Online Learning Update

Brandon Busteed, Forbes
There are a growing number of examples where students prefer online over traditional classroom education. For a while now, online education has been a good option for students who – for various reasons – can’t access on-the-ground education. And although there are still examples of rudimentary online courses out there (think compliance training), both the technology and the pedagogy powering online learning have gotten considerably better over the last decade. And now, fairly suddenly it seems, there are a growing number of cases where online education is actually outperforming its traditional classroom counterpart. Evidence of student success and, indeed preference, for the online classroom is mounting – and this will serve widespread benefits for all of us.

https://www.forbes.com/sites/brandonbusteed/2019/03/05/online-education-from-good-to-better-to-best/#6516a1a06912

by John Hanc, Seattle Times

Now, according to an annual survey by the Babson Survey Research Group and the Online Learning Consortium, more than 6.3 million students took at least one distance education course in the fall 2016 semester (the most recent academic year for which data is available). That’s 31.6 percent of all higher education enrollments, according to the study, and about half of them were taking all of their classes online. Many of these students are traditional age. But for adult students (generally defined as those 25 and over, working full-time jobs or with parenting responsibilities) online education is a particularly attractive option. Citing several studies, Louis Soares, chief learning and innovation officer for the American Council on Education, says that about a third of all adult students — roughly 13 million — are pursuing advanced degrees online.

https://www.seattletimes.com/explore/special-sections/life-is-complicated-distance-learning-helps/

Kelly Otter, Evolllution

Continuing Education (CE) divisions that don’t keep a finger on the pulse of industry change risk being overlooked in favor of schools that better respond to market needs. In this interview, Kelly Otter discusses the critical importance of program responsiveness, and explains how Georgetown University’s vision, mission and values are key to developing content that non-traditional learners need.

Establishing and Maintaining Program Responsiveness in Continuing Education

Tobe Phelps, Evolllution

The proposed next step in this evolution is a blockchain college. As Feng Hou (fellow blockchain evangelist and recent recipient of Oral Roberts University’s Blockchain for Education Vision Award) is fond of stating: “It is not the money but the brightest ideas that will prevail.” With this in mind, the blockchain college is a culmination of technologies that will allow students and employers to work together in a decentralized fashion. There is no reason for the college to play intermediary to the student-employer relationship. It only delays any communications and creates an artificial barrier to the efficient exchange of information.

https://evolllution.com/technology/tech-tools-and-resources/a-proposal-for-a-blockchain-college-system/

Susan Grajek, Evolllution

Changing student expectations are a key driver of higher education’s digital transformation. In particular, students want a customer experience that is personalized and seamless. They want a home base for their education, but they want their institution to offer access to a larger higher education marketplace. They want to be at a competitive advantage when they graduate, and that means having job-ready skills and competencies and new and innovative learning opportunities.

https://evolllution.com/technology/tech-tools-and-resources/how-student-expectations-are-driving-digital-transformation/

By Alex Lemieux , Republican Standard

How do you know that what you’re reading was actually written by a human? Interesting question considering the times.  As the rise of artificial intelligence (A.I.) begins to creep into more and more facets of life, a conversation over a network – just like this one – can leave some wondering: Am I reading what another human is writing, and how do I know? Machine-generated journalism is emerging as a tool used by many major news organizations like Associated Press, Bloomberg, The Washington Post, and others. Meanwhile, reporters and editors are finding themselves packing up their broadsheet news writing skills and press passes after becoming victims of layoffs at digital publishers and traditional newspaper chains alike.

https://therepublicanstandard.com/a-i-s-turing-test-for-modern-journalistic-standards/

BY LAURA ASCIONE, eCampus News
Have you prepared your campus for augmented reality and artificial intelligence? A survey from the Center for Digital Education (CDE) recently found that college and university leaders are focusing on transforming academics, securing students and data, improving student services, and modernizing IT. These for core areas, they believe, will establish a solid foundation to support future innovation on campus. Within those four core areas, higher-ed leaders are focusing on these 10 top priorities to lay the groundwork for future transformation:

https://www.ecampusnews.com/2019/03/01/campus-ready-ai-other-technology-trends/

By James Vincent, the Verge
Earlier this month you may have seen a website named ThisPersonDoesNotExist.com doing the rounds, which uses AI to generate startlingly realistic fake faces. Well, here’s the sequel: WhichFaceIsReal.com, which lets you test your ability to distinguish AI-generated fakes from the genuine article. Just head to the site and click on who you think is the real person!  WhichFaceIsReal.com also has a higher purpose though. It was set up by two academics from the University of Washington, Jevin West and Carl Bergstrom, both of whom study how information spreads through society. They think the rise of AI-generated fakes could be trouble, undermining society’s trust in evidence, and want to educate the masses.

