Online Learning Update

By Bradley Fuster, US News

It’s not difficult to imagine the many ways online students might cheat – and all the smart reasons not to do it. Without the watchful eye of a professor or proctor, many online students might be tempted to have a friend take their exam or write their paper, or quickly search the internet to plagiarize assignments. As more online programs employ technological countermeasures to curb and catch cheaters, the new black market of cheat-for-hire services has proliferated. These nefarious services offer to complete as little as one assignment and as much as an entire online course for a negotiated fee. Online cheat-for-hire companies openly advertise online, including sites such as Craigslist, and social media.

http://www.usnews.com/education/online-learning-lessons/articles/2017-01-27/4-dangers-of-cheating-services-for-online-courses

by Adam Marchick, Voice Labs

In 2016, Amazon Echo evolved from novelty to in-the-home powerhouse, with over seven million devices in households. Google Home launched in November, legitimizing a multi-platform ecosystem of voice-first devices. These two devices (Google Home, Amazon Echo) are simply the start of a much bigger future, where hundreds of millions of consumers will enjoy a more natural way of interacting with machines – conversational voice. Using only your voice, you can now seamlessly play music, turn on your lights, order a pizza and get breaking news. While early innovation is about taking phone and mobile app use cases and porting them to voice-first platforms, in 2017 we will see unique voice-first experiences that will take the world by storm. Get ready for always communicable family members, a personalized home assistant that makes life easier, and a conversational device that anticipates your needs.

http://voicelabs.co/2017/01/15/the-2017-voice-report/

By Jack Grove, Times Higher Ed

First transnational study of how university dropouts fare in the labour market suggests any exposure to higher education is better than none. Is it better to be a university dropout or to not have gone to college at all?While there are often very good reasons for leaving university early, many worry that having “some college, no degree” on their job application will result in their CV being moved to the bottom of the interview shortlist pile. Those university non-completers might wonder if they should have been advised to plunge straight into the job market rather than face a lifetime of explaining why they failed to graduate. However, university dropouts should not write off their time on campus because even a small amount of time in higher education is likely to improve a learner’s life chances, according to a study published in Higher Education Quarterly this month.

https://www.timeshighereducation.com/news/some-college-better-none-study-suggests

By Marguerite McNeal, EdSurge

Even the most driven students are stuck if the classes they need aren’t available. At best they have to wait another semester to enroll. At worst they run out of financial aid and drop out of school before they have a chance to take the courses. To help students get the credits they need, some colleges are pooling resources on an unprecedented scale. To help students get the credits they need, some colleges are pooling resources on an unprecedented scale. California Community Colleges, the nation’s largest system with 113 institutions, just launched a course exchange so students at one campus can take classes online at another if those courses aren’t available on their home turf.

https://www.edsurge.com/news/2016-10-23-california-launches-the-nation-s-largest-community-college-course-exchange

By Jeffrey R. Young & Sydney Johnson, EdSurge

Coursera is quietly testing elements of a new strategy, with the goal of moving from a platform for courses to a broader career-building service. It’s part of a continued evolution of MOOCs, or Massive Open Online Courses. Two Stanford University professors founded Coursera about five years ago, amid a wave of hype that free online courses could one day replace residential undergraduate colleges. That never happened, and since then companies like Coursera have been trying to find their niche—and a sustainable business model.

https://www.edsurge.com/news/2017-01-26-coursera-s-new-strategy-takes-inspiration-from-netflix-and-linkedin

by Jon Fingas, Engadget

Completing online courses can be daunting, but that’s particularly true if you’re in a developing part of the world. It’s too easy to feel like you don’t belong. Researchers may have a solution, though: giving you activities that help you fit in. An MIT and Stanford study has shown that brief psychological “interventions” can dramatically increase the completion rates for online courses in less developed regions. One of these boosts involved reading testimonials from earlier students who overcame that lack of belonging, while another involved writing a short explanation of how the course reflects and serves their values.

https://www.engadget.com/2017/01/24/online-learning-improves-with-psychological-interventions/

by Pierre Dubuc, FE Voices

Who would be a student today? What was once a relatively carefree occupation – an exciting step into the adult world, the opportunity to study for a career – is now beset by uncertainty over one’s employment chances following graduation, and the certainty that large debts will accrue during one’s studies. Yet change is in the air, and there are many reasons to be optimistic for the future of higher education. It’s true that we face an ongoing skills crisis, rising university fees, and rapidly changing demands in the skills required by business; but the world of skills and online learning is beginning to experience a revolution that promises answers to all these issues.

https://www.fenews.co.uk/fe-voices/the-future-is-online-13095

by Alaska Native Tribal Health Program

In Alaska, post-secondary education can come at a higher-than-usual price — especially for people hailing from rural parts of the state. Besides the usual expenses, students face the steep cost of travel: Flying from a remote West Coast or Bristol Bay community to a university in Anchorage or a training center in Bethel or Fairbanks can be costly. Which is why educational institutions around Alaska are turning to technology to make education accessible for students from every corner of the Last Frontier.

