Online Learning Update

By BPT, Journal Sentinal

Many working adults begin using technology from the moment their alarm clocks go off. From checking emails on a tablet over morning coffee, to sending out social media posts from a smartphone before they get into the office, technology allows people to be efficient and stay connected anytime, anyplace. This same technology is now playing an important role for individuals seeking alternative learning environments to continue their educations or grow their careers. According to a national survey from University of Phoenix, 87 percent of working adults say there are benefits to online learning. Another survey reveals that 54 percent indicate they’ll go back to school in the future and 48 percent are interested in taking an online class. So it is no surprise that universities are adjusting their online classroom offerings to cater to the technology working adults are currently using.

http://www.jsonline.com/sponsoredarticles/education/working-adults-plug-into-online-education8075450606-249298591.html

By Jordan Weissmann, Slate

Last week’s big news about the new SAT redesign included a very important footnote: In the name of fairness to students who can’t afford $999 Princeton Review classes, the College Board now plans to partner with online learning platform Khan Academy to offer free test-prep materials for the exam. Better yet, they might be really good test prep materials.

http://www.slate.com/blogs/moneybox/2014/03/10/khan_academy_s_free_sat_classes_a_sign_that_online_education_could_be_awesome.html

by Amber Setter, Accounting Web

As an adjunct faculty member, I’ve taught several courses within a master’s in organizational leadership program, and now I’m starting a new endeavor: leading my first online course for a university. With this new understanding of how universities have created online learning communities, which can be just as effective as a live classroom setting, I can clearly see the accounting profession has a lot to learn about online education – CPE in particular. And we better learn these lessons quickly because online learning has become the norm rather than the exception.

http://www.accountingweb.com/article/online-learning-nasba-listening/223130

by Jennifer Howard, Chronicle of Higher Ed

In an interview, Mr. Schonfeld said that the 2013 survey respondents were “nearly unanimous” in their emphasis on teaching research skills to undergraduates; 97 percent of library heads rated that part of their mission as very important. “Everyone’s committed to undergraduates,” he said. That emphasis carries over into staffing plans. Forty-two percent of respondents at baccalaureate colleges said they planned to expand staffing in instruction, instructional design, and information-literacy services over the next five years, as did 44 percent at doctoral universities and 53 percent at master’s-level institutions. Mr. Schonfeld pointed out one interesting change from the 2010 to the 2013 findings: “a modest but noticeable decline” in the percentage of head librarians who described their library’s role in supporting faculty research as “very important.”

http://chronicle.com/blogs/wiredcampus/what-matters-to-academic-library-directors-information-literacy/51005

By Guy Pfeffermann, Financial Times

Demand for education is booming in Africa. Its people are striving for personal growth and material improvement. What they may lack in material resources, they make up in an enormous thirst for learning, hence the exponential growth in online education. Rebecca Stromeyer, founder of the annual eLearning Africa conference, says: “Over the past eight years, homegrown innovation and entrepreneurship have driven a boom in the sector”. In the case of business education, this may soon lead, counter-intuitively, to Africa becoming a global leader in mobile technological innovation.

http://www.ft.com/intl/cms/s/2/87e1484c-9979-11e3-b3a2-00144feab7de.html#axzz2vaOyCuSd

http://www.ft.com/intl/cms/s/2/87e1484c-9979-11e3-b3a2-00144feab7de.html#axzz2vaOyCuSd

By Katie Lepi, Edudemic

Infographics are popular. They’re a fun way to present and read data, and many people believe that information that is presented visually is often retained better (at least for some learners). Many teachers today are using infographics, both in their classrooms and for their own professional development. There are so many tools out there to make your own infographics. In the education realm, most people I chat with say that they use Piktochart because it is free and very simple to use. One of the (newer) trends we’ve been noticing lately has been that more and more infographics are interactive.

http://www.edudemic.com/making-your-own-interactive-content/

by EVAN SELINGER AND ANDREW PHELPS, Wired

The Golden Age of universities may be dead. And while much of the commentary around the online disruption of education ranges from cost-benefit analyses to assessing ideology of what drives MOOCs (massively open online courses), the real question becomes — what is the point of the university in this landscape? It’s clear that universities will have to figure out the balance between commercial relevance and basic research, as well as how to prove their value beyond being vehicles for delivering content. But lost in the shuffle of commentary here is something arguably more important than and yet containing all of these factors: culture. Online courses can be part of, and have, their own culture, but university culture cannot be replicated in an online environment (at least not easily). Once this cultural difference is acknowledged, we can revisit the cost-benefit analysis: Is cheaper tuition worth it if it pays for education that isn’t optimized for innovation? Will university culture further stratify the socioeconomic difference MOOCs may level?

