Online Learning Update

By Doug Lederman, Inside Higher Ed

Leaders of companies colleges hire to take academic programs online discuss their role, the scrutiny they’re facing and why we should call them something other than OPMs. These are increasingly fraught times for the OPMs, with growing scrutiny from think tank analysts concerned about the corporate role in educational delivery and legislation in California that could limit the ability of such companies to operate in the state. The OPMs are also under attack from within their own ranks, as 2U’s co-founder, John Katzman, who now runs Noodle, another online enabler, said of the ed-tech industry at another panel here last week: “At a lot of schools, online programs are 20 percent more expensive than their on-campus counterpart. We’ve effectively raised the cost of education. So, I have to ask, are we properly using taxpayers’ dollars?”

https://www.insidehighered.com/digital-learning/article/2019/05/08/their-industry-under-scrutiny-opm-leaders-ponder-their-role

By Grant T. Harris, Inside Higher Ed
Just as many academic institutions now regret their slow start in China, so will they come to regret missing out on early opportunities in this increasingly important and fast-growing region Grant T. Harris warns. American universities are largely unprepared for a key global phenomenon: Africa’s growing importance. The continent’s prominent demographic, economic and political trends are impossible to overlook, and any institution aspiring to sustain a global brand and position its students to thrive in international settings will need a deliberate Africa strategy. There is no denying Africa’s growing presence in global markets and international affairs. The region’s current population of 1.2 billion is expected to double by 2050, at which point one in every four people will be African.

https://www.insidehighered.com/views/2019/05/09/benefits-universities-intensifying-and-broadening-their-involvement-africa-opinion

Danny Palmer, ZDNet

The Triton malware attack was far from the first time that hackers have attempted to target the networks of an industrial facility, but it was the first time that malware designed to attack safety systems was ever seen in the wild. The malware was designed to manipulate Schneider Electric’s Triconex Safety Instrumented System (SIS) controllers – emergency shutdown systems – and was uncovered on the network at a critical infrastructure operator in the Middle East. The malware campaign was extremely stealthy and was only uncovered because the attackers made a mistake and triggered the safety system, shutting down the plant. The outcome could’ve been much worse.

https://www.zdnet.com/article/cybersecurity-the-key-lessons-of-the-triton-malware-cyberattack-you-need-to-learn/

Ray Schroeder, Inside Higher Ed

We are in the midst of a major shake-up in higher education. Dozens of colleges have closed in the past couple of years (hundreds if you include failed for-profit chains).  In this changing environment of rapidly expanding competition and institutional expectations, how do deans and directors responsible for online learning create a viable vision for growth in the next several years? It is not enough to simply project online growth rates of the past — we must account for the expanding competition in a dynamic marketplace. Here are five things you can do to begin to build a framework for the future.

https://www.insidehighered.com/digital-learning/blogs/online-trending-now/framework-plotting-future-your-online-program

Matthew Lynch, Tech Edvocate

With the advent of edtech startups seeking a place as a tutor in classrooms and during personal study time, it won’t be long before the tech titans Apple and Amazon turn toward the development of AI tutors created exclusively for learners looking for personal assistance. Your next tutor may be an AI voice assistant.

https://www.thetechedvocate.org/your-next-tutor-may-be-a-digital-voice-assistant/

Matt Dembecki, Community College Daily

During a panel discussion on student success Monday at the Education Writers Association national seminar, education researchers and administrators agreed that more than data is needed to determine student success. Too often, data only provide freeze frames — something Baltimore City Public Schools CEO Sonja Brookins Santelises called “incidental moments of data” — and they don’t factor in other important elements. “In the era of big data, we’ve become enamored with short-term test scores,” said Rucker Johnson, a public policy associate professor at the University of California, Berkeley, and research associate at the National Bureau of Economic Research.

http://www.ccdaily.com/2019/05/not-big-data/

KYLE WIGGERS, Venture Beat

“We’ve come to know that AI-powered experiences can get a lot of information to a person with a disability, which ultimately empowers their independence,” Mary Bellard, senior accessibility architect at Microsoft, told VentureBeat in an interview ahead of the company’s annual Build developer conference in Seattle. “[We’re working] to make sure we’re not just developing tech for tech’s sake, [but] working on technology that a particular disability community wants and is interested in driving with us.”