https://www.adn.com/features/sponsored-content/2017/01/23/expanding-education-why-distance-learning-is-called-alaskas-wave-of-the-future/

By Joshua Kim, Inside Higher Ed

How can one dislike educational technology but also love online learning? Simple. Technology has – at least until now – been more of a force for ill than for good in higher education. Our edtech tribe has consistently over-promised and under-delivered on the potential and benefits of technology. We have done too little to put the educator at the center of our efforts. My edtech community has not done what we should to fight for the rights of contingent faculty. We have failed to challenge the higher education productivity narrative, in which it is assumed that technology at scale can substitute for and replace (expensive) educators….As a card carrying member of the edtech establishment, I’m as guilty of these edtech sins as anyone else. While I’m pessimistic about the potential of technology to be a force of good in higher education, I am enthusiastic about online learning…. The reason that I’m a fan is that I’ve yet to witness a more powerful catalyst for advancing residential teaching than online learning.

https://www.insidehighered.com/blogs/technology-and-learning/why-i-dislike-educational-technology-love-online-learning

by Associated Press

William Carey University says it will use online systems as much as possible to finish winter trimester classes and to teach students during the spring trimester. The school’s Hattiesburg campus was heavily damaged by Saturday’s tornado in south Mississippi, leading officials to send home 800 students who live on campus and call off classes on Monday for the 3,200 students who study there. Spokeswoman Mia Overton told The Associated Press Monday that William Carey’s medical school is likely to offer classes in a former nursing building recently vacated by the University of Southern Mississippi. USM, which was hit by a 2013 tornado, has pledged support to William Carey. Overton says the Baptist school is trying to find places for other classes that require laboratory work or in-person meetings.

http://www.wtok.com/content/news/College-hit-by-tornado-turns-to-online-learning-411582525.html

by Michael P. Marzano and Robert Allen, OJDLA

The purpose of this study was to determine whether students evaluate courses differently, and perhaps more critically, when delivered online vs. face-to-face (F2F). Course evaluations are associated with the instructor that taught the course. Course evaluation continues to be a significant assessment vehicle of faculty performance used by many administrators. This analysis attempted to control for variations in instructors and courses, by comparing student course evaluations, where the same instructor taught the same course, in both modalities. Moreover, the study attempted to understand the contributing factors to the course rating. The results of this study confirm that courses taught by the same instructor, using the same course content, were rated lower when delivered in the online modality.

http://www.westga.edu/~distance/ojdla/winter194/marzano_allen194.html

BY JACK NEILL, eCampus News

A single piece of data can reveal a lot. For example, whether colleges and universities are meeting their enrollment goals or comparing the number of merit based scholarships versus need based ones. But, there’s also a lot left out of those pictures, like how successful those students were in their classes or how long it took them to graduate – or if they did so at all. While colleges and universities are eager to leverage institutional analytics, it is time for them to think bigger and broader. Doing so will open up a realm of possibilities not yet tapped, creating the opportunity to ask more complex questions and find solutions that better serve and support students. Right now, according to the EDUCAUSE Data, Research, and Analytics unit, about 50 percent of institutions consider institutional analytics a “major institutional priority,” and 25 percent more report that it’s a major department-level priority

http://www.ecampusnews.com/campus-administration/questions-institutional-analytics/

by: Hannah Kuchler, Financial Times

Coursera, the online education platform, is targeting veterans in the US, youth in Pakistan and would-be financiers in Kazakhstan with the launch of a service where governments pay on behalf of users. Agencies from seven national governments have signed up to provide online training, aiming to close the skills gap and encourage people into employment in a cheaper way than conventional education. By paying a couple of hundred dollars a year per student, the governments can provide free courses to the unemployed or underemployed in everything from machine learning in Mongolia to Excel spreadsheets in Egypt.

https://www.ft.com/content/57887f8c-de9d-11e6-86ac-f253db7791c6

by David Raths, Campus Technology

What will the next-generation learning management system look like? Will it just be the next iteration of Blackboard, Canvas or Moodle? Malcolm Brown, executive director of the Educause Learning Initiative (ELI), said his group started researching the topic and decided that was the wrong question. As it tried to envision the next-generation digital learning environment, ELI started using metaphors such as Legos or a smartphone to describe a component-based architecture, in which individual applications, including an LMS, could all be “swimming around in this space connected through open standards and able to exchange data. That would be the platform,” Brown said.

