Educational Technology

By David Nagel, THE Journal

Shipments of Apple tablets, including iPad and iPad Pro, dropped nearly 25 percent in the last quarter of 2015, leading an overall decline in the tablet market. Meanwhile shipments of detachable tablets — devices that include removable keyboards — actually doubled in the same period. Overall, the fourth quarter of 2015 saw a decline of 13.7 percent in tablet shipments, according to preliminary data released by market research firm IDC. That represented 65.9 million units in the three-month period ended Dec. 31. Pure slate tablets (like the iPad) fared worse than the category as a whole, down 21.1 percent compared to the same period in the previous year. Overall tablet shipments for the year came in at 206.8 million, off 10.1 percent compared with the previous year. However, detachable tablets doubled in shipments to an all-time high of 8.1 million units.

https://thejournal.com/articles/2016/02/09/ipad-shipments-plummet-as-detachable-tablets-double.aspx

by eSchool News

If they build it, they will learn from it. That’s the idea behind the national K-12 Game-a-thon, which invites students to let their imaginations and problem solving run wild as they design, build and share their own math games. Sponsored by the nonprofit MIND Research Institute, the third annual competition is open for entries now through July 1, 2016. The Game-a-thon challenges students to invent a card game, board game, app, outdoor game, or any other game that addresses a mathematical topic ranging from counting to irrational numbers or measurement to modeling.

http://www.eschoolnews.com/2016/02/09/mind-research-launches-k-12-math-game-a-thon/

By Katherine Long, The Seattle Times

In Washington state, pending legislation could promote the use of online textbooks and open-source materials.  A student advocacy group, along with one of the University of Washington’s top librarians, is urging faculty members to take a good look at using more free online textbooks. And two bills in the state Legislature would promote and facilitate the use of such open-source textbooks and course materials. The problem is the high price of textbooks. U.S. Public Interest Research Group (PIRG) and student affiliates of that nonprofit, including WashPIRG, say the cost of textbooks has gone up 73 percent in the last decade –four times the rate of inflation.

http://www.ecampusnews.com/policy/legislation/open-source-textbooks-562/

by Editorial Board, Cavalier Daily

To better assess the performance of our professors, the University should revamp course evaluations. As voluntary, typically anonymous forms, course evaluations do not adequately assist professors with teaching improvement. In order to better its system of pedagogical evaluations, the University should consider implementing compulsory, non-anonymous course evaluation forms complemented by peer review from other professors each semester. Student evaluations suffer from response bias, as those who complete them are self-selected volunteers, which overrepresents individuals with strong positive or negative opinions. Requiring all students to complete an evaluation for each of their classes in order to view their course grades would alleviate this issue. Compulsory evaluations would be more helpful for professors in that they would allow them to consider a broader range of student criticisms of their courses. Anonymity also introduces the online disinhibition effect to student evaluations. Evaluations that conceal the identities of those who submit them may cause teaching criticism to be less constructive than it would be if the evaluations were not anonymous.

by the Straits Times

Students at Ngee Ann Secondary School often chat online in class, with their teachers’ encouragement. The Tampines school recently developed a Web-based reading and learning analytics programme that develops students’ critical reading skills. The programme, used for subjects such as English throughout the year, allows students to use their mobile devices and read uploaded materials, on topics such as abortion and Singapore’s education system, on the WiRead platform. They then consider the text’s finer details such as the purpose, assumptions and points of views, before sharing their answers with their peers online.

http://www.straitstimes.com/singapore/education/chatting-online-at-school-to-sharpen-critical-reading-skills

By Peter Rosen, KSL

You’re not supposed to say them. We can’t spell them out for you. But at the University of Utah, you can get credit for studying curse words. The university’s Linguistics Department offers an online class titled “Bad Words and Taboo Terms,” taught by Randy Eggert. “We started it really as a class that would attract non-majors,” he said. “It’s a fairly new area of research,” Eggert said. “For years the topic itself was taboo. Few people were willing to research it seriously until the 1980s.” Bad words, themselves, though, are nothing new.

http://www.ksl.com/?sid=38431212&nid=148&fm=most_popular&s_cid=article_popular-10

by JON MARCUS, the Hechinger Report

Rise in online learning shifts from private for-profit to private nonprofit schools. The number of students in online courses continues to rise, even as higher-education enrollment is declining—but enthusiasm for them appears to be waning slightly among some university leaders, according to an annual survey. Why It Matters: The number of online students increases, but fewer academic leaders consider online courses essential.

