Online Learning Update

by Sean Coughlan, BBC

Coursera Founder Daphne Koller says “A full-blown undergraduate degree – I’d be surprised if that didn’t happen within five years. Will it be fully online? Or will it have some residential components? That remains to be seen.” Prof Koller said the technology had kept improving, but universities had been held back by the “protection of the brand” and not wanting to be seen to move away from personal tuition. “It’s the perception we need to break, it’s not the technology that’s been the barrier,” she said.  In terms of supervising exams for distance learners, she said that webcams are “surprisingly hard to beat”.

http://www.bbc.com/news/business-36703778

by Sebastian Thrun, Udacity Blog

Udacity is now rapidly becoming the place to go for lifelong learning, where millions are learning the latest skills that Silicon Valley has to offer. Tech giants like AT&T, Google, Facebook, Amazon, GitHub, and MongoDB are using us to reach any willing learner in the world. And companies are eagerly hiring our graduates. We have educated more students than many four-year colleges. And recently, we started placing our graduates in jobs in the tech industry and beyond, based on their Nanodegree program credentials. Our fifth anniversary is a great moment of reflection. To many, education is a numbers game. It’s about tuition, graduation rates, enrollment. To me, education is all about people.

http://blog.udacity.com/2016/07/udacity-turns-5-by-sebastian-thrun.html

by Sweeta Dash, YourStory

Owing to the steady economic growth and globalisation, education in India is no longer just a teacher talking to a bunch of students in a classroom. With more than 370 million internet users and hundreds of local as well as global business tycoons willing to invest in the future of education, online education in India has picked up pace. In fact, the e-learning market in the country is estimated to be worth more than $3 billion.

http://yourstory.com/2016/07/future-online-education-in-india/

By Growth Engineering

Game mechanics have subsequently been applied to just about everything – Store loyalty cards, air miles, sales leaderboards, Fitbit, and even eating your ‘5 A Day’! But it’s the world of online learning which has seen some of the most extensive use of gamification. If you were unfortunate enough to experience any early attempts at online learning, then chances are that you slipped into a coma immediately afterwards. Online learning can be mind-numbingly boring. But now the power of game mechanics is being used to engage learners with their training, improve their information retention, and ultimately make a training programme much more effective! So which game mechanics in particular can you expect to find in the world of online learning? Let’s take a look!

http://www.growthengineering.co.uk/video-game-mechanics-and-online-learning/

by Erica L. Snow, Educational Data Mining

The current study employs transitional probabilities as a way to classify and trace students’ interactions within an online learning system. Results revealed that students’ interaction patterns within the system varied in relation to their performances on embedded assessments. The results and methodologies presented here are designed to provide practitioners with a starting place for how to extract information concerning how and why their students interact within an online environment.

http://www.educationaldatamining.org/EDM2016/proceedings/paper_190.pdf

BY LAURA DEVANEY, eSchool News

Educators from Pre-K up through higher education most often prefer to participate in professional learning opportunities that focus on training for online software and digital resources (34 percent), classroom management strategies (34 percent), and digital device training (33 percent), according to a new survey released during this year’s ISTE conference. The 2016 Vision K-20 Professional Learning Survey Report is the ninth annual national K-20 educator survey from the Education Technology Industry Network (ETIN) of SIIA, and also is the first survey focusing on online professional learning (PL).

http://www.eschoolnews.com/2016/06/30/180520/

by eCampus News

The eldest Obama daughter is choosing to take a gap year for self-directed learning experiences—a nontraditional pathway that the New York Times says is becoming an increasingly popular option among recent high school grads. But that’s not the only non-traditional pathway to postsecondary education that’s popular among the young folk these days, say three education organizations. According to a recent brief from Coding Dojo (a coding bootcamp), Noodle (an ed website aimed at helping parents and students make better learning decisions), and UnCollege (a program aimed to equip young adults with skills to succeed both personally and professionally post-high school), there are three distinctive nontraditional pathways students seem most inclined to pursue…and for good reason.

http://www.ecampusnews.com/featured/featured-on-ecampus-news/burgeoning-nontraditional-pathways/

by Alice Mani, Deccan Herald

Conventional teaching tools have changed dramatically over the past several decades. Schools have gone from blackboards and chalk to whiteboards with dry erase markers — and in some places, from textbooks to laptops that place a wide range of up-to-date information at students’ fingertips. One of the latest developments in the education world is the growing use of YouTube, the popular video sharing website where any user can upload and share videos of every possible kind. The first thing that many people associate with YouTube is that it is an easy and convenient way to view music videos, television or movie clips. Meanwhile, it is also becoming clear that YouTube has much more potential than that.

