Educational Technology

by Herald Online

Blended learning experts in K-12 classrooms explain that Learning Management Systems (LMS) are ideal for seamlessly integrating online learning resources with data-driven instruction. Schoology—the LMS recently named Best K-12 Enterprise Solution in the 2013 SIIA CODiE Awards—has announced new features that extend its capabilities as a blended learning solution, including deeper integration of learning resources, and improved communication tools and data-driven instruction. More than two million users at over 40,000 schools and universities use Schoology’s collaborative interface to boost student engagement and streamline curriculum management. The new features announced today include: customizable award badges for use in motivating students; a new parent interface to improve communication between parents, students and teachers; and updates to the iOS and Android™ mobile apps that enhance the use of external media.

http://www.heraldonline.com/2013/06/24/4969840/new-schoology-features-enhance.html

by Chris Tisdell, the Conversation

We need to think beyond the classroom if we’re going to improve maths and science education.  What’s your worst memory of mathematics from high school? And the best? Unless you’re a mathematician now, I’d bet the first answer came much faster than the second. Mathematics is the enabling discipline. It provides the foundation and framework necessary for major advancements within such fields as: science; engineering; technology; and finance. Pilot studies at the University of New South Wales (UNSW) reveal employers’ attitudes are unanimously positive towards graduates with strong mathematical skills.

http://theconversation.com/to-multiply-maths-students-take-away-classrooms-and-add-online-courses-15132

by Bernadine Racoma, Day News

Prof. Daphne Koller of the Computer Science Department of Stanford University believes that online education can address the need for better accessibility to higher education in Sub-Saharan Africa. In the region a very small percentage of college students, a mere 6% enroll in higher education courses. Despite the existing demand for people holding degrees in higher education in developing nations, the disparity between persons with access to quality education and those who do not have access is quite significant. With the growing availability of the Internet in these areas, the creation of a “global classroom is now very possible, according to Koller. This tireless, multi-awarded educator is also the co-CEO and co-founder of Coursera. She received the MacArthur Foundation Fellowship and the Presidential Early Career Award for Scientists and Engineers. Coursera was founded only last year.

http://www.daynews.com/world/education/2013/06/coursera-partnerships-aim-to-expand-access-to-online-education-21902

By Penelope P. Endozo, Philippine Daily Inquirer

This feature from the Philippine Daily Inquirer provides a succinct, but surprisingly thorough, introduction to MOOCs, answering the key questions of persons who are not fully familiar with what MOOCs are, how they are delivered, and where they may be going.

http://opinion.inquirer.net/55095/moocs-for-beginners

By Joseph J. Horton, Patriot Post

I am confident that some traditional colleges will go out of business in the next 10-15 years due to their inability to adapt. The schools that survive will have to do more than address the cost issue. It is impossible for those offering the traditional college experience to compete on price alone. The survivors will figure out what they do better than MOOCs and will do those things better than they do today. The value added will be measured and explained to prospective students and employers. Stiff competition in higher education is upon us. Families will soon have more educational options with a wider range of prices. The competition will be good for the surviving traditional colleges that will provide far better educations than they do today. Students, their families and industry will be better off as a result. It is a great and exciting time to be in the business of higher education.

http://patriotpost.us/commentary/18774

By Lauren Ingeno, Inside Higher Ed

The Americans with Disabilities Act prevents any college or university from excluding disabled students in activities, services and programs. The Department of Education and Department of Justice sent a letter to college presidents three years ago, telling them that inaccessible education technology violates the Act. But the letter did not lay out any specific, national standards for what is and is not considered accessible. More recently, the National Federation of the Blind drafted a bill, which would require the federal Access Board to develop national standards for accessible higher education technology products. In the absence of clear standards, the line between what is and isn’t discriminatory is often blurred in an online setting, and colleges have faced a number of discrimination lawsuits in the past few years because of this.

http://www.insidehighered.com/news/2013/06/24/faculty-responsible-making-online-materials-accessible-disabled-students

by Stephen Green, Huntsville Item

These online classes are often pre-recorded and allow users to take tests multiple times without programs designed to prevent cheating like typical online university classes. This means at the moment, the certificates that some courses offer at the end are still not worth much credibility from prospective employers and the public at large. These online courses, the infants of higher education, still have a lot of growing up to do: both in terms of structure and credibility. But for now, these websites are tools that the public at large should capitalize on not for the degree, but learning for the sake of learning.

http://itemonline.com/opinion/x1885651091/Free-online-college-courses-are-next-self-help-tool

