Online Learning Update

September 30, 2016

New University of Chicago website connects alumni, provides access to online courses

Filed under: Online Learning News — Ray Schroeder @ 12:10 am

By Carl Vogel, University of Chicago News

University of Chicago alumni have a new place to take online courses led by University faculty, connect and collaborate with other graduates, and find curated content from across UChicago. Billed as a site for intellectual inquiry, discussion and engagement, AlumniU launched Sept. 21 and is free and open exclusively to University alumni. “Our alumni are interested in content that is intellectually stimulating and of the highest quality,” said Mark Nemec, dean of the Graham School of Continuing Liberal and Professional Studies. “We’ve learned what people miss after graduating is opportunities for the rigorous engagement they had while at the University of Chicago.”

https://news.uchicago.edu/article/2016/09/21/new-website-connects-alumni-provides-access-online-courses

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Weaknesses of online and face-to-face learning

Filed under: Online Learning News — Ray Schroeder @ 12:05 am

by Nigel Paine, Learning and Development

“People today like to access a smartphone which apparently we do 200 or 300 times a day. “The idea that online learning means you sit at a desk behind a desktop computer is nonsense.” The best online learning is a combination of various forms of learning, including engaging people on smartphones and tablets. “But it’s not good to take something which fits on a 21 inch desktop and squeeze it onto a phone-size screen so it’s totally illegible and absolutely useless,” said Paine. “I am talking about reconfiguring learning for a smartphone. Most of us don’t sit there for hours looking at our phone, we access it for 30 seconds or so. We don’t write essays on a phone, we send a two-line text.”

http://www.ldphub.com/general-news/weaknesses-of-online-and-facetoface-learning-223731.aspx

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Online Learning vs. Traditional Learning: What’s Better for Your IT Career?

Filed under: Online Learning News — Ray Schroeder @ 12:02 am

by Michelle White, B2C

No matter how you acquire it, an advanced degree or additional certifications can certainly be a strong step forward in your information technology career. In fact, detailed studies have discovered that online learning is just as effective as learning in the traditional classroom. For the future student, this indicates the choice between the two may simply come down to personal preference. While some may feel the need to see a professor physically in front of them, others may prefer the flexibility of completing coursework as their schedule allows from the comfort of their own home. What is important is not the way you choose to learn, but the choice to be a life-long learner and continuously add to your set of skills in whatever way works for you. The IT professionals most in demand are the ones who, in addition to previous achievements, strive to stay current on trends, programs, and emerging IT tools.

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September 29, 2016

Will MicroMasters add value to growing interest in advanced degrees?

Filed under: Online Learning News — Ray Schroeder @ 12:10 am

By Jarrett Carter, Education Dive

Colleges and universities throughout the country have entered an agreement with EdX to offer MicroMasters: small-scale credentialing programs that can be completed in months and can apply earned credit towards a master’s degree. Online programs are offered in supply chain management, hospitality and business and social work, among dozens of other emerging professional fields. Credentials can be earned at a fraction of the cost of a full master’s degree, which can spur savings in student loans of out-of-pocket expenses for a full degree.

http://www.educationdive.com/news/will-micromasters-add-value-to-growing-interest-in-advanced-degrees/426726/

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Lifelong Learning and the Future of Work

Filed under: Online Learning News — Ray Schroeder @ 12:05 am

By Christopher Watkins

Job opportunities continue to grow in emerging spaces such as virtual reality, machine learning, artificial intelligence, and autonomous vehicles. At the same time, existing roles in fields from healthcare to finance are changing dramatically as new tools and technologies are adopted. The concept of lifelong learning is accordingly transforming from a discretionary aspiration to a career necessity. No longer is it a supplemental luxury to learn new skills, and no longer is learning new skills something you do only when you’re pursuing a significant career change. Being relevant, competitive, and in-demand in today’s fast-moving world requires an ongoing commitment to lifelong learning regardless of your role or career path.

http://blog.udacity.com/2016/09/lifelong-learning-future-work.html

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Americans fall along a spectrum of preparedness to pursue learning online

