggling against declining enrollment, poor name recognition and teetering finances. Today, it’s the Amazon.com of higher education. The school’s burgeoning online division has 180 different programs with an enrollment of 34,000. Students are referred to as “customers.” It undercuts competitors on tuition. And it deploys data analytics for everything from anticipating future demand to figuring out which students are most likely to stumble. “We are super-focused on customer service, which is a phrase that most universities can’t even use,” says Paul LeBlanc, SNHU’s president.

http://bangordailynews.com/2014/01/10/opinion/does-a-new-england-colleges-move-to-online-cheapen-it-or-ensure-its-survival

By Peter Davidson, Edudemic

Online education gives students access to courses that may not be available locally, but they must have the right tools to take full advantage of these classes. Online learning has become very popular. Many students take online classes that aren’t offered at their local university, and some high school students even take their entire course load from home now. Some professionals and retired individuals looking to keep up with advancements in their field, or to learn something new, routinely learn from online sources. While you might take an online class with nothing more than a web browser, there are some tools that make online learning easier for both students and teachers.

http://www.edudemic.com/tools-for-online-learners/

by Markus Witte, Babbel

This revolution is taking place in living rooms and cafés, on public transport and in offices. It is carried out by people who decide to take their learning into their own hands — and they are finding ever more and better technology-based products to help them. In the end, the education revolution might be a real, old-fashioned revolution: one that comes from below, takes unforeseen routes and hits the centers late in the process. It might already be in full swing and it might be way more powerful than it seems when we only look at the established education systems.

http://blog.babbel.com/the-learning-revolution/

by Ann Bednarz, CIO

Want to learn more about Big Data? MIT is taking on the buzzy topic in an online course designed for tech professionals. The course, titled Tackling the Challenges of Big Data, runs from March 4 to April 1 and costs $495. MIT Professional Education is behind the training. The Big Data course marks the first offering in the school’s new lineup of Online X professional programs, which will be delivered via the Open edX platform (an open-source online learning initiative backed by Harvard, MIT, Stanford and others). Topics covered will include data collection (from smartphones, sensors, the Web); data storage and processing (including scalable relational databases, Hadoop, Spark); analytics (machine learning, data compression, efficient algorithms); visualization; and a range of applications, MIT says.

http://www.cio.co.nz/article/535591/mit_debuts_online_big_data_course_tech_pros/

By Meris Stansbury, eSchool News

Though still in its adoption infancy, online learning in K-12 schools and districts has been around long enough for tech-savvy education leaders to have key insights into what makes an online learning program successful. Thanks to a new national survey, most school and district leaders agree that there are five distinct best practices for online learning.

http://www.eschoolnews.com/2014/01/10/practices-online-learning-407/

By Jeff Dunn, Edudemic

In fact, students are using smartphones in many interesting ways that might surprise you. Long story short, students are using their phones for taking tests, studying a bit more effectively, and talking to one another. In fact, more students say they use their phone to study rather than talk to friends. That’s according to this visual from StudyBlue you see below, at least. I’m not quite on board with that statistic but it’s thought-provoking at least. That’s why I wanted to share the visual. Click on the big image below to enlarge and explore it a bit more.

http://www.edudemic.com/students-using-smartphones/

by the University of Florida

The University of Florida doubled down today on its strategy to climb to a top 10 national ranking among public research universities, announcing its intention to recruit top minds in personalized medicine, unmanned vehicles, online learning and seven other fields. The announcement coincides with the first day of classes for UF Online, the state’s first fully online four-year bachelor’s degrees at a public university. The hiring spree includes recruitment of a brain trust to lead UF Online’s R&D arm, known as the Online Learning Institute. The same legislation that granted UF the state money to push for preeminence mandated that UF lead the development of online higher education in Florida.

http://news.ufl.edu/2014/01/06/preeminence-push/

By Christina James, Edudemic

Hand showing social networking concept made with white chalk on a blackboardWith the growing use of social networking sites like Facebook and twitter, the methodology of education for students is finding new and improved ways. Students are getting more prone to the commodities these platforms offer. Therefore this advancement in social networking platforms is providing students with much better options to engage with their contemporaries, enhance their skills and access a wide variety of academic tools and resources which will most definitely add up to their convenience.

http://www.edudemic.com/social-networks-for-students/

by the University of Illinois Springfield

The University of Illinois Springfield’s online bachelor’s degree programs have been ranked the 31st best in the nation by U.S. News & World Report. The 2014 Best Online Programs Rankings were released on January 8, 2014. The UIS graduate education and graduate business programs were also ranked among the top 100 best online programs nationwide. U.S. News & World Report looked at best practices and factors, such as graduation rates, assessments, class size, retention rates, and time to degree deadline in determining the rankings. They also examined program peer reputation, accreditation, faculty education, student debt at graduation, and technologies and services available to online students.

