Online Learning Update

CHARIS LAM, eCampus News

What will change is the extent and diversity of software use. Labs that were once conducted in-person must now be replaced with remote experiences, without sacrificing learning. Both educators and software providers are rising to the challenge. For example, at Widener University, Chemistry Professor Scott van Bramer moved his liquid chromatography (LC) lab online with the help of method development software. He used the software to replicate the trial-and-error experience of developing an LC method with his students: they suggested changes to experimental conditions, like column, mobile phase, and gradient, and he ran the LC-simulation tool to show them the resulting chromatogram.

https://www.ecampusnews.com/2021/01/06/how-science-educators-can-use-software-in-remote-and-hybrid-classrooms/?all

Chris Burt, University Business
Many higher education institutions that have found success through remote learning have done so with the help of edX, the popular massive open online course provider. Over the past year and spurred by need through the COVID-19 pandemic, the company that was co-founded by MIT and Harvard has served 400,000 learners per day with 3,000 courses, 2 million certificates and 149 credit pathways.

https://universitybusiness.com/online-courses-pivot-to-remote-alter-higher-ed-landscape/

Danny Palmer, ZD Net

A spam campaign which targeted over 100,000 users a day over Christmas and New Year has seen Emotet secure its spot as the most prolific malware threat. Analysis by cybersecurity company Check Point suggests that Emotet was used to target seven percent of organisations around the world during December. Emotet has been active since 2014 and is regularly updated by its authors in order to maintain its effectiveness. The malware started life as a banking trojan but has evolved to become much more than that, providing a complete backdoor onto compromised machines which can then be sold on to other cyber criminals to infect victims with additional malware – including ransomware.

https://www.zdnet.com/article/cybersecurity-this-costly-and-destructive-malware-is-the-most-prolific-threat-to-your-network/

Hallie Busta, Higher Ed Dive

U.S. Department of Education staff are recommending the agency terminate its recognition of the Accrediting Council for Independent Colleges and Schools, a move that would require the institutions it accredits to find a new accreditor or else lose access to financial aid. In a report published Friday, the department said the embattled college accreditor hasn’t met key oversight requirements that aim to ensure quality evaluations of schools.  The recommendation will be discussed at a meeting of the department’s accreditation advisory group next month, and a formal decision will follow.

https://www.highereddive.com/news/ed-dept-staff-recommend-terminating-recognition-of-troubled-accreditor-acic/593851/

Liz Willen, Hechinger Report

She hopes her children will learn from what she went through and all she sacrificed to stay with the program. “You just have to keep going, no matter what others say about you,’’ she said. “Just keeping pushing and never give up.” Hard work has indeed paid off. After over two years of studying, and after overcoming the challenges of taking classes online during the pandemic, I am about to graduate from LaGuardia. So, it is never too late to go back to school if you are focused and determined.

https://hechingerreport.org/she-has-the-heart-of-a-nurse-but-can-she-overcome-obstacles-to-her-degree/

Economic Times

New Delhi: Artificial intelligence (AI) is the most subscribed business course on Coursera in India in 2020. AI for everyone, a non-technical course turned out to top the most popular business courses in India, according to a release shared by Coursera.  Financial markets by Yale University is second most popular followed by courses like – Excel skills for business-Essentials by Macquarie University, Successful negotiation: Essential strategies and skills by University of Michigan, marketing in a digital world by University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, among others.

https://economictimes.indiatimes.com/industry/services/education/ai-most-popular-business-course-in-india-in-2020-coursera/articleshow/80094879.cms

By Dian Schaffhauser, THE Journal
While there was little effect on high school graduation rates this year, due to changes in education wrought by COVID-19, the number of 2020 high school graduates who went to college immediately this fall dropped by nearly 22 percent compared to 2019 graduates, almost eight times the pre-pandemic loss rate of 2.8 percent. The decrease occurred across the board, in all kinds of high schools. But the decline hit high poverty schools the hardest, where college enrollment dropped by nearly twice as much as higher income schools.

