Online Learning Update

Times Square Chronicles

Learning, development, and training programs are critical parts of an organization that wants to keep its workforce on its toes with the latest market trends and technological evolutions. However, successful and impactful learning and training programs are those that are designed, developed and managed in a way to increase employee productivity.  The impact often measures the success of an e-learning platform it has on improving employee engagement, employee retention, and employee performance and productivity. All of this translates to a better run and a more efficient and competitive organization. With the help of data analytics, the information available today can be collected, interpreted, analyzed and presented in a way that turns a mediocre and mundane training program into a highly personalized, interactive and absorbing one.

https://t2conline.com/how-to-use-data-analytics-to-improve-development-and-design-of-e-learning-platforms/

Akiko Fujita, Yahoo Finance
Squeezed by a tight labor market and shrinking pool of employees, big corporations like Starbucks and Disney are increasingly turning to a new tool for recruitment: education.  Companies are partnering with universities to offer employees fully-subsidized Bachelor’s or Master’s degrees in hopes of attracting ambitious workers who want to build out their careers. “There are so many new jobs that are either coming or that are here already. So it is shifting from an employer standpoint: How you have to differentiate yourself?” said Chris Trout, VP of learning and development at The Walt Disney Company, speaking at the recent ASU GSV Summit in San Diego.

https://news.yahoo.com/disney-starbucks-walmart-big-companies-are-increasingly-5-offering-education-benefits-for-employees-141316405.html

Sascha Segan, PC Magazine

5G is an investment for the next decade, and in previous mobile transitions, we’ve seen most of the big changes happening years after the first announcement. Take 4G, for instance. The first 4G phones in the US appeared in 2010. But the sorts of 4G applications that changed our world didn’t appear until later. Snapchat came in 2012, and Uber became widespread in 2013. Video calls over LTE networks also became widespread in the US around 2013.  The actual 5G radio system, known as 5G-NR, isn’t compatible with 4G. But all 5G devices in the US, to start, will need 4G because they’ll lean on it to make initial connections before trading up to 5G where it’s available. That’s technically known as a “non standalone,” or NSA, network. Later, our 5G networks will become “standalone,” or SA, not requiring 4G coverage to work. But that’s a few years off.

https://www.pcmag.com/article/345387/what-is-5g

by Matthew Lynch, Tech Edvocate

Courseware and access to it aren’t the only innovations in online education. Many supplemental tools support classroom instruction at all levels of learning, helping students engage in the learning process and enjoy it. Student response systems: Teachers recognize the need for student involvement in lessons, but connecting with each student in every class can take time, especially if the class size exceeds 30 students. Although necessary for learning, engagement, response, and feedback are time-consuming. Apps like Socrative assist teachers in engaging students and diagnosing student performance. One of the reasons Socrative is so successful is that it bridges the gap between school and home, learning and leisure time. Students access their homework online, complete it, and the app grades it and provides immediate feedback.

https://www.thetechedvocate.org/edtech-innovation-in-online-education/

By Ben Unglesbee, Education Dive

The new public benefit corporation, called InStride, went live earlier this month, timed with the beginning of the annual ASU GSV Summit, a celebration of education’s intersection with commerce and technology. The Chronicle of Higher Education, which first broke the news of the for-profit entity, reported that Arizona State owns a minority stake in the venture, with the $2.1 billion Rise Fund, a private equity fund managed by TPG, as the majority owner. In a press release announcing its launch, InStride described itself as a “learning services enterprise” that intends to “achieve significant social impact” by partnering with companies that want to help their employees get a college education. It also credited Arizona State’s existing partnerships, such as that with Starbucks, as being “the catalyst for the new company.”

https://www.educationdive.com/news/why-arizona-state-is-using-a-for-profit-to-help-expand-workforce-partnershi/552767/

Matthew Lynch, Tech Edvocate

Imagine teaching at a school where your personal assistant takes care of the routine tasks for your classroom. The assistant even prepares lessons for your students. You have additional time to instruct students in small groups or individually, provide thoughtful feedback, and encourage learning. “Socrates, set the thermostat to 74, take attendance, and open the PowerPoint from yesterday’s lesson.” Better than Siri or Alexa, your digital teaching assistant would handle routine and complex tasks related to the classroom and student need. That scenario isn’t too far-fetched. Schools are already implementing smart technology in the form of artificial intelligence, and AI is changing the education landscape.

https://www.thetechedvocate.org/the-personal-teaching-assistant-every-teacher-needs/