http://www.wired.com/opinion/2014/03/universities-moocs-need-consider-culture/

By Gregory Karp, Chicago Tribune

Free entertainment online is nothing new, but what if you could access a form of entertainment and enrichment over the Internet that others pay thousands of dollars for and that keeps you occupied for weeks at a time? That’s one of the allures of MOOCs — massive open online classes. They’re college classes taught online, some by the world’s leading experts in their fields at famous universities. And they’re free, making them a fabulous form of entertainment and personal improvement for adults who don’t need the academic credit. Imagine taking an eight-week course on financial markets by last year’s Nobel Prize winner in economics, Robert Shiller at Yale University. Or a marketing course from professors at the Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania.

http://www.mailtribune.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20140309/BIZ/403090317/-1/NEWSMAP

By Michael Corio and David Webber, DePaulia

Members of the Faculty Instructional Technology Services (FITS) department pose for a photo after winning the 2012 Sloan Consortium Award for Excellence in Faculty Development for Online Teaching. As universities face budget cuts and rising costs, they are looking for new ways to boost revenue and cut spending. One area that has caught the attention of many administrators and professors is online learning, which has experienced remarkable growth at DePaul over the past several years. By making more classes available online, some universities hope to create a ‘virtual campus’ which can reach beyond a particular community and generate additional income, all without the facility and activity costs associated with a traditional on-campus student. DePaul has expanded its online course offerings over the years, from 150 classes per quarter in 2006 to over 400 in 2012.

http://www.depauliaonline.com/news/online-classes-redefine-higher-education-at-depaul-1.3149279

By Robert Talbert, Chronicle of Higher Ed

So far, regarding the inverted/flipped calculus course, we’ve discussed why I flipped the calculus class in the first place, the role of self-regulated learning as a framework and organizing principle for the class, how to design pre-class activities that support self-regulated learning, and how to make learning objectives that get pre-class activities started on a good note. This is all “design thinking”. Now it’s time to focus on the hard part: Students, and getting them to buy into this notion of a flipped classroom. Here are three big “don’ts” and “dos” that I’ve learned about getting students to buy in to the flipped classroom, mostly through cringe-worthy teaching performances of my own in the past, along with some examples of how we built these into the calculus course.

http://chronicle.com/blognetwork/castingoutnines/2014/03/06/getting-student-buy-in-for-the-inverted-calculus-class/

By David Nagel, Campus Technology

High-speed mobile broadband is poised to explode within the next five years. According to a new forecast, by 2019, subscriptions to LTE and LTE-Advanced will reach into the billions. According to market research firm ABI Research, as of 2013, total LTE subscriptions had reached just 229.7 million worldwide. But that figure will grow at a compound rate of 43.6 percent each year through 2019, reaching about 2 billion total, driven in large part by the advent of LTE-Advanced. By 2019, more than one-third of those 2 billion subscribers — about 750 million — will have LTE-Advanced, which promises peak download speeds of 1 Gbps and typical download speeds of 100 Mbps to 300 Mbps and uploads of 10 Mbps to 70 Mbps. (Korea launched its first LTE-Advanced service last year and gained a total of 1 million subscribers.)

http://campustechnology.com/articles/2014/03/04/forecast-billions-will-have-high-speed-mobile-broadband-within-5-years.aspx

By David Nagel, Campus Technology

According to new research, Apple’s iPad line no longer holds a majority share of the tablet market. While the iPad is still the single most popular tablet in the world, its dominance dropped to a mere plurality by the end of last year, losing nearly 17 percentage points, according to market research firm Gartner. In 2012, the iPad line accounted for 52.8 percent of all tablets sold worldwide, with total shipments hitting 61.5 million units. In 2013, that market share dropped to 36 percent, with 70.4 million units shipped. Android tablets came into the mainstream. In 2012, Android tablets held 45.8 percent of the overall tablet market worldwide (53.3 million units). In 2013, that grew to 61.9 percent, with unit shipments more than doubling to 120.9 million.

http://campustechnology.com/articles/2014/03/04/ipad-no-longer-the-tablet-of-the-majority.aspx

By Devon Haynie, US News

For adults juggling jobs and family commitments, earning a degree can seem like a Herculean task. But it doesn’t have to be. By joining the millions of Americans pursuing online education, it’s possible to prepare for the next great job opportunity from the comfort of your couch. “Online learning can do two things: It can lead to advancement in an existing profession, or it can lead to a completely new profession,” says Leah K. Matthews, executive director of the Accrediting Commission of the nonprofit Distance Education and Training Council. “It spans almost every field now.”

