Online Learning Update

January 31, 2018

Why your institution should have a Chief Innovation Officer in 2018

Filed under: Online Learning News — Ray Schroeder @ 12:09 am

BY LAURA ASCIONE, eCampus News

Though most research universities have a technology transfer office (TTO) that helps bring new discoveries to market, a dedicated innovation officer is not as common–but that’s changing, according to The Emergence of the Chief Innovation Officer in Higher Education, a new report from Russell Reynolds Associates. But the emergence of the chief innovation officer position is spurred by various changes in higher education. As government funding declines, as nontraditional education opportunities increase, and as educators focus on how students learn best and turn to new learning experiences, some universities are rethinking how they position their institutions.

Why your institution should have a Chief Innovation Officer in 2018

Share on Facebook

5 key steps in developing a system for digital credentials

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

BY LAURA ASCIONE, eCampus News
As job applicants seek to demonstrate their skills, institutions can arm their students with digital credentials.  A new field guide for community college and university leaders outlines five key strategies to help institutions develop a system for digital credentials. The guide, “Partnering with Employers to Create Workforce-Relevant Credentials,” is intended to steer faculty and administrators through a collaborative design and implementation process for developing a workforce-relevant credentialing system.

5 key steps in developing a system for digital credentials

Share on Facebook

Schools around the world are now teaching kids to spot fake news

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

by Siyi Chen, Quartz

Do students need to learn about fake news? And more generally, should they learn how news is created and how to evaluate its credibility? Thousands of schools all over the world believe the answer is yes. Over 3,300 educators from all 50 states in the US and 69 countries outside the US have adopted a curriculum to teach kids how to distinguish facts from fiction. The curriculum was developed by a US nonprofit called the News Literacy Project. It has 12 lessons which teachers can incorporate into their current classes and a virtual classroom with online courses and exercises.

https://qz.com/1175155/a-special-class-how-to-teach-kids-to-spot-fake-news/

Share on Facebook

January 30, 2018

Prediction: 2018 Will See More Blended Learning, Alternative Credentials and International Competition

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

By Dian Schaffhauser, Campus Technology

Over the next year, the higher education segment can expect to see a major shift to blended learning; an innovative education stack from an existing institution to “rival” the bachelor’s degree; and serious inroads to cross-border online learning. Those are the predictions for 2018 from Eduventures, a membership advisory service for colleges and universities. The company said it expects a “regionally accredited four-year institution” to put together “a creative combination of pedagogy, experience, assessment and delivery mode” that will offer an alternative to the traditional undergraduate degree — but in a shorter amount of time and for less money. “This year, we expect a credential newcomer that will really shake things up,” said Richard Garrett, Eduventures’ chief research officer.

https://campustechnology.com/articles/2018/01/19/prediction-2018-will-see-more-blended-learning-alternative-credentials-and-international-competition.aspx

Share on Facebook

Recent CSU Report Describes Benefits, Challenges, and Potential of Online Courses

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

By Henry Kronk, eLearning Inside

One of the most glaring issues with the current state of online courses among CSUs is that very few students enroll in online courses at different campuses. To be exact, an average of just two full-time students per campus enrolled in another campuses’ course in the fall semester of 2015. To be clear: many CSU students enroll in online courses. At some campuses, it’s as many as 1 in 10. One possible explanation for this is that the online database of every CSU online class is not exactly easy to find or use. Another issue which has probably larger consequences is that many CSU campuses use different learning management systems, making it more difficult for students unused to the interface. In answer, Steenhausen recommends adopting a single CSU-wide LMS.

https://news.elearninginside.com/recent-csu-report-describes-benefits-challenges-potential-online-courses/

Share on Facebook

Tuning Your Pedagogical Practice: Incorporate Digital and Social Technology

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

By Neelofer Qadir, Inside Higher Ed

Teaching with digital and social technologies often produces stress and tension for teachers and students alike, but I suspect much of that comes from an unclear explanation of why a particular tool is being used and comfort, or lack thereof, with its use. Digital and social technologies are attractive in many ways and we can get excited about working with them, especially in this era where students are dubbed “digital natives.” But these tools require we think about their purpose, method, and audience just as carefully as when we design an essay prompt, a problem set, or any other assessment exercise.

https://www.insidehighered.com/blogs/gradhacker/tuning-your-pedagogical-practice-incorporate-digital-and-social-technology

Share on Facebook

January 29, 2018

Will Online Ever Conquer Higher Ed?