Ellucian

A quarter of employers that require degrees for entry-level jobs accept credentials in place of a degree! Recruiters and students agree there is a soft skills gap.
Institutions need to invest in business models to support lifelong learning.  Student and employer perceptions around the value of college degrees are evolving. Sixty-two percent of students surveyed enrolled in college to improve their job prospects but only 39 percent believe they will be very prepared for the workplace when they graduate.

https://www.ellucian.com/insights/credential-clout-how-higher-ed-can-prepare-evolving-job-market

By IBL News

Walter Bender, the Chief Learning Architect at Sorcero and the founder of Sugar Labs and One Laptop One Child, shared with IBL News how transparent AI will revolutionize online learning following his talk at the Open edX conference last month in San Diego. The main goal, he posits, is “to leverage what makes us human to become part of the learning process.”

https://iblnews.org/2019/04/18/transparent-ai-will-revolutionize-online-learning/

Jack Karsten, Brookings
Emerging technologies such as fifth-generation (5G) wireless networks, artificial intelligence, and advanced robotics promise to transform most sectors of the economy. Many jobs are becoming more technology-intensive, and all workers will need some baseline technology skills as a result. To discuss how workers can meet the changing skills demands of the digital economy, the Center for Technology Innovation hosted a panel discussion on April 12 with Brookings scholars Darrell West and Makada Henry-Nickie, David Hoffman of Intel, and Greg Morrisett of Cornell University. The conversation covered the changing needs of employers, different models for training workers, and public policies that can help employers and workers alike adapt to emerging technologies.

https://www.brookings.edu/blog/techtank/2019/04/18/new-training-models-and-policies-for-a-digital-economy-workforce/

Wayne D’Orio, Education Dive

But traditionally campus-based institutions can find themselves outpaced as they try to match offerings from online-only schools, especially when it comes to critical services that can help attract and retain students, such as financial aid and academic advising. The act of retrofitting these typically on-campus services to meet the needs of a new subset of students can be awkward, especially compared to the streamlined offerings of online-only institutions.

https://www.educationdive.com/news/its-sunday-evening-where-are-online-colleges-student-services/552911/

Tom Vander Ark, Forbes
Minerva might be the most interesting and important higher education program in the world. The school, sponsored by Keck Graduate Institute at Claremont, offers an undergraduate program with a rigorously designed curriculum that develops knowledge and skills in about 100 foundational concepts and habits of success. Students focus on thinking critically and creatively and communicating and interacting effectively. They study and apply their learning in seven cities. The first class of world changers will graduate next month.

https://www.forbes.com/sites/tomvanderark/2019/04/08/minervas-innovative-platform-makes-high-quality-higher-ed-personal-and-affordable/#2a7ed2545742

By Lindsay Elli, Chronicle of Higher Ed

The Chronicle asked Martha E. Pollack, Cornell’s president since April 2017 — several months before its new campus opened — about lessons from the Cornell Tech project. Here are three pieces of advice she has for Virginia Tech’s team.

https://www.chronicle.com/article/Building-an-Innovation-Campus-/246132

BY ELLEN ULLMAN, eCampus News
Online therapy platforms can help colleges offer mental-health services to students. In 2018, the American Psychological Association found that more than one-third of first-year university students in eight countries reported symptoms consistent with a diagnosable mental health disorder. eCampus News was curious about how universities are addressing students’ mental health, so we spoke with Nancy Zlatkin, Psy.D., a psychologist at Florida International University (FIU). FIU has been using TAO Connect, an online therapy platform, for five years.

https://www.ecampusnews.com/2019/04/15/technology-improve-students-mental-health/

by Rhea Kelly, Campus Technology

When CT wrote about this topic last year in “What to Do About Contract Cheating,” one interviewee quipped, “Contract cheating companies are really insidious, evil, nasty beasts,” noting that these operators promote themselves as “legitimate, authorized writing help services.” Their marketing message, she explained, emphasizes that universities and professors aren’t helping students enough: “We know the university hasn’t got time to really help you. We know that you’re struggling with timelines. We’re here to help you with writing. We’re available 24/7, which your university professors are not.”

https://campustechnology.com/articles/2019/04/09/why-students-cheat.aspx

By Ryan Khurana, Catalyst Independent
In the White House’s recent executive order, dubbed the “American AI Initiative,” there was a notable focus on Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics (STEM) education and its role in securing American technological leadership.  While it is certainly true that technical skills are lacking, these pivots may be harmful to sustainable growth. It is undoubtedly the case that greater STEM competence increases the likelihood of scientific breakthroughs, new technologies, and medical advances, but none of these in isolation have an outstanding social impact. They need complements, from business, policy, and media, who are able to help spread and magnify their potential. A narrow focus on STEM alone does not enable these to arise. The fact that we have had so many new technologies appear in recent years, but they have only marginally contributed to increased productivity, indicates that there is a need for these complements.

