Online Learning Update

By Jan Holloway and Chris Foley, US News

Seek out student testimonials that address common concerns about online education, such as time management.  Testimonials are ubiquitous: on marketplaces like Amazon, on product pages and on social media. Writing testimonials is also big business, and fake testimonials abound on the internet. Yet, they can be a valuable source of information, especially when choosing an online degree program to meet your professional needs. Student reviews can answer questions about interaction with classmates, time management and required technology. When accessing student testimonials online, first make sure they refer to actual accredited online degree programs. To read examples, conduct an internet search for phrases such as “student testimonials online learning.”

https://www.usnews.com/education/online-learning-lessons/articles/2018-01-12/look-at-student-reviews-of-online-courses-before-enrolling

by Gavan Naven, the Guardian

Full-time, part-time, online, or a mix of all three – the variety of postgraduate study options can be bewildering. This wide choice, however, does give scope to suit prospective students’ differing circumstances and lifestyles. While traditional campus-based courses remain the most popular, there is an increasing interest in online study, with its flexibility and easy access. Edinburgh University’s head of submissions, Iain Sutherland, says that online courses are proving particularly attractive to those students who may have family and work commitments.

https://www.theguardian.com/education/2018/jan/12/online-postgraduate-course-right-for-you-university

by Matthew Lynch, Tech Edvocate

For a long time, teaching was teacher-centered: the teacher dispensed information through lecture, handouts, or presentations; the students absorbed the information by listening and taking notes. It was repetitive, could become monotonous, and left little room for student exploration or creativity. It was also detrimental to students who couldn’t keep pace with the teacher’s lessons or students who learned in way different from the teacher’s presentation. The past ten years have seen a surge in student-centered learning, and the integration of technology into the classroom makes it increasingly easy to create engaging lessons that reach a variety of learners in a variety of ways. There are many ways that technology has changed and improved teaching methods, making education more meaningful and accessible to all students.

http://www.thetechedvocate.org/edtech-change-way-teachers-teach/

By Courtney Rubin, US News

These smaller credentials recognize students’ specific skills or achievements in online and on-campus undergraduate courses.  Besides their transcript, graduates of Western Michigan University’s Haworth College of Business can show potential employers that they’ve earned a digital badge for Event Leadership or Mobile – as in mobile programming. At Santa Barbara City College, students can take free courses through the School of Extended Learning – usually eight to 16 hours – to earn badges in Blogging for Business or Workplace Essentials, such as business writing and time management. The badges can be shared on social media, LinkedIn profiles and personal websites.

https://www.usnews.com/education/best-colleges/articles/2018-01-11/colleges-offer-resume-boosting-digital-badges

BY QUARDRICOS BERNARD DRISKELL, the Hill

Higher education must change to fit this new global economy. Moreover, since higher education is huge business in America more students are walking away with higher debt. Is a college education worth its price anymore? The real problem with higher education is with a failure of imagination of the creative possibilities for secondary education – and post-secondary educational options that are alternative to traditional college/university education. The failure of secondary education to be as meaningful as it could be, apart from its socialization effects, is the true great dilemma in preparing future generations for creative and productive life by varied measures. For my parents’ generation, education for them was to get a good education and get a good job. For this current generation, a good education will mostly likely lead them to high debt and employment in retail and/or at fast food restaurants.

http://thehill.com/blogs/congress-blog/education/368358-the-reimagination-of-higher-education-in-21st-century-america

By Jillian Berman, Marketwatch

Many American colleges will have to look different decades from now if they’re going to survive. That’s one of the many arguments in “Demographics and the Demand for Higher Education,” a book by Nathan Grawe, an economics professor at Carleton College, published late last year. Grawe explores how demographic trends — like the shift from majority white to majority-minority, from northeastern population centers to the Southwest, and declining birth rates — will affect American colleges.  Schools that don’t think creatively about how to adapt to these changes could be forced to merge or shutdown, he concludes. Those same outcomes are predicted by Moody’s Investors Service and others. Schools likely won’t face these challenges acutely until at least 2026 and beyond, but Grawe suggests they use the time they still have to prepare.

https://www.marketwatch.com/story/heres-what-us-colleges-will-look-like-in-2030-2018-01-11

by Andrew Kreighbaum, Inside Higher Ed

Congress failed to reach a last-minute agreement Friday night to avoid a government shutdown. That won’t mean immediate consequences for federal student aid recipients or institutional funding. But institutions and students depending on Education Department programs could see an impact if the shutdown drags on. For academics and institutions that receive grants from research agencies, funds already awarded are not affected, but peer review and other activities to select new grants may halt, and new funds will not be going out. Other functions of the Department of Education will be immediately curtailed or frozen, however, from work awarding special grants to the enforcement of civil rights at campuses across the country.