Filed under: Online Learning News — Ray Schroeder @ 12:09 am

By Robert Ubell, EdSurge

The latest data on the nation’s college and university enrollment shows that online is steadily climbing its way up to more than a third of the student population—as face-to-face continues to plummet. That’s a surprising turn in the long-time arc of academic population growth. If online weren’t in the picture, on-campus enrollments, as reported in the most recent U.S. Department of Education 2016 results, would have fallen by more than 1.5 million between 2012 and 2016, says Jeff Seaman, co-director of the Babson Survey Research Group, who has been tracking the country’s virtual education lifeline for 15 years. “Without digital, higher ed would be in far worse shape than it is now,” he adds. “Distance ed is saving higher ed.”

https://www.edsurge.com/news/2018-01-18-will-online-ever-conquer-higher-ed

Share on Facebook

4 Expectations for Online Education in 2018

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

By Jordan Friedman, US News

As more students seek flexible alternatives to traditional, on-campus courses, online education continues to evolve. Among other trends, 2017 saw the proliferation of smaller credentials beyond online degrees, rising online course enrollment at nonprofit universities and the use of big data to track student performance. And there’s plenty more in store for 2018, experts say. Here are four trends in online higher education that prospective students should watch this year.

https://www.usnews.com/higher-education/online-education/articles/2018-01-18/4-expectations-for-online-education-in-2018

Share on Facebook

The key higher ed issues for states in 2018

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

By Autumn A. Arnett, Education Dive
For the first time since the American Association of State Colleges and Universities started tracking the top state concerns impacting higher education 11 years ago, changes to federal policy tops the list. Specifically, concerns about how the federal tax bill will put pressure on state revenue, and by extension, higher education funding, abound. In addition to concerns about the tax bill’s implications, leaders are also keeping an eye on how potential Higher Education Act reauthorization will affect issues ranging from state authorization of institutions to overhauling federal financial aid forms that many states rely on for calculating state aid, according to the issue brief released this week.

https://www.educationdive.com/news/the-key-higher-ed-issues-for-states-in-2018/514961/

Share on Facebook

January 28, 2018

Google’s Self-Training AI Turns Coders into Machine-Learning Masters

Filed under: Online Learning News — Ray Schroeder @ 12:40 am

by Will Knight, MIT Technology Review

Automating the training of machine-learning systems could make AI much more accessible. Google just made it a lot easier to build your very own custom AI system. A new service, called Cloud AutoML, uses several machine-learning tricks to automatically build and train a deep-learning algorithm that can recognize things in images. The technology is limited for now, but it could be the start of something big. Building and optimizing a deep neural network algorithm normally requires a detailed understanding of the underlying math and code, as well as extensive practice tweaking the parameters of algorithms to get things just right. The difficulty of developing AI systems has created a race to recruit talent, and it means that only big companies with deep pockets can usually afford to build their own bespoke AI algorithms.

 

https://www.technologyreview.com/s/609996/googles-self-training-ai-turns-coders-into-machine-learning-masters/

Share on Facebook

Let the snow come: these districts don’t miss days

Filed under: Online Learning News — Ray Schroeder @ 12:35 am

By Eric Stirgus and Arlinda Smith Broady, The Atlanta Journal-Constitution

Wednesday was a snow day, but still a school day, for many metro Atlanta students.
Some school districts, such as Gwinnett and Forsyth, use online lesson plans and assignments for students to avoid missing a snow day, a practice they’ve used for a few years, to the disappointment of some students. Making up days during scheduled student breaks can interfere with graduation schedules and planned family vacations. With the technology already in place and with teachers, students and support staff prepared, the schools decided to give Digital Learning Days a try. The preliminary reports showed that there were no major issues, but Associate Superintendent Jonathan Patterson is set to give a full report at the school board work session Thursday.

http://www.myajc.com/news/local-education/let-the-snow-come-these-districts-don-miss-days/JZTXpBw78hhhjQddw05ZPL/

Share on Facebook

How does a peer-to-peer blockchain learning system operate?