By Ari Levy, Bloomberg News

While online courses have been around since the early days of the Internet, job training has remained the purview of community colleges and vocational schools, requiring students to spend thousands of dollars to learn word processing, financial spreadsheets and web development. With unemployment hovering at 7.6 percent, companies like TrainSignal and Lynda.com Inc. are pitching what they call a more efficient and affordable route for people who need retraining on their own schedule. They’re part of a revival in web education startups. Venture capitalists poured $632.3 million into the market in 2012, up 41 percent from the previous year, and the most since the dot-com bubble’s peak in 2000, according to the National Venture Capital Association.

http://www.businessweek.com/news/2013-06-18/unemployment-prompts-online-training-challenging-colleges-jobs

by KYLE RUSSELL, Business Insider

Interested in joining or founding a startup but have no idea where to begin? Or perhaps you’re interested in walking a mile in the shoes of a developer at a startup to see what it’s like? There’s a (free) class for that, and it’s taught by two of the best computer science professors in the Silicon Valley. Available on Coursera, one of the companies we recently wrote about that’s trying to disrupt education in this country, Startup Engineering aims to teach you everything there is to know about creating a modern tech startup.

http://www.businessinsider.com/take-stanfords-online-startup-class-2013-6

By Samantha Whitehorne, Associations Now

A new study of 1,345 U.S. college students by Millennial Branding and Internships.com says that may indeed be the case, as respondents said that they are more willing to learn online and that they view the future of learning as more virtual and social media driven.

Here’s a closer look at the results:

39 percent said the future of education would be more virtual, and 19 percent said that social media will be used to engage in the classroom in the future.

50 percent of students said they don’t need a traditional classroom to learn, but 78 percent do think that it’s easier to learn in a traditional classroom than online.

43 percent say that online education will provide them with courses of the same or higher quality than traditional colleges.

http://associationsnow.com/2013/06/the-future-of-learning-according-to-millennials/

By MADELINE R. CONWAY, the Harvard Crimson

EdX has hit the one-million students mark—meaning it’s one-thousandth of the way to its goal of educating one billion people. The online learning venture, which was launched by Harvard and MIT in May 2012, announced the benchmark with a tweet Wednesday along with this photo of some of its staff beaming and celebrating at edX’s Cambridge office. The platform’s one millionth student joined on Tuesday, the tweet said. EdX is “thrilled to have reached this important milestone,” said Syvenna Siebert, a spokesperson who spoke on behalf of edX.

http://www.thecrimson.com/article/2013/6/20/edx-million-students-benchmark/

by Virtual College (UK)

It is an interesting time for e-portfolios as they appear to be sitting at the crossroads of technology, where we have to watch this space and possibly see e-portfolios emerging as something slightly different in the future. People are likely to be more than ever stamping their own individuality on their online presence, and it will stay with them for life, long after they move from fulltime education and into the workplace. In fact, will e-portfolio quickly become an m-portfolio particularly in the workplace as mobile learning is now becoming a reality? LMS vendors need to keep pace with these issues if they are to keep providing what learners need as technology moves on at a pace

http://www.virtual-college.co.uk/news/eportfolios–Taking-Ownership-of-your-learning–newsitems-110.aspx

by Lisa Michelle Dabb, Edutopia

“By bringing together people who share interests, no matter their location or time zone, social media has the potential to transform the workplace into an environment where learning is as natural as it is powerful.” – Marcia Conner. Recently, I presented an online webinar with education colleagues from different parts of the U.S. The webinar, Social Media Savvy for Educators, was well received. Our purpose in sharing was to:

Support educators who were new to using social media

Support them to seek out a few resources

Support them to launch into those spaces

http://www.edutopia.org/blog/social-media-savvy-4-tips-lisa-dabbs

by Linda Yeung and Richard James Havis, South China Morning Post

It’s morning assembly, and Form One students at Pui Ching Middle School, have their iPads ready. It’s the same story in their English and Chinese classes. As they listen to the news, read poems or watch other media on the screens in front of them, the students are preparing to put forward their thoughts via projector linked to their devices. They are a pioneering group in a school already at the forefront of e-learning. From this autumn, the use of iPads will be rolled out to Form Two and Form Four classes. The school already has its own online learning system with various teaching materials and activities, and its students chat with one another on Facebook or the online course management system Moodle.

