Online Learning Update

by Monica Burns, Edutopia

Creative writing can be a daunting task for students who struggle to think of story ideas or who don’t love the writing process. For kids who have trouble putting pen to paper, there are a handful of fantastic iPad apps that just might inspire them to tell a story. Your students will be able to gather ideas, brainstorm and publish writing straight from their tablet. For students at all levels, creative writing is an important part of English language arts curriculum. Not only do the Common Core State Standards specifically outline the expectation that students should be able to express themselves through the written word, but this is also an essential real-world skill. Students should have the ability to write narratives that tell a story from their own life or a story that they’ve imagined. The apps linked below will inspire young writers and give them a vehicle for sharing their work.

http://www.edutopia.org/blog/ipad-apps-for-creative-writing-monica-burns

By Steve Kolowich, Chronicle of Higher Ed

The college, which now relies on a stable of 2,700 adjunct instructors to staff its online courses, says that the pilot was a success and that it will hire 45 full-time faculty members by the end of the summer, including some from its existing adjunct pool. This is a small but significant step for Southern New Hampshire, which has become a model for nonprofit universities building large-scale online programs. Online institutions that serve nontraditional students are booming. Meanwhile, doctoral candidates vastly outnumber available tenure-track faculty jobs at traditional colleges. The new faculty members at Southern New Hampshire’s online college will not conform to the classic archetype. They will not enjoy the trappings of living and teaching in a college town; the faculty members will work remotely—sometimes hundreds of miles from the university’s headquarters, in Manchester, N.H.

http://chronicle.com/article/Southern-New-Hampshire-U/146443/

By Joseph, Edudemic

Education is a crucial component to success in the modern world. With the ever-progressing forms of communication and technology, we have seen an explosion of online tools and options that have become available to the mobile and tech savvy generation of today.

http://www.edudemic.com/online-classroom-adapted-mobile-generation/

By Matt Vangalis, Edudemic

From millions in White House grants to private tech companies’ awareness programs, the push is on to engage students in the critically important fields of science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) career possibilities. It’s a hot button issue. The demand for well-educated students, especially in the STEM fields is growing with no signs of slowing down. Still, according to the National Math & Science Initiative, 54 percent of high school graduates are not ready for college math, while an astounding 70 percent are unprepared for college-level science.

http://www.edudemic.com/online-stem-learning/

by Associated Press

The online courses that universities offer to the public were once hailed as an innovation that could provide free college education to the global masses. Now many in the industry are scaling back expectations, saying they don’t perform as well as supporters had hoped. Yet two Minnesota schools still see value in them and are pressing on, Minnesota Public Radio reported Monday. “It’s a startling innovation in education,” said University of Minnesota Provost Karen Hanson. “And figuring out how best to deploy it … is something that’s learned through experience.” The university offers more than a half-dozen MOOCs, while the College of St. Scholastica in Duluth offers three. St. Scholastica’s three courses target working professionals in health care. Those who enroll can earn free continuing education credits. “Our plans are not grand,” said Don Wortham, vice president for strategic initiatives. “We’re looking for ways to introduce segments of the consuming public to Scholastica, and we’ll do it a few hundred or a few thousand at a time — and be very happy with that.”

http://www.crookstontimes.com/article/20140506/NEWS/140509789/10057/NEWS

by Paul Bischoff, Tech in Asia

It’s just been just over half a year since massive-open-online-course (MOOC) portal Coursera partnered with China’s online media giant Netease to create a fully localized version of its service, Coursera Zone. Today, China downloads the Coursera Android app more than any other country, and it’s the number two country in terms of iOS download apps. China is Coursera’s fastest growing market after the United States, according to founder Andrew Ng. Ng gave a keynote at the Global Mobile Internet Conference talking about Coursera’s progress.

http://www.techinasia.com/coursera-picks-steam-china-students-moocs-mobile/

by Paul Rogers, Los Angeles Times

At many local universities, new technologies are shaping the way knowledge is shared. “Faculty is experimenting with interactive digital learning,” Diane Favro, a professor of architecture and urban design at UCLA said. “Students use tablets or laptops in class and enter virtual [classrooms] and interact with their peers and faculty in the same room and also around the world.” This type of hands-on, high-tech interaction on SoCal campuses also addresses the expectations of contemporary workplaces, where virtual conferencing, interactive presentations and desktop/social sharing have become the norm.

http://www.latimes.com/brandpublishing/localplus/education/la-ss-education-tech-crunch-story.html

By Tanya Roscorla, Center for Digital Education

A big data report commissioned by U.S. President Barack Obama includes student data use as one of its six recommendations in this field. Led by presidential counselor John Podesta, a working group of senior administration officials spent 90 days studying the landscape of big data in the United States in order to inform federal decisions. Their study included conducting surveys; sending out a public request for information; co-hosting university conferences at MIT, NYU and U.C. Berkeley; and meeting with academic researchers, privacy advocates, regulators, technology industry members, advertisers and civil rights groups. In the report released on Thursday, May 1, they recommended that the federal government should make sure that data collection in schools is used for educational purposes and supports innovation to help students learn.