http://catalyst.independent.org/2019/04/12/stem-is-not-all-that-matters/

Ben Unglesbee, Education Dive
Southern New Hampshire University (SNHU) plans to open a new operations support center in downtown Tucson, Arizona, to serve online students in western time zones who currently can access services only until 9 p.m., the university said in a press release this week. SNHU said it expects the new center to open in 2020 and to house additional student support staff, including in advising, admissions, student financial services and information technology. SNHU said it would first hire about 100 staff for the center, with plans to hire a total of 350 by 2021. Tucson Mayor Jonathan Rothschild credited his city’s “reputation for excellent customer service” as a reason for the university’s location choice. SNHU President Paul LeBlanc said in a statement that the university would maintain a “deep commitment” to its home city of Manchester, New Hampshire.

https://www.educationdive.com/news/southern-new-hampshire-u-to-add-west-coast-operations-center/552615/

BY DENNIS PIERCE, eCampus News

Time and cost are two key barriers standing in the way of college completion, and that’s especially true for working adults going back to school. To eliminate these barriers and help registered nurses make faster progress toward earning a Bachelor of Science in Nursing (BSN) degree, the University of Memphis School of Health Studies is using adaptive learning technology and other practices to accelerate completion—reportedly saving participants more than $100,000 in collective tuition costs in a single year. “Students shouldn’t get bogged down with paying to learn things they already know,” says Richard Irwin, dean of UofM Global, the university’s online program. “Adaptive learning helps students move through the content at a more rapid pace.”

https://www.ecampusnews.com/2019/04/05/benefits-adaptive-learning/

By ALYSSA NEWCOMB, Fortune
When users ask Alexa about their mysterious rash, or to turn off the lights, they might not expect someone else to be listening.  A.I. needs human input—and human reviewers—to become smarter. This week, a Bloomberg report pulled back the curtain on the team of people around the world who are tasked with listening to the Alexa queries of unsuspecting users. And the A.I. training team’s members number in the thousands. The employees listen to recordings of people asking for Alexa to turn off the lights or play Taylor Swift. They transcribe the queries and feed them back to the Alexa software, making it smarter and more adept at grasping the way humans speak.

http://fortune.com/2019/04/13/alexa-ai-amazon-privacy-artificial-intelligence-smart-home/

BY MFON AKPAN, eCampus News
Inspired by the potential of VR but faced with the realities of my own editing potential and the price of VR headsets, I started with a fairly basic, but transformative, video technique: 360-degree video. In their personal lives, today’s students have traded in reading for watching. In the classroom, educators have the choice to fight this trend, or to embrace it. I understand the apprehension many educators have to increase screen time in the classroom, but ignoring students’ own learning preferences and inclinations is doing them a disservice. Video facilitates retention. As studies have shown, that kind of embodied learning can help students better understand the material, and immersive experiences help with retaining information. I got a real sense for this while attending a virtual reality (VR) conference in Chicago when I put on an HTC Vive headset and was immediately transported onto a NASCAR race track

https://www.ecampusnews.com/2019/04/12/360-degree-video-engage-students/

Matthew Lynch, Tech Edvocate

John von Neumann was the first to see it coming: eventually, the capacity of machine intelligence would surpass that of the human race. His work with algorithms and quantum mechanics opened the door for exponential growth in computers. As people and computers raced toward super-intelligence, computers would eventually win out, leaving humans behind. That is the moment of singularity. Our collective body of knowledge is doubling at a rate of every twelve months; that number will narrow to every twelve hours before we reach technological singularity. Because schools are in the knowledge business, there are some far-reaching implications for what and how schools teach.

https://www.thetechedvocate.org/how-technological-singularity-will-change-schools/

By Jeffrey R. Young, EdSurge

Michael Crow is building an empire, one that frees the state university he leads, Arizona State University, from dependence on declining state funding. ASU has grown into an online education powerhouse since Crow took the helm 17 years ago, and the president has earned a reputation as one of the most innovative university leaders. But not everyone thinks that’s a good thing, as critics complain that he’s too corporate and has turned the state university into what one author called “a factory of credentialing.” Crow argues that he’s creating a prototype of a “new American university” that cares more about opening access to diverse students than chasing high rankings in U.S. News.

https://www.edsurge.com/news/2019-04-10-asu-s-michael-crow-the-rest-of-the-culture-sees-us-as-a-virus