Online Learning Update

BY JESSICA SPITZ, Columbia Spectator

Sandesh Tuladhar will work to centralize efforts to incorporate online education across the University as the new director of online education. Various forms of online education have been present at Columbia for years, including massive open online courses, certification programs, and “flipped” classrooms, which incorporate online resources into a course’s curriculum. However, with the recent creation of a new position for a Director of Online Education and the opening of the Center for Teaching and Learning, Columbia looks to expand the scale of online educational programming even further.

http://columbiaspectator.com/news/2016/02/18/university-hires-first-director-online-education-online-education-efforts-rapidly

BY GULLI ARNASON, Financial News

Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University´s Worldwide campus will launch four free online courses in 2016, known as Massive Online Open Courses (MOOCs), to address timely aerospace topics. Two of the courses will focus on the Southeast Asian marketplace. Through collaboration with leading regional experts and its Embry-Riddle Asia headquarters in Singapore the university continues its commitment to shaping a sustainable aerospace workforce in the region.

http://www.financial-news.co.uk/33353/2016/02/embry-riddle-plans-free-online-courses-to-support-aeros/

by Sophia Oswald, WASHBURN REVIEW

Whether or not you prefer online courses or taking a class in person depends on who you are and how you learn. There are many advantages to both types and the preference really depends on each individual student. When students decide to learn in the classroom, they are able to learn face-to-face and can ask questions as soon as they get stumped. These can be difficult for some people because you have to be on campus and are responsible for being there at a certain time. When students decide to enroll in an online course, they aren’t required to be in a class at a certain time and they don’t have to commute to be there. This type of course can help people who work a lot and have tight schedules.

http://www.washburnreview.org/opinion/students-compare-online-on-campus-classes/article_e01c0d60-cec1-11e5-ba95-f391fa677f4c.html

By Tara García Mathewson, Education Dive

While it’s hard to say when higher education will be on the other side of a major shift and what, exactly, it will look like then, Richard DeMillo, Georgia Tech computing professor and author of “Revolution in Higher Education: How a Small Band of Innovators Will Make College Accessible and Affordable,” believes the ‘revolution’ is inevitable. Campus Technology reports that DeMillo sees a major shift toward online programming and digital technology to better serve students at colleges and universities across the country, both the well-known and more obscure. A reimagined Physics 101 course at Georgia Tech replaced overcrowded labs with videos, made by students who go out into the world to conduct experiments and then report back, creating an entirely new experience for students — not simply an online version that doesn’t have space limitations.

http://www.educationdive.com/news/higher-ed-revolution-hard-to-predict-but-on-the-way/414114/

By Tara García Mathewson, Education Dive

Data collection around student performance has exploded in recent years, and many schools have figured out how to use the data to improve retention rates, make advising more efficient, strengthen classroom pedagogy, and offer the right services to meet student needs. But still, Jeff Ralyea, senior vice president of product management at Ellucian, sees that many campuses are lost. “What we have found is that the schools, even if they have the data, they just don’t know where to start in terms of using the data,” Ralyea said. Ellucian has been working on a set of guided analytics solutions that use heuristics to “teach” the program to anticipate desired analyses based on prior searches and user profiles. The higher education software and services company sees a strong desire for data-driven decision-making among its client institutions. This software makes it possible for a wider range of people to interpret the data in ways that can be meaningful for the organization.

http://www.educationdive.com/news/collecting-the-right-data-isnt-enough-colleges-must-know-how-to-use-it/414040/

By Jordan Friedman, US News

To keep students engaged, some faculty incorporate game-design elements into online classes. For gamification to be effective, students need to view it as a serious form of learning, experts say. In his online course on ethical decision-making, Greg Andres, a philosophy lecturer at the University of Waterloo in Canada, has students compete for the top spot on the class’ leader board. As they answer questions about how they would respond to various ethical dilemmas, they receive a certain number of points depending on how Andres views their responses in a given context. The goal is “to make course concepts concrete – here’s how it actually plays out in real life,” Andres says. Andres’ class is an example of gamification, a term that generally refers to the implementation of different game-design elements – such as competition or the earning of points or badges – into various settings.

http://www.usnews.com/education/online-education/articles/2016-02-17/explore-the-pros-cons-of-gamification-in-online-education

by WorldCrunch

In recent years, online learning has become a huge topic of interest. Although when it was first introduced online learning — or e-learning — was met with a significant amount of skepticism, both students and teachers are currently embracing the power of the internet when it comes to education. Online learning students make up millions of the academic population, with many mature students choosing this option over a traditional college. Experts say that online learning is just as effective as, or even more effective than, traditional classroom learning.

http://www.worldcrunch.com/blog/is-online-learning-the-future-of-education-/c0s20650/

