Online Learning Update

by James Connington, Telegraph

UK students have a number of options available to them, ranging from looking abroad for countries with lower tuition fees, to forgoing university altogether and opting for an apprenticeship or school leaver programme. One option that has the potential to flourish in this new environment of high fees and student distrust is online and open access based higher education. “I think it’s a great means of liberation for people who don’t have any means of getting on from where they are.” On the surface, many might be quick to dismiss such systems, saying they will never be a match for a physical university. Furthermore, for the most part, online or open access higher education systems are meant as alternatives, to provide an option for those without access to traditional higher education, due to deprivation or other circumstances.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/education/universityeducation/11790571/Will-UK-students-look-to-free-online-higher-education.html

By Joshua Bolkan, THE Journal

Tablet vendors shipped 44.7 million units in the second quarter of 2015, a 7 percent drop compared to the same period last year when the segment notched 48 million devices sold and a 3.9 percent decline compared to the fist quarter of this year, according to a new report from International Data Corp. (IDC). Most of the decline came at the expense of the segment leaders, with Apple and Samsung, the first and second place vendors, respectively, the only two companies in the top five to see shipments drop year over year.

http://thejournal.com/articles/2015/08/05/tablet-shipments-drop-7-percent-in-second-quarter-of-2015-with-apple-posting-largest-decline.aspx

by Bruce V. Bigelow, xconomy

After establishing a new office of online education earlier this year, UC San Diego recently unveiled plans to develop massive open online courses—or MOOCs—to better prepare workers for jobs in two specialized tech sectors. Under a “global skills initiative” announced by Mountain View, CA-based Coursera, UC San Diego said it will be working on the classes with Qualcomm (NASDAQ: QCOM), the wireless technologies giant, and San Francisco-based Splunk (NASDAQ: SPLK), a big data software developer. Coursera said last week its initiative is intended to provide workers with needed skills in today’s tech economy.

http://www.xconomy.com/san-diego/2015/08/10/coursera-uc-san-diego-use-moocs-to-make-workers-more-job-ready/

by Tim Dodd, Financial Review

US massive open online course provider Coursera is creating closer ties with employers, aiming to set up a network of companies which will help fund new courses as well as offering industry expertise, specialist guest lecturers and student case studies. Coursera promises companies that join the scheme, called the Global Skills Initiative, that they will “receive visible branding throughout the course, learner survey and performance data, and course materials for employee training”. Coursera also says it will give companies access to the top performers in the course “to expand their hiring pools”.

http://www.afr.com/technology/apps/education/mooc-watch-coursera-builds-links-to-companies-20150806-giti2u

by One India

Taxi drivers in Rio de Janeiro have been offered free English courses to improve communication with tourists during next year’s Olympics. Some 10,000 online courses will be provided to drivers under the plan, a joint initiative between Rio 2016, Radio Globo and the English First group, reported Xinhua. Those who complete the course will receive a certificate of recognition from the ministry of eduction. “When tourists arrive in Rio, taxi drivers are often the first local people to greet them,” Rio 2016 head of engagement Mariana Behr told Rio2016.com.

http://www.oneindia.com/sports/rio-cab-drivers-offered-free-english-courses-for-olympics-1831811.html

by Aida Akl, VOA

Distance education is increasingly becoming available to mobile users, both as an alternative and a compliment to structured learning. Some educators hope it could even level the global skills gap. But that remains a work in progress. Open universities that offer MOOCs or Massive Open Online Courses with content from participating universities are not new. But their pace has picked up with increased global Internet connectivity, making it possible for people to learn anything, anywhere, often for free. For most people around the world, “the first time and actually only time they’ll get on the Internet is with a mobile device – their phone,” said the World Bank’s Michael Trucano, Senior Education & Technology Policy Specialist and Global Lead for Innovation in Education.

http://blogs.voanews.com/techtonics/2015/08/07/mobile-extends-reach-potential-of-distance-learning/

by Athanasios Drigas, Marios Pappas, International Journal of Online Engineering

The last decade, researchers and educators have shown particular interest for the use of educational video games in mathematics education, in an effort to provide educational character to entertainment. In this paper we represent some of the most representative studies which evaluate the effects of video games on mathematics achievement as well as the improvement of memory, attention and cognitive skills. As indicated by the studies, video games may constitute useful tools in mathematics education as they support children’s comprehension on fundamental concepts, but also motivate them to see positively the course of mathematics.