https://www.insidehighered.com/news/2018/01/22/impact-government-shutdown-higher-education

by Jonathan Myers, IOC News

Open Source Unversity is a university based on the technology of Ethereum Blockchain. This university makes use of a highly customized smart contract. Additionally, it maintains the record of all the learners’ certificates and verifies them in Blockchain by making them accessible and immutable to all the organizations. It has a smart contract of learners and academia that aims to introduce traceability and transparency between academies and learners in a small environment. This smart contract has been built to completely revolutionize the system of learning. B2A smart contract is going to bring flexibility, security, and transparency in the system of education. Moreover, learners can get a lot of benefits from the online courses available on this platform. The ecosystem of the Open Source University has EDU tokens that are going to be used to establish connections between academia, learners, and business.

The Open Source University, its smart contracts, and tokens

by Autumn A. Arnett, Education Dive
A recent analysis from Digital Media Solutions offers insight into where students are the most interested in higher education by tracking inquiries and student acquisition activities of institutions, finding that online program inquiry growth has increased tremendously. Online education volume was 34.9% higher in Q3 2017 than campus-based volume, the report said, compared with 8% higher in Q3 2016. Geographic volume data is largely consistent with population trends; the nine most populous states (California, Texas, Florida, New York, Illinois, Pennsylvania, Ohio, Georgia, North Carolina) are also the top-nine states for higher ed inquiries and acquisitions in the DMS analysis. Arizona, which lands at tenth in higher education inquiries, leapfrogged over four states with higher population levels. Health professions and programs; business management, marketing and related services; and education claimed the top three spots for most-searched potential programs. Liberal arts and sciences/general studies and humanities programs were the ninth-most searched programs.

https://www.educationdive.com/news/new-analysis-offers-insight-into-what-prospective-students-want/

by eMarketer News

One in three people—2.48 billion—worldwide used a social network in 2017, eMarketer estimates. Rising social network use in emerging markets in Asia-Pacific, Latin America and the Middle East and Africa drove an 8.7% gain over 2016. Social media use in digitally advanced markets in North America and Western Europe is widespread. Future growth will primarily come from widening and improving internet access in developing markets, thanks to increasingly affordable smartphone models and government investments in mobile broadband coverage.

https://www.emarketer.com/content/emarketer-unveils-latest-wordwide-social-users-estimates

by Patrick Atack, PIE
Online learning platform Coursera has revealed a trend towards tech-based courses in 2017. The 30 million-user site divulged the top 10 popular courses, and the most popular specialisations, as signed up for by its “registered learners”.   Machine Learning, a course taught by Coursera’s co-founder Andrew Ng in conjunction with Stanford University, proved most popular, topping the list of courses that were based on the average daily enrolments. This course focuses on artificial intelligence and was among at least three AI-focused courses in the top 10. Blockchain, Cryptocurrencies and Bitcoin also feature, which may come as expected, as those have been the feature of many a press clipping in the past 12 months.

Online learning took a tech turn in 2017

BY NIKKI GRAF, RICHARD FRY AND CARY FUNK, Pew Fact Tank

Employment in science, technology, engineering and math (STEM) occupations has grown 79% since 1990, from 9.7 million to 17.3 million, outpacing overall U.S. job growth. A new Pew Research Center analysis of U.S. Census Bureau data takes a broad-based look at the STEM workforce from 1990 to 2016 based on an analysis of adults ages 25 and older working in any of 74 occupations. These include computer, math, engineering and architecture occupations, physical scientists, life scientists and health-related occupations such as health care practitioners and technicians, but not health care support workers such as nursing aides and medical assistants. Here are seven facts about the STEM workforce and STEM training.

http://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2018/01/09/7-facts-about-the-stem-workforce/

By Jordan Friedman, US News

Online students may pursue a credential like a graduate certificate alongside their degree to satisfy additional career goals.  Experts say more online degree students are also concurrently seeking smaller online credentials to supplement their education. These may include online certificates offered through colleges and universities, digital badges or industry certifications.  Companies such as Coursera and edX, in collaboration with universities, create massive open online courses, or MOOCs.  Technology is constantly advancing, and sometimes an online degree’s curriculum can’t keep up with the latest changes, says Ray Schroeder, associate vice chancellor for online learning at the University of Illinois—Springfield. A smaller credential may be a good option to keep skills up-to-date. But he cautions prospective online students not to take on more than they can handle.

