Online Learning Update

by SARAH ZHANG, the Atlantic

The country’s universities and tech giants are starting to surpass American ones when it comes to researching and implementing AI. China’s rapid rise up the ranks of AI research has people taking notice. In October, the Obama White House released a “strategic plan” for AI research, which noted that the U.S. no longer leads the world in journal articles on “deep learning,” a particularly hot subset of AI research right now. The country that had overtaken the U.S.? China, of course. It’s not just academic research. Chinese tech companies are betting on AI, too. Baidu (a Chinese search-engine company often likened to Google), Didi (often likened to Uber), and Tencent (maker of the mega-popular messaging app WeChat) have all set up their own AI research labs. With millions of customers, these companies have access to the huge amount of data that training AI to detect patterns requires.

https://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2017/02/china-artificial-intelligence/516615/

BY MERIS STANSBURY, eCampus News

Academic program creation and evaluation is top-of-mind with institutions. This year colleges and universities are looking to diversify their program portfolios, either through offering online or blended learning offerings, through offering micro-credentials, or by placing their bets on emerging programs. What’s also noteworthy this year is that Hanover has gone a step further in identifying the overarching improvement trend of academic program creation and review by including a list of the top high-growth and emerging programs in higher ed at the moment. “Facing declining enrollments and reductions in funding across key academic offerings, higher education institutions are diversifying their program offerings, experimenting with new teaching methods, and emphasizing the value in higher education to key external stakeholders.”

http://www.ecampusnews.com/alternative-pathways/improvement-trends-universities/

by Military Technologies

A new nine step cheat sheet has been launched by Training Automation Secrets. The cheat sheet is aimed at trainer, coaches and consultants who wish to learn how to automate their training programs. Training Automation Secrets are offering an exclusive, free cheat sheet filled with the nine most valuable secrets to training business automation. This cheat sheet is aimed at trainers, coaches and consultants. These nine proven steps to automating training businesses online saves business owners time and money. The traditional method of training is to find customers and then train them, before repeating the process. The business owner who provides the training is involved in this process and it is time consuming for them. The cheat sheet explains that traditional offline training is good but by going online and automating the training program, the business owner can expand their business and free up valuable time.

http://www.military-technologies.net/2017/04/08/training-program-automation-online-courses-nine-step-cheat-sheet-launched/

By Carl Straumsheim, Inside Higher Ed

Another historically black institution — South Carolina State — teams up with the University of Phoenix to offer online courses to a greater number of students. S.C. State will waive a $35 readmission fee and offer students a 50 percent discount on tuition rates, dropping the cost of a three-credit-hour course to $651. Students can take up to 27 credits from Phoenix. After the university reviews the students’ accounts for academic or financial holds, the academic departments map the courses they need to finish the degree they were pursuing before stopping out to equivalent courses offered by Phoenix. The BARC program is the latest product of an “alliance” that Phoenix and the Thurgood Marshall College Fund entered into in November 2014 to boost online education at historically black colleges and universities.

https://www.insidehighered.com/news/2017/04/11/south-carolina-state-latest-hbcu-partner-phoenix-online-education

by THE HANS INDIA

After a year-long practice and competitions in tournaments, Snehit an international table tennis player who barely attends schools, takes a break from his sports activity to appear for his 11th standard final exams. Snehit is always on the move, either for a practice session in Chennai or elsewhere in the world. Yet he manages to get an above average score in his exams. There are many students like Snehit, who could not make it to the classes for various reasons. Some have taken up part-time jobs, some help family businesses, some pursue arts of various forms and others just bunk classes. But when it comes to learning and writing exams, these students have apt tools which help them make up for the classes they missed. Surprisingly, such students fare better in exams than the ones who attend college regularly if not studiously.

http://www.thehansindia.com/posts/index/Andhra-Pradesh/2017-04-09/eLearning-turns-a-boon-for-students-who-skip-classes/292106

By Varuni Khosla, Prachi Verma, Brinda Dasgupta; Economic Times

Ericsson is among tens of companies pushing their employees to join massive open online courses (MOOCs) offered by the top universities to upskill themselves even as online education upends established teaching norms, getting rid of the classroom and giving learners the ability to study from just about anywhere. Not only has it allowed students the freedom to take any course that interests them from top universities — mostly free if they don’t want a certificate — but it has also provided employers the freedom to upskill their employees as and when the need arises. Consultants say most of the companies partner with online platforms such as Coursera, edX and Udacity to foster learning among their employees, and reduce costs and risks.