By Carl Straumsheim, Inside Higher Ed

Most college-bound high school students are concerned about the quality of online education, but many say they are open to the idea of taking some of their courses online, a new study shows. Russell Poulin, director of policy and analysis at the WICHE Cooperative for Educational Technologies (WCET), criticized the authors of the study for designing it around “preconceptions” about online education. Their analysis, he said in an email, reinforces the presumption that high school students aren’t interested in studying online. “Since when is 43 percent of the students equated with ‘almost no interest’?” Poulin wrote, referring to the surveyed students who said they were interested in taking a few, half or most of their courses online. The undecided students, he added, shouldn’t be assumed to be negative toward online education. “Perhaps they would be interested if they try it?” he wrote.

https://www.insidehighered.com/news/2016/02/17/study-suggests-high-school-students-hold-negative-views-online-education

by Sandra L. Miller and Gayle K. Stein, EDUCAUSE Review

A New Jersey workshop on instructional design gave attendees the opportunity to learn about instructional designers’ roles at different institutions and brainstorm good ideas, tips and tricks, important contributions to the field, and how to overcome shared challenges. Instructional technologists and video production coordinators also are involved in the instructional design process, helping faculty learn how to use instructional tools. A major challenge for instructional designers is faculty resistance to new pedagogies and deliveries — not just to hybrid and online courses. Institutional acknowledgement of skill acquisition in their professional development can lead faculty to place a higher value on technology integration in teaching and learning.

http://er.educause.edu/articles/2016/2/finding-our-voice-instructional-designers-in-higher-education

by MIT Office of Digital Learning

MIT is collaborating with Boeing and NASA to develop a four-part online, certificate-based program: “Architecture and Systems Engineering: Models and Methods to Manage Complex Systems.” The program aims to ensure that the engineering workforce has continual training and access to the latest knowledge and methods to design and develop products in a rapidly changing environment. The four courses, which will be delivered by MIT Professional Education via the edX platform, will marry the research and knowledge of MIT’s world-renowned faculty with lessons and case studies in industry and government from Boeing and NASA professionals.

http://news.mit.edu/2016/mit-boeing-nasa-edx-launch-online-architecture-systems-engineering-program-0216

By Meris Stansbury, eCampus News

It’s the same concept that applies to food deserts: because travel to another source is not possible, and local access is limited, mostly rural area populations cannot obtain affordable, quality food. Now switch food to education and the concept is fairly clear. This concept is discussed in a recent American Council on Education (ACE) report, which posits that the national dialogue on equity and college access doesn’t often take into account geography—and it should.Online learning could be a helpful option; yet, not all students are self-motivated learners, and may prefer attending class in-person. Also, students living in homes without computers or with limited access to high-speed Internet may not see distance learning as a viable option, notes the report.

http://www.ecampusnews.com/top-news/geography-education-deserts-909/

by David Raths, Campus Technology

Blogger and self-proclaimed “troublemaker” Audrey Watters discusses venture capital in education, learning analytics, artificial intelligence and more. If you want to catch an interesting glimpse of the views that certain people have about the future of education, look at venture capitalists. Those narratives are probably unrecognizable to those working within education, according to Audrey Watters, author of the popular Hack Education blog. “They are not disruptive or innovative. They are not particularly radical,” she said, pointing out that money is flowing into things like test preparation and tutoring and helping schools move services online as well as the student loan sector.

https://campustechnology.com/articles/2016/02/12/how-venture-capital-misses-the-boat-with-higher-education-technology.aspx

by Heath Harrison, Ironton Tribune

The Electronic Classroom of Tomorrow program allows students to learn from home, via lessons delivered through teachers online. It advertises itself as one of the most flexible learning environments available to parents and students, and for Megan Borowski, that flexibility was what drew her to the program as a teacher. ECOT gave her the ability to teach to students statewide from her Chesapeake home or anywhere the couple may be required to move to.“I teach sixth grade science,” she said. It’s the Ohio standard. The topics include rock and minerals to cell structures.”

http://www.irontontribune.com/2016/02/15/web-based-learning-alternative-for-teachers-students/

by the PIE News

More than one in four students in the US was enrolled on at least one distance learning course in 2014, new research by the Babson Survey Research Group has shown. This marks a 13th consecutive year of enrolment growth, but the research also shows that bucking the trend, the for-profit sector has seen enrolments fall. The for-profit private sector saw a 10% drop in student enrolments to 961,173. The not-for-profit private sector experienced “tremendous growth” in the number of students enrolled on distance learning courses – those that do not require students to come onto campus to learn – between 2012 and 2014, up 26% to 960,751 students, contrasting starkly with a 10% drop to 961,173 students on these courses run by for-profit companies over the same period.