http://news.yahoo.com/6-great-jobs-online-degree-172206609.html

By Sharon Florentine, CIO

E-learning is a cost-effective, accessible way to boost your job skills without the hassles of ‘traditional’ degree programs. If you want to keep your technical and business skills razor-sharp, education and ongoing training and development are critical, but continuing education doesn’t mean you have to go back to school. Over the last few years, e-learning and online skills development technology have broadened their appeal, sharpened their focus and become accessible to almost anyone with a laptop, smartphone or tablet. “We’ve seen phenomenal growth over the last four years or so from the market and from our corporate clients, too,” says Nate Kimmons, vice president of Enterprise Marketing at e-learning service provider Lynda.com.

http://www.cio.com/article/749379/How_to_Add_New_Job_Skills_Without_Going_Back_to_School

by Susan Meisenhelder, Huffington Post

The truth is simple: Access to higher education must involve more than merely an opportunity to enroll in a course. For access to be meaningful, students must have a real chance to succeed in getting a quality education. Research tells us that online courses work best for students who are academically and technologically prepared, mature and highly motivated. So the notion of expanding online remedial and introductory courses in community and state colleges and universities is not only misguided, it’s unfair. For most American students, who are increasingly diverse, low-income and unprepared for the rigors of collegiate study, a blind rush to “online everything” may, despite the promise, provide only access to failure.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/susan-meisenhelder/rush-to-online-higher-education_b_4914762.html

By Katie Lepi, Edudemic

Online learning offers a host of conveniences that make it a popular option for students. Students don’t need to live near a physical university to take the classes, timing is often flexible, and it is generally a cheaper option than attending a brick and mortar school. Stepping up the efforts to maintain good contact with your students when you’re teaching online likely tops most online teachers’ must-do lists. The handy infographic linked below looks at some tips and best practices for online faculty, from the ever-wonderful Mia MacMeekin.

http://www.edudemic.com/encouraging-better-online-student-faculty-contact/

by Steven Mintz, Inside Higher Ed

How will teaching and learning in the early 21st century differ from its 20th century predecessor? Some shifts are already well underway. These include the growing embrace of open educational resources and of courses collaboratively designed and developed by teams including content area specialists, educational technologists, and instructional designers. Peer mentoring and grading are becoming more common, as is a gradual shift toward learner-centered pedagogies and competency-based, outcomes-oriented approaches. Alongside these developments are five far-reaching developments.

http://www.insidehighered.com//blogs/higher-ed-beta/five-ways-21st-and-20th-century-learning-will-differ

By John Orlando, eCampus News

These online rules discuss time management, web design and providing content in different formats. Years of helping faculty pass to the dark side of online education have taught me a few simple rules that I brow beat (in a collegial way) into all new online teachers.

http://www.ecampusnews.com/top-news/developing-online-course-234/

by Maria Popova, Brain Pickings

A prophetic vision for mobile, time-shifted, tele-commuted, on-demand education. In 1962, Buckminster Fuller delivered a prophetic lecture at Southern Illinois University on the future of education aimed at “solving [educational] problems by design competence instead of by political reform.” It was eventually published as Education Automation: Comprehensive Learning for Emergent Humanity (public library) — a prescient vision for online education decades before the web as we know it, and half a century before the golden age of MOOCs, with elements of TED and Pandora mixed in.

http://www.brainpickings.org/index.php/2014/03/05/buckminster-fuller-education-automation-1962/

by Steve Kolowich, Chronicle of Higher Ed

edX made that plan official on Thursday, announcing an “expanded membership structure” to supplement the 32 universities that are currently building MOOCs with edX. The 12 new members include Colgate University and Hamilton College as well as several nonacademic institutions, such as the Linux Foundation and the International Monetary Fund. Anant Agarwal, president of edX, said in an interview with The Chronicle that the new members would be able to offer MOOCs on the edX website alongside the original 32 member institutions. They would also have the opportunity to share any revenue generated by the courses, said Mr. Agarwal. However, they would not be privy to the same strategy conversations as the charter members, he said.

http://chronicle.com/blogs/wiredcampus/edx-adds-a-second-tier-of-members/50891

by Chronicle of Higher Ed

The Apollo Education Group, the parent company of the University of Phoenix, is starting a website to help people find courses that teach skills they need to land specific jobs in the technology industry. Call it a course catalog for nontraditional courses, most of which have no connection to colleges’ degree programs. The website, called Balloon and announced on Tuesday, will be pitched to adult learners who want to pick up skills that have been flagged by technology companies as requirements for certain job openings. Here is how Balloon will work, according to Mr. Wrubel: Users will be able to browse actual job listings posted by companies such as Adobe and Amazon, see the skills those companies are requiring of candidates, and then search a database of 14,000 courses for the ones that teach those skills.

http://chronicle.com/blogs/wiredcampus/u-of-phoenix-parent-company-launches-nontraditional-course-search/50855