Online Learning Update

by David Raths, Campus Technology

Learning analytics tools have become increasingly valuable for college and university administrators looking to boost student success. But can data also inform decision-making on the part of students themselves? A project at Purdue University (IN) explores that possibility by taking advantage of the “quantified self” movement (made popular by health-tracking apps such as Fitbit) and putting the data into students’ hands. Pattern, one of several teaching and learning apps developed by Purdue Teaching and Learning Technologies over the past few years, allows students to self-track their academic and extracurricular pursuits and rate how productive they are. The app also lets them compare their behaviors to other students to see which activities may yield the best results. Pattern can suggest when to study, recommend ways students can be more efficient with their time, and suggest how long students should be spending on tasks.

https://campustechnology.com/articles/2017/11/01/purdue-app-puts-learning-data-into-students-hands.aspx

by Pat Donachie, Education Dive

Colleges and universities can take advantage of texting students and parents, according to Mongoose Research, which notes that administrators should follow the same FERPA regulations for texting as they do for e-mails and phone conversations. While nonprofit organizations like schools are not legally required to get consent for texting, Mongoose advises schools offer some kind of opt-in. The research also shows students will begin ignoring texts from colleges if they are sent too often or are not helpful — the ones that are include reminders on deadlines and updates for admissions, promotional efforts. Mongoose also advises school leaders and administrators to limit the number of staff and departments that can send texts to students, as students typically only want texts from admissions, financial aid, student success and the Registrar’s office.

https://www.educationdive.com/news/how-can-colleges-best-use-texting-with-students/510218/

by Magnetic Magazine

To help optimize the usage of available bandwidth for streaming video, most streaming platforms use algorithms known as Adaptive Bitrate (ABR). Traditional ABR algorithms are either rate-based that vary the video quality based on connection speed, or buffer-based that attempt to constantly keep a certain percentage of the video pre-loaded as a buffer so that the stream is smooth. Although there are several AI streaming algorithms in development, two of the most notable are MIT’s Pensieve and Netflix’s Dynamic Optimizer. In fact as the usage of AI enables more efficient video streaming, cloud data distribution and other optimizations – the efficiency of the internet in general is likely to improve.

https://www.magneticmag.com/2017/11/deep-learning-could-be-the-future-of-online-streaming/

by Emily Price, Fortune

In recent years several universities and colleges around the world have started offering some of their courses for free. Over the past six years over 8,000 different courses have been made available for free to anyone who wants to take them. In a story on Quartz, Class Central founder Dhawal Shah notes that he’s been tracking them all since they rose to prominence.  Free courses range from humanities and social sciences classes to business, health & medicine, and computer science courses. Classes are taught by professors from places like Stanford, Johns Hopkins, the Georgia Institute of Technology, and the University of Colorado. If you’re interested in giving one a try, Quartz has a good rundown up of some of the best courses available as well as how to sign up for them. You can also view a more detailed list on Class Central’s website.

http://fortune.com/2017/11/06/free-online-college-courses/

by eMarketer Daily

US consumers are spending more time with their digital devices than ever before, and that holds true while they’re already watching something else. eMarketer estimates 177.7 million adults will regularly use a second-screen device while watching TV this year, an increase of 5.1% vs. 2016. As individuals spend more of each day digitally connected, simultaneous media use will rise. As always, consumers want to fit as much into their day as possible, and multitasking during TV is often how that’s accomplished. By 2019, 193.5 million US adults will access the internet during TV viewing at least once a month. Some 162.6 million people will use smartphones as a second-screen device while watching TV in 2017. This is much higher than the 110.5 million simultaneous users expected for desktops/laptops. The number of people using a desktop/laptop and TV set at the same time will be roughly flat during the forecast, due to declines in overall PC use.