http://www.scmp.com/lifestyle/family-education/article/1260930/tablets-help-hong-kong-students-learn

by Mike Hasten, Shreveport Times

If you’re age 25 to 64 living in Louisiana and have at least an associate degree, you’re among a fairly rare group. A Lumina Foundation study utilizing U.S. Census data found that in 2011, only 27.9 percent of Louisianans in that age bracket – considered “working age adults” – have at least a two-year degree. The Census data shows it’s getting worse. In 2010, 28.2 percent of adults had some type of degree and in 2009, it was 28.1 percent. Nationally, the average is 38.7 percent of adults have degrees. Louisiana ranks 49th nationally, one-tenth of a percentage point ahead of West Virginia, where 27.8 percent of its population has degrees. But that state is on the rise with only 26.1 percent of its population having degrees a year ago. The University of Louisiana System this summer will kick off an online degree program it hopes will improve the state’s education level while making it easier for working men and women to earn degrees. The diploma would be a Bachelor of Arts in Organizational Leadership.

http://www.shreveporttimes.com/article/20130617/NEWS0402/306170010/UL-System-kicks-off-online-degree-program

By Paul Signorelli, American Libraries

Libraries are currently in a paradoxical situation. They are the free community centers to which learners increasingly turn when they need help using technology, but they are often far behind what is happening in the training industry as it has developed outside of libraries. Because library staff and patrons often need to use online resources to gain access to what libraries provide, they are at a tremendous disadvantage if they do not have access to training in how to use the tech tools that libraries offer. One significant issue facing library administrators and staff as they consider engaging in e-learning is whether to utilize existing e-learning offerings, either purchased or available at no cost; produce their own; or use a combination of both options.

http://www.americanlibrariesmagazine.org/article/e-learning-product-risk-lesson

By Tulsa World

Students and their parents know first-hand the nightmare of buying college textbooks. Textbook prices have been increasing about 8 percent a year and many are in triple digits. The old-school way of saving money on textbooks – buying them used – is difficult nowadays because of minor editing changes that render year-old texts out of date. One chemistry prof at the University of Oklahoma, Mark Morvant, says he was shocked to learn that the textbook for his organic chemistry class cost $252. That equals nearly a fourth of the amount students pay in tuition and fees for the class. Adopting or creating new digital course materials has saved students about 25 percent of their yearly textbook costs, which typically are $1,400.

http://www.tulsaworld.com/article.aspx/OU_launches_cost_saving_online_textbook_initiative/20130619_61_A12_Studen490207

by Sanjay Bhatt, Seattle Times

Insight High graduates got their degrees on Saturday and met for the first time many of their classmates at the online school. High-school senior Rosemary Perkins studied German for four years, but it wasn’t until Saturday that the 17-year-old finally met her teacher in person. Perkins and about 425 of her peers graduated Saturday from Insight High School of Washington, a public, online high school that opened in fall 2006. The graduation ceremony was held at Bellevue College. Insight High is one of about 20 online schools in Washington that offer students an alternative experience to brick-and-mortar high schools.

http://seattletimes.com/html/education/2021199401_onlineschoolgraduationxml.html

By Erin Chapin, Knox News

The most content people I know are lifelong learners. They are unafraid of having their ideas challenged, are ravenous for knowledge and are self-guided devourers of information. Not all of us are so disciplined. Some of us require the structure of a classroom and a syllabus to guide us. In post-collegiate years, when ensconced in a career, there aren’t many options for someone who wishes to delve back into academia. Night classes at a local university or junior college are sometimes undesirable due to price or time constraints. One must be dedicated to drive to school after working eight hours at a regular job. I began looking into alternative paths to education this year in order to refine my job skills and to challenge some of my dormant synapses. Flexible class schedules and the ability to study at my own pace is paramount due to the unpredictable hours in a journalist’s life. My search led me to MOOCs — Massive Open Online Courses.

http://www.knoxnews.com/news/2013/jun/15/trending-erin-chapin-massive-open-online-courses/

by Steven Kotler, Singularity Hub

I have a new book coming out early next year, The Rise of Superman: Decoding the Science of Ultimate Human Performance. As the title suggests, my subject matter is the outer limits of human potential and the question of what might actually be possible for our species. This is a story about one of them, a really nice guy named Jim Kwik. It’s also a story about learning and education, innovation and entrepreneurship, and, well, superheroes. Actually, mostly, it’s a story about superheroes. Jim Kwik’s superpower is learning. He’s the CEO of Kwik Learning for a reason. Kwik is really, really quick. He can learn faster than mere mortals.

http://singularityhub.com/2013/06/18/learning-to-learn-faster-the-one-superpower-everyone-needs/

By Sara Grossman, Chronicle of Higher Ed

New digital eyewear from Google, which features a built-in Webcam and the ability to display e-mail messages and other information, has sparked a mix of curiosity and skepticism in the popular press, but several professors are rushing to try it out in their teaching and research—and early reviews are mixed. Google Glass, as the product is called, is not yet available for general purchase, but the company has sold a limited number to developers and to a group of people selected based on their tweets about how they planned to use the gear.

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