http://www.deccanherald.com/content/555058/an-effective-e-learning-tool.html

By Michael Hart, Campus Technology

Educators typically take advantage of online professional learning (PL) opportunities because they are personally interested in finding out more about subjects; they’re most interested in learning about software and digital resources and classroom management; and they’re more likely to take advantage if they’ve been teaching for less than 20 years. Those are some of most significant findings of the 2016 Vision K-20 Survey, released each year by the Software & Information Industry Association’s (SIIA) Education Technology Industry Network (ETIN). This year’s survey focused on why and how educators — all the way from kindergarten through the college and university level — participate in online professional development.

https://campustechnology.com/articles/2016/06/29/software-and-digital-resources-classroom-management-top-interests-among-educators.aspx

by Itai Asseo, et al, EDUCAUSE Review

Predictions for the growth of the IoT vary considerably: some experts forecast that about 20 billion devices will be connected by 2020; others put the number closer to 40 or 50 billion; and some even foresee as many as 100+ billion connected devices by that time. Regardless of the exact number of devices, spending in this market is expected to increase substantially, with the International Data Corporation (IDC) calculating that the worldwide market for IoT solutions will reach $7.1 trillion in four years. Clearly, the hardware, networking, software, analytics, and device/component vendors are embracing the IoT.1 What does all this mean for colleges and universities? Considering the key role being played by vendors in this market, we decided to ask some industry leaders in higher education a few questions.

http://er.educause.edu/articles/2016/6/the-internet-of-things-riding-the-wave-in-higher-education

by Jonathan Jackson, FinFeed

The rise of learning management systems and e-Learning for use in business shows no signs of abating. Statistics highlight the adoption of e-learning methodology will only become stronger in the coming years. It is estimated that between the years 2015 and 2020, the LMS market will grow by about 180%, with an estimate of growth from $4.07 billion in 2015 to $11.34 billion in 2020, roughly an annual growth rate of 22.8%. While LMS (learning management systems) and eLearning isn’t new, technological capabilities have made eLearning more accessible.

http://finfeed.com/technology/vpc/new-e-learning-paradigm/20160628/

by Juliette Powell, Strategy+Business

Andrew Ng, chief scientist of Baidu Research, sees artificial intelligence as part of a larger socially valuable endeavor, says deep learning is a new take on ideas that have been around for decades. People first began experimenting with artificial neural networks, loosely inspired by the brain, years ago. But only recently have we had the computing power, data, and expertise to create networks that learn a hierarchy of concepts in an emergent manner without guidance or design by a human programmer. [These deep learning networks] can help extract patterns from, and make sense of, the complex data inside today’s organizations. Several years ago, we saw deep learning beginning to work really well compared with more traditional AI approaches. Older generations of AI algorithms didn’t know what to do with all the data we now have.

http://www.strategy-business.com/article/An-Advocate-of-Deep-Learning?gko=2d725

By Vanessa Ellingham, Find-MBA

MBA programs that blend online learning with face-to-face teaching are enabling students to pursue an MBA without hindering work or family commitments. For the working professional, pursuing an MBA can be complicated. Not everybody can afford to take one or two years off of work. There are a lot of purely online MBA programs out there, but many feel that it’s harder to develop critical skills like leadership from behind a computer. But there’s an alternative: Blended—or “hybrid—MBA programs typically combine a mix of online teaching using an online forum and video conferencing, independent study and in-house classes where students and lecturers can get to know each other face-to-face. And these aren’t just watered-down versions of classroom-based MBAs. “IE’s blended methodology does not seek to simplify the MBA courses in an online environment, but rather leverage the Internet to promote and enable in-depth discussions,” says Soledad Santos, associate director of admissions at Spain’s IE Business School, which offers a blended program called the “Global MBA.”

http://find-mba.com/articles/blended-learning-mbas-don-t-give-up-your-day-job

BY TALI FOLKINS, Anglican Journal

Anyone interested in world religions can now learn about them for free, from Harvard professors, after the launch of an online course series earlier this year. Since February, Harvard has been offering “World Religions Through Their Scriptures,” a set of six mini-courses or “modules” on major religions delivered over the Internet, and led by five religion specialists from Harvard and one from Wellesley College. The series can be taken free of charge, although students who want to receive certificates of completion must pay $50 (U.S.) per module. There are six modules, on religious literacy; Christianity; Buddhism; Islam; Hinduism and Judaism. Each religion is studied primarily through its scriptures.

http://www.anglicanjournal.com/articles/harvard-launches-free-online-course-on-world-religions