http://hechingerreport.org/enrollment-in-online-courses-rises-but-their-importance-to-academic-chiefs-wanes/

by the Center for Digital Education

In what seems a waterfall release of free services, Microsoft Philanthropies has revealed intentions to donate $1 billion in cloud tools to universities and nonprofits. The word comes from Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella, who on Jan. 19 lauded the action as a new and vital resource for social and economic change. The resources are calculated to touch more than 70,000 organizations in a swift three-year span, with as much as $350 million donated in 2016. The reasoning, Nadella writes in a company blog post, is to confront an emerging digital divide, one rooted in the ecosystem of advanced technologies like predictive analytics and big data. Many nonprofits and research groups struggle to afford the tools, and Nadella said an intervention was the only foreseeable remedy.

http://www.centerdigitaled.com/higher-ed/Microsoft-Donates-1-Billion-in-Cloud-Services-to-Nonprofits-Universities.html

BY TANYA ROSCORLA, Center for Digital Education

An annual report provides a snapshot of what could be in store for higher education leaders in the next five years. Sevices that detect and respond to human emotion could be coming to higher education in the next four to five years. The NMC Horizon Report 2016 Higher Education Edition looks ahead at important technology developments like this one, along with challenges and trends to accelerate technology adoption. In a report released Thursday, Feb. 4, NMC and the EDUCAUSE Learning Initiative give higher education leaders a big picture look at what could happen with technology in their field so they can use it to help inform their strategic planning.

http://www.nmc.org/publication/nmc-horizon-report-2016-higher-education-edition/

http://www.centerdigitaled.com/higher-ed/NMC-Horizon-Report-Reveals-Top-Tech-Trends-Troubles-in-Higher-Ed.html

BY LAURA DEVANEY, eSchool News

The idea of treating students, parents and the school community as customers isn’t an entirely new one, but it’s still one that makes some school leaders balk. After all, schools are institutions of learning, and traditionally, they have not been thought of as businesses. But with the growth of charter schools and online schools, parents have other options to explore if their child’s school does not meet expectations — and when students leave, so, too, does funding. And in an effort to increase parental engagement and ensure that parents and community members feel as though they are part of their children’s school, the newly-passed Every Student Succeeds Act includes multiple methods to increase parental engagement, including expanded accessibility, regular two-way communication, and enhanced parent and family engagement policies.

http://www.eschoolnews.com/2016/02/05/should-you-treat-your-school-like-a-business/

by Tim Dodd, Financial Review

There are clear signs that digital disruption is transforming universities and leaving behind those that can’t adapt fast enough. Not surprisingly this seems to be more apparent to students, who come from the generation of digital natives, than to many university academics and administrators. Last week the Australian Higher Education Industrial Association, the registered employer organisation for higher education providers, published a report it commissioned from PwC titled Australian Higher Education Workforce of the Future. It explores what the employment model for universities is likely to be 10 or 20 years hence, when the full impact of digital disruption, as well as other change-makers like fee deregulation and increased competition, will have hit.

http://www.afr.com/leadership/careers/pwc-tells-universities-to-adapt-or-perish-20160204-gmm2ek

By Jillian Berman, Market Watch

Graduates of top-tier schools who major in science, technology, engineering and math (STEM) don’t earn much more than graduates of schools that are easier to get into, according to research from Michael Hilmer, an economist at San Diego State University, and Eric Eide and Mark Showalter, economists at Brigham Young University. But for students who major in business or liberal arts, where you go to school matters — business majors from top schools make 12% more than those from midtier schools and 18% more than their colleagues from bottom tier schools, for example.

http://www.marketwatch.com/story/you-dont-need-an-ivy-league-degree-to-make-a-lot-of-money-in-these-fields-2016-02-02

By John Elmes, Times Higher Education

Ed Byrne, president and principal of King’s College London, believes that any university not exploring the world of distance education will find itself in “real trouble” because no institution is “immune to disruption”. Speaking during a debate at education company Pearson about online learning’s impact on global higher education, Professor Byrne said: “If I look ahead and think of the range of things universities do, we’re going to have to have superb technological environments everywhere – whether it’s in e-education…or on-campus [education]. He said he hoped that “the need for accelerated, exponential change will be met by the sector”. But he added: “I think places that just ignore all this – business as usual, nothing changes – will be in real trouble in every aspect of what they do.”