https://venturebeat.com/2019/05/06/how-microsoft-is-using-ai-to-improve-accessibility/

By Kathryn Vasel, CNN Business

While Silicon Valley has made some strides in creating opportunities and more inclusive workplaces for women, Melinda Gates believes there’s still work to be done. “If you talk with women and men in Silicon Valley, some companies have changed, but quite a few still haven’t,” the co-founder of the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation tells CNN’s Poppy Harlow during a Boss Files interview. “And, what I know to be true is that we need more pathways for women into technology.” Having a bad reputation for supporting women in the workplace can be costly for a company.

https://www.cnn.com/2019/05/06/success/melinda-gates-ai-gender-equality/index.html

John Roach, Microsoft

For example, he explained, systems today can add a new appointment to your calendar but not engage in a back-and-forth dialogue with you about how to juggle a high-priority meeting request. They are also unable to use contextual information from one skill to assist you in making decisions from another, such as checking the weather before scheduling an afternoon meeting on the patio of a nearby coffee shop. The next generation of intelligent assistant technologies from Microsoft will be able to do this by leveraging breakthroughs in conversational artificial intelligence and machine learning pioneered by Semantic Machines.

https://blogs.microsoft.com/ai/microsoft-build-future-of-natural-language/

Study International
Long gone are the days of traditional office settings and tiring work commutes to work, largely due to the brilliance of widespread digital advancements. Through virtual work environments and speedy internet connections, interns can now gain vital work experience without having to move an inch from their home or university. This may sound strange at first, and you may question the validity of the skills you earn from an online internship, but that’s the way our future could be heading…

https://www.studyinternational.com/news/how-do-global-virtual-internships-benefit-your-study-skills/

Cryptopolitan

Not so long ago all learning was delivered offline. Nowadays it is a given that students will have an internet connection and will be able to access their content at all times. Learning Management Systems were designed as SaaS to always be online or at least linked to a central database. They were designed to track learning activities that occur in the LMS, and lack the capability to record informal or social learning actions. An offline player, in the context of elearning, is a program which allows learners to download elearning content when they are connected to the internet, then complete the training later when disconnected. The benefits of this, for students as well as for a multilingual distributed workforce that may have poor access to the internet, can be great.

https://www.cryptopolitan.com/leveling-the-playing-field-with-internet-connectivity-plus/

Frederic Lardinois, Tech Crunch
If you write in Microsoft Word Online, you’ll soon have an AI-powered editor at your side. As the company announced today, Word will soon get a new feature called “Ideas” that will offer writers all kinds of help with their documents. If writing is a struggle for you, the most important feature of Ideas is surely its ability to help you write more concise and readable text. You can think of this as a grammar checker on steroids, as it goes beyond fixing obvious mistakes and focuses on making your writing better. It uses machine learning, for example, to suggest a rewrite when you mangled a complex phrase. Ideas will also help you write more inclusive texts.

https://techcrunch.com/2019/05/06/words-new-ai-features-will-help-you-write-better/

Kantele Franco, AP

Just a year after the online Western Governors University launched its Ohio affiliate , state lawmakers are considering eliminating recognition that lets its students benefit from certain state-funded aid, including need-based grants. That’s part of the budget bill passed Thursday by the House. It now heads to the Senate. The change was advocated by Republican Rep. Jay Edwards, a member of House leadership whose district includes Ohio University. He said the state’s recognition of Salt Lake City-based WGU was unfair to existing public schools in Ohio that are big employers, receive significant state funding, and already offer various online educational opportunities. WGU Ohio has about 3,100 students.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/national/lawmakers-consider-ending-recognition-of-online-university/2019/05/09/ac2779f4-72a6-11e9-9331-30bc5836f48e_story.html

By John Waters, Edsurge

Language learning is something of a sweet spot for AI, thanks to the capabilities of two core types of AI tech: machine learning and natural language processing. Machine learning algorithms support adaptive, personalized and spaced learning, while natural language processing technologies help with the extremely complex challenges associated with understanding and translating human language. A growing number of vendors are offering AI-powered language-learning apps to companies and the general public (Speexx, Busuu, Duolingo) for hundreds of languages, but Ponddy’s products were developed specifically for secondary and university teachers of Mandarin.

https://www.edsurge.com/news/2019-05-03-ai-is-everywhere-now-it-wants-to-teach-you-chinese