http://thepienews.com/news/us-distance-learning-enrolments-up-despite-for-profit-drop/

by Editorial Board, Brown Daily Herald

Brown’s decision this year to open up eight for-credit, online summer courses comes as general interest in online education — including the Massive Open Online Courses that Brown had previously heralded as the future of education — has begun to wane. While the public discourse surrounding Coursera and edX — sites that allow anyone to watch lectures, participate in chat room sections and access course readings — has given way to broader discussions of tuition, affordability and debt, the expansion of Brown’s online summer courses offers a new entry point to examine the technological developments taking place in higher education.

http://www.browndailyherald.com/2016/02/16/editorial-online-learning-makes-brown-accessible-to-all/

By: Rohin Kapoor, Financial Express

Given the uniqueness of the retail sector and its inherent challenges, the ‘retailing’ of online education courses will be a tough nut to crack for companies. According to various estimates, the size of the e-learning industry in India is currently pegged at $2-3 billion. To meet the sudden spurt in demand, a number of education technology companies and start-ups have come up in recent times, offering online courses. As the industry is still at a nascent stage, there are certain companies which are currently operating across the three service categories identified in the accompanying chart. Over time, we expect specialised companies bucketed in each of these categories.

http://www.financialexpress.com/article/industry/jobs/the-retailing-of-online-education-courses-in-india/211512/

by David Schatsky, Huffington Post

I recently finished teaching a free, eight-week online course on artificial intelligence and cognitive technologies. Over 7,000 students registered for the course. Many of them were active participants in rich discussions throughout the eight weeks. I’d like to tell you what I learned from my students during the course, and invite you to register for the next run of the course, which starts on March 14. Students were fascinated with the ways in which perceptual technologies like speech recognition and computer vision make possible natural interfaces between humans and computers. And they actively debated the implications of cognitive technologies for businesses, workers, and society.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/david-schatsky/what-i-learned-teaching-a_b_9212496.html

by IT News Africa

Where is our Coursera, our Udacity, our Khan Academy? These virtual universities teach millions of people science, engineering, accounting, finance and more. Online universities give people a chance to get advanced qualifications – people that in the past would have never have had the opportunity to study further. All you need is access to a computer and the Internet In South Africa, this is a huge barrier to entry. We have a very high Internet penetration rate… but only 20% of South Africans own a computer with an Internet connection (SA Network Society/ Research ICT Africa 2012). You can’t study advanced topics using just a mobile phone. But still. One in five South Africans is ten million people, and government’s ambitious SA Connect policy should see this number jump quickly. Why are we still stuck in the past when it comes to higher learning, with parents needing to scrape the money together to send their kids far away to sit in a lecture theatre?

http://www.itnewsafrica.com/2016/02/south-africa-must-move-on-from-physical-universities/

by Biz Carson, Business Insider

Faced with competition from not just from Verizon and Sprint, but also Google and Amazon, the telecommunications giant is working aggressively to make sure its employees catch up and get ahead of the changing technology of the times. Its CEO and Chairman, Randall Stephenson, isn’t afraid to mince words about will happen if his employees don’t. In an interview with the New York Times, Stephenson said those who don’t spend five to 10 hours a week learning online “will obsolete themselves with technology.” “There is a need to retool yourself, and you should not expect to stop,” Stephenson told the Times.

http://www.businessinsider.com/people-who-dont-spend-5-hours-a-week-online-learning-will-make-themselves-obsolete-says-att-ceo-2016-2

By Meris Stansbury, eCampus News

Final Online Report Card highlights switch in enrollments for specific institutions; shows that if online learning hasn’t happened yet, it probably won’t.Private non-profit institutions grew by 11.3 percent, while private for-profit institutions saw their distance enrollments decline by 2.8 percent. “Clearly, many private, non-profit institutions are aggressively investing in distance education,” noted Russell Poulin, WCET’s Director of Policy & Analysis. “Between 2012 and 2014, students taking all of their courses at a distance grew by 33 percent for non-profits. They were only a few hundred students away from passing the for-profit sector for having the second most number of enrollments. Public colleges still lead the way, by far.”

http://www.ecampusnews.com/top-news/online-learning-data-345/

By Meris Stansbury, eCampus News

Research delves into issues when trying to gauge instructional and design quality in MOOCs for credit. As more institutions consider offering MOOCs for credit, often the MOOCs provided by third-party platforms, researchers say it’s imperative to gauge instructional and design effectiveness…but how, and with what quality standards? These are the main questions posited by Patrick Lowenthal, assistant professor at the Educational Technology College of Education at Boise State University; and Dr. Charles Hodges, associate professor of Leadership, Technology & Human Development at Georgia Southern University, in their research study on trying to measure the quality of MOOCs.

http://www.ecampusnews.com/top-news/mooc-quality-standards-716/