https://www.theverge.com/2019/3/3/18244984/ai-generated-fake-which-face-is-real-test-stylegan

Xinhua
China saw rapid growth in online education last year, with the number of users of such services rising 29.7 percent year on year to 201 million, accounting for 24.3 percent of total Internet users, according to a statistical report on Internet development. Around 194 million people in China accessed online education via mobile phones, up 63.3 percent compared with 2017, said the China Internet Network Information Center report. Wider use of smart devices and improved quality and accessibility of mobile Internet creates more opportunities for online education growth and makes learning via mobile devices much easier.

http://www.xinhuanet.com/english/2019-03/03/c_137864471.htm

Michael Spencer, COGNITIVE WORLD
Artificial intelligence is a tool humanity is wielding with increasing recklessness. We say it’s for our common good with machine learning hype equal to business profits. But what happens when we don’t have the code of ethics, laws, government accountability, corporate transparency and capability of monitoring the space to be able to achieve AI regulation?  Artificial intelligence (AI) is an area of computer science that emphasizes the creation of intelligent machines that work and react like humans. But what happens when humans are unable to regulate, control and monitor how AI is being developed, integrated and upgraded? What happens when foreign states use it to achieve their own political agendas and economic programs without careful monitoring as to what it could one day become?

https://www.forbes.com/sites/cognitiveworld/2019/03/02/artificial-intelligence-regulation-will-be-impossible/#7dceca5811ed

By Henry Kronk, e-Learning Inside
One of the most ambitious efforts in online education is currently underway at the University of Michigan’s Ross School of Business. Since August, the #7 business school in the country has been working to put together an Online MBA degree offering for the fall semester of this year. Earlier this month, they announced they had signed with Noodle Partners, an OPM, to help the process along. To learn more, eLearning Inside got in touch with Eliot Gattegno, managing director of the Office of Digital Education at Michigan Ross. While Gattegno won’t be teaching any courses at Michigan Ross, he and his department are responsible for overseeing the creation of the Online MBA.

https://news.elearninginside.com/creating-an-online-mba-at-a-top-business-school-the-latest-from-michigan-ross/

STEVE PATCHIN, Mining Gazette

A study by the Pew Research Center found 54 percent of working adults believe it was essential to continuously update their skills to be successful in their careers. Why? To keep up with advances in technology that are disrupting industries from automakers to retail. So what changes will support this need and how can higher education help?

http://www.mininggazette.com/opinion/columns/2019/03/how-education-will-change-to-support-lifelong-learning/

By eLearning Inside

The holographic presence technology can open up a whole new dimension in interactive online education. All it takes is a projector and transmitter that scans a person’s body. Once your body is scanned, you can enjoy guest lectures from all over the world by being present in the virtual classroom and sharing the same workspace.  One of the possible applications of this technology is creating standardized classrooms that support hologram guest lectures in every university. They can be identically sized and fitted out with the same equipment. Thus, constructing the same workspaces worldwide will make it possible for students to attend lectures conducted by Google developers, NASA astronauts, Olympic games winners, book authors, etc. The presenter will be able to teach students from all over the globe by being physically present only in one classroom, while their listeners will see their holographic projection.

https://news.elearninginside.com/holograph-assisted-learning-science-fiction-or-reality/

Mary Beth Faller, ASU
Education for Humanity partners with local groups for access to higher education
Every day, more than 44,000 people are forced to flee their homes as a result of persecution, conflict or generalized violence. Millions cross borders into new countries seeking safety, bringing with them a determination to positively contribute to their new communities. More than 85 percent of these refugees flee to developing countries, often without the ability to continue their education or get jobs. Restricted to a refugee camp or trying to make ends meet in an urban center, many want to gain skills that will benefit them in their new communities and also when they return to their countries and rebuild. Education for Humanity, an initiative of Arizona State University, is meeting that need by offering online courses to refugees in Lebanon, Jordan, Iraq, Uganda and Rwanda. Soon, the program will expand to Ethiopia and Kenya.

https://asunow.asu.edu/20190301-global-engagement-asu-offering-rapidly-deployable-online-courses-refugees-displaced-people