By Joshua Bolkan, Campus Technology

Excelsior College has teamed with a private partner to create a low-cost alternative pathway to college credit. The partnership, with Cengage Learning, is centered on a collection of self-paced digital courses featuring integrated diagnostics and formative assessments. The partnership will also feature a summative assessment created by the school’s Center for Educational Measurement. “The program, which will be delivered online via the Learning Objects Difference Engine platform, will initially focus on two degree pathways — an associate’s in criminal justice, and an MBA, with plans to expand to other subjects and degrees in the near future,” according to a news release. “Students will have access to each digital course and its college credit exam for one low price and, upon successful completion, will earn college credit from Excelsior College, for use towards a degree program at Excelsior or for transfer to any accredited institution accepting such transfer credit.

https://campustechnology.com/articles/2016/06/28/excelsior-teams-with-private-partner-for-low-cost-online-courses.aspx?admgarea=news

by Marilyn Campbell, Alexandria Gazette

Opportunities for continuing and professional education abound for the intellectually curious. One trend in continuing education that local educators say is on the rise is online learning. A study by the Babson Survey Research Group shows the number of students enrolled in distance learning courses increased each year for the past 13 years. Driven by advancements in technology, the explosion of online learning is making education — once available only to those with extra time and the funds — accessible to anyone with a tablet or laptop computer.“Our online courses have increased at about 20 percent a year for about three years,” said Stephen Nodine, Ph.D., associate vice president for E-Learning and director of Distance Education at George Mason University.

http://www.alexandriagazette.com/news/2016/jun/27/online-classes-offer-flexible-options-earning-cred/

By Jarrett Carter, Education Dive

According to a report from the National Student Clearinghouse Research Center, 41% of students who earned an associate degree during the 2009-10 academic year earned a bachelor’s degree within six years. Outcomes were better for younger community college attendees; students aged 20 or younger earned associate degrees, bachelor’s degrees or both, at a slightly higher rate than students between the ages of 20-24 or older. Nearly 37% of students earning an associate degree took 2-3 years to earn a bachelor’s degree.

http://www.educationdive.com/news/report-41-of-associate-degree-earners-move-to-bachelors-in-6-years/421765/

By IBC International News

The Indian market for corporate education in India has been a niche market that has witnessed steady growth but is yet to be explored in full potential and has a huge scope for expansion in the coming years in comparison to global corporate education market. The training methodology has seen rapid digitization of content and migration towards online training which has been a noticeable trend in the last decade. Influx of a flurry of corporate training companies in the Indian landscape has been an important stimulant for the market. Rising demand for trainings on a spectrum of courses has put the market on an exemplary growth track. IT training market in India has been the premium sector and the most important revenue generator for the industry. Telecom Training Industry in India along with corporate training in banking and automobile corporate education has also seen considerable demand.

https://www.ibcworldnews.com/2016/06/27/e-learning-and-mobile-learning-platforms-to-lead-the-corporate-training-market-in-india/

By Jordan Friedman, US News

Virtual group work and a combination of self-paced and live classes are common, experts and students say. When it comes to scheduling courses, experts say, the top online MBA programs give students greater flexibility than they would find on a physical campus. An education from a top online MBA program includes both self-paced instruction, where students watch video lectures and complete readings on their own time, and live learning, where students gather in the online “classroom” – a learning management system such as Canvas or Blackboard – and actively participate using webcams. This combination, experts say, is ideal for working professionals, like Scott Grady, an online MBA student in Temple’s program who lives in Pennsylvania. He says the asynchronous portion allows for significant flexibility, though the live sessions also have benefits.

http://www.usnews.com/education/online-education/articles/2016-06-27/what-to-expect-in-a-top-online-mba-program

by Pradeep, MS Power User

Last year, Microsoft initially announced that they are joining edX, a leader in the online learning movement called MOOCs (Massive Open Online Courses) to offer key development courses from Microsoft experts on edX. Since then, they are working closely with edX to create new professional learning courses for school leaders to support their leadership in education transformation. Starting in the fall of 2016 through spring 2017, five new online courses will be available to help guide school principals and headmasters, superintendents and school leaders enhance classroom learning and outcomes.

http://mspoweruser.com/microsoft-announces-expansion-partnership-edx/

by Walter Pearson, the EvoLLLution

While enrollments of adult students are dropping nearly across the board, four-year non-profit institutions have seen growth among this critical demographic. In the latest report from the National Student Clearing House, the enrollment in Spring 2016 had increased among those above age 24 only for those enrolling in four-year non-profits. The enrollment increased by 1.5 percent. The enrollment among adult students has generally been shifting downward, with the overall enrollment falling 3.4 percent. The downward trend is sharpest in the for-profit sector, dropping 7.7 percent. The two-year sector has seen enrollments fall 5.8 percent while four-year publics have declined 1.8 percent.

http://evolllution.com/managing-institution/higher_ed_business/adult-students-shifting-to-four-year-non-profits/