There is not enough research and knowledge around how interactions happen online between communities and users, especially in the space of conflicts. A team from the Computer Science and Linguistics department of Stanford University wanted to change just that. What they did: research conflict events by searching for cases where one community posted a hyperlink to another community. What they found: conflicts tend to be initiated by a handful of communities—less than 1% of communities start 74% of conflicts. In the long term, conflicts have adverse effects and reduce the overall activity of users in targeted communities. The researchers also came up with a way to predict conflicts on the web communities.
This year marks the 15th consecutive year of growth in what’s known as online, or distance, learning at U.S. colleges and universities. But a newer trend is seeing students fresh out of high school — not just the working adults that have dominated the online-learning world — logging on as well. At a time of changing demographics in higher education, area schools that have embraced the distance model simply say they’re meeting students where they want to be.
BY TOM KRAZIT, GeekWire
A new ten-course seminar for engineers looking to add machine-learning skills to their resumes is now available through the Microsoft Professional Program. The Microsoft Professional Program for AI will be available four times a year and it should take at least a few weeks to complete the training. Developers will be given an introduction to machine-learning principles and taught how to create learning models and data sets, modeled on an internal Microsoft training program. They will be awarded a “a digitally sharable, résumé-worthy credential” after completing a deep learning project at the end of the course, Microsoft said.
by Jarrett Carter, Education Dive
Approximately 55% of college classrooms throughout the United States and Canada are using the traditional lecture model to teach science, mathematics and technology, according to a new study published in Science magazine. About 27% of classes had some levels of interactive instruction, such as technology-based question and answer modules, and 18% were described as “student-centered” in a survey of 2000 classrooms. The study’s author says professors have to feel confident in knowing and utilizing new forms of teaching, which may be stunting the implementation of interactive models of instruction. “I think there is a growing awareness and recognition among the STEM professoriate of the benefits of active learning strategies on students’ learning and attitudes toward STEM,” said Marilyne Stains, associate professor of chemistry at the University of Nebraska at Lincoln
by Stephanie Kim, Georgetown University
With their distinctive campuses, emphasis on research and scholarship, and singular form of governance, universities are sometime seen as academic sanctuaries, separate from the rest of society. While there is some truth to this notion, colleges, like other institutions, are also products of the society that shaped them—and they exert their own unique influence on society as well. In 2018, with the nation and world more fast-moving and interconnected than ever, the very pressing concerns of society will be the concerns of higher education as well; and those universities that are most able to confront these challenges—by expanding their missions, reaching out to “nontraditional” students, and partnering with other institutions here and abroad—will be the most successful.
We received nearly 2,500 responses to the survey. Overall, we found that Class Central users tend to be highly educated. You are interested in MOOCs for both personal and professional reasons, and many of you have experienced career benefit from MOOCs. On the whole, you aren’t keen to pay for MOOCs, and you are divided over the value of the social and interactive elements of MOOCs.
More detailed results from the survey are linked below.
With over six million students currently enrolled in online learning programs, there is no future in higher education except in online education. As universities adapt to better serve a growing population of digital learners, there will no doubt continue to be monumental progress made in educating all students, everywhere. Online learning is the future of education–at all levels, but especially in higher education. As the concept of distance learning evolves from cassette tape and telephone learning to high-speed, interactive Internet lessons, more doors are opened for students for whom traditional classroom learning simply does not work. The following trends will likely take hold in the next five years, allowing more students access to high-quality education from any location.
Half of the students who walk through the doors of a college or university leave without a degree. Half. Most of those students are bright and energetic, highly capable students—they may even be extra motivated to succeed because of the hurdles they’ve had to overcome just to get into college. But they lack resources. That’s just what the University Innovation Alliance has been working on for the past three years. The Alliance is a consortium of 11 major public research universities enrolling 400,000 students, 120,000 of whom are low-income.
by Riia O’Donnell, Education Dive
Following the hire of a Stanford University leader in learning science, Candace Thille, speculation rose that e-tail giant Amazon was moving into the e-learning space. A new report by CNBC suggests the company is looking at its cloud to build a corporate training service. Although the company denies any move into the online education space, job postings from Amazon since April 2017 have advertised for people who could help build a “learning platform.” As recently as December, an ad for a solution architect cited an opportunity to “enable hundreds of thousands of businesses in 190 countries around the world to transform and scale their learning initiatives.” Representatives for the company told HR Dive recently, “[Thille] is serving as the Director of Learning Science and Engineering within our Global Learning and Development team. Her remit is to help scale and innovate workplace learning at Amazon.”
by Ma. Victoria Almeda, et al, Online Learning Journal
Online education continues to become an increasingly prominent part of higher education, but many students struggle in distance courses. For this reasonFor this reason, there has been considerable interest in predicting which students will succeed in online courses , achieving poor grades or dropping out prior to course completionn). Effective intervention depends on understanding which students are at-risk in terms of actionable factors, and behavior within an online course is one key potential factor for intervention. In recent years, many have suggested that Massive Online Open Courses (MOOCs) are a particularly useful place to conduct research into behavior and interventions, given both their size and the relatively low consequences/costs of experimentation
Department of Education has narrowed scope of civil rights inquiries — a necessary step, it says, to deliver speedier resolutions to students and colleges. The omnibus spending package passed by Congress last week will give a serious boost to the Department of Education’s civil rights enforcement arm, even as that office narrows the scope of its investigative work. OCR, however, has taken steps recently to streamline its investigation of civil rights complaints, limiting its use of broad systemic reviews and mandating that cases be automatically dismissed under a range of circumstances.
by Mark Austin, Digital Trends
Not satisfied with merely ferrying cargo to and from the International Space Station (and putting a red Tesla into orbit around Mars), SpaceX now wants to provide high-speed internet to everyone in the world. SpaceX CEO and flamethrower enthusiast Elon Musk envisions Starlink as a network of thousands of satellites in Low Earth Orbit (LEO) that will provide broadband internet access to the entire planet. That plan took a big step forward this week when the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) approved the company’s request to provide broadband satellite services.