Filed under: Online Learning News — Ray Schroeder @ 12:28 am

by the Merkle

Blockchain is changing the way people complete transactions. This technology is no longer associated only with cryptocurrencies like Ethereum and Bitcoin as organizations look for new ways to improve people’s lives with blockchain technology. As blockchain becomes more widely used, it is changing the way industries operate and get things done. For example, significant technological advancements are occurring in the education industry. This process has long been touted as the next stage of evolution in education. So, what if blockchain became the basis for these advancements changing the future of online learning?

 

How does a peer-to-peer blockchain learning system operate?

Share on Facebook

January 27, 2018

What does a future-ready educator look like?

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

by Matthew Lynch, Tech Edvocate

As new technology emerges and most work is done online, it is more important than ever to teach students how to adapt in the ever-changing digital world they live. This is where “Future Ready” schools and “Future Ready” educators become essential.  The Alliance for Excellent Education describes, “Future Ready is a free, bold new effort to maximize digital learning opportunities and help school districts move quickly toward preparing students for success in college, a career, and citizenship.” As school districts invest in developing Future Ready schools, educators must also make sure they are preparing to embrace digital learning to be “future ready” educators. What does this look like?

http://www.thetechedvocate.org/future-ready-educator-look-like/

Share on Facebook

3 Starters for Digital Leadership in Higher Ed

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

By Dian Schaffhauser, Campus Technology

United States higher education is struggling to move into the 21st century digital era, according to Dr. Samuel Conn, president and chief executive officer for nonprofit technology consortium NJEdge. Holding back the segment, he said, are legacy processes and “last-century” thinking, which can no longer meet the demands of students who are more digitally savvy than their instructors — not to mention the growing competition coming from global institutions that are attracting those same students. What institutional leaders need, Conn noted, is “re-energizing.”

https://campustechnology.com/articles/2018/01/08/3-starters-for-digital-leadership-in-higher-ed.aspx

Share on Facebook

Google Offers Online Course in Jobs Push Amid Concerns About AI

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

By Mark Bergen, Bloomberg
Alphabet Inc.’s Google is launching a new online education program to certify people for work in information technology support, part of the internet giant’s philanthropic push around job training. Google has poured billions into artificial intelligence, a technology that many expect will render jobs across several fields obsolete. Last year, Google Chief Executive Officer Sundar Pichai introduced a companywide initiative focused on employment. He announced Google would give $1 billion over five years to nonprofits in the field. The new program, developed with online education firm Coursera Inc., is designed to help people without formal training or college degrees find IT jobs at large companies. “As technology advances change or replace more jobs, we must create more pathways for people to jump into the new, high-paying careers of the future,” Jeff Maggioncalda, Coursera’s CEO, said in a statement.

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2018-01-16/google-offers-online-course-in-jobs-push-amid-concerns-about-ai

Share on Facebook

January 26, 2018

Colleges and universities might become obsolete due to AI

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

BY MARKOS PAPADATOS, Digital Journal
Artificial intelligence has transformed many industries such as manufacturing, corporations and retail, and now traditional challenges and universities are being challenged, as they need to prepare for a “technology-enabled” future. In the present moment, universities and traditional colleges are worried about competition derived from academic institutions that are using online learning technologies. Dr. Subhash Kak, a Regents Professor of Electrical and Computer Engineering from Oklahoma State University, noted that online education is serious: a “disruptive challenge.”  One of the most powerful aspects of his article, which was published in The Conversation, dealt with the ever-changing job market. He makes a very valid point in that the number of jobs that involves cognitive and physical skills is diminishing, especially since automation at factories is replacing actual workers all around the world; moreover, artificial intelligence is eliminating high-skill jobs in offices.

