Online Learning Update

by Baiyun Chen, et al; EDUCAUSE Review

Two university-wide surveys about students’ mobile technology ownership and learning practices show that mobile device ownership is high and continues to increase among students. Students and instructors need technical, logistical, and pedagogical support for integrating mobile devices and apps in formal and informal learning environments. Continuous support and targeted training resources at the University of Central Florida have produced positive changes in students’ mobile learning practices.

http://www.educause.edu/ero/article/students-mobile-learning-practices-higher-education-multi-year-study

by Todd Bryant, EDUCAUSE Review

Various existing learning environments could scale to MOOC size and benefit learners by adding the social elements now missing, from citizen science to simulations, games, virtual reality, and augmented reality. In a recent report from HarvardX and MITx, participant growth was found to be linear, meaning that while the exponential growth appears to have ended, the user base is growing despite the backlash. Major platforms continue to find support for further course development and expanded partnerships: EdX recently announced a partnership with the Smithsonian and Microsoft to offer additional courses, and Coursera has partnered with Google and Instagram. For MOOCs to be considered valued spaces for learning, they need to adopt aspects of the earlier connectivist MOOCs (cMOOCs) and reintroduce social elements.

http://www.educause.edu/ero/article/bringing-social-back-moocs

by Malcolm Brown, EDUCAUSE Review

When we consider the future roles of digital technology in higher education, it is often helpful to think in terms of trajectories rather than predictions. Predictions are remarkably fragile things. Any unforeseen factor will render the prediction false or off-target, and as those variables increase, so too does the likelihood that the prediction will fail. Predictions also tend to be projections of the current and the known, ornamented with something that provides a futuristic hue. In the case of digital technology, given the acceleration of change—enabled by the very things whose course we are trying to predict—the conundrum of predictions may be at its most acute. It is thus more practical to work with trajectories. With a trajectory, we know where something is headed, but we cannot say—or we refrain from guessing—where it will end.

http://www.educause.edu/ero/article/six-trajectories-digital-technology-higher-education

By Dian Schaffhauser, THE Journal

It’s a sure bet that every program calling itself an LMS these days offers the course-management basics: providing a way for students to submit assignments and for teachers to run online discussions and deliver announcements. But those were the same features LMS users wanted a decade ago, and they pale in comparison to what users are looking for now: An intuitive interface that mimics consumer social networks; Collaboration that goes far beyond standard teacher-student communication; Assessments with analytics responsive enough to drive instruction for that day, week or month; and The capacity to provide a structure for organizing digital learning resources and sharing them locally and broadly.

http://thejournal.com/articles/2015/06/10/4-features-to-look-for-in-a-21st-century-lms.aspx

By Laura Devaney, eCampus News

A recent survey of 28,000 students yielded three specific factors that could influence online academic performance, with many stakeholders saying online student success really depends on effective learning design. Based on the survey results and statistically valid samples, Eduventures issued three recommendatdions to help institutions focus on online student success.

1. Align online courses with objective design standards to improve performance

2. Launch a pre- and post-design quality assurance process to ensure objectives and expectations inform every aspect of the student experience

3. Optimize the use of a learning management system to enhance the student experience

http://www.ecampusnews.com/top-news/online-student-success-382/

By Meris Stansbury, eCampus News

Usually, the higher-ed industry has a reputation as being one of the slowest adopters of new technology. But when it comes to open source software (OSS), campus IT departments are ahead of other industry and consumer tech adoption curves, says Scott Wilson, service manager of OSS Watch at the University of Oxford. “On the face of it, higher education has been relatively quick to realize the benefits, notes Wilson. “Over 50 percent of higher education institutions use open source, both on the server and on the desktop. And one of the great open source success stories in higher education is the Moodle Virtual Learning Environment (VLE).”

http://www.ecampusnews.com/top-news/open-source-campus-767/

By Keith Krueger, eSchool News

Don’t forget these keys of mobile implementations ingredients-success. Why are some mobile learning implementations successful while others struggle? It seems struggling districts are missing at least one of a handful of ingredients that successful districts have in common. When it comes to mobile learning success, leaving out just one key ingredient can ruin an otherwise perfect recipe. What are these ingredients? They can be categorized as: leadership, strategy, and expectations management.

http://www.eschoolnews.com/2015/06/23/3-ingredients-mobile-044/

by eSchool News

Instructure, a software-as-a-service (SaaS) company and creator of the Canvas learning management system (LMS), has released Canvas Data, a hosted data solution providing fully optimized data to K-12 and higher education institutions capturing online teaching and learning activity. As a tool for education improvement, the basic version of the service will be made available to Canvas clients at no additional cost, with premium versions available for purchase.

http://www.eschoolnews.com/2015/06/24/instructure-canvas-data-674/

By Sean Buckley, Fierce Telecom

United States Senators Angus King (I-Maine) and Shelley Moore Capito (R-W.V.) have introduced the Digital Learning Equity Act of 2015 as a way to improve broadband access and close what they call an education gap for all students. A key focus of the act is the recognition that access to a broadband Internet connection is an important enabler for students to get access to new personalized learning options made available through online and blended learning. The Digital Learning Equity Act of 2015 aims to narrow this growing divide by supporting new methods to ensure students stay connected and extend access to digital learning opportunities when they leave the classroom.

http://www.fiercetelecom.com/story/senators-look-close-broadband-gap-schools-digital-learning-equity-act/2015-06-22

by Bob Sullivan, CNBC

Udacity has abandoned the idea of giving classes away to huge numbers of people in favor of “nanodegrees”—boot-camp style, short-term programs with a laser-like focus on preparing students for a career. Nanodegree subjects include Web developer, Android developer, iOS developer … you get the picture. What you don’t get is a huge student loan debt. Udacity classes start at $1,200 for a six-month program. “Our form factor, delivery over the Web and mobile, makes it very affordable. And we’ve decided to do that away from the traditional university system,” Makhijani said. The school has also added an Uber-like version of peer reviews, digital age teaching assistants, which lets students grab virtual roving experts and get one-on-one feedback that was sorely missing from initial MOOCs.

http://www.cnbc.com/id/102771114

by Jonathan S. Spackman, Jennifer Thorup, Brigham Young University

The need for a reliable strategic planning framework for distance educators and their institutions has never been greater than it is now. Increased government regulations, accreditation standards, and competition are converging with decreased funding from federal, state, and private sources, and administrators require better strategic planning. A strategic planning model known as the Balanced Scorecard has met with widespread adoption and sweeping success among the business community, but, surprisingly, has not been widely adopted among institutions of higher and distance education. In this article the authors share what they have learned about this strategic planning model through a review of the available literature and their own early efforts to introduce it to their institution, the Division of Continuing Education at Brigham Young University in Provo, Utah.

http://www.westga.edu/~distance/ojdla/summer182/spackman_thorup_howell182.html

by Sheryne Southard, Joshua Meddaugh, Antoinette France-Harris; OJDLA

Numerous formats exist for online course delivery: pure online, blended or hybrid, flipped and web-enhanced. The literature is replete with comparison studies on the efficacy of online, hybrid and traditional format courses. However, the self-paced online course, a relatively new and rare variation, has received very little coverage in the body of research on this topic. This study examines the components of a self-paced online course specifically designed to incorporate web-based pedagogy to create an engaging and dynamic learning environment. It compares student performance in a self-paced online course, a conventional online course and a traditional in-class course and reveals the potential for students to thrive in a wide variety of online course formats. This study provides useful information to administrators exploring online programming options and online instructors seeking to improve student performance.

http://www.westga.edu/~distance/ojdla/summer182/southard_meddaugh_harris182.html