https://www.usnews.com/higher-education/online-education/articles/2018-01-10/when-to-supplement-an-online-degree-with-a-smaller-credential

by Jim Steele, UAH

Starting in spring, students at The University of Alabama in Huntsville (UAH) will have a new and more convenient online tutoring and coaching option. The university’s Student Success Center (SSC) is rolling out a live tutoring and coaching service that works with desktops, laptops, iPads, iPhones and Android devices. The sessions will be held using the Zoom video conferencing software/app. “We piloted the program last semester for classes that we tutor and that are offered online, including writing,” says Melissa Berry, SSC virtual learning coordinator.

https://www.uah.edu/news/campus/student-success-center-rolls-out-online-academic-coaching-and-tutoring

By Jordan Friedman, US News

Enrollment in online classes grew more than 5 percent between fall 2015 and 2016, a new report found. Based on federal data from more than 4,700 colleges and universities, more than 6.3 million students in the U.S. – most of whom were undergraduates – took at least one online course in fall 2016, a 5.6 percent increase from the previous year. This is the 14th consecutive year that Babson has reported growth in online enrollment.

https://www.usnews.com/higher-education/online-education/articles/2018-01-11/study-more-students-are-enrolling-in-online-courses

By Joelle Fredman, National Association of Student Financial Aid Administrators

Despite the growing number of students acquiring master’s degrees, there is still little data on the potential earnings associated with graduate programs. Without this information, prospective students cannot make financially-informed decisions before investing in further schooling, according to a new paper by the American Enterprise Institute (AEI). The report, The Master’s as the New Bachelor’s Degree: In Search of the Labor Market Payoff, showcases program-level data collected from three states and aims to highlight, based on these findings, how crucial it is that this type of information is collected nationwide, specifically to help students escape loan debt.

https://www.nasfaa.org/news-item/14076/Report_Students_Need_More_Data_on_Potential_Earnings_of_Graduate_Programs

by Marco De Novellis, Business Because

For Ian Myatt, director of educational enterprise at the University of Birmingham, big data analytics could significantly transform the way people learn, but it should be harnessed in the right way to be effective.  “There’s huge potential,” he says. “We strive to provide all students with an excellent experience, but traditional teaching methods make it difficult to customize for personal preferences. However, with online delivery and clever use of analytics, we can more readily accommodate individual learning styles and help them identify areas where they might benefit from a greater focus.”

https://www.businessbecause.com/news/mba-distance-learning/4993/edtech-big-data-analytics-online-learning

By Jordan Friedman, US News

Contrary to what some prospective students believe, online bachelor’s programs aren’t always easier to get into than those offered on a physical campus. That’s one of several findings based on an analysis of data that schools submitted to U.S. News in an annual survey about admission to online colleges. The average proportion of applicants who were admitted to online bachelor’s programs between July 2016 and June 2017 was just 2.4 percentage points higher than the average acceptance rate at their on-campus counterparts for students entering in fall 2016. U.S. News data also show that some online bachelor’s programs have lower acceptance rates than their respective in-person offerings.

https://www.usnews.com/higher-education/online-education/articles/2018-01-09/how-admissions-works-at-online-bachelors-programs

How will the social media landscape change in 2018?
by Tereza Litsa, ClickZ

How will the social media landscape change in 2018?

By Bradley Fuster, US News

After assessing what went wrong the first time around, look into online programs that better meet your needs.  Picking up the pieces and restarting an online bachelor’s program following an unsuccessful first attempt is difficult but admirable. Returning to an online college may also still be the best path to academic recovery as a working adult. Here are five steps to take if you’re ready to return as an online student after previously failing or dropping out of an online undergraduate program. Be sure to also consult an adviser with questions along the way.

https://www.usnews.com/education/online-learning-lessons/articles/2018-01-09/restart-an-online-bachelors-program-after-failing-dropping-out

By Robyn Defelice, ATD

In this article, we will explore the results from a 2017 survey, compare that data to the previous two studies, and discuss a few trends that have emerged over the years. If you are unfamiliar with the research, the data helps to squelch the desire to say, “It depends…” when a client asks how long it will take to develop training. These numbers provide another way for project planners to budget time and resources, and they can be used in place of or in conjunction with estimates based on old projects with similar needs. At a minimum, it provides a method for making estimates, comparisons, or both.

https://www.td.org/insights/how-long-does-it-take-to-develop-one-hour-of-training-updated-for-2017