Online Learning Update

by Devon Haynie, US News

As online programs have grown in popularity, online master’s in education degrees have become more acceptable, experts say. But some programs are more respected than others. As a result, prospective students looking to use the credential for a pay bump or career switch should do some investigating before they enroll. When it comes to choosing the right online master’s degree in education, experts say the reputation of the program matters more than the mode of instruction, regardless of specialty. “I think we’re still in a space where the institution granting the online degree continues to have some sway in at least its perceived value,” says Catherine Horn, associate education professor at the University of Houston, ranked the No. 1 online graduate education program by U.S. News in 2015.

http://news.yahoo.com/employers-think-online-masters-education-140000758.html

by Justin Reich, KQED Mind/Shift

Since these are institutionally managed spaces, students can lose control over what they submit to the LMS. At many universities, after three or six months, the sites are deleted, and all of the intellectual contributions that students are asked to make to forums or assessments are washed away. While LMS offer certain advantages for scaling standard experiences, these spaces are homogenized, transient and disempowering. As Jim Groom and Brian Lamb argue in “Reclaiming Innovation,” their critique of learning management systems, the fundamental problem is that learning management systems are ultimately about serving the needs of institutions, not individual students.

http://blogs.kqed.org/mindshift/2015/02/techniques-for-unleashing-student-work-from-learning-management-systems/

By Ron Bethke, eCampus News

A new MOOC on haptics, the science of touch, brings a hands-on element to the world of online learning thanks to a device called the Hapkit. Perhaps the largest criticism leveled at online learning is that it can be difficult for students to shake hands with, talk to, and form relationships with their peers or instructors in the way that on-campus students can. It’s also difficult for online students to participate in hands-on experiments or exercises considered critical for skill-building. In defiance of these drawbacks to online learning, Stanford University Professor Allison Okamura has created a new MOOC that teaches students about haptics, or the science of touch, and gives them hands-on experience in the field by showing how to build a programmable device as a platform for haptics experiments: the Hapkit.

http://www.ecampusnews.com/technologies/hapkit-touch-online-323/

by First Post

Snapdeal and Shazam have partnered with The Wharton School, while Instagram will work with University of California, San Diego and 500 Startups with University of Maryland. Google has partnered with University of Maryland and Vanderbilt University, Johns Hopkins University and iHeartMedia with Berklee College of Music have already conducted pilots. “In a job market that is increasingly filled with job descriptions that didn’t exist a decade ago or less, workers and employers alike are recognising the value of online certificates,” Coursera CEO Rick Levin told PTI. “Approximately half of Coursera’s learners come to us seeking knowledge to boost their careers, and that ratio is even higher in places like India where online learning certificates have gained early acceptance,” he said.

http://tech.firstpost.com/news-analysis/coursera-partners-with-google-snapdeal-to-develop-online-courses-254403.html

by Silicon Republic

Online courses can help your career Online courses can help your career. More and more people are looking at online courses to help further their career, with research showing it’s not a lesser approach to traditional college. Historically, online courses were considered second-rate learning experiences, producing sub-standard results with people basically ‘buying their degree’. As society has changed, that is no longer the case. This infographic, featured on Tech Infographics, highlights some of the myths surrounding online learning.

http://www.siliconrepublic.com/careers/item/40659-online-courses-can-help/

by DNA India

In his foundation’s 2015 annual letter, Bill Gates has envisioned a future where “world-class education” would be just a few clicks away, and online classes would not merely help a few exceptional students, but the developing world at large, a report said. In his foundation’s 2015 annual letter, Bill Gates has envisioned a future where “world-class education” would be just a few clicks away, and online classes would not merely help a few exceptional students, but the developing world at large, a report said. Stressing on the role that technology could play in future, in improving the rate of literacy in developing countries, Gates said that if a child has access to a smartphone, even before they get enrolled in a primary school, they could learn letters and number,s which would give them “a big headstart,” reported The Verge.

http://www.dnaindia.com/scitech/report-bill-gates-envisions-a-future-with-world-class-education-centres-accessible-online-to-developing-world-2060387

By Dian Schaffhauser, Campus Technology

While a lot of schools are teaming up with third-party companies to launch online versions of long-standing degree programs, USC’s business school is doing the work in-house. Here’s why. “I had no clue how to envision it differently than the way we had always been doing it, which is getting up in front of the classroom, teaching from a textbook and Internal Revenue code and regulations, going through numbers and calculations and writing things on the board,” she recalled. On top of that, she had always assumed the students needed her presence and her lectures in order to learn the material. The proposed online format made her question the role of the instructor in the classroom. And she was concerned that somehow the USC “brand” might be watered down. Now, Mills unequivocally states that going through the process of converting her course to an online format has made her a better instructor. Here’s how USC Marshall works its magic.