http://economictimes.indiatimes.com/jobs/companies-turn-to-online-platforms-to-upskill-staff/articleshow/58117708.cms

By STEVE LOHR, NY Times

When the Georgetown University Law Center offered computer programming last year, it was an experiment, a single class for about 20 students. It was filled almost instantly, and the waitlist swelled to 130. This semester, the law school has five programming classes, and the waitlist still overflowed. “They aren’t going to become programmers, but they realize these are skills that will make them better lawyers,” said Paul Ohm, the Georgetown law professor who teaches the course. His students, for example, learn to write short, tailored programs that can identify clusters of words and concepts in Supreme Court rulings more accurately than a Google search or standard legal software. It’s the same in every field, from marketing to manufacturing to medicine. Code, it seems, is the lingua franca of the modern economy.

https://www.nytimes.com/2017/04/04/education/edlife/where-non-techies-computer-programming-coding.html

http://upcea.edu/wp-content/uploads/2017/04/Instructional-Design-and-Technology-Teams-Work-Experiences-and-Professional-Development.pdf

By Andrew Kreighbaum, Inside Higher Ed

The national march in D.C. this Saturday, along with satellite events across the country (and around the world) likely won’t match the turnout of the Women’s March on Jan. 21 — a protest some observers speculated was among the largest in U.S. history. But the March for Science has received intense levels of interest since organizers in January began discussing the possibility and subsequently launched Facebook and Twitter accounts. Rush Holt, CEO of the American Association for the Advancement of Science, said this week that the March for Science is a nonpartisan event that will focus on a positive message about what’s needed for science to thrive. “It’s time to get off the sidelines and make a difference.”

https://www.insidehighered.com/news/2017/04/21/university-researchers-and-scientists-make-rare-political-engagement-over-fears

By eCampus News

Cengage survey presents adjunct faculty feedback on collaboration, digital technology and professional development. A new study from Cengage finds that although adjunct faculty are very student-focused and believe they offer unique value, including real-world expertise and industry contacts, they feel disconnected and less valued than full-time faculty. And, while more than half of adjuncts are using digital learning tools, they want more opportunities for collaboration and professional development using these materials, the survey finds. Cengage and Zeldis Research Associates conducted both qualitative and quantitative research over a six-month period and connected with nearly 500 adjunct instructors.

http://www.ecampusnews.com/campus-administration/adjuncts-academic-community/

BY MICHAEL ELLISON, eCampus News

Launched in April 2016, Facebook Live allows the most-used social network’s users to share up to eight hours of live video with their followers and friends. According to a Facebook spokesperson, the vast majority of these recordings come from people instead of public figures and publishers, and the number of people broadcasting live at any given minute has grown by four times since its launch. Further, users comment over 10 times more on Facebook Live videos than on regular videos, demonstrating that broadcasts engage users with their real-time reactions and comments. Many colleges and universities have already begun integrating Facebook Live into their social media marketing schemes. Out of the 45-school Alumni Monitor coverage group, 36 schools have hosted at least one Facebook Live event within their main university or alumni-focused social media page. For those schools looking to begin (or expand on) their current Facebook Live presence, here are six ideas for engaging alumni using Facebook Live.

http://www.ecampusnews.com/featured/featured-on-ecampus-news/engaging-alumni-facebook-live/

By Sri Ravipati, Campus Technology

The California State University (CSU) system — in a move to deliver affordable course materials to more than 50,800 faculty and 497,000 students across its 23 campuses — has partnered with a company that provides access to millions of digital textbooks and digital-authoring tools for open educational resources (OER). CSU announced a new partnership with VitalSource yesterday at the Online Learning Consortium Innovate conference in New Orleans.

https://www.enterprisetech.com/2017/04/09/train-locomotives-without-wheels-moats-cyber-security-innovations/

by Doug Black, Enterprise Tech

Industry analyst Bob Sorensen recently told us something most IT managers already know deep in their apprehensive hearts: cyber security is in a sorry state. Security at many companies is somewhat marginalized, an unfavored area that lies outside core IT operations and procedures, a focal point at many companies of ineffectuality and denial that can be characterized as: Don’t just do something, sit there! Yet everyone grasps the bottom line and reputation risks of poor security. This anxiousness, coupled with uncertainty about their own cyber security strategies, results in many companies – at least those that haven’t been attacked yet – taking refuge in the feeble rationalization: “We haven’t been breached yet so we must be doing something right.”