http://online-journals.org/index.php/i-joe/article/view/4742

By Devon Haynie, US News

Women say online learning gives them more flexibility to tackle their work and family commitments. Women may be more highly represented in online education because of the kinds of jobs they pursue, experts say. In the world of online learning, female students predominate. At the undergraduate level, 70 percent of online students were women in spring 2015, according to a recent survey. Among graduate students, 72 percent of students were female. Some online bachelor’s programs are made up almost entirely of women, according to U.S. News data. In 2013-2014, these 10 schools had the highest percentages of female undergraduates among the 224 ranked programs that submitted data, excluding female-only programs.

http://www.usnews.com/education/online-education/articles/2015/08/05/why-women-are-drawn-to-online-learning-in-higher-numbers-than-men

By Tara García Mathewson, Eductaion Dive

Nanodegrees from Udacity, microdegrees from Coursera, and other programs like them resemble the trade certificates or extension programs of the past, but some see these new innovations as the latest “game-changers” in higher ed. The accelerated certificate programs create their curricula with employers to offer a course that directly readies adults for jobs waiting in industries increasingly open to hiring employees without four-year degrees in their fields. In many cases, the mini degree programs attract college-educated students looking for a career change, but some students are starting to look at them while getting a degree or before college entirely.

http://www.educationdive.com/news/are-nanodegrees-how-moocs-will-ultimately-disrupt-higher-ed/403553/

by Audrey Penner, Evolllution

Postsecondary education (PSE) is experiencing a perfect storm and I call this confluence of events “21st-Century PSE: Normal 3.0.” This perfect storm includes advanced educational technology (simplistically referred to as Online Learning), declining demographics, a world-is-flat distribution model, an Internet of Things, and globally driven industry demands for highly skilled labor. Normal 3.0 means in-time, on-time delivery of education when the student wants/needs it, and where the student wants/needs it. Normal 3.0 means some aspect of online learning and self-study. Think YouTube versus textbook. Normal 3.0 means using technology to delivery and measure education.

http://evolllution.com/revenue-streams/distance_online_learning/normal-3-0-postsecondary-education-gazing-higher-eds-future/

by Douglas Belkin, Wall Street Journal

Rick Levin, Chief Executive of Coursera, gestures at a session in Davos, Switzerland while president of Yale University in 2011. Mr. Levin said his company’s new offerings will enable companies to expand the global pool of available talent. One of the largest providers of massive open online courses is teaming up with several major financial and technology companies to offer new classes this fall, the latest sign MOOC providers are scaling back their ambitions to upend the world of academia to make a profit. Coursera’s new offerings are sponsored—and partially designed by—several major financial and technology corporations. Instead of the Great Books, they focus on skills training and professional development. Rick Levin, Coursera’s CEO, said the courses—dubbed the Global Skills Initiative—will enable companies to expand the global pool of available talent in their respective industries and help universities provide courses that are in tune with what employers want.

http://www.wsj.com/articles/coursera-partners-with-tech-financial-firms-for-online-classes-1438696601

by John K. Waters, Campus Technology

Udacity created quite a buzz at the annual Google I/O conference this year when the for-profit online education provider unveiled its new Android Developer Nanodegree program. Udacity later made the headline-grabbing announcement that it will refund half the tuition ($200 per month) for students completing the program in 12 months. The Android nanodegree is the sixth member of Udacity’s young lineup of industry-led, career-oriented, online certification programs, but it’s not surprising that the launch of this one would draw so much attention. There are about a billion active Android users worldwide, and consequently, something approaching urgent demand for Android developers. But this high-profile launch also raises again the question of where these kinds of programs fit in the post-secondary educational landscape, and whether such focused learning programs might finally emerge as a disruptive force in higher education.

http://campustechnology.com/articles/2015/08/05/how-nanodegrees-are-disrupting-higher-education.aspx

by Carl Straumsheim, Inside Higher Ed

A line about the integrity of online learning in Hillary Clinton’s higher education plan has experts on online education questioning the candidate’s grasp of the market. In a version of the plan distributed to the media this past weekend, the campaign said, “We must restore integrity to online learning and will not tolerate programs that fall short,” as though online education has recently lost its way. The campaign reworded the sentence before Monday’s announcement, however. The published version reads, “We must bring integrity to online learning” — as though it never had any in the first place. A spokesperson for the campaign did not respond to a request for comment on Wednesday. Online learning experts criticized the plan for what they described as a “narrow” view of how education is delivered — a view they said implies that the online education market is dominated by for-profit diploma mills looking to take advantage of unwitting students.

https://www.insidehighered.com/news/2015/08/13/clinton-higher-education-plan-questions-integrity-online-learning

By Andrew Barbour, eCampus News

While many higher-ed IT departments are still struggling to handle the flood of mobile devices onto campus networks, some industry experts now advise institutions to adopt a broader strategy that goes beyond BYOD to encompass the applications they run, too. “We are transitioning from BYOD to bring-your-own-application (BYOA)—it’s really about the application,” said Chris LaPoint, vice president of product management at SolarWinds, a Texas-based company that develops IT management software. “The applications that run on those devices are potentially more important than the fact that these devices are showing up on the network. That’s the landscape of the problem.” According to LaPoint, BYOD and BYOA must be tackled as part of an integrated strategy that rests on three key considerations.