https://www.timeshighereducation.com/news/kings-college-head-ignoring-online-education-big-danger

By Taylor Armerding, CSO

If American businesses want to curb the theft of their trade secrets and intellectual property by other countries, they are going to have to do it themselves. Experts say their best hope is machine learning. In the ongoing war against economic espionage – especially by China – the good news for the American private sector is that machine learning (ML) and behavioral analytics, are offering some promise of detecting hackers before they start exfiltrating trade secrets and intellectual property (IP).

http://www.csoonline.com/article/3029622/security/china-vs-the-machine-learning.html

By Tara García Mathewson, Education Dive

The University of California System is taking heat from faculty at UC Berkeley after a faculty member on the campus IT committee sent an email to his colleagues explaining the extent of a new computer network monitoring system. The Daily Bruin reports the new system was installed following an attack on UCLA Health in July 2015 and kept quiet until last week, secretly monitoring and possibly recording all traffic into and out of the campus network. While the university has said it is not reading faculty emails, privacy concerns have been raised, as well as concerns that the system acted without regard to proper shared governance procedures.

http://www.educationdive.com/news/uc-berkeley-deals-with-backlash-from-secret-monitoring/413330/

By Jon Phillips, eCampus News

2016 will be an incredible year for advancements in technology and we will see considerable implications and opportunities in education, from more personalized and meaningful learning to an evolving shift in learning environments. Based on our longtime work in higher education and ongoing conversations with our customers and stakeholders, we’ve identified a few areas where we expect technology to play a larger role for educators and students.

http://www.ecampusnews.com/technologies/higher-ed-tech-170/

by Gates Bryant, Campus Technology

The year 2015 was a turning point for data analytics technology. Now is the time for higher education institutions to put data to use and give students the advising support they need to succeed. 2015 was a turning point with notable shifts in how technologies are built to capture data, how campuses use data, and even the business activity in the data analytics space. These changes signal that colleges and universities are on the precipice of being able to take student success data out from behind the glass and use it to engage students and improve retention and graduation rates. But the proof will be in the pudding.

https://campustechnology.com/articles/2016/01/28/unlocking-predictive-analytics-to-improve-student-engagement-and-retention.aspx

By Frank DiMaria, Campus Technology

Whenever students at Brookdale Community College have free time, they typically engage with their mobile devices, according to Mike Qaissaunee, chair of the Engineering and Technology department at the Lincroft, NJ, institution. That observation led him to wonder if he could create academic content and deliver it directly to students’ mobile devices. Not the static content they’re used to, but interactive content that would lure them into using their devices for academics. “Any free time they had, like waiting in line for a bus or in the cafeteria waiting in line to get some food — we could capture those moments and engage them with content,” said Qaissaunee.

https://campustechnology.com/articles/2016/02/03/building-a-blueprint-for-better-e-books.aspx

By Meris Stansbury, eCampus News

Annual Horizon Report details short-and long-term technologies, trends that will impact higher education in the next 5 years. The rise of robots is no longer science fiction; and any institution interested in remaining relevant in the next five years should start advancing “cultures of innovation.” These are just two of the revelations part of the New Media Consortium’s (NMC) and EDUCAUSE Learning Initiative’s (ELI) 2016 Higher Education Edition of the annual Horizon Report.

http://www.ecampusnews.com/technologies/horizon-report-2016-278/

By Ron Bethke, eCampus News

With corequisite remediation, however, students can enroll directly into college-level courses and receive academic support alongside their regular classes, states the report. Instead of taking numerous prerequisite, non-credit courses, students learn the needed material while working toward their degree. Within their college-level courses, additional class periods or customized support in a lab provide opportunities for academic support and tutoring when bridges need to be gaped.

http://www.ecampusnews.com/top-news/corequisite-remediation-achievement-265/

By Joshua Bolkan, THE Journal

Wearable electronic device sales will increase 18.4 percent year over year to hit 274.6 million shipments in 2016, according to a new forecast from market research firm Gartner. Of the $28.7 billion the company predicts sales of the devices will generate in revenue, $11.5 billion will come from smartwatches alone. “From 2015 through 2017, smartwatch adoption will have 48 percent growth largely due to Apple popularizing wearables as a lifestyle trend.

https://thejournal.com/articles/2016/02/03/research-wearable-devices-to-top-28-billion-in-sales-in-2016.aspx