https://thejournal.com/articles/2020/12/14/covid19-hits-high-schooler-college-plans-hard.aspx

BY KEITH RAJECKI, eCampus News

While the higher education business as a whole has had to adjust the way it operates, admissions staff, recruiters, and counselors have had to rethink their approach to connecting with students, as well. Institutions have been overwhelmed with calls from students and teachers struggling to adapt to the new remote reality. This is where automation comes in. Using emerging technologies such as chatbots, digital assistants, and conversational AI interfaces ensures that no student’s question goes unanswered, and it frees up staff to spend more time forging critical one-on-one connections with students in an almost entirely remote landscape.

https://www.ecampusnews.com/2021/01/04/why-its-critical-for-higher-education-to-think-digital/

Kerri Shields, Facutly Focus

The thought of teaching technology at a distance can be intimidating and downright scary. How can professors teach hands-on technology skills to students from afar? How can students get access to the technology they need to complete courses successfully when they are studying online? Additionally, it is important to consider students’ geographic location, access to Internet, access to updated hardware/software, and the technical specifications or requirements needed by each student’s device in order to install, run, or access the specific software you are teaching. If, for example, you are teaching game programming, students may need a device with robust memory, storage, and video card.

https://www.facultyfocus.com/articles/teaching-with-technology-articles/teaching-technology-courses-to-online-college-students/

Hallie Busta, Higher Ed Dive

We’re all hoping some degree of pre-pandemic life will return in 2021. But for higher education, many of the trends that dominated storylines in 2020 will continue into this year. We’ve rounded up a few below and will be following them throughout the year. Colleges collectively enrolled about 560,000 fewer undergraduates this fall, a 3.6% decrease from a year ago. The losses were much steeper at community colleges and among first-time students. While the pandemic hasn’t been found to have had a negative effect on overall high school graduation rates, low-income schools and those with high shares of Black and Hispanic students sent far fewer graduates to college this fall. The number of international students at U.S. colleges also tanked.

https://www.highereddive.com/news/5-higher-education-trends-to-watch-in-2021/592691/

Im Eun-byel, Korea Herald

While students around the world cope with online schooling in the COVID-19 pandemic era, digital learning for adults is having its moment in South Korea. Online learning has been an emerging trend in recent years, but the pandemic has accelerated its growth. Best suited to those already comfortable with the digital world, mostly people in their 20s and 30s, classes normally consist of 20 to 30 lectures under 10 minutes long.

http://www.koreaherald.com/view.php?ud=20201230000276

Lilah Burke, PBS News Hour

Amy Bintliff, a developmental psychologist and professor in the University of California, San Diego’s department of education studies, said that there are some small things this negative experience may improve for some people — students and faculty are learning new skills and becoming more independent. But overall growth, flourishing and a sense of purpose are all important parts of well-being, she said. Clinging to purpose, with small goals as well as large ones, may make the experience easier. “This experience, if we think of it as a growth experience,” she said, “I think we’ll be able to get through it.”

https://www.pbs.org/newshour/education/how-long-term-online-learning-in-pandemic-may-affect-college-students-well-being

Paul Ausick, 247WallSt
Among the most popular online courses in this pandemic year is one titled How to Learn Online.  However, three publicly traded education and training companies also have seen a sharp pickup in their businesses this year. Two are based in Beijing and offer after-school programs for K-12 students, both online and in learning centers across China. The U.S.-based company offers a variety of online services. All three have market caps of more than $10 billion, and all have seen their share prices rise by at least 50% in 2020.

https://247wallst.com/services/2020/12/31/will-appetite-for-online-education-stocks-continue-in-2021/

Jon Marcus – Hechinger Report

“What Covid did is it accelerated the innovation. Because in higher education we’re about tradition over innovation,” said Melik Peter Khoury, Unity College’s president, casually dressed in a sweater in a conference room of the administration building. Melik Peter Khoury, president of Unity College in Maine, which will continue to offer a choice between in-person and online education, even after the pandemic. Beneath the quiet of the campus, the college has been busy drastically revising its academic calendar, reducing its prices and altering the way it provides education, so that courses are offered both in-person and online, not just during the pandemic, but forever.