When teachers are tasked with developing an online course, their thinking often follows along these lines: This is what I do in class. How can that be translated online? What if we reversed our thinking? Instead of assuming what’s done on ground is ideal, what if we looked at teaching online as a means of improving our face-to-face teaching skills? The process of developing an online course, starting with a clean slate instead of converting resident instruction via technology, leads to an examination of our classroom-based course design, assumptions about learning, and ultimately improves instructional practice in both settings along several dimensions: teaching persona, power distance, instructional clarity, student interaction, and learning assessment.
by Torria Davis, Visual Design for Online Learning via Tomorrow’s Professor
Providing opportunities for asynchronous and synchronous communication between learners in the course is an important part of creating a sense of presence and building a learning community in an online course. Learning to work with others across time and distance is a new skill for many taking online courses. Although learners may use social media to communicate with family and friends who are not in close proximity, they are not always cognizant of how to do this for academic purposes. Therefore the skill of interacting and collaborating with peers online must be taught and purposefully planned by the instructor.
Universal access to clean water should be the world’s highest priority, according to a recent pronouncement by a “swarm artificial intelligence” system that connected 70 people in real time via AI algorithms designed to turn them into a “hive mind.” Participants in the swarm were attendees of the South by Southwest conference this month in Austin, who were gathered by AI company Unanimous AI to “think together” on a variety of topics and provide “optimized insights.” “With the rise of AI, it’s important to keep human knowledge and wisdom in the loop, especially when weighing complex social priorities,” commented Louis Rosenberg, CEO of Unanimous AI, in a statement.
Traditional textbooks — the ones we are assigned in most of our classes — are unnecessarily expensive. The high cost of textbooks can be attributed to the textbook market, which is structured to victimize students. AEI.org reports that textbook prices have increased 812 percent since 1978, which is a greater increase than both medical and home prices. This astronomical increase has led to students spending an average of $1,250 a year on books and supplies, according to the College Board. That $1,250 is on top of the cost of tuition, mandatory fees and housing associated with going to college. It’s the textbook market and the publishers profiting off students that are to blame.
By Joey Morona, cleveland.com
The University of Akron will unveil more details about its new esports program at a forum next month. The purpose of the event is “to discuss how the esports varsity teams and club will function, and how the program will contribute to the greater Akron area through community involvement,” a university spokesperson said in a release. Akron’s esports — or competitive video gaming — program is scheduled to launch this fall with both varsity and club teams. The varsity team will field between 50 to 55 players competing against other universities in games such as League of Legends, Overwatch, CS:GO, Hearthstone and Rocket League. Like other student-athletes, varsity esports players will be eligible for scholarships.
by Tommy Perkins, EvolllutionAs technology advances, the needs of the labor market and employers change as well. And while traditional-age students are enrolled in programs that help them adapt to these changes, adults are unfortunately being left behind. Advanced applications for big data, machine learning and artificial intelligence can take us to new heights, or plunge us into a dystopian future where robots absorb jobs, unemployment soars and precious few humans are qualified to guide the machines ethically. Of course, they’ll create some new jobs, but the projections of how much of our economy automation will consume are daunting.
When asked what tools and technologies they would most like to adopt for their online programs, online education leaders cited adaptive learning and learning analytics as their most wanted tech, according to a recent survey. The second annual Changing Landscape of Online Education (CHLOE 2) report, a joint initiative of nonprofit Quality Matters and Eduventures Research, the research and advisory services division of the National Research Center for College & University Admissions, surveyed 182 chief online officers (COOs) at U.S. colleges and universities about policies, practices and plans around online education. Researchers defined “chief online officer” as any position that manages online education for an institution — with responsibilities spanning course and program development, training, technology selection, support and oversight, budgeting, quality assurance, planning and policy.
Asynchronous discussions and group projects are the most important techniques currently used for online learning, according to a new survey of online education leaders from Quality Matters and Eduventures Research. When asked which online learning methods were most important at their institutions, respondents pointed to those two activities first, followed by problem-based learning, quizzes and research projects.
Humor is a tough nut to crack. In the face-to-face classroom, it works great to keep the troops awake and actively breathing. Effective techniques include goofy activities, oddball writing assignments and witty comments. Prodding students into a laugh proved to be a viable strategy and I was very successful at it. What really helped was reading the class’s body language: those subtle shifts in attitude where I could deliver one of my dry zingers, producing the desired jovial results. Those experiences proved to me that humor was a dominating factor when creating an interactive classroom. So, moving to the online format was a little disconcerting. Could humor achieve the same responses online as in real life? Well, I’ve come to find out the answer is, “Absolutely!”