http://news.uis.edu/2014/01/us-news-world-report-ranks-uis-online.html

By Kevin Hartnett, Boston Globe

If hundreds of thousands of people sign up for a chemistry MOOC, you can broadcast lectures and grade their tests, but how do you give them access to the beakers and test tubes that students would be using on campus? An electrical engineering professor at Stanford University may have at least a partial solution. As a recent news article on the university’s website explained, Lambertus Hesselink has created what he calls an “iLab”—basically a digitized version of a lab experiment that approximates the feel of the real thing.

http://www.bostonglobe.com/ideas/2014/01/05/introducing-remote-science-lab/xa3CJ1g0BHdQemLA25o6OM/story.html

by the Independent Voter Network

Knowledge is power, but for most of us busy with the day to day of work and responsibilities, taking college online may be the best and most convenient way to learn more about our nation’s political systems. You can search for various colleges and find those that offer courses or a degree in political science to find out more about how our branches of government work as well as more about our political leaders and their responsibilities. Online political science courses can be found through a number of different colleges, including Arizona State University, George Washington University and Virginia Tech, to name a few. Even Yale University offers online courses related to politics. Here’s a summery of the top choices.

http://ivn.us/2014/01/06/5-online-resources-help-make-informed-voter/

by Stephen Abram, Stephen’s Lighthouse

Online resources are seen as a revolutionary approach towards education due to their convenience and accessibility. However, finding the right set of tools will be crucial for your success as an online learner. You shouldn’t forget that the open access to Internet has enabled an immense amount of misinformation to be presented as facts. With the great number of educational online resources, it can be difficult to choose the ones that correspond to your learning style. With the list we provide, you don’t have to waste time on research, trial and error, because we’ve selected some of the best tools developed with an educative purpose.

http://stephenslighthouse.com/2014/01/03/15-best-educational-online-resources/

by Jason deBruyn, Triangle Business Journal

Even at Duke University, only about 3 percent of those who enrolled in a MOOC actually completed their course. In raw numbers, the university had 876,354 enrollments in a massive open online course, the new kind of way to advance learning in which university professors upload course lectures and assignments online but for which students don’t receive credit. Of those, 29,551 completed their course, according to Duke data.

http://www.bizjournals.com/triangle/blog/2014/01/only-3-percent-complete-dukes.html

by Allen Henry, Lifehacker

Whether you’re headed to college for the first time, you’re back in classes after a fun, food, and family-filled holiday break, or you’re long out of school and interested in learning something new, now’s the time to turn it on and amp up your skills with some interesting and informative classes and seminars. Anyone with a little time and a passion for self-growth (and a computer) can audit, read, and “enroll” in these courses for their own personal benefit. Schools like Yale University, MIT, Stanford, the University of California at Berkeley, and many more are all offering free online classes that you can audit and participate in from the comfort of your dorm room, office chair, couch, or computing chair-of-choice.

http://lifehacker.com/plan-your-free-online-education-at-lifehacker-u-spring-1493571968

by Igor Markov, Huffington Post

Good question. Some universities count Coursera teaching toward regular teaching obligations. In other words, the university pays the teacher to teach on Coursera. One of my colleagues taught a course on Coursera out of interest and is not doing it again. But his course is now fully-automated and can be offered w/o his active participation (and has been). Keep in mind that some people like to teach and don’t worry about money. For example, at Stanford, you may find local professionals teaching for free — it’s a privilege. Coursera is essentially the same way, but less selective and with the bonus that your course will live forever.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/quora/why-do-professors-spend-t_b_4534762.html

By Jeff Dunn, Edudemic

The world of education is in a state of flux. The typical college or university degree is undergoing a slow but steady shift towards being a bit more useful to the next generation of workers.While I don’t think a degree in math or science is going to ever be unimportant, it’s important to know about the up and coming degrees that many of us don’t yet know about. For example, would you pursue a degree in computer science or perhaps something more targeted to cybersecurity? That’s the idea behind this visual guide to the degrees of the future you see in the URL below.

http://www.edudemic.com/5-degrees-future/

by Vandelay Design

Many traditional colleges offer online courses. In addition to coursework available online through the colleges, a large online training industry has sprung up in the past decade. In this post, I’ll focus on online training sites. I’ll list 14 of the best non-college online training opportunities for web designers and web developers.

http://vandelaydesign.com/blog/competition/online-training-sites/

by Misty Bailey, Education News

Nationwide, millions of students are choosing internet-based classes to further their education, allowing them to take advantage of technology and finish their college degree faster, easier, and often for less money. However, as more students are demanding online classes, and degrees that they can obtain without being on campus, some of Florida’s private colleges have said no.

http://www.educationnews.org/online-schools/not-all-private-universities-jumping-into-online-courses/