Online Learning Update

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 Travis Grandy, Inside Higher Ed

As I build my course in preparation for this summer, one of the challenges I anticipate is how I can create similar kinds of active learning experiences for students without the benefit of in-person meetings. This started my thought process about ways to foreground collaboration in an online class. Today, my post will discuss some approaches to designing online activities that promote active learning and team-building skills. Although I’ll focus on some example activities intended for an online class, they can also be adapted for blended classes as well. What follows are a few activities that I’ll be working to adapt for my online class. Hopefully they’ll give you some ideas too!

https://www.insidehighered.com/blogs/gradhacker/build-more-collaboration-your-online-class

By Michael Hart, Campus Technology

The New York University Steinhardt School of Culture, Education and Human Development plans to introduce a residency-based online teacher education program that students — teacher interns — can complete virtually. The program, if approved by state representatives, will combine online coursework with immersive on-site experiences as the students work toward a graduate degree. The program is targeting teacher residencies in high-needs schools — those in which new teachers often report a lack of adequate preparation and high attrition rates. Students will be mentored by NYU faculty, who will be able to use video technology to observe classroom instruction at a distance and work one on one with students to improve their teaching skills.

https://campustechnology.com/articles/2015/12/16/nyu-steinhardt-plans-online-teacher-residency-program.aspx

By Andrew Barbour, eCampus News

The University of North Carolina has developed a customizable dashboard to identify problems in how the state trains teachers for its public school system. Faced with an alarming decline in both the number and quality of teachers in the North Carolina public school system, the University of North Carolina has developed a data-driven dashboard to provide immediate visibility into what’s working—and what’s not—in the state’s teacher-preparation programs. Developed in partnership with SAS, the North Carolina-based software giant, the dashboard was a key recommendation of the UNC Board of Governors Subcommittee on Teacher and School Leader Quality.

http://www.ecampusnews.com/technologies/dashboard-quality-teachers-981/

http://www.educause.edu/ero/article/mind-gap-connecting-k12-and-higher-education-educators-improve-student-experience

by Sue Gee, i-Programmer

Last week Udacity opened its classroom doors on Front-End Web Developer, its first nanodegree. This credential, which is estimated to take six to nine months to complete at a cost of $200 per month, is designed with “job-readiness” in mind. As we reported Udacity Offers Nanodegrees when Udacity first announced nanodegrees they are designed to prepare you for a specific job and are being built with industry partners including hiring managers. Now that the first nanodegree is underway there’s more information about how this new type of credential is different. The obvious distinction is that it is project-based. To gain the Front-End Web Developer nanodegree, which is co-developed with AT&T, a student will complete the following five projects, each of which is associated with a Udacity course that provides the necessary preparation to complete it.

http://www.i-programmer.info/news/150-training-a-education/7813-become-a-web-developer-with-udacity.html

by Julia Choate, George Kotsanas, Phillip Dawson, AJET

Lecturers using tablet PCs with specialised pens can utilise real-time changes in lecture delivery via digital inking. We investigated student perceptions and lecturer experiences of tablet PC lectures in large-enrolment biomedicine subjects. Lecturers used PowerPoint or Classroom Presenter software for lecture preparation and in-lecture pen-based inking. Using surveys and lecturer interviews, students and lecturers were asked to reflect on their tablet PC lectures in comparison to non-tablet lectures that used prepared images and a laser pointer. Quantitative survey responses suggested that students felt that the tablet lectures were more interesting, that they were more capable of keeping up with the lecturer, and they enhanced their understanding of the lecture content. Qualitative analysis of written comments indicated that students appreciated the real-time writing and drawings, particularly because these were visible on lecture recordings. When reflecting on their non-tablet lectures, most lecturers used the pen-based writing, drawing and highlighting tablet functions and reduced lecture pace and content for their tablet lectures. Long-term tablet use led to lecturers making more use of digital inking, with less use of prepared images. Our results support the idea that tablet PC-supported lectures are conducive to improved management of cognitive load via reduced lecture pace and content.

http://ascilite.org.au/ajet/submission/index.php/AJET/article/view/334

by Andrew Tilghman, Navy Times

The Labor Department helped update the job-hunting seminar that now offers troops tips on using social media, searching for jobs online and researching local job markets. For those who do not plan to seek a job immediately, TAP offers three options: the Boots to Business introduction to entrepreneurship, and classes for those who want to go to college or seek technical training. The entrepreneurship bloc was designed by the Small Business Administration. Beyond the two-day class, troops who want further preparation can take an eight-week online class run by the SBA that will connect them with mentors in the business community. They also can learn how to apply for SBA small-business loans, which offer up to $150,000 in startup capital and are easier to obtain than traditional bank loans.

