Online Learning Update

by RIP EMPSON, TechCrunch

The cost of higher education in the U.S. today is ridiculous. Student debt shot north of $1 trillion earlier this year, for example. It’s not surprising, then, that the adoption of web and mobile learning tools is skyrocketing, toppling old modes of learning and creating new ones. There is no better, more relevant example than “MOOCs,” otherwise known as “massive online open courses.” The buzz around these platforms (think Khan Academy, Coursera) is creating a stir in higher education, as they’ve come to represent a new model of online learning (change) and the promise of quality, affordable education at scale — something that just wasn’t possible five years ago. Class2Go is no clone — it’s bringing a unique approach to its online learning platform. Created by eight engineers in Stanford’s CS Department, the not-for-profit service has been designed from the bottom up both for teaching and research, with a focus on portability and interoperability.

http://techcrunch.com/2012/09/17/class2go-stanfords-new-open-source-platform-for-online-education/

By Merrill Balassone, USC

Nationwide, millions of students are trekking back to college classrooms this fall, but more students than ever are going back to school online. According to a report from The Sloan Consortium, the rate of growth in online enrollments is 10 times the rate of growth in all higher education. At USC, roughly 4,800 graduate students are enrolled in accredited online master’s degree programs that span nine USC schools. Altogether, USC’s online education programs reach 5,500 remote students through graduate-level degree programs and executive and continuing education programs. “USC faculty have embraced the potential of online graduate education and have eagerly explored and experimented with models that can engage learners and spark powerful ideas, fresh insights and new knowledge,” USC President C. L. Max Nikias wrote in a recent letter to the USC community. “As we continue to implement this online education model, we expect to double our enrollment and degree offerings within the next five years.

http://news.usc.edu/#!/article/41400/usc-embraces-online-graduate-education/

Posted by Anna Luce , Idd blog

It’s a question that comes up frequently when working with faculty to design and build their online courses. And it’s a valid one. Academic dishonesty is a longstanding issue in higher education, one colleges and universities take seriously with zero-tolerance policies and severe consequences for offenders. As more courses are offered online or in hybrid formats, instructors’ typical methods of deterring and detecting cheating might seem ineffective. As information has become more easily available, and more quickly copied (and edited so as to appear original), it’s easy to see how an over-stressed college student may be tempted to cheat in any course. Online courses add another layer of perceived anonymity and actual, physical distance between instructors and students that one would think makes it easier to cheat. (The idea is that it’s easier to lie to your computer screen than your instructor’s face.) I was recently asked to do some research on this topic, and, I have to confess, I still can’t answer those questions. Here are some things I did find out

http://www.iddblog.org/?p=1194

By The Creativity Post

A new online course on a new online platform at Stanford succeeds not only in joining people from dozens of countries but enabling them to directly collaborate on group projects: A group of women in Iran put together a tourism project; three men in India devised a way of connecting Indian musicians, audiences and venues; a pair of men in Trinidad and Tobago figured out how to ease road transportation; a team with members in Germany, the United Kingdom and Russia developed a mobile app for buying and selling locally designed products; and four Americans and a Pakistani created a search engine to find online classes. Clearly, some projects will prosper and others will not, though in either case the experience will have taught team members invaluable lessons.

http://www.creativitypost.com/technology/new_platform_for_online_courses_stresses_team_based_experiential_learning

By: Carter Lockwood, Flathat News

The higher education world was taken aback last year when Sebastian Thrun, vice president of Google and professor at Stanford University, offered a robotics course to the largest class anyone’s ever heard of: 160,000 students. With the power of the Internet and educational software, Thrun was able to give the same assignments and tests to people from dozens of different countries, at no cost. Efforts to provide course materials online, spearheaded by Harvard and MIT, are still in their earliest stages, but they’re already being talked about as the future of global education. Innovative schools looking to curb the exploding costs of a college degree will find it redundant to pay professors to give the same lecture dozens of times throughout their careers, to a few students at a time. We now live in a world where anyone can access a pre-recorded lecture, and anyone can have a conversation with the professor about the material without needing to be in the same room. No more 8 a.m. lectures — class will be whenever you want it to be, fitting the needs of students who demand more and more flexibility each year.

http://flathatnews.com/2012/09/13/keeping-up-with-online-educatio/

By John Mooney, NJ SPOTLIGHT

New Jersey legislators got a crash course in online education this week, from virtual schools to “blended” ones, and how far other states and countries have gone with the technology. The committee held the special session Wednesday to discuss the various models, as the Christie administration has moved ahead in approving charter schools employing the technology in levels not seen before in the state. Two charter schools have been approved that would be entirely online, with students taking class from home or other remote locations. They have been postponed a year.

http://articles.philly.com/2012-09-14/news/33845175_1_charter-schools-online-schools-virtual-schools

By KYLE STOKES & ZHE HUANG, Indiana Public Media

Indiana University is investing $8 million over the next three years to increase the number of online courses on all campuses and bring them under one umbrella. The goals of the new initiative are to expand IU’s current online offerings, create new degree programs, and convert current programs to an online format. IU Instructional Systems Technology Professor Barbara Bichelmeyer, who will direct the new office of online education, says new technology allows students and professors to communicate more freely. “Web 2.0 technologies, social networking, opportunities for interaction are allowing students and instructors to be able to connect with each other, even through the Internet and online technologies in ways they haven’t been able to do so in the past,” she says. IU offers online courses in more than 80 academic disciplines.

http://indianapublicmedia.org/news/iu-invests-8-million-online-courses-35933/

by Penn State University

What are some benefits of mobile learning?