Yeah, sure.

https://www.enterprisetech.com/2017/04/09/train-locomotives-without-wheels-moats-cyber-security-innovations/

by Halifax Citizen

The organization has spread to more than 22 cities across the country in aims of improving national digital literacy. Ladies Learning Code established itself in Halifax in 2013. “Our founder at the time wanted to learn coding skills herself, so she looked online and found Ladies Learning Code as something she really wanted to run in the community,” says Liu. Adult workshops cover a variety of digital curating experiences, offering hands-on learning for everything from introductory HTML and CSS, to WordPress, Photoshop and more. They are taught by industry-leading professionals. Despite its name, these workshops are open to all genders. “Our mission is to promote women in tech in society,” says Liu. “I always encourage a man learner brings a lady with them so we can still promote this cause.” Working in technology herself, Liu explains she sees firsthand how underrepresented women are in the industry.

http://thechronicleherald.ca/dartmouthtribune/1458190-ladies-learning-code-on-a-mission

by Matthew Lynch, tech Edvocate

The reason that many teachers strive for a more virtual experience instead of the traditional talking points is that the interaction makes the lesson more memorable to the students. Concepts and ideas that seem too complicated under time-honored instruction methods are easier to grasp when the students can experience the lessons. This does not mean that you need a VR machine to create a virtual experience either. There are a number of tools that can help you establish a virtual environment that makes lessons more entertaining while making the concepts easier to understand.

http://www.thetechedvocate.org/using-forums-discussion-boards-create-virtual-learning-experiences/

BY LAURA ASCIONE, eCampus News

A new whitepaper from 3PlayMedia delves into some of the accessibility issues and offers guidance. Students and faculty who are deaf or have hearing challenges, who are blind or have low vision, who are color blind, or who have physical disabilities or temporary disabilities (such as those due to injury) all require accessibility features to help them consume digital information. Thirty-three percent of students enrolled in four-year institutions complete a bachelor’s degree, compared with 48 percent of students without disabilities. A 2011 World Health Organization report notes that 1 in 5 Americans age 12 or older have hearing loss significant enough to interfere with day-to-day communications.

http://www.ecampusnews.com/curriculum/university-content-accessible/

by Roger Riddell, Education Dive

A recent report from the Digital Citizens Alliance shows 14 million .edu email addresses and email passwords from the 300 largest higher ed institutions in the U.S. were available for sale on the “Dark Web.” Campus Technology reports that 11 million of those uncovered in the most recent search of the Dark Web were found in the last year, and that many of the user names and passwords were likely compromised when users accessed them in non-academic settings. Hacktivist organization Team GhostShell’s leader, a 25-year-old Romanian hacker nicknamed “Dead-Mellox,” provided researchers behind the report with insights on the vulnerability of .edu addresses, as well as the surplus of valuable data, intellectual property and research that higher ed institutions have compared to commercial businesses or government agencies.

http://www.educationdive.com/news/researchers-find-millions-of-edu-accounts-passwords-available-on-dark-web/439711/

by ATD

In essence, technology and social media have led to a democratization of learning and education that is unprecedented. Learning is everyone’s domain. Continuous learning and growth are not only possible, but expected. Curiosity is the only currency you need. So what’s the L&D professional’s role in this evolution? Workplace learning must adapt to this new world and provide the tools and vehicles to leverage the collective wisdom in the organization. We must support collaborative learning and work. We must build learning and professional networks that cross organizational boundaries, and even go beyond organizations. We must discover and share best practices and ideas and solutions. We can curate content, build platforms, encourage peer learning, and share information.

https://www.td.org/Publications/Blogs/L-and-D-Blog/2017/04/Social-Learning-the-Future-Is-Here

by Brian Mulligan, the Irish Times

In 20 years’ time, fewer school leavers will go to college. Far more study options will be available, many on the internet – and much cheaper than what is offered now. Distance learning and work-based learning, including apprenticeships, will become more available, reducing the total cost of education by allowing school leavers to live at home and “earn while they learn”.

http://www.irishtimes.com/news/education/technology-is-key-to-reducing-college-education-costs-1.3045100

BY LAURA ASCIONE, eCampus News

Though more research is needed, CBE programs are emerging as viable paths for many students. Although students in CBE programs are generally characterized as being older with work experience under their belts, it’s often hard to identify the true characteristics of these students because they are lumped in with the rest of the student body in their respective institutions. New research summarized in a report indicates that CBE programs can reduce costs for students who are progressing toward a degree, although traditional models might be better for low-income students who aren’t taking as many courses per year.

http://www.ecampusnews.com/alternative-pathways/characteristics-cbe-students/