http://www.navytimes.com/article/20140429/JOBS05/304290051/Classes-give-transitioning-troops-business-know-how

by Douglas A. Hicks and Patrick D. Reynolds, Huffington Post

MOOC users, at least so far, are readily described as intellectually curious. This early finding about the broad-ranging inquisitiveness of edX students suggests that the residential liberal arts model that our institutions and many other liberal arts colleges have embodied for two centuries has something to contribute to the open online platform: promoting a wide exploration of knowledge and the reciprocal illumination of seemingly disparate disciplines through critical thinking, discourse and writing. For the traditional college-age students on our campuses, the liberal arts approach is preparation not for one career, but for multiple careers; education for meaningful work and a fulfilling life course in an evolving world. We are excited by the prospect of extending this education to the diverse student population engaging with open online platforms.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/douglas-a-hicks/the-liberal-arts-contribu_b_5065593.html

by Rodger Bates, OJDLA

Universities and colleges have been developing institutional continuity plans to protect their ability to function within an environment of increasing uncertainties caused by natural and man-made disasters and events. Within the academic context, distance learning strategies have emerged as critical components for program continuity. This research reviews the strategies and tactics of online learning in institutional continuity planning and preparation. In addition, the necessities of institutional continuity create an important and symbiotic opportunity for faculty training and the integration of distance learning within the fabric of the academic mission of an institution.

http://www.westga.edu/~distance/ojdla/winter164/bates164.html

by Adam Rodewald, Green Bay Press Gazette

Education majors traditionally spend 18 weeks student teaching in a brick-and-mortar classroom before graduating. But that’s not Mike Wilbert’s style. The ambitious student at the University of Wisconsin-Oshkosh instead spent the first nine weeks of his practicum in front of a virtual classroom. The experience, despite a few kinks expected during a first-of-its-kind effort, has set a path for a cloud-based, tech-wedded future for teacher preparation programs.

http://www.greenbaypressgazette.com/article/20131226/GPG0101/312260225/UW-Oshkosh-pilots-virtual-student-teaching-online-learning-blossoms?nclick_check=1

By Doug Lederman, Inside Higher Ed

Peter Shea, an associate professor of education at the State University of New York at Albany, said the study he presented here, “Does Online Learning Help Community College Students Attain a Degree?” was spurred by a series of studies published in the last two years by the Community College Research Center at Columbia University’s Teachers College. In contrast to the CCRC studies, the Albany research found that students who had enrolled in at least one online course in their first year did not come into college with better academic preparation than did those who took no courses at a distance. And students who took online courses at a distance were 1.25 times likelier to earn a credential (certificate, associate or bachelor’s degree) by 2009 than were their peers who had not taken any online courses. Those who started college with a goal of attaining a certificate (rather than a bachelor’s degree) and took online courses were 3.22 times as likely to earn a credential than were students who did not take online courses.

http://www.insidehighered.com/news/2013/11/26/study-online-learning-finds-it-helps-not-hurts-credential-attainment

By Karen Head, Chronicle of Higher Ed

After months of preparation, we finally started our MOOC, “First-Year Composition 2.0,” at Georgia Tech. We are now through the first few weeks of the eight-week course, supported by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation. Veteran MOOC instructors warned me that the early weeks would be bumpy. The actual experience has often left me panicked—and worried that the course would not be successful. This is not like a traditional course, in which you have a day or two to deal with issues that come up in class. MOOC students expect immediate responses, and that means nearly 24/7 monitoring of the course.

http://chronicle.com/blogs/wiredcampus/professors-envision-using-google-glass-in-the-classroom/44401

By Janice Bitters, Minnesota Daily

Chris Cramer didn’t sleep much last semester. The chemistry professor and four other University of Minnesota professors are volunteering hundreds of hours to teach free massive open online courses this summer. MOOCs are open to an unlimited number of people from anywhere in the world who have access to the Internet, and the University’s MOOCs have drawn anywhere from about 8,000 to more than 16,000 students so far. “I’ve probably put 400 hours into preparation,” said Cramer, whose course started May 20. “That’s a lot of time.”

http://www.mndaily.com/news/campus/2013/05/27/what%E2%80%99s-it-take-make-mooc-hundreds-hours-no-pay