Harveen Singh, Towards Data Science

AI for everyone is a non technical course taking which you will have greater knowledge than most CEO’s in the world. At least this is what Andrew Ng claims. So let’s find out in short what he wants to convey.

https://towardsdatascience.com/ai-for-everyone-what-andrew-ng-want-to-convey-with-this-non-technical-course-in-30-points-bedaea57c81b

Ray Schroeder, the Evolllution

Higher education is on the cusp of major changes. Enrollments are on the decline—both online and on campus—and the trend is expected to accelerate.[1] Graduates are laboring under substantial college loan debts totaling more than $1.5 trillion.[2] Employers are demanding that applicants possess soft and hard skills that many college graduates do not hold.[3] At the same time new and emerging technologies are changing the way credentials are shared and work is done. It is in this context that continuing, professional and online programs have been imported from the periphery to the center of traditional universities.

https://evolllution.com/revenue-streams/market_opportunities/five-key-trends-for-professional-and-continuing-education-leaders-in-the-next-five-years/

The EDUCAUSE Horizon Report Preview provides summaries of each of the upcoming edition’s trends, challenges, and important developments in educational technology, which were ranked most highly by the expert panel.  Opportunities for learners to blend their formal education with modularized online coursework, at an affordable cost, are establishing a learning continuum along which an evolving workforce can easily upskill. Badges and certificates provide prospective employers with evidence of skills gained through a wide range of educational opportunities and venues. Institutions that develop partnerships with online course providers or otherwise create a variety of options for students to master content at their own pace are responding to the needs of learners who want more control over learning pathways when earning a certificate or a degree.

https://library.educause.edu/-/media/files/library/2019/2/2019horizonreportpreview.pdf

Lucas Mearian, Computerworld
There’s been a 517% increase in demand for software engineers with blockchain development skills in the past year, according to a new report from job search site Hired. In its first-ever analysis of only software engineering jobs, Hired found blockchain development skills ranked in the top three job openings in almost every global region. Blockchain engineers were followed by security engineers and embedded engineers, which saw 132% and 76% year-over-year growth, respectively.

https://www.computerworld.com/article/3345998/demand-for-blockchain-engineers-is-through-the-roof.html

By Sydney Johnson, EdSurge

Last year, the number of learners who had taken at least one MOOC crossed 100 million, but the number of learners added was just 20 million, which was less than 23 million for the last two years. So the rate at which new users are coming into the MOOC space is decreasing. The number of courses has been growing steadily at the same rate now. We have more than 11,000 courses from 900 universities. As for the MOOC providers, Coursera is the biggest one—with the most revenue and the most number of users, and also the most number of employees. Udacity ended 2017 with 500 employees, but they had layoffs, and ended 2018 with 330 employees.

https://www.edsurge.com/news/2019-02-26-much-ado-about-moocs-where-are-we-in-the-evolution-of-online-courses

by Daniel Castro and Joshua New, Center for Data Innovation

The American AI initiative directs federal agencies to take five important steps to increase U.S. leadership in AI: prioritize AI in their R&D missions; make resources critical to AI development, including data and computing resources, available to researchers and industry; establish guidance and standards for AI in various sectors; prioritize worker training programs to help American workers develop skills necessary to work with AI; and the administration commits to ensuring that international markets are open and competitive, as well as conducive to AI R&D.

https://thehill.com/opinion/technology/431414-the-us-is-finally-moving-towards-an-ai-strategy

Jayshree Pandya, Forbes
This is an age of artificial intelligence (AI) driven automation and autonomous machines. The increasing ubiquity and rapidly expanding potential of self-improving, self-replicating, autonomous intelligent machines has spurred a massive automation driven transformation of human ecosystems in cyberspace, geospace and space (CGS). From granting parole to diagnosing diseases, college admissions to job interviews, managing trades to granting credits, autonomous vehicles to autonomous weapons, the rapidly evolving AI systems are increasingly being adopted by individuals and entities across nations: its government, industries, organizations and academia (NGIOA). Individually and collectively, the promise and perils of these evolving AI systems are raising serious concerns for the accuracy, fairness, transparency, trust, ethics, privacy and security of the future of humanity — prompting calls for regulation of artificial intelligence design, development and deployment.

https://www.forbes.com/sites/cognitiveworld/2019/02/25/troubling-trends-towards-artificial-intelligence-governance/#3b62863925a5