Goldie Blumenstyk, Chronicle of Higher Ed
Another big publisher in higher ed is making a strategic move. John Wiley & Sons announced on Monday that it was buying the assets of Knewton, an 11-year-old company that has at times been held up as the poster child for ed-tech overhype. Knewton was initially known for its adaptive-learning tools designed to work with content from commercial publishers, but more recently it has shifted focus toward its platform that incorporates open educational resources, or OER.

https://www.chronicle.com/article/Another-Big-Move-Hits/246249

Marabia Smith, Yahoo Finance

America’s education system as a whole is far too complex and intersected with other socio-economic factors for there to be easy fixes to this problem, Dan Rosensweig, CEO and president of Chegg, an educational resource company that started out offering online textbook rentals, said in an interview on Yahoo Finance’s On the Move. “We need to make learning more available and that means it has to be downloadable, on-demand, affordable and adaptive,” he said, adding that a host of parties including academic institutions, corporations, families and students need to take part in solving the problem.

https://finance.yahoo.com/news/cheggs-ceo-we-need-to-make-learning-more-available-and-adaptive-121831496.html

Charles Rick, Aitkin Age

According to a survey in 2016, the Pew Research Center noted 74% of American adults consider themselves lifelong learners. People are interested in enriching their lives in both their personal and professional lives. A characteristic of lifelong learners is the desire to keep learning, with a desire for more knowledge and self-improvement. Besides a personal interest in learning, people want to maintain and even enhance their skills to have a successful career. In the same Pew Research survey, 87% believe their jobs depend on continued learning of new skills.

https://www.messagemedia.co/aitkin/opinion/other_opinions/the-most-important-weapon-we-can-use-to-change-the/article_1eb5271c-6c7d-11e9-b9f7-3fb612a85409.html

Thomas Franck, CNBC

Job gains in the services sectors continued to rocket higher in April as hiring remained hot for computer system designers, social workers and health-care professionals. Manufacturing, on the other hand, posted a third straight month of lackluster employment figures. CNBC studied the net changes by industry for April jobs based on the data from the Labor Department contained in the jobs report released Friday. The government said the U.S. economy added 263,000 jobs last month, more than the 190,000 increase expected by economists polled by Refinitiv.

https://www.cnbc.com/2019/05/03/heres-where-the-jobs-are-in-one-chart.html

Tom Taulli, Forbes

AI is considered the most disruptive technology, according to Gartner’s 2019 CIO Survey (it includes over 3,000 CIOs from 89 countries). So yes, this is big reason why there has been a major increase in adoption and implementation. Yet there is a bottleneck that could easily slow the progress – that is, finding the right talent. The fact is that there are few data scientists and AI experts available. In our recent State of Software Engineer report, we found that demand for data engineers has increased by 38% and demand growth for machine learning engineers has increased by 27% in the last year,” said Mehul Patel, who is the CEO of Hired.

https://www.forbes.com/sites/tomtaulli/2019/05/04/how-to-reskill-your-workforce-for-ai-artificial-intelligence/#4fabfe03eb9b

Beckie Supiano, The Chronicle of Higher Education
Traditional-age students are digital natives. Professors are trained researchers. Neither of those qualities, though, prevents people from falling for misinformation online. That’s one finding from a memorable study, released as a working paper in 2017, that documented how three groups of ‘experts’ – among them historians and Stanford University undergraduates – evaluated online sources. Members of both groups tended to dig into a site, according to the study, by Sam Wineburg, a professor at Stanford’s Graduate School of Education, and Sarah McGrew, his doctoral student. The students and historians followed many of the tips that students are usually given for conducting online research, like examining a site’s domain name. But the tactics didn’t work.

https://www.universityworldnews.com/post.php?story=20190503064623969

By Rhea Kelly, Campus Technology
A new report from Strada Education Network offers key takeaways from last fall’s Online Student Success Symposium, a two-day workshop focused on challenges, innovative practices and future opportunities in online learning. Hosted by BYU-Pathway Worldwide and sponsored by Strada, the event convened online learning leaders from higher education as well as organizations that provide student support services, for a series of presentations and conversations on data analytics, curriculum, standards and measurement, and mentoring and coaching.

https://campustechnology.com/articles/2019/04/22/5-ways-to-promote-student-success-in-online-learning.aspx?admgarea=news