Online Learning Update

by Timna Jacks, Syndney Morning Herald

Oscar Cooke-Abbott is halfway through an undergraduate course in Physics at elite Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Oh, and he’s 16. He is one of an estimated 2000 school students in Australia studying courses at the world’s top universities for free, through an online platform called Massive Open Online Courses (MOOC). Oscar and his friends believe the platform is “the future of the classroom”. And the Australian tertiary sector appears to agree. Universities are now exploring options to give students like Oscar credit for their hard work. Vice Chancellor of the Australian National University Professor Marnie Hughes-Warrington is lobbying Australia’s state-based school assessment authorities to accredit the university’s Astrophysics MOOC, taught by Nobel Laureate and Vice Chancellor-to-be Brian Schmidt.

http://www.smh.com.au/national/universities-explore-credit-options-for-online-learning-courses-20150725-gikbg5.html

By Joshua Bolkan, THE Journal

Mobile data usage will increase 59 percent this year over last to reach 52 million terabytes, according to a new report from market research firm Gartner. The company predicts that growth will continue through 2018, when mobile data usage will reach an estimated 173 million TB. “Mobile data traffic is soaring worldwide, more than tripling by 2018,” said Jessica Ekholm, research director at Gartner, in a prepared statement. “New, fast mobile data connections (3G and 4G) will grow more slowly, from 3.8 billion in 2015 to 5.1 billion in 2018, as users switch from slower 2G connections and consume more mobile data.”

http://thejournal.com/articles/2015/07/22/mobile-data-usage-to-reach-52-million-terabytes-this-year.aspx

By Corinne Kennedy, McClatchy

A new program to connect low-income households in public housing with internet access and internet-capable devices announced July 15 will aim particularly at children and include training to help program participants maximize their use of the new devices and technology. ConnectHome will link 270,000 households, and 200,000 children, with broadband access in 28 communities including the Choctaw Nation in Oklahoma. “It’s not just making the internet more accessible,” Housing and Urban Development Secretary Julian Castro told reporters as the White House unveiled the program. “It’s making it more meaningful for students and parents by providing digital literacy training.”

http://www.eschoolnews.com/2015/07/23/internet-communities-942/

Veronica Vargas Stidvent, chancellor of WGU Texas, My San Antonio

To meet our present and future workforce needs, Texas employers must look beyond the 18- to 21-year-old “traditional student” cohort. In the U.S. in 2011, only 29 percent of students enrolled in a four-year public or nonprofit college were full-time students of standard college age. We need a broader solution, one that provides ample opportunity for nontraditional students — Texans who work full time and cannot logistically or financially afford to leave careers to enroll in college full time. Many Texans may have started, but were unable to complete, their undergraduate or graduate degrees for a variety of personal or professional reasons. It isn’t feasible for many of these potential students to stop working to pursue additional education. They need flexibility. We’re hopeful that employers, state leaders and our colleagues in higher education will recognize the promise of online learning and competency-based education for a workforce that demands flexibility and affordability.

http://www.mysanantonio.com/opinion/commentary/article/Online-learning-can-address-Texas-talent-dilemma-6404293.php

By Meg Lloyd, Campus Technology

Penn State’s One Button Studio has changed the meaning of “video literacy,” giving students and instructors the tools to create professional-looking videos without technical assistance. One Button Studio is just that simple: You walk into the studio and plug in your thumb drive, which triggers the lights to come on and all the equipment to start up, ready for recording. Get your mind on your presentation and your toes on the mark. Hit the big silver button when you want to begin … and again when you want to end. Thoughtfully designed studio presets assure a high-quality recording and the most bang for the buck from single-camera-angle recording. While there’s nothing new about recording studios, the One Button Studio has broken new ground with its foolproof simplicity and rock-solid dependability. Now any student, professor or staff member can successfully produce videos with absolutely no technical assistance.

http://campustechnology.com/articles/2015/07/23/making-an-impact-with-self-service-video-recording.aspx

By Pasha Souvorin, GPB Blog

I did this the hard way – by spending hundreds of hours recording my own video tutorials and building them into a website. The exciting news I have to share is that this is no longer necessary. PBS LearningMedia has put together one of the most amazing collections of instructional videos I’ve ever seen. At this point, there are over 100,000 digital resources on their website. There are several powerful ways to use these tools. First of all, teachers can browse for videos by standards. If you have a series of curricular standards that you need to teach, you can easily find videos tailored to those standards. Teachers can also create storyboards, assignments, and even quiz questions to go along with the videos. Once teachers have built an online “lesson” around some PBS LearningMedia resources, it’s easy to share that lesson with classes. Plus, all of the material is the high quality work of PBS. If you are a teacher who is thinking about flipping something – an assignment, a unit, or even a whole class, PBS LearningMedia is a great place to start.

http://www.gpb.org/blogs/education-matters/2015/07/24/i-flipped-my-classroom-the-hard-way-you-don%E2%80%99t-have

by Michael Horn, Forbes

In education, online learning is the first disruptive innovation since the advent of the printing press. Combined with competency-based learning—in which students progress upon true mastery of their learning, not because of an arbitrary time-based measure— there is a big opportunity to transform our higher education system into a more affordable, student-centered one that is able to serve many more students. True to form, we are seeing a variety of potentially disruptive organizations powered by online learning emerge from outside traditional higher education. These upstarts are reaching those students who need more education but for reasons having to do with convenience and accessibility, simplicity, and cost, are, at that point in their lives, nonconsumers of traditional higher education. The organizations are generally simpler, more focused institutions than our traditional colleges and universities.

http://www.forbes.com/sites/michaelhorn/2015/07/23/disruptive-innovations-in-higher-ed-emerging-from-outside-mainstream/

by RASHID HASSAN, Arab News

The National Center for e-Learning and Distance Education has come up with a comprehensive e-learning program to prepare Saudi female graduates as faculty members and institutional administrators for the development of online education in the Kingdom. The center announced the program on Monday in partnership with the Open Education Consortium, the network for open education committed to advancing its impact on global education. According to the plan, the core of the yearlong program is to build on principles of online learning in the US to prepare female faculty and university leaders with skills in online and blending learning, which is a formal education program in which a student learns at least in part through delivery of content and instruction via digital and online media with some element of student control over time, place, path and pace.

http://www.arabnews.com/saudi-arabia/news/780236

by Business2Community

Whether you’re a high school grad looking for a challenge or an adult who wants to indulge in world-class learning on their own time, there’s probably something for you in the long list of MOOCs offered by these institutions. The education experts at StartClass sifted through the top ranked schools to find those who offer MOOCs. They highlighted a few interesting examples of classes and detailed the platform each school uses. Note that these courses aren’t for credit.

http://www.business2community.com/us-news/31-elite-colleges-that-offer-free-online-learning-01284554

by Josh Bersin, CLOmedia

E-learning is back with a vengeance. Digital learning today is more exciting, dynamic and relevant than ever. Video, social experiences, gaming and online accreditation are all common. And this time, e-learning really works. Our research shows that most large companies today are in the middle of a digital renaissance; they desperately need to re-engineer their employee learning experiences to accommodate this new, refreshing, exciting market. You should take e-learning seriously. It will disrupt many of the systems you have. It will force you to shift to learning experience design. It will put stress on your learning management system and infrastructure. But its value has increased, which is why being a CLO or learning leader is more exciting now than it has been in years.

http://www.clomedia.com/articles/6386-has-e-learning-gone-wild-again