http://campustechnology.com/articles/2015/02/11/8-best-practices-for-moving-courses-online.aspx

By Michael Levenson and Steve Annear, Boston Globe

A national advocacy group filed federal lawsuits against Harvard and MIT on Thursday, accusing the universities of discriminating against people who are deaf and hard of hearing by failing to caption their vastly expanding array of online courses.“Just as buildings without ramps bar people who use wheelchairs, online content without captions excludes individuals who are deaf or hard of hearing,” said the lawsuits filed in US District Court in Massachusetts by the National Association of the Deaf. The class-action suits accuse the universities of violating the 1990 Americans with Disabilities Act and the 1973 Rehabilitation Act by denying people who are deaf and hard of hearing access to thousands of videos and audio recordings that the universities make available free to the public.

http://www.bostonglobe.com/metro/2015/02/12/advocates-for-deaf-sue-harvard-mit-over-lack-captioning-free-online-courses/kRyh3K7VNje9vhOSvjro6N/story.html

by John A. Byrne, Fortune

After a pair of highly successful pilot runs, Harvard Business School is now opening its online program in business basics to students worldwide. The school is also inviting admitted MBA students to enroll in the program as a pre-MBA boot camp experience, particularly for non-traditional admits or those who need more basic quantitative work before showing up on campus. All told, slightly more than 1,100 students have now taken the primer on the fundamentals of business called CORe (Credential of Readiness) program. In the first beta starting last June, the trio of courses—Business Analytics, Economics for Managers, and Financial Accounting—were open to only undergraduate students attending colleges in Massachusetts and alumni.

http://fortune.com/2015/02/10/harvard-business-school-expects-3000-online-students-this-summer/

http://chronicle.com/blogs/wiredcampus/professors-know-about-high-tech-teaching-methods-but-few-use-them/55777

The project, dubbed Memex, has been in the works for a year and is being developed by 17 different contractor teams who are working with the military’s Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency. Google and Bing, with search results influenced by popularity and ranking, are only able to capture approximately five percent of the internet. The goal of Memex is to build a better map of more internet content.

http://www.wired.com/2015/02/darpa-memex-dark-web/

by Seb Murray, Business Because

Additional qualifications such as MBA and masters degrees may be the key to unlocking a pay rise and promotion. Nearly half of employers surveyed by the Open University say work-related qualifications gained through additional education are the number one reason they would offer a salary increase or a higher-level position. The OU, a distance learning specialist, polled 1,000 UK employers and 1,000 employees last year. Completing work-related training programs was the second most desired attribute among these employers when offering pay rises and promotions, flagged by 33% of poll respondents. In a fillip for the OU, gaining work-related knowledge through free online courses or by reading relevant books or articles was the third most common thing employers looked for when offering salary increases and career advancements.

http://www.businessbecause.com/news/mba-distance-learning/3085/moocs-may-be-key-to-payrise-and-promotion

By David Nagel, Campus Technology

As college and university administrators shift their priorities away from the mission of education, the role of faculty-as-teacher is diminishing, and the consequences for the profession — and for students — look to be getting rapidly more severe. In 2009, just half of faculty members in higher education were part-timers. But now, owing in part to resources moving away from classroom instruction and toward student services, research and other areas, adjuncts make up 76.4 percent of the total across all institution types in the United States. That’s an issue identified by researchers in a new report as one of the “wicked challenges” facing higher education right now. The report — the NMC Horizon Report, from the New Media Consortium and the Educause Learning Initiative — identifies significant barriers facing education, as well as major trends in education technology and technological trends that will help shape teaching and learning in the near future.

http://campustechnology.com/articles/2015/02/10/the-6-major-challenges-standing-in-the-way-of-educational-change.aspx

Students aren’t the only ones who can benefit from differentiated instruction. Teachers, too, have individual strengths and weaknesses, and they need different types of professional development at specific points of their careers. So why clump them all together in the same PD courses? Some school districts around the country are finding new ways to use social media and online offerings in combination with professional learning communities to empower teachers to develop their own personalized PD plans and reflect on how that PD is affecting the work they do in class. THE Journalspoke with leaders in several of these districts about the role of technology in personalizing the PD process.

http://thejournal.com/articles/2015/02/04/5-tech-tools-that-help-personalize-pd.aspx