“The Digital Public Library of America will launch on April 18 after two and a half years of careful planning and preparation. The project known as DPLA is the first national effort that seeks to aggregate existing records in state and regional digital libraries so that they are searchable from a single portal. Up until now, the documents that tell the story of our nation’s history and cultural heritage have largely been siloed in state and local libraries, museums, and archives. Some institutions have the ability to digitize those valuable materials and put them online, but strained budgets mean that most do not.

http://dp.la

by Derek Bruff,  Agile Learning

Amy Collier, who supports online learning initiatives at Stanford, pointed out to me during the MROE workshop that an awful lot of people, including me, refer to these MOOCs as “Coursera courses” and not, say, “Georgia Tech courses” or “Vanderbilt courses.” I’ve used “Coursera course” as a shorthand to refer to the open online courses that Vanderbilt on the Coursera platform, but, thanks to Amy, I’m coming to see that such language is perhaps misleading. I blogged earlier this month about the challenging design and production process required to launch one of these courses, a process undertaken largely by Vanderbilt faculty, students, and staff. Sure, Coursera assists with the course preparation and provides an online platform for the courses, but the heavy lifting is done by Vanderbilt. It’s also Vanderbilt that is responsible for setting the bar when it comes to the academic quality and rigor of these courses. We decide the content, design the assessments, and determine what merits a “Statement of Accomplishment.” If I’m going to use shorthand for “Vanderbilt open online courses on the Coursera platform,” perhaps “Vanderbilt course” is more accurate…. If universities are going to have responsibility for their open online courses, that means universities will have to take the blame when they fail.

http://derekbruff.org/?p=2509

by Venture Beat

Grockit, a startup that applies social learning to online test preparation, has raised $20 million in new funding. The investment is part of a partnership with Discovery Communucations, which led the round, and the two companies will work together to promote Grockit’s new product, Learnist. Learnist launched to the public in May and expanded Grockit’s domain beyond standardized testing. The site looks a lot like Pinterest for online learning. Users can view lessons in a user-friendly board format as well as build their own and share. The platform supports over 30 types of embeddable media.

http://venturebeat.com/2012/12/18/grockit-makes-20m-deal-with-discovery-to-invigorate-online-learning/

By John Thelin, Inside Higher Ed

Online education is neither simple nor sinister: I am not so much low tech as slow tech — and found that being ready to teach an online course takes a long time. But the time lapse falls into two markedly different phases. To convert a graduate course I had taught in “traditional mode” for many years, last September I sought out my campus’s director of distance learning programs offered by the university library and met with her and the DL staff for a long series of work sessions and carefully monitored progress reports. At each juncture the DL staff patiently yet firmly showed me why and how it was important to understand the logic and logistics of course preparation and presentation. One had to have course materials – including syllabus, weekly content, discussion topics, assignments, and links to materials – clearly in place before starting to teach. What I found was that the more one learned about the format and understood the strengths and limits of the online technology, the more interesting and effective teaching and learning would be.

http://www.insidehighered.com/views/2012/07/10/professors-shouldnt-be-afraid-online-learning-essay

by RAY CLANCY, Expatforum

The US Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) and the Smithsonian’s National Museum of American History have launched a new online learning tool for immigrants preparing for naturalisation. It features videos and multimedia activities that showcase artefacts from the Smithsonian Institution’s collections and exhibitions. ‘This is an invaluable addition to the citizenship preparation materials we offer to aspiring citizens. Using the Smithsonian Institution’s extensive collection, this online tool will help individuals learn about the founding principles of American democracy and the rights and responsibilities of citizenship in a meaningful way,’ said USCIS director Alejandro Mayorkas.

http://www.expatforum.com/america/us-launches-interactive-online-citizenship-learning-tool.html

by Health Education Blog

For many working experts in the wellness care field, taking time away from work to complete a full time Master’s degree is not feasible for several diverse factors. This is partially due to monetary concerns with not having an income over the course of the program as nicely as anxiety in having to maybe travel and live away from their family members whilst attending school. If these are concerns, there is an alternative schooling choice to take into account and that consists of taking a well being care degree on the web. On-line understanding has stepped to the forefront in numerous areas. Professionals already established in the health care field as a group have embraced this new style of learning, perfect for staying on the job while earning a Master level degree in a selection of distinct wellness care disciplines. By studying on the internet people are able to work their normal shifts, invest time at home with the loved ones yet also complete an advanced level set of courses that will qualify them for a Master’s degree. Typically most students spend about 15 hours per week in study, with additional time spent for projects and test preparation.

http://www.riao2010.org/the-benefits-of-completing-a-health-care-degree-online.htm