It’s a long list, but a few key benefits are convenience, enhanced content, and increased motivation. A mobile device is most likely already in a student’s pocket, and if not, readily available and cost effective. Faculty are able to integrate features like apps, multimedia, educational gaming, and location-based software into their courses, and in most cases students would prefer to use a device they already know and love anyway.

http://tlt.its.psu.edu/about/news/2012/five-questions-with….ben-brautigam-on-mobile-learning

by WFIN

The way we learned in school and the way our children are learning in school is radically different. Today a speaker the University of Findlay drove that point home during a session on E-learning. Corrine Hoisington says by using mobile technologies like the iPad students have moved beyond textbooks to more interactive lessons… Hoisington says that when what use to be in a text book engages a child, they are more likely to want to learn which is a huge benefit for educators. She adds technology based e-learning is here to stay so its important to stay ahead of the curve… (please visit URL for the audio report)

http://www.wfin.com/localnews201.asp?id=11445&storyno=13

BY STANFORD

Three of Stanford’s schools – engineering, medicine and business – have announced appointments of associate deans to lead their respective online education initiatives. The appointments will complement the university’s continuing commitment to online learning. The School of Engineering has long been a pioneer in the field of distance learning. In 1969, the school launched the Stanford Instructional Television Network (SITN) with 12 graduate engineering courses. In the 1990s, course delivery moved to video streaming over the Internet, and SITN became the Stanford Center for Professional Development (SCPD). SCPD is now one of the top professional development centers among U.S. institutions of higher education, with 420 member companies and 45 staff members.

http://news.stanford.edu/news/2012/september/online-associate-deans-091412.html

by Susan Smith Nash, elearnqueen blog

Supplemental, personalized online tutoring is critical to student success in e-learning, and many institutions offer synchronous tutoring support, with programs such as Smarthinking. However, it’s not necessary to invest in an expensive package. Instead, individual instructors and tutors can easily set up online tutoring and work directly with their students. In addition, online whiteboards are sometimes open source, and they can be used in conjunction with open source solutions for open source webinars.

http://elearnqueen.blogspot.com/2012/09/free-online-tutoring-platforms-open.html

BY FRED GRIMM, Miami Herald

A decade ago, 2,550,201 state voters said so, approving a constitutional amendment limiting the number of students who can be jammed into a single class. No more than 25 kids can be assigned to a high school class offering a core course. Plainly, that’s the kind of teacher-to-student ratio that Floridians expect in their public school system. I’m guessing they might not be thrilled by a ratio of 275 to 1. Of course, the public wasn’t supposed to find out. The state’s over-packed classes are of the virtual kind, administered by distant, unseen teachers employed by K12, the for-profit contractor that provides online classes for public school districts in 43 Florida counties, including Miami-Dade and Broward.

http://www.miamiherald.com/2012/09/15/3004668/online-classes-are-virtually-overloaded.html

by Josh Bersin, Forbes

The catalog e-learning market is now more than 13 years old (the word “e-learning” was coined in 1998, when this market was red hot). Over this period of time technology, bandwidth, and devices have dramatically changed. Courses built ten years ago are utterly boring today. We now expect online training to use video, run in mobile devices, and be totally integrated with social tools and online collaboration. This has enabled innovative companies like Lynda.com and Khan Academy to offer video-based education and training which is far more “modern” and “engaging.” In fact corporate buyers tell us that Lynda.com’s courses are so much fun that they see them as a recruiting tool. Lynda.com, which is a private company in Southern California which develops movie-studio quality content, is growing at 4X the rate of Skillsoft.

http://www.forbes.com/sites/joshbersin/2012/09/15/corporate-e-learning-market-gets-a-jolt-as-moocs-grow/

by Jeffrey R. Young, Chronincle of Higher Ed

Following are the new college and university partners:

Berklee College of Music

Brown University

Columbia University

Emory University

Hebrew University of Jerusalem

Hong Kong University of Science and Technology

Mount Sinai School of Medicine

Ohio State University

University of British Columbia

University of California at Irvine

University of Florida

University of London

University of Maryland at College Park

University of Melbourne

University of Pittsburgh

Vanderbilt University

Wesleyan University

Plenty of other colleges are in talks with Coursera. The University of Texas at Austin has indicated that it is considering participation, and Mr. Ng said he expected to double the number of partners again within a year.