http://www.ecampusnews.com/top-news/campus-byod-byoa-718/

by Ryan Craig, EdSurge

As faculty at colleges and universities are all too aware, it’s hard to do two jobs at the same time. Since the advent of the modern research university over a century ago, faculty have effectively held down two jobs: conducting (and publishing) research and teaching students. The downside is that both jobs require significant expertise and commitment to do well. And so I often think about this question: would faculty be better teachers and produce superior student outcomes if we asked them to focus solely on instruction? If today’s answer is “maybe,” tomorrow’s will be “probably” due to three shifts that will make instruction more complex and involved, requiring specialized knowledge and skills and unquestionably a full-time commitment.

https://www.edsurge.com/n/2015-08-04-the-3-instructional-shifts-that-will-redefine-the-college-professor

By Reis Thebault, The Columbus Dispatch

Analytics relies on past student data, such as grades, credit hours and class difficulty, to predict how future students may fare. And so, when advisers look at the data, they aren’t spying, they’re helping, Burns said. “This is not Big Brother in a bad way,” she said. “Advising is a craft. A lot of times academic advisers are not given the information they need to successfully help students.” In some cases, that information is more than just academic data; it can be information about students’ social lives.

http://www.ecampusnews.com/technologies/data-analytics-colleges-985/

by BEN POPKEN, NBC News

Students hitting the college bookstore this fall will get a stark lesson in economics before they’ve cracked open their first chapter. Textbook prices are soaring. Some experts say it’s because they’re sold like drugs. According to NBC’s review of Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) data, textbook prices have risen over three times the rate of inflation from January 1977 to June 2015, a 1,041 percent increase. “They’ve been able to keep raising prices because students are ‘captive consumers.’ They have to buy whatever books they’re assigned,” said Nicole Allen, a spokeswoman for the Scholarly Publishing and Academic Resources Coalition. In some ways, this is similar to a pharmaceutical sales model where the publishers spend their time wooing the decision makers to adopt their product. In this case, it’s professors instead of doctors.

http://www.nbcnews.com/feature/freshman-year/college-textbook-prices-have-risen-812-percent-1978-n399926

By Jan Dizon, Tech Times

If you’ve ever wanted to develop your own games but have been held back because you lack the coding skills to turn your dreams into a reality, now’s your chance to change that. The Next Web is offering a Game Development online course to help you get the knowlege and skills needed to create your very own game – and to top it all off, you only pay what you want for the entire course bundle! The courses included in the Game Development Bundle are ‘Game Development for Non-Coders’ valued at $128, ‘Unity 3D Game Developing and Design’ originally priced at $225, and ‘HTML5 App and Game Development’ for $186. However, under the Pay What You Want deal, you can pay absolutely whatever you want (provided that the amount is more than $1).

http://www.techtimes.com/articles/73722/20150802/want-game-developer-course-lets-pay-whatever.htm

BY MARÁ ROSE WILLIAMS, Kansas City Star

The University of Missouri’s online program makes its own money, and it can make its own tuition discounts. So hoping to boost enrollment, Mizzou Online on Friday announced it will give a 10 percent tuition discount to Missouri students enrolled in a degree program fully online. The discount beginning this fall semester will save qualified students about $82.86 per class. The typical online student enrolls in two three-credit-hour courses a semester. Without the discount, online courses cost the same as classes taken on campus — $276.20 a credit hour for undergraduates.

http://www.kansascity.com/news/government-politics/article29689135.html

by Kristen Dicerbo, EDUCAUSE Review

Games can serve as a means of not just developing domain-specific knowledge and skills but also identity and values key to professional functioning. The data from games enable understanding how students approach and solve problems, as well as estimating their progress on a learning trajectory.

http://www.educause.edu/ero/article/taking-serious-games-seriously-education

By Salary.com

Although online degrees were at one time regarded as less desirable than traditional, on-campus programs, they are now perceived to be valuable and relevant in today’s work world. E-learning options are designed with the needs of working adults in mind. They are developed in consultation with experienced professionals in industry and business, ensuring that students learn concepts and methods that are applicable to their particular work environment. Employers are likely to be impressed by your initiative and motivation to take advantage of the Internet to help develop your knowledge and career. Employees who take time to pursue additional education outside of the work place while keeping up daily job duties set themselves apart from their colleagues as ambitious and engaged contributors to the organization’s success.

http://www.salary.com/six-advantages-of-an-online-degree/