https://www.emarketer.com/Article/Few-Viewers-Giving-TV-Set-Their-Undivided-Attention/1016717

by Elizabeth Woyke, MIT Technology Review

A number of workers face the same situation: they’d like to boost their salaries and improve their career prospects by working in technology, but they lack technical skills and don’t know how to acquire them. There are, of course, conventional ways to pick up that knowledge, including reading textbooks, watching educational videos, taking in-person classes, and finding industry mentors. But San Francisco–based Salesforce—one of the world’s largest software companies, with $8.4 billion in annual sales—has found that self-guided, online, interactive training is an effective way to teach skills to its 26,000 employees worldwide. Its main tool is Trailhead, which the company developed in 2014 and began deploying for internal training in 2016. Today, all Salesforce employees are encouraged to use the platform.

https://www.technologyreview.com/s/609295/making-job-training-software-people-actually-want-to-use/

by Arthur Levine, Inside Higher Ed

That definition of access, while still essential, is now outdated and inadequate — no longer serving the nation’s needs. The United States is making a transition from a national, analog, industrial economy to a global, digital, information economy. The historic view of access is a product of the former, while largely ignoring the realities of the latter. Today we need something very different. The United States is experiencing profound, accelerating and continuous change owing to the transition, and the lives of many Americans are being disrupted. Jobs are being eliminated, both those requiring relatively little education and increasingly those requiring a great deal of education but involving routine work — even in fields such as journalism, medicine and law. Some of those jobs have migrated to other countries, but the overwhelming majority of them — four out of five — have been lost to automation.

https://www.insidehighered.com/views/2017/11/06/need-provide-educational-access-across-peoples-entire-lifespan-essay

by Jill Barshay, Hechinger Report

ITT Technical Institute, a for-profit university, produced more than 64,000 dropouts with student loan debt in fiscal years 2015 and 2016 before it went bankrupt and shut down in September 2016. (AP Photo/Rich Pedroncelli, File) AP Photo/Rich Pedroncelli, File The saddest stories among those who owe some of the $1.3 trillion in student loan debt are those of college dropouts. They took out loans to go to school, hoping for a better life. But without college degrees, many don’t find good jobs to help pay back these loans. It not only ruins their lives, it’s terrible for the nation’s budget. The loans are financed by the federal government, ultimately leaving taxpayers on the hook.
Which schools are leaving taxpayers and students in the lurch most often? I ran some calculations, using the latest data, released in September.

http://hechingerreport.org/federal-data-shows-3-9-million-students-dropped-college-debt-2015-2016/

BY LAURA ASCIONE, eCampus News

Online education programs are seeing steady growth, though lower tuition and the use of innovative technologies and tools seem to be lagging, according to the Changing Landscape of Online Education (CHLOE). CHLOE is a survey of chief online officers at community colleges and four-year public and private nonprofit institutions and focuses on the management of online education as it becomes more mainstream at U.S. institutions. The emergence of the chief online officer position at many institutions is strong evidence that online education is becoming more mainstream, and the CHLOE survey draws upon feedback from 104 chief online officer responses to inform its report on current online education trends, including resource allocation, emerging tools, instructional innovations, and more.

https://www.ecampusnews.com/ed-tech-leadership/innovation-online-education/

BY JUDY FRELS AND KEVIN CAPITANI, eCampus News

Although we’re clearly not at the point where online learning can be considered a “mature” industry, enough edtech companies have entered the market and enough online programs are being offered that higher education leaders are looking for strategies to effectively launch or grow online programs for this new era. Specifically, deans, faculty members, and other college and university leaders are seeking new approaches to increase enrollment in online programs, help individuals attain degrees and improve their professional lives, and extend their reach. In addition, these institutional leaders are looking for better ways to differentiate, expand, and structure their online offerings.