http://chronicle.com/blogs/wiredcampus/coursera-announces-expansion-adding-16-universities/39964

by Learner Weblog

Whilst we have more MOOCs emerging and evolving, what would happen if some MOOCs succeeded and some failed? What we need are those MOOCs which would sustain the test of time, those MOOCs of ages, rather than MOOCs which could apparently fix a short term crisis in education when the whole education business is subject to severe competition and a quest for efficiency. We have seen too many businesses failed in the past, and so I wouldn’t be surprised to find lots of failures in MOOCs in a fragile global economy. That is a reality. In conclusion, there are different responses to MOOCs, from different perspectives, with some very positive experiences, and others less than positive in MOOCs. x MOOCs would have a long term impact on Higher Education Institutions, educators and learners. There are concerns about its business models and whether they are sustainable in the future. Time will tell if such x MOOCs would evolve into a different form of MOOC that is aligned with the future Higher Education and Learning.

http://suifaijohnmak.wordpress.com/2012/09/15/in-moocs-more-is-less-and-less-is-more-part-3/

By Angela Chen, Chronicle of Higher Ed

Florida is considering creating a new state university, just months after Gov. Rick Scott defied the university system’s board by signing legislation to turn a satellite campus into the state’s 12th public university. Under the new proposal, the board itself would oversee the planned 13th university, which would have neither a campus quad nor a football team. The potential campus would be entirely online. This past July, the system’s Board of Governors hired a consulting firm to determine the feasibility of creating “OnlineU.” An online university is not the only option being explored, says Frank T. Brogan, the system’s chancellor. The consulting group, Parthenon, will also consider the possibility of building a systemwide “portal” for universities to offer existing online courses to students on other campuses in the system. Such offerings are now available only to students enrolled at the university where the course originates.

http://chronicle.com/article/Florida-Ponders-Opening-an/134482/

By Seanna Adcox, Augusta Chronicle

he University of South Carolina is the state’s first public college to offer residents a way to earn a bachelor’s degree at home, provided they earn their first two years of credits in the classroom. The university expects to launch Palmetto College next fall with half-dozen degree programs, including business, criminal justice, elementary education, nursing and organizational leadership – programs chosen for their demand and practicality. “The call of this is to provide access to people who don’t have access to our regular campuses,” said USC provost Michael Amiridis. “In many cases, they’re looking for professional advancement or a job.”

http://chronicle.augusta.com/news/education/2012-09-14/university-south-carolina-offer-online-degree-programs

by Paul Fain, Inside Higher Ed

Early returns show that massive open online courses (MOOCs) work best for motivated and academically prepared students. But could high-quality MOOCs benefit a broader range of learners, like those who get tripped up by remedial classes? That’s the question the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation wants to answer with a newly announced round of 10 grants for the creation of MOOCs for remedial coursework. “We’re trying to seed the conversation and seed the experimentation,” said Josh Jarrett, the foundation’s deputy director for education and postsecondary education.

http://www.insidehighered.com/news/2012/09/14/gates-foundation-solicits-remedial-moocs

By Ann Work, Times-Record

In the North Texas area, online learning is chugging relentlessly forward like a train that won’t be stopped. Particularly at the collegiate level, the online phenomenon is fueled by young adults who like technology and nontraditional students who need it, educators say. The flexibility added to a college career through online learning allows students to do what they couldn’t easily do otherwise — juggle job, family and studies. “It’s an outstanding opportunity for students and the wave of the future,” said Dusty Johnston, Vernon College president. With online options, even rural students can complete a degree or work toward a higher one without constant commuting to the big city, according to Pam Morgan, Midwestern State University associate vice president for outreach and engagement.

http://www.timesrecordnews.com/news/2012/sep/15/online-learning-hits-fast-track/

By Alisha Azevedo, Chronicle of Higher Ed

Stanford University is continuing a high-profile push into online education with a new open-source platform called Class2Go, which will host two massive open online courses, or MOOC’s, during the fall quarter. Beginning in October, non-Stanford and Stanford students alike will be able to use the platform to take classes on computer networking and on “Solar Cells, Fuel Cells, and Batteries.” The idea for the software started with a six-member “skunkworks” team in Stanford’s computer-science department, said Jane Manning, product manager for Class2Go. Over the summer, the team built Class2Go using code from Stanford’s existing course-hosting platform, called Courseware, and a similar platform from the nonprofit Khan Academy, along with software for integrated online classroom forums hosted by Piazza. Other colleges may add to the platform or adapt it for their own purposes, said Sef Kloninger, engineering manager for Class2Go.

http://chronicle.com/blogs/wiredcampus/stanford-u-releases-new-open-source-online-education-platform/39850

by Andario Strange, PC Magazine

“The Course Builder open source project is an experimental early step for us in the world of online education,” Peter Norvig, director of Google Research said. “It is a snapshot of an approach we found useful and an indication of our future direction. We hope to continue development along these lines, but we wanted to make this limited code base available now, to see what early adopters will do with it, and to explore the future of learning technology.” In addition to offering a new platform for empowering educators, the effort is also a unique opportunity to connect with Google’s research team. Over the course of the next two weeks Google plans to directly interact with Course Builder users via Google Hangouts. The Course Builder support site is already live and the free software download has already received its first update. For those unsure about their level of skill as it relates to the possible use of the software, Google’s Course Builder Checklist offers a reassuring primer on exactly what to expect and how to get started.

http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,2817,2409589,00.asp