by Steve Kolowich, Chronicle
In a pilot program with Coursera, the New York Public Library plans to organize meet-ups at which people taking massive open online courses can gather and discuss the courses with help from “trained facilitators.”The partnership is part the MOOC company’s effort to build an infrastructure for in-person learning around its free online courses. Research has suggested that MOOC students who receive offline help earn higher scores on their assessments.
Share on Facebookby Coursera
Coursera’s mission is to help make a world-class education accessible to anyone. One challenge we face is language: While the majority of our partners teach in English, only 40% of Courserians live in English-speaking countries. With this in mind, we are excited to announce the launch of Coursera’s Global Translator Community (GTC), a program designed to greatly expand the number of courses offering high-quality subtitle translations. The GTC empowers all Coursera users to help us make education for everyone–regardless of language limitations–a reality. Now, anyone can contribute translations by signing up on our translations page. New translators will be directed to an online portal, which features active translations projects, translations resources, and ways to interact with other community members and the Coursera team.
http://blog.coursera.org/post/84088014661/introducing-courseras-new-global-translator-community
Share on Facebookby Steven Mintz, Inside Higher Ed
Next-generation online learning differs from last generation e-learning in six distinct ways. First, it is scalable. New instructional support models—including coaches and peer mentors— allow online courses that are not MOOCs to effectively reach many more students in the past.
Second, it is personalized. It offers multiple learning pathways tailored to student learning styles, needs, and interests. Just-in-time remediation and enrichment are embedded and content reflects students’ learning goals.
Third, it is outcomes-oriented. Mastery of explicit learning objectives, including content and skills, represents its aim.
Fourth, it is data-driven. Learning analytics provide students, instructors, coaches, and advisers with dashboards that signal student progress and problems in real time.
Share on Facebookby Matthew Lynch, Huffington Post
But what if the same flexibility that is afforded to regular K-12 and college online classes was extended to tutoring too? Of course there are already many online tutoring options available but as an industry, it lacks the sophistication of the larger-scale academic offerings. As demand for this form of flexible learning rises, though, tutoring in remote ways will see a spike in popularity and availability.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/matthew-lynch-edd/online-tutoring-should-be_b_5226326.html
Share on Facebookby Martin Williams, the Guardian
“Open online classes provide a way to reach an amazing group of students that do not have access to traditional higher education,” says David Evans, associate professor of computer science at the University of Virginia. He says: “Most of the content is presented in short videos, with lots of interactive quizzes and exercises between them. There are also problem sets that involve solving some more challenging problems, as well as puzzles that apply ideas from the course.” Amy Woodgate, project coordinator of distance education initiative and Moocs at the University of Edinburgh says: “Many people think that there are certain programmes that you can’t do online and others that are better geared to online study, but actually we haven’t found that.” “You can learn almost anything online nowadays,” says Lloyd Bingham, who did an online preparatory course for a diploma in translation, run by London Metropolitan University.
http://www.theguardian.com/education/2013/nov/11/niche-subjects-online-learning-students
Share on Facebookby Michael A. MacDowell, Times Leader
A consortium of foundations, including Leon Lowenstein, Bill and Melinda Gates, William and Flora Hewlett, Laura and John Arnold, Calvin K. Kazanjian Economics and others have joined with OpenStax College – and innovative arm of Rice University. OpenStax College is dedicated to producing high-quality, online textbooks for courses widely taught in college. The latest free college textbook from OpenStax College is the two-semester introductory course, “Principles of Economics.” OpenStax College also has published online introductory books for physics, sociology, biology, anatomy and physiology and statistics, and is working on books for pre-calculus, chemistry, U.S. history and psychology. College students and their parents know these courses oftentimes are required by the core curriculum at colleges and universities. All these books are fully peer-reviewed. Most of them have been written by outstanding authors, including some who previously authored standard printed textbooks.
Share on Facebookby Peter Hartcher, WAtoday
“There are no national boundaries in cyberspace,” says Jim Barber, former vice-chancellor of New England University. He argues that Australia is vulnerable to the threat, but can turn online courses into an advantage: “Australia needs to lift its eyes, particularly to the Asia-Pacific where we enjoy a time-zone advantage over North America and Europe and could extend our domestic classes to Asia online in real time via telepresence.” Barber, too, turns to the comparison with the car sector: “If universities are to avoid the fate of the car industry, the best that the government can do is clear the way for them to get on with the daunting and unfamiliar tasks ahead of them.”
http://www.ecampusnews.com/around-the-web/group-urges-checks-online-learning-mit/
Share on FacebookBy Michael McDonald, Bloomberg Business Week
Soaring student debt, competition from online programs, and poor job prospects for graduates are shrinking schools’ applicant pools. The number of private four-year colleges that closed or were acquired doubled to about 10 annually in the four years through 2011, from about five a year before 2008, according to a Vanderbilt University study. All of the schools that failed in recent years had fewer than 1,000 students, and most had endowments of about $1 million. Harvard Business School professor Clayton Christensen has predicted that as many as half of the more than 4,000 universities and colleges in the U.S. may fail in the next 15 years, driven out of business in large part by the growing acceptance of online learning. “I’m not sure a lot of these institutions have the cushion to experiment with how to stay afloat,” says Michelle Weise, a senior research fellow at the Clayton Christensen Institute for Disruptive Innovation, a think tank the Harvard professor helped establish in San Mateo, Calif.
Share on FacebookBy Katherine Mangu-Ward, Slate Future Tense
Students looking for ways to get a cheaper, faster college degree will inevitably run up against the suggestion that they enroll in summer school. But frugal freshmen aren’t doing themselves any favors by planning to spend their summers flip-flopping through the cool linoleum-lined halls of the nation’s community colleges. Summer school is depressing and wasteful, with a high opportunity cost. Savvy educational bargain hunters should take courses online instead. So go find a haystack to laze in while you keep one eye on the livestock and one eye on your iPad. Graduation rates are low and student loans are high, but a little summer online learning might help you avoid becoming a statistic.
Share on Facebookby Volodymyr Zhyla, Kyiv Post
Coursera, a major online education platform based in the U.S., is set to start giving courses in May to Ukrainian students. Established in October 2013 as Learning Hub in partnership with Bionic University, a special unit of Kyiv Mohyla Academy, Coursera will also enable real time communication with teachers and organize other events. Registration for the hub’s first courses is ongoing. Program mentors expect 20-30 students to enroll. A graduation certificate will cost $49, but it is optional. Sergiy Miroshnychenko, who completed a number of online courses, says employers generally pay serious attention to these certificates. Project coordinator Daryna Sysoyeva stresses that Bionic University encourages students of technical departments to deepen their expertise. “Online learning is a very useful and convenient method. It is a life-long process,” she adds.
Share on FacebookBy Ariel Diaz, Edudemic
We’re standing at a crossroads in education. Student debt is now higher than ever — over $1 trillion on the national level — and 70% of students report not buying textbooks due to cost. With the cost of education working against students, it’s clear we need a way to increase student access to educational content and reduce the barriers holding so many back. Fortunately, many educators and institutions are working to ease students’ financial burdens and pushing classrooms to become more cost efficient and cost effective. York College, for example, has made the push towards digital and open to address the needs of its students.
http://www.edudemic.com/open-resources-in-your-classroom/
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