https://www.ecampusnews.com/campus-administration/launching-growing-online-programs/

by Becky Parton, State Journal Register

While Lincoln Land Community College recently celebrated its 50th anniversary as a college, another significant milestone anniversary is taking place this fall. This semester marks the 20th anniversary of online education at LLCC. English professor Lynn Pfannkuche (Faculty Emeriti) taught LLCC’s first online course, Introduction to Composition, during the fall 1997 semester. What started as a single faculty member with an innovative idea has grown into a robust program with offerings of nearly 500 online courses and over 90 faculty members teaching online each year. LLCC will be celebrating this pioneering milestone started by Professor Pfannkuche throughout the week of Nov. 12 with a series of videos available on the LLCC Facebook page. On Tuesday, Nov. 14, at noon, there will be a formal celebration in A. Lincoln Commons on the LLCC Springfield campus.

http://www.sj-r.com/news/20171104/becky-parton-llcc-celebrating-20-years-of-online-education

By Lindsay McKenzie, Inside Higher Ed

American universities and colleges warned to heed European data-protection rules — or face millions of dollars in fines. U.S. colleges and universities under the impression that new European data-protection laws won’t affect them have been urged to think again. Speaking at a session on the soon-to-be-enforced European Union General Data Protection Regulation, William Hoye, executive vice president and chief operating officer at nonprofit study abroad organization IES Abroad, warned that the new E.U. rules have “very sharp teeth” and would almost certainly apply to all U.S. higher education institutions. Failure to comply with the E.U. rules could lead to fines of up to 20 million euros, said Hoye. “That’s around $23,634,000. Do I have your attention yet?” Hoye asked.

https://www.insidehighered.com/news/2017/11/06/eu-data-protection-law-looms

By Mark Lieberman, Inside Higher Ed
One in three instructors who responded to Inside Higher Ed’s 2017 Survey of Faculty Attitudes on Technology said they have taken online courses for credit — but 67 percent of the respondents said they had not. Those numbers, which haven’t fluctuated much in the last few years of the annual survey, conducted in conjunction with Gallup, point to an ongoing debate in online education circles about the value of instructors taking online courses. “Ideally it would be great for an online instructor to have taken an online class,” said Susan Yochum, provost at Seton Hill University, in Pennsylvania. But, she added, “the biggest issue is our faculty have a lot of responsibilities, a heavy teaching load. It’s really a time issue.”

https://www.insidehighered.com/digital-learning/article/2017/11/01/online-instructors-differ-whether-they-need-online-course

by Erin Jordan, The Gazette

University of Iowa student-athletes, starting next semester, can take the majority of their required courses online. The UI Presidential Committee on Athletics voted unanimously this week on a policy allowing student-athletes to take only three credit hours per semester in a traditional face-to-face class, reversing a previous policy allowing only one online course per semester. “I do see this as a step in the right direction,” said JoElla Guagliardo, a UI senior and field hockey player from Deerfield, Ill., at the PCA meeting Thursday in Iowa City. Online courses give student-athletes more options if their practices conflict with face-to-face courses, she said.

http://www.thegazette.com/subject/news/education/higher-education/university-of-iowa-student-athletes-may-take-more-online-courses-20171103

by Michael Goeden, eLearning Industry
According to Bersin, today’s employee has less than 1% of the working week to set aside for training and development. Engagement is a tricky concept, and you can’t expect to simply offer a new training initiative and see commitment follow. More often than not, employees will see learning as a drain on their time and want to rush through it or check it off their to-do list. So, with so little time amongst today’s time-starved workforces, could the answer to improving employee engagement and, in turn, boosting productivity as well as educational autonomy, be to make learning more interactive? In this article, we explore 5 cutting-edge methods to engage the modern workforce.