Filed under: Online Learning News — Ray Schroeder @ 12:02 am

BY JOHN B. HORRIGAN, Pew Charitable Trust

In this report, we use newly released Pew Research Center survey findings to address a related issue: digital readiness. The new analysis explores the attitudes and behaviors that underpin people’s preparedness and comfort in using digital tools for learning as we measured it in a survey about people’s activities for personal learning. Specifically, we assess American adults according to five main factors: their confidence in using computers, their facility with getting new technology to work, their use of digital tools for learning, their ability to determine the trustworthiness of online information, and their familiarity with contemporary “education tech” terms. It is important to note that the findings here just cover people’s learning activities in digital spaces and do not address the full range of important things that people can do online or their “readiness” to perform them.

http://www.pewinternet.org/2016/09/20/digital-readiness-gaps/

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September 28, 2016

Because of the ADA, Universities May Withdraw Free Online Course Content

Filed under: Online Learning News — Ray Schroeder @ 12:10 am

By WALTER OLSON, CATO Institute

On September 13, the University of California at Berkeley announced that it may have to take down online lecture and course content that it has offered free to the public: content that we have made available to the public. That Berkeley is not just imagining these legal dangers is illustrated by this clip from Tamar Lewin of the New York Times from February of last year: “Harvard and M.I.T. Are Sued Over Lack of Closed Captions.” I’ve been warning about this, to no apparent avail, for a long time. I noted the tag-team alliance of the U.S. Department of Justice, disabled-rights groups, and fee-seeking private lawyers in gearing up web-accessibility doctrine.

http://www.cato.org/blog/because-ada-universities-may-withdraw-free-online-course-content

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MicroMasters on a Global Scale

Filed under: Online Learning News — Ray Schroeder @ 12:03 am

By Carl Straumsheim, Inside Higher Ed

Fourteen universities around the world are today launching modular master’s degree programs in which students can complete up to half of the course work online, earn a credential and then decide whether they want to apply to pursue the full degree. The launch of the 19 programs, known as MicroMasters, follows a pilot at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. MIT has since early this year tested the model in its supply chain management program. Learners start the program by taking massive open online courses hosted on edX, the MOOC platform MIT helped found. After completing five MOOCs, learners who pay a fee can either call it quits and walk away with a certificate — or apply and, if accepted to MIT, eventually earn a master’s of engineering in logistics.

https://www.insidehighered.com/news/2016/09/20/mooc-based-masters-degree-initiative-expands-globally

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Experts says education headed for dramatic shift by 2020

Filed under: Online Learning News — Ray Schroeder @ 12:02 am

By Jarrett Carter, Education Dive

Fast Company describes the five ways that the industry of education is likely to change by the year 2020, with communication, technology and industry driving the rapid shifts over the next four years. According to some experts, remote learning, credentialing, student feedback, and the ability to adapt will be the biggest changes that students will expect, and that leaders will be forced to accommodate. Technological innovations and shifts in population will make the United States less of a global player unless the country moves to the front of educational achievement.

http://www.educationdive.com/news/experts-says-education-headed-for-dramatic-shift-by-2020/426626/

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September 27, 2016

Credential Transparency Initiative Intros New Credentialing Tool, Nonprofit Org

Filed under: Online Learning News — Ray Schroeder @ 12:10 am

By Rhea Kelly, Campus Technology

The Credential Transparency Initiative (CTI) today debuted its Credential Registry, a tool for documenting and comparing certifications, degrees, certificates, licenses, badges and other micro-credentials. The project includes the formation a new nonprofit organization, Credential Engine, tasked with taking the effort mainstream. Led by a partnership among George Washington University’s Institute of Public Policy, Workcred (an affiliate of the American National Standards Institute), and Southern Illinois University Carbondale’s Center for Workforce Development, the Credential Transparency Initiative aims to “develop common terms for describing key features of credentials; create a voluntary, web-based registry for sharing the resulting information; and test practical apps (software applications) for employers, students, educators and other credential stakeholders,” according to the CTI website.

https://campustechnology.com/articles/2016/09/19/credential-transparency-initiative-intros-new-credentialing-tool-nonprofit-org.aspx

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Outsourcing IT in Higher Ed: A Necessary Evil?