http://www.digitaljournal.com/tech-and-science/technology/colleges-and-universities-might-become-obsolete-due-to-ai/article/512208

Share on Facebook

News Housing Jobs Tutors Textbooks Test Prep Study Abroad Student Loans More 5 Ways to Stay Organized When Taking an Online Course

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

by Christine Ascher, ULoop
The opportunity to take an online course is one major benefit of technology when it comes to education. Online courses offer you more flexibility in terms of when and where you can complete your coursework than a traditional classroom-style course, and they allow you to learn about different websites or apps that can be helpful in academia. However, there are also some downsides that can come with participating in an online course: most notably the fact that, because you’ll be a bit more independent, it can be more difficult to stay on top of everything. Taking an online course may require more self-motivation and self-scheduling than you’re accustomed to, but if you know this going into the course and figure out some strategies to cope, you’ll be right on track.

https://www.uloop.com/news/view.php/256968/5-Ways-to-Stay-Organized-When-Taking-an-Online-Course

Share on Facebook

Universities jump into online courses

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

by  China Daily
China ranks first in the number of Massive Online Open Courses-with 3,200 launched by 460 higher education institutes, including 200 courses available on foreign MOOC platforms-the Ministry of Education said on Monday. Since 2012, China has established 10 MOOC platforms, and 55 million people have tried the courses, including more than 6 million university students who have earned credits by finishing the courses, said Wu Yan, director of the ministry’s Department of Higher Education. On Monday, the ministry selected and released the first batch of 490 national-level MOOCs, 70.2 percent of which were established by China’s top universities.

http://www.china.org.cn/china/2018-01/16/content_50231265.htm

Share on Facebook

January 25, 2018

Report: OER Continues Moderate Growth Track

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

While open educational resources (OER) are making headway in higher education classrooms, it’s slow going. That’s what a recent survey by the Babson Survey Research Group found when it queried 2,711 teaching faculty members within U.S. colleges and universities. On the positive side, awareness and adoption have grown from previous years. Use of open-licensed textbooks has risen from 5 percent in 2015-2016 to 9 percent the following year. Also, awareness of OER is up by a third in 2016-2017 compared to 2014-2015. In the latest year of the survey, 30 percent of respondents said they were “aware” or “very aware” of OER; two years prior only 20 percent said the same.

https://campustechnology.com/articles/2018/01/16/report-oer-continues-moderate-growth-track.aspx

Share on Facebook

Some colleges see online programs as a way to stay afloat

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

by Patti Zarling, Education Dive

Online courses tend to better meet the needs of working adults, who now make up 40 percent of college enrollments, and many colleges are adding or expanding digital programs to attract older students. That’s especially true for schools like Riverland Community College, a public two-year school with three campuses in Austin, Albert Lee and Owatonna, all in rural southeastern Minnesota, where administrators say they can’t rely on traditional students to stay afloat. For instance, Riverland’s Austin campus serves about 3,300 students in a town of 25,000 people.“You are at the mercy of demographics,” said J.C. Turner, who directs Riverland’s new online FlexPace program. “Over time, the population shifted and the number of younger students continued to drop. To stay viable as an institution, Riverland had to look to creating online courses. Now more than half of our full-time students are in some type of online program.”

https://www.educationdive.com/news/some-colleges-see-online-programs-as-a-way-to-stay-afloat/514754/

Share on Facebook

These jobs hold the most promise in 2018, LinkedIn says

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

BY KALIN KIPLING, Sacramento Bee

If you’re on the hunt for a job or considering switching fields, this list could help with that. LinkedIn, a career networking and job search site with at least 530 million members, has unveiled the most promising jobs of 2018. In its research, LinkedIn used a formula that takes into account five key categories: from most important to least, salary, advancement, job openings in the U.S., growth of job openings (year-over-year) and regional demand. It also used information from its network, including user profiles and jobs listings.

http://www.sacbee.com/news/business/article194647309.html

Share on Facebook
Older Posts »

Powered by WordPress