By Keith Button, Education Dive

A survey of 250 college students taking online courses found that they miss the personal interactions they enjoy with professors during in-person classes. The study was conducted at Kent State University, which has 16,000 students — 40% of the total enrollment — taking 1,200 classes online. The survey also included 60 professors. One conclusion from the survey: Professors should make sure that they communicate more with students in online classes and reach out proactively, instead of just uploading assignments.

http://www.educationdive.com/news/study-online-students-want-more-interaction-with-instructors/361952/

by Rose Velazquez, LSU Reveille

With the dread of impending budget cuts looming for Louisiana higher education, online learning could help keep the University afloat, said LSU Online Interim Director and Instructional Design Consultant Amanda Major. With 378 students from all over the country enrolled in various online degree programs, Major said LSU Online will continue to be a source of revenue for the University. While a portion of the revenue generated by LSU Online goes back into the program, it also goes toward funding several University positions. “We’re hoping that because we’re generating revenue for the University … we can counteract [the budget cuts] to help the University continue to operate and function,” Major said.

http://www.lsureveille.com/daily/online-learning-generates-university-revenue/article_eaf126ca-b0af-11e4-a6ef-0f21484737c7.html

BY COLIN WOOD, Center for Digital Education

A new survey shows that while not all higher education faculty like distance learning, it has become entrenched and is part of education throughout the nation. Distance education is almost done with its growing pains. Growth in the sector is slowing and nearing a plateau, having established itself as a regular part of education throughout the nation. Distance education students increased 3.7 percent year-over-year, which is the lowest rate of increase in 13 years, according to a 2014 report titled Grade Level: Tracking Online Education in the United States, released Feb. 5. Babson Survey Research Group Co-Director Jeff Seaman says “I think we’re almost there, it’s no longer experimental.” Perhaps one of the most telling numbers for the future of distance education is that 74 percent of academic leaders said they think distance education is comparable or superior to face-to-face learning.

http://www.centerdigitaled.com/higher-ed/Distance-Education-Is-Here-to-Stay.html

by James Keating, Tomorrow’s Professor

Rigor is what counts. Rigor is important in the traditional classroom and is equally significant online. Rigor is that which leads a student to the understanding, knowledge, applications, skills, and competencies that are required for academic success, regardless of whether the student is sitting in a classroom or before a computer screen. There is nothing wrong with online learning when it is done well. And of course, the same can be said about the physical classroom. If professors, students, administrators, or anyone wonder at the rigor of online education, it’s because its advocates have not made the case for how it is useful and successful. They have not elevated well designed and taught courses as models for all to see. Those exemplars should guide our perception of online learning and also how we work to develop and improve it over time.

http://cgi.stanford.edu/~dept-ctl/cgi-bin/tomprof/enewsletter.php?msgno=1385

by the University of Arizona

It makes sense to have an astronomy professor teach a class that is expected to be attended by thousands. No one knows the meaning of “vast” quite like someone who studies outer space, right? The free, six-week class is “Astronomy: Exploring Time and Space” and the instructor is Chris Impey, a University Distinguished Professor who is no newcomer to online teaching. For the past two years, he has taught “Astronomy: State of the Art,” the University of Arizona’s first massive open online course, or MOOC. That course, delivered online through video lectures, PowerPoint slides, discussion and live Q&A sessions, has been offered via the training platform Udemy. The new class is the University’s first with Coursera, an educational technology company that has been partnering with U.S. colleges and universities since its launch three years ago. Impey expects enrollment to hit 11,000 by the time the class launches at midnight on Feb. 15.

http://www.yumanewsnow.com/index.php/news/arizona/9604-classroom-of-11-000-awaits-ua-professor-chris-impey

By Sequan Gatlin, Iowa State Daily

The College of Business at Iowa State has added business analytics as a new program for both graduate and undergraduate students.Danny Johnson, associate dean of undergraduate programs, described what synchronous and asynchronous courses are and how graduates will be involved in these online courses. “Asynchronous courses are traditional online courses where a professor is not present,” Johnson said. “Synchronous online courses are when the professor is live in front of a camera while students are behind the cameras of their computers.” Although Spalding said online courses will be the most used medium of communication, students will meet one week at the beginning, middle and end of the prospective 21-month graduate program for a three-credit course. The synchronous and asynchronous courses give the graduates experience as working professionals. On the other hand, the week-long and in-person meetings give the students opportunities to build cohorts as teams and develop relationships to solve analytic concerns.

http://www.iowastatedaily.com/news/academics/article_f8a71c5e-aff4-11e4-bbe0-af5a899c1977.html