Filed under: Online Learning News — Ray Schroeder @ 12:04 am

By Dian Schaffhauser, Campus Technology

News that the University of California San Francisco plans to outsource many of its technology functions to an India-based service provider appears to have sparked a blaze of concern that soon the entire UC system could adopt the same contract. While offshoring opponents predict that the plan could set off a domino effect of other colleges and universities following suit, institutional leaders appear to view the UCSF move as an individual decision made for strategic reasons — no different, really, from choosing any kind of service delivery. According to reporting by Computerworld, healthcare-focused UCSF is laying off some 17 percent of the institution’s 565-employee IT staff starting next February — after those same workers have presumably trained Indian replacements employed by HCL Technologies. Of the 96 positions being eliminated, just over half of the people facing layoffs are permanent employees.

https://campustechnology.com/articles/2016/09/19/outsourcing-it-in-higher-ed.aspx

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Why It’s Time for Education Technology to Become an Academic Discipline

Filed under: Online Learning News — Ray Schroeder @ 12:02 am

by David Raths, Campus Technology

As Georgetown University prepares to launch a master’s degree program in Learning and Design, a new academic discipline built around the study of education technology, learning analytics and instructional design is starting to take shape. Leaders in the field are “bringing about a set of practices that require a knowledge base, that require an ability to share information and that start to form a set of practices that we can all share — but also resist, test, push back against and challenge each other on,” according to Eddie Maloney, executive director of the university’s Center for New Designs in Learning and Scholarship. Maloney, who is also professor of the practice of narrative literature and theory in Georgetown’s Department of English, has observed a trajectory in the discipline of education technology over the last four years. “We saw 2012 as an inflection point regarding the role technology plays in higher education,” he said, referring to what The New York Times dubbed “The Year of the MOOC.”

https://campustechnology.com/articles/2016/09/19/why-its-time-for-education-technology-to-become-an-academic-discipline.aspx

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September 26, 2016

Digital Badges and Academic Transformation

Filed under: Online Learning News — Ray Schroeder @ 12:07 am

by Veronica Diaz, EDUCAUSE Review

It seems that digital badges are everywhere these days: in fitness apps, on social networking websites, and in company loyalty programs. In higher education, they’re taking the form of microcredentials, representing successful completion of a variety of learning experiences inside and outside of the traditional for-credit course. Institutions continue to experiment with digital badges, and the rate of adoption is increasing at a rapid pace. According to a recent study of 190 institutions by the University Professional Continuing Education Association (UPCEA), one in five colleges has issued digital badges. In today’s competitive economy, students and recent graduates are seeking ways to showcase the wide-ranging knowledge and skills they’ve developed outside of the traditional classroom experience. This learning could take place via internships, co-op programs, community service learning programs, study abroad programs, undergraduate research programs to supplement coursework, or seminars for graduate students, among others.

http://er.educause.edu/blogs/2016/9/digital-badges-and-academic-transformation

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The how’s, why’s and what-to-do’s of cloud security in higher education.

Filed under: Online Learning News — Ray Schroeder @ 12:05 am

BY MERIS STANSBURY, eCampus News

According to a number of cybersecurity experts, no platform or industry is immune from data breaches, especially as targeted “hacktivism” is on the rise, says John Wethington, cybersecurity executive at Ground Labs. But if the cloud is “only as safe as the administrative credentials of a single person,” how can colleges and universities focus on identifying all of the data they have and reducing their digital footprint? In 2015, Ken Westin, senior security analyst at Tripwire, as well as FBI experts working the case, said Penn State’s attack by Chinese cyber terrorists was part of a larger campaign targeting similar departments and groups in higher education in a search for intellectual property. Now, in 2016, during an interview with Wethington on cloud security issues in higher education, it seems this type of what he calls “hacktivism” is on the rise.

http://www.ecampusnews.com/safety-and-security/cloud-security-hacktivism/

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Why it makes sense to study online

Filed under: Online Learning News — Ray Schroeder @ 12:02 am

by the Sociable

In recent years, online learning has gone from strength to strength, with more and more students opting to take their degree courses online rather than attending physical classes. Online learning is becoming more accepted and “normal” in today’s digital world, as opposed to when it was first introduced, which saw a lot of stigma attached to online degrees, leading many to believe they were somehow not worth as much as degrees obtained from a physical college.