http://www.centerdigitaled.com/news/White-House-Report-Big-Data.html

by Jamaal Abdul-Alim, Diverse Ed

Karen_FrischKari Frisch is well aware of the fact that online courses suffer from high rates of attrition and are sometimes held in low regard. “I know there’s a bad reputation out there in some circles about online courses,” says Frisch, an instructor who teaches online courses in the Speech Department at Central Lakes College, a two-year community college in Brainerd, Minn. But Frisch says she is motivated by the criticism of online courses, deemed to be ineffective and more prone to being dropped by students. “That damaging stereotype is, in part, what kept driving me to do what I could to make my course something to be proud of and that would make a positive difference in students’ lives, not just academically,” explains Frisch, who has been teaching online courses at Central Lakes College since 2009.

http://diverseeducation.com/article/63871/

by Tracy ZhuChange, Women of China

Massive Open Online Courses (MOOC), first developed in 2012 in America, have brought great changes to people’s lives throughout the world, including in China, and have also posed great challenges to the traditional school education and the innovation of Internet technologies and services. [people.com.cn] Xiao Gu, a senior student at Shanxi University, clutched her iPad in her hands every single day at home during this year’s winter holiday. However, Xiao Gu didn’t use her iPad to watch western TV series as she had in the past, but to study massive open online courses (MOOC). Chen Jiang, a teacher at Peking University, has kept up the habit he formed in the fall semester of 2013, when his course “Electronic Circuits” was put on line by the university through the MOOC platform edX. Now, the first thing Chen does when he wakes up every morning is to engage in interactive communication with his students, answering any questions they have about the course he is teaching.

http://www.womenofchina.cn/html/womenofchina/report/172701-1.htm

By Associated Press

The Smithsonian Institution is venturing further into online education with a new deal to provide content for digital courses in history, science, culture and the arts, the museum complex announced Monday. Smithsonian officials unveiled an agreement with the Chantilly, Virginia-based education group The Great Courses for a new series of multimedia lectures. The 10-year deal begins with 12 courses scheduled for release this fall. The courses will be primarily targeted at college-educated lifelong learners, but The Great Courses also serves college students, homeschooled students and a growing audience through Netflix and other entertainment sites. The company has recently created similar partnerships with National Geographic and the Culinary Institute of America. Unlike MOOCs, the Massive Open Online Courses offered by universities, these courses will be offered for a fee of about $89.95 for a standard 24-lecture series.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/local/smithsonian-makes-deal-to-offer-online-courses/2014/05/05/9ce0a78e-d429-11e3-8f7d-7786660fff7c_story.html

By Katie Lepi, Edudemic

These days, when you’re asking your students to do research (on just about any topic), it is likely going to be online research, at least at the start. Most materials are easily available online these days, saving students the time and hassle of heading to the library to schlep home with 100 heavy books in tow for a lit review or project. However you slice it, student research has changed quite drastically even in recent years, as more and more resources are online. There are a number of journals making a move to offer full text of scientific journal articles for free, and we’ve put together a short list of them below.

http://www.edudemic.com/scientific-studies/

By Courtney Pepe, Edudemic

In March 2014, Courtney Pepe was selected as a Google Glass Explorer to beta test the product in her class. It was exciting, because we are already in our third year of a 1 to 1 iPad initiative with over 2,000 students. Immediately, She began her experiment 60 Days of Google Glass in the Class. Here are five important take-a ways or “glassroom” tips that students and Courtney Pepe have learned about in the first 20 days of implementation.

http://www.edudemic.com/google-glass-experiment/

By David Nagel, Campus Technology

Does Facebook have the potential to produce better students? It might seem like a silly question, but a new study out of Baylor University’s College of Arts and Sciences suggests the social network can actually improve some aspects of students’ academic performance and, in large classes, create a sense of connectedness that promotes active learning. According to the researchers, larger class sizes can stymie efforts to facilitate active learning among students, as discussion and debate are sidelined in favor of lecture. But active learning — which involves reflection and affective dimensions of learning — can promote, among other things, improved academic performance.

http://campustechnology.com/articles/2014/05/01/can-facebook-make-better-students.aspx

By Scott Kirsner, Boston Globe

While schools like Harvard, MIT, and Stanford have attracted lots of attention for putting courses online, SNHU has already reached and passed two tipping points. It serves far more students over the Internet (about 35,000 this year) than it does on its campus along the Merrimack River (3,800), and generates more revenues online that it does from running a “traditional” college. Many other schools, such as Berklee College of Music, are just getting started; Berklee will offer its first online bachelor’s degrees this fall. LeBlanc uses the word “disruption” often, but he doesn’t see the demise of the traditional college experience that follows high school. That’s an immersive learning experience and rite of passage for many teens entering adulthood. But adults in the workforce who see the benefit in getting a degree — or earning an advanced degree — represent a huge opportunity.