5 Ways To Boost The Interactivity Of Online Learning

BY REBECCA ELLIS, Indiana Daily Student
One IU professor spent summer 2016 preparing for class not through writing lecture notes, but by creating 120 10-minute informative videos to post to his students, many of which he deleted to make edits. This was his first time teaching an online class, and he spent a lot of time preparing for it. Astronomy professor Stuart Mufson is one of hundreds of professors teaching through IU Online, a program for students to take courses or complete degree programs from their computers. IU Online combines students and faculty from all seven campuses in the courses offered. “I think it’s the way of the future,” Mufson said. Chris Foley, director of the Office of Online Education, said the courses allow undergraduate students with busy schedules, jobs or families to complete their courses without making a trip to campus. He said it also benefits graduate students who are looking for credentials to enhance their job performance or change career fields altogether.

http://www.idsnews.com/article/2017/11/caonline

By Marian Stoltz-Loike, US News

Before enrolling, determine whether an online program’s instructors hold virtual office hours for students. Prospective online students may be concerned about faculty’s ability to fulfill these roles from afar. In traditional classrooms, students can be one of several hundred, but most online courses have fewer than 25 students, making instructors more accessible. Still, you will need to be more proactive in an online course to build a relationship with your instructor, and doing so with those who can help you reach the next step in your career is key. You can plan to start this as early as right after you enroll or around the time classes start. Here are five tips prospective online students can follow to develop relationships with their professors.

https://www.usnews.com/education/online-learning-lessons/articles/2017-11-03/build-relationships-with-faculty-as-an-online-student

by  Natalie Sears, DM Online

The English department has created an online Medieval class to help a student complete his degree while serving in the military overseas. The class — Studies in Medieval Literature: “Game of Thrones” and Its Medieval Worlds — is being adapted to an online format by English professor Mary Hayes, who has taught the class twice before in a traditional classroom setting, and has taught multiple other classes online. Game of Thrones is the popular HBO series based on the book franchise by George Martin. Classic Medieval literature such as “Beowulf” and Machiavelli’s “The Prince” have been cited by Martin as inspiration for his series, making examining the show from a literary standpoint even more fascinating. Ole Miss is not the only place that Game of Thrones has inspired coursework. UC Berkeley offers a linguistics course, and both Northern Illinois University and The University of Tulsa offer history courses.

English department offers “Game of Thrones” online class

by Mashable

Did you know you can make money by teaching online courses? There’s literally a Coursera class on just about every topic these days, whether it’s Cryptography taught by a Stanford professor or Academic Listening and Note-Taking at UC Irvine. It’s great that so many people want to learn in an accessible way, especially if you’re an instructor, but how can you ensure that the class you’re offering is one people will want to take? Consider taking a course in How To Create An Awesome Online Course (so meta). You probably have a specialized skill you don’t even realize is valuable, like hand-sewing wigs or telling dad jokes. But creating an online course can be tricky if you’ve never done it, so this course will break it down in an easy to digest way across 93 lectures and 8 hours of content (which you can access whenever you want for the rest of your life).

http://mashable.com/2017/11/03/elearning-create-an-online-course/#ELAHtUSkUiqN

By Alyssa Laffitte, Uloop

In a traditional class, you have a professor there in person who can guide you in your studies. It’s easy for them to remind you to stay on track. They can quickly announce before class that there’s a test next week, and sometimes those reminders are much needed. On the other hand, online learners don’t have a professor telling you in person to do your work, so online students should be self-motivated. As an online student, you will have to keep track of due dates and deadlines. No one will be there in person to remind you that the homework assignment is due tomorrow. For this reason, online classes will be easier for someone who is self-motivated. If you are the type of person who needs an extra push, be aware that you will have to be responsible for your work in an online class.

https://www.uloop.com/news/view.php/251804/Online-Learning-vs-Traditional-Learning

By Shalina Chatlani, Education Dive
To stay ahead, higher education leaders must constantly be aware of the latest trends and policies taking over the industry — and social media is often the perfect place to find this. Everything from general tips on improving an institution’s online presence to getting inspiration for innovation on the campus. Here we present ten twitter accounts all higher education leaders ought to follow, so that fresh ideas and quick industry news will rise to the top of their feeds.  [ed note:  Special Thanks for listing my @rayschroeder ]

https://www.educationdive.com/news/10-twitter-accounts-every-higher-ed-leader-should-follow/509800/