https://hechingerreport.org/while-many-colleges-are-making-big-cuts-a-few-opt-for-permanent-transformation/

Lisa Malat, Chief Learning Officer

While these groups should all be commended for the resilience they’ve shown under these circumstances, the results from and reactions to this rapid transition to online learning have been understandably mixed. Students are frustrated with a remote learning environment dependent on virtual interactions; they miss the in-person access to professors and other campus resources, as well as to other students. Many instructors are equally frustrated, and, frankly, many are overwhelmed with trying to keep students engaged and motivated to continue with their coursework, as they themselves struggle with learning the skills to adapt to this new way of teaching.
https://www.chieflearningofficer.com/2020/12/29/teaching-the-teachers-why-online-learning-training-will-be-crucial-for-higher-ed-talent-prospects/

Susan Svrluga, Washington Post

As at many schools that closed dorms to help prevent the spread of the coronavirus, including some D.C.-area campuses such as American University, exceptions were granted for those who didn’t have good alternatives. For people facing complications, such as international students unable to travel home because of closed borders, or those from an unstable home, university housing provided a safe place to learn. Life on an almost-empty campus can be surreal, an experience antithetical to the usual joyful buzz that permeates residential colleges, with the constant presence of friends, the last-minute decisions, good and bad, the laughs and the parties, the ideas traded in classrooms, the yelling at packed stadiums.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/education/2020/12/29/college-students-dorms-life-pandemic/

Miriam Berger, Washington Post

In a survey of more than 40 pediatricians and specialists in England, health-care providers reported a doubling, tripling or quadrupling of patients with food restriction disorders compared to last year, according to RCPCH. Centers that specialize in treating adolescents with eating disorders reported long waiting lists and a scarcity of spare beds for inpatient treatment. Pediatricians said they are often seeing children brought in with very progressed diseases, probably because of limited in-person interactions with friends, teachers or doctors who before the pandemic may have noticed changes earlier.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2020/12/29/uk-coronavirus-eating-disorders/

Chip Paucek, EdSurge

I can’t predict the future, but my bet is that many of the innovations and changes we’ve witnessed this year will stick around. And I know two things for certain: first, many students will go back to in-person learning, but the demand for high-quality online education and shorter, non-degree learning pathways—like boot camps and short courses—will continue to grow as people upskill, reskill and look for greater flexibility in education. And second: demand for online undergraduate and graduate degrees will grow too.

https://www.edsurge.com/news/2020-12-29-online-education-isn-t-the-sideshow-it-s-the-main-event

Class Central

Online learning is booming as a productive use of otherwise idle time during COVID-19 lockdowns. According to a new report from Class Central, the world’s most popular catalog of free online courses, major providers of massive open online courses (MOOCs) have recorded 180 million learners, making 2020 the most consequential year for MOOCs since their inception in 2011. One-fifth of the 100 most popular free online courses launched in 2020 are directly related to COVID-19. The top course, with over 1 million enrollments, is Johns Hopkins’ “COVID-19 Contact Tracing,” followed by Harvard’s “Mechanical Ventilation for COVID-19,” with 300,000 enrollments.

https://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/the-other-surge-online-learning-leaps-in-lockdowns-301197072.html

Denise Stephens, Business Insider

In these rapidly changing times, project management skills are in increasing demand across all industries. The US Bureau of Labor Statistics projects 79,800 new project management jobs between 2019 and 2029, with employment in the field growing at a faster-than-average rate. With this high demand, transitioning into project management is definitely a viable career option for the future. Below are 10 online courses and resources, from free intro classes to programs that will prepare you to take the Project Management Institute’s Project Management Professional (PMP) exam.

https://www.businessinsider.com/project-manager-career-training-online-classes