http://www.bostonglobe.com/business/2014/05/03/southern-new-hampshire-university-leading-edge-online-education/ZMnPm22ePz98Adks5Y6ogM/story.html

by Qin Dexing, China DailyWeb

Nasdaq-listed YY offers a video platform to its 600 million registered online gamers and singers. At a press conference in Beijing in February, the company said it would branch out into online education. 100.com is a separate platform dedicated to online education and held its first teaching session on April 22. “Tapping the online education sector is our company’s top priority for future development,” CEO Li Xueling said at 100.com’s launch: “Through introducing innovative products and services, the Internet will revolutionize the traditional education sector, as it has retail, finance and other sectors for years now,” YY is not alone. Investors, including China’s e-commerce conglomerate Alibaba Group Holding Ltd, put $100 million in February into TutorGroup, a language-learning platform popular with Chinese learning English. It’s the largest investment in China’s online education sector.

http://www.ecns.cn/business/2014/05-03/112084.shtml

By Devon Haynie, US News

Employees once had few options for sharpening their skills aside from finding a mentor on the job or earning a traditional degree. Today, with the world of online credentials expanding, professionals have a variety of ways they can acquire knowledge and demonstrate their skills. Aside from earning an online degree, employees can sign up for certificate programs, take massive open online courses and earn digital badges, among other options. Long ago, employees would finish their education after their college degree, but that’s not good enough anymore, says Rich Thompson, chief human resources officer at Adecco Group North America, a staffing company. “You have to continue to sharpen your skills,” he says. “The nice thing about these credentials is that they are affordable and there are so many of them. The trick is, you have to find the right ones.”

http://news.yahoo.com/online-training-boost-career-133000447.html

Richard Asa, Tribune Newspapers

It goes without saying that college students would love to pay less for courses and degrees amid skyrocketing costs for a degree. Some experts see the potential in the near future for cost savings on tuition through online course work, and a handful of nonprofit institutions are paving the way to a new model that costs less without sacrificing quality. But others caution that assuming online education, credit for credit, will be cheaper is unwise. The fact is, the cost of quality online college courses is close to the same as that for traditional courses.

http://www.chicagotribune.com/features/life/education/ct-conted-0501-half-costs-20140429,0,1662404.story

by Julia Furlan, Tribune Newspapers

Learning online might be a way of attending class in your pajamas. But for students like Maria Treto-French, it means listening to a lecture while watching your daughter’s volleyball game. “The hardest part was making sure I had Internet access,” Treto-French said with a laugh about juggling working full time, earning her graduate degree at Northern Illinois University and hustling between after-school activities of her three children. Treto-French is part of a growing number of students — 7.1million, according to a January study by the Babson Survey Research Group — who snap open their devices and log on to learn. Babson also reported that about 34 percent, an all-time high, of higher education students take at least one course online.

http://www.chicagotribune.com/features/life/education/ct-conted-0501-centerpiece-online-20140429,0,7577754.story

by Andrew Tilghman, Navy Times

The Labor Department helped update the job-hunting seminar that now offers troops tips on using social media, searching for jobs online and researching local job markets. For those who do not plan to seek a job immediately, TAP offers three options: the Boots to Business introduction to entrepreneurship, and classes for those who want to go to college or seek technical training. The entrepreneurship bloc was designed by the Small Business Administration. Beyond the two-day class, troops who want further preparation can take an eight-week online class run by the SBA that will connect them with mentors in the business community. They also can learn how to apply for SBA small-business loans, which offer up to $150,000 in startup capital and are easier to obtain than traditional bank loans.

http://www.navytimes.com/article/20140429/JOBS05/304290051/Classes-give-transitioning-troops-business-know-how

by Carl Straumsheim, Inside Higher Ed

After more than two years in the cloud, Coursera’s massive open online courses will this summer make landfall at Dominican University of California, which will host the MOOC provider’s first Learning Hub at a U.S. institution. Dominican is part of Coursera’s latest wave of hubs — physical locations scattered across the globe where MOOC students can meet in person to collaborate and, in some cases, receive in-person tutoring from course facilitators familiar with the content. The program is a product of the MOOC provider’s partnership with the U.S. Department of State and a number of educational organizations in countries such as India, Kenya and the Republic of Trinidad and Tobago, among others. The New York Public Library will host a second domestic hub.

http://www.insidehighered.com/news/2014/05/01/dominican-u-host-first-coursera-learning-hub-us-institution#sthash.T2AfKQKf.dpbs