http://sociable.co/web/online-learning-makes-sense/

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September 25, 2016

10 Awesome Online Courses for Only $15

Filed under: Online Learning News — Ray Schroeder @ 12:05 am

by Entrepreneur

What if we told you there was an awesome opportunity to invest in yourself, improve your knowledge, and take your skills to the next level … for only $15? We thought that might get your attention. Udemy offers thousands of online courses that movers, shakers, and entrepreneurs like you can enroll in to better themselves and their businesses. And the best part is that we’ve picked 10 of the highest-rated and most popular courses that you can enroll in for just $15. There’s something for every type of entrepreneur: writers can sharpen their pencils with journalist Shani Raja, business owners can build their personal brand with Gary Vaynerchuk, day traders can sweeten their stocks with Jeff Tompkins, and many more!

https://www.entrepreneur.com/slideshow/282517

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Higher ed leaders say industry is in trouble

Filed under: Online Learning News — Ray Schroeder @ 12:02 am

By Jarrett Carter, Education Dive

Inside Higher Ed reports on a survey of more than 200 college and university executives that will reveal a negative perception of higher education’s commitment to student outcomes, but largely positive perception of the work being done on their individual campuses. More than 60% of survey respondents indicated that their school has too many initiatives in place designed to address student outcomes, which leads to “initiative fatigue” and a lack of deliverables or results in this key area. Nearly half of the executives surveyed say that higher education at large is somewhat worse than it was 10 years ago.

http://www.educationdive.com/news/higher-ed-leaders-say-industry-is-in-trouble/426259/

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Pokemon Go craze hits classroom

Filed under: Online Learning News — Ray Schroeder @ 12:01 am

By Colleen Williamson, Parson Sun

Since its release in July, Pokemon Go has grown in popularity and criticism as the augmented reality game using global positioning systems and mobile devices has taken players outside their homes in their quests to capture and train virtual, fantasy creatures called Pokemon. The popularity of the game with youths is evident, which is what led Meadow View Grade School seventh- and eighth-grade math teacher Morgan Wacker to spending part of her summer working with her husband to develop a means of linking the game to math, school and home learning.

http://www.parsonssun.com/news/article_68663fae-7c93-11e6-b8a7-c7064c9d85f6.html

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September 24, 2016

Coding from college to high school

Filed under: Online Learning News — Ray Schroeder @ 12:10 am

by JANEE WILSON, Mat-Su Valley

It’s not often that a high school elective class can make students immediately employable. Jenny Barnes, John Notestine along with Colony High Teacher Brian Mead are bringing a surplus of job opportunities to students. It’s called CS50, and the plan is to have it be the most popular class in school. CS50 stands for Computer Science 50. It’s a MOOC, massive open online course, started at Harvard by Professor David Malan. At Harvard, the class became so popular and well-loved that Harvard decided to take it on the road, teaching coding to high school students. The high school version of CS50 takes the semester long university course and extends it over an entire school year

http://www.frontiersman.com/schools/coding-from-college-to-high-school/article_d802f69a-7aa9-11e6-a1ce-6bc2e26b16f9.html

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The Internet of Things, Machine Learning and In-Transit Visibility Revolutionizing Supply Chain

Filed under: Online Learning News — Ray Schroeder @ 12:05 am

BY SCOTT DULMAN, SDC Executive

There are new technologies and solutions—related to the Internet of Things (IoT)—that are creating opportunities for retailers to improve omnichannel operations, better manage inventories, reduce logistics costs, and retain and acquire customers. But the IoT—along with Big Data—offers a solution to unlock end-to-end supply chain visibility, giving retailers the ability to save costs through improved efficiency by better planning with analytics and machine learning. Chief among these benefits are increases in on-time deliveries, reductions in planning and scheduling costs, opportunities to decrease inventories, reduced transportation costs and improved cross-docking efficiency. Combined, these benefits enable a retailer to improve customer service, and increase revenue and margins.

http://www.sdcexec.com/article/12257563/the-internet-of-things-machine-learning-and-in-transit-visibility-revolutionizing-supply-chain

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Staying the course on a massive open online course

Filed under: Online Learning News — Ray Schroeder @ 12:02 am

by Science Daily

Massive open online courses (MOOCs) are popular with educational establishments as an efficient way to deliver their materials. Unfortunately, student engagement does not match the enthusiasm of the educators and the number who complete any given course is disturbingly low, according to research. The authors of the paper, suggest that an engagement model for MOOCs needs to be implemented and simple steps taken to improve completion rates.

https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2016/09/160915120349.htm

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