https://campustechnology.com/articles/2017/01/23/looking-beyond-the-lms-why-a-single-app-wont-work.aspx

by Allison Schrager, Quartz

Though it costs more to educate an engineer, it pays off, according to the paper—at least, for the student who gets the degree. The chart below shows the earnings of past graduates, up to age 45, (controlling for demographic and institutional factors) minus the cost of each degree. The value of each degree is scaled to show how much it pays off relative to an education major (which is set to zero). For example, a business major can expect to earn $78,000 more (after costs) than an education major by the time they reach age 45. At most universities, people pay the same tuition no matter what they study—and what students pay in tuition is less than what the university spend to educate them, no matter what they study. But universities spend different amounts on different degrees, and english and philosophy majors demand fewer resources—which means they essentially subsidize engineers. (interesting charts included at URL)

https://qz.com/884450/which-college-majors-make-the-most-money/

BY MATTHEW LYNCH, Edvocate

In the context of education, the trend of using game elements in non-game contexts, termed otherwise gamification, aims at increasing the engagement and motivation of students, capturing their interest to continue learning and influencing their classroom behavior. Although games are today often used in educational environments, the trend remains stigmatized, and its use limited due for example to (1) inadequate access to technology, (2) lack of professional expertise in integrating new technologies, and (3) resistance to change. Gamification in education may optimize the brain’s processing of new information. This may be facilitated by the general aspects of gamified lessons, with the audio-visual presentation, minimized bites of schematized information, short time lapses, and often repetitive patterns.

http://www.theedadvocate.org/how-does-gamification-affect-the-learning-process/

BY MATTHEW LYNCH, Tech Edvocate

Without a doubt, robotics is the next big thing in education. Like it or not, robots and robotics are the future. The sooner we accept robotics in schools and educate our children about robotics, the more prepared they will be for that future. At the moment, robotics is a reality at universities around the world, but imagine the possibilities if children entered those college programs already equipped with some robotic knowledge. In this article, we have listed some interesting stories from universities to prove that there is already quite an interest in robotics after high school.

http://www.thetechedvocate.org/robotics-the-next-big-thing-in-higher-education/

By Joshua Kim, Inside Higher Ed

Congratulations on your Senate confirmation as Secretary of Education. Over the weeks and months to come, you will have the opportunity to learn about some of the innovative programs to leverage technology to advance higher education, such as the EQUIP program, that the department has championed. My hope is that these programs are evaluated and understood in the way that we in higher education view them – as essentially non-partisan and non-political. One essential role that the department can play in driving post secondary innovation is that of a convener. The Department of Education, particularly in collaboration with the White House, enjoys an almost unique ability to pull together diverse groups of people….

https://www.insidehighered.com/blogs/technology-and-learning/open-edtech-letter-secretary-devos

BY CHERRON HOPPES, eCampus News

For many in academia, the idea of outsourcing coincides with a very real fear of predatory financial models and relinquishing control of their institution to companies who may not truly honor their history, their roots, their work, and their mission. Yet in the changing terrain of higher education—terrain marked by changing student demographics, dynamic technology, and increasing regulation—the question CBOs really need to be asking is: Is our mission to do everything ourselves, or is our mission our mission? The insourcing vs. outsourcing debate is a lively one in the academy. Reports and articles urging higher ed to build institutional capacity for analytics and to stop ceding their independence to outside entities in the name of innovation couple with a scathing undercurrent of commentary describing vendors as parasitic harbingers of debt akin to seedy payday loan companies.

http://www.ecampusnews.com/featured/featured-on-ecampus-news/business-leaders-outsourcing/

by Todd Bryant, EDUCAUSE Review

Trends in education promise to improve how institutions support students by providing the student, instructor, or institution the ability to make more informed decisions using student-created data. Unfortunately, as our reliance on data increases, our ability — especially students’ ability — to access the data seems to diminish. Whereas learning analytics gives a small number of users access to a single large data set, personalized learning requires that a large number of users — students — have access to their own relatively small portion of data within various systems. While no solutions come without a cost, enormous potential benefits to institutions, educators, and students arise if we adopt systems that provide access to data produced by students.

http://er.educause.edu/articles/2017/1/everything-depends-on-the-data

BY CHRIS HOPKINSON, eCampus News

Harnessing the power of personalization features inside your campus mobile services will resonate with incoming and current students. The consumer experience has changed drastically in just the last 10 years. Long gone are the days when customer service interactions happened face-to-face, as consumers increasingly prefer the convenience and automation of mobile experiences. This rise in on-demand services has created a new consumer who expects personalization: a timely experience catered to their unique preferences and interests. Most of us appreciate how mobile has helped to facilitate this new instant gratification because we can remember a challenging customer experience. Students today never knew a world where paychecks were deposited at a specific bank location during specific hours, TV shows and movies aired at certain times or radio stations decided what you would hear.

http://www.ecampusnews.com/technologies/mobile-and-handheld-technologies/personalization-higher-edtech/