Online Learning Update

by Taiwan Today

A survey of computer usage trends by Taiwan workers released May 19 by the ROC Ministry of Labor shows a big jump in the popularity of online courses. According to the MOL, 29 percent of workers took online courses last year, up 10.2 percentage points on 2012, with 35.4 percent of those aged 15-24 taking the lead. A total of 99.1 percent of workers own an Internet-enabled device such as a PC, notebook, smartphone or tablet, 2.3 percentage points up on 2012. In 2013, computer usage hit 86.9 percent, Internet usage 84.3 percent, with higher usage among women, the more highly educated and young.

http://www.taiwantoday.tw/ct.asp?xItem=217715&ctNode=445

by CLIFTON B. PARKER, Stanford

Stanford’s online learning initiative is growing at a fast pace and the university is looking far beyond the MOOC at how to best educate students in the 21st century. A new report highlights accomplishments in 2013 and eyes the future of research-driven innovation. Online education is changing the way we learn, where we learn and how we think of higher education. Stanford Online is pioneering advances in teaching and learning at Stanford – and beyond – as its new report, “2013 in Review,” describes. The 32-page document reveals the explosive growth at Stanford Online – 1.9 million people from almost every country in the world have registered for one or more courses, and learners have spent more than 4 million hours engaging with Stanford Online courses since the fall of 2012.

http://news.stanford.edu/news/2014/may/online-vpol-report-051914.html

By Lisa Suhay, Christian Science Monitor

The Speaking Exchange connects Brazilian youth with US seniors, facilitating one-to-one online video chats that help build language skills for foreign students and interpersonal connections for the senior mentors. The Speaking Exchange serves as a cyber-bridge between lonely, elderly residents in American retirement homes, and English language students in Brazil.

http://www.csmonitor.com/The-Culture/Family/Modern-Parenthood/2014/0519/Speaking-Exchange-Mentoring-across-continents

by Joel Rose, EdSurge

Ultimately, the most effective blended models will be those that focus on the synchronization of live and digital instruction in ways that are personalized to the needs of each student. The first generation of blended learning models represents a meaningful leap forward from the traditional classroom model, providing students a more engaging learning environment and giving teachers the tools they need to do what they do best. But these models make limited use of what’s truly possible. These shortcomings are not a reflection of the technology or a lack of desire to accelerate student learning, but rather are the result of attempting to graft technology solutions on top of a traditional classroom model that was never designed with technology in mind.

https://www.edsurge.com/n/2014-05-16-blended-learning-s-two-legged-stools

by Greg Sterling, Search Engine Land

Chinese search giant Baidu has stolen away the head of Google’s “deep learning” project, dubbed “Google Brain.” Andrew Ng is an artificial intelligence expert, Stanford professor and founder of online learning company Coursera. Google Brain is a machine learning initiative to help make computing more efficient and capable by mimicking the distributed processes of the human brain. Ng will now spearhead such an effort for Baidu, although he will be primarily based in Silicon Valley, where Baidu not long ago opened an R&D office. Wired reports that Baidu will invest $300 million “deep learning” and “big data” research over the next several years. Ng will lead that effort and build an international research team in the process. According to Wired, Ng was recruited by Baidu executives during several meetings over the course of last year.

http://searchengineland.com/baidu-steals-part-googles-brain-project-191727

by Jennifer Sayre, Edutopia

Just offering online courses doesn’t guarantee that the program will be successful or the best option for your students. The most important quality of an online program is the staff’s ability to know their students personally, something that many online schools simply can’t do. To have that, you need innovative teachers who will recognize the need for — and make the effort to build — authentic relationships through communication. For these innovative teachers, one key to success is building a repertoire of tools that allow you to have authentic communication with your online students. There are two types of communication: one-way and two-way. Both are very important.

http://www.edutopia.org/blog/communication-building-relationships-online-programs-jennifer-sayre

by Neat

Technology has also helped students to go green in many different ways. College students, and even some high school students, can now take classes online from home. In much the same way that employees help the environment by telecommuting to work, taking classes online helps the environment as well. Instead of driving to classes, sometimes multiple times per day, thanks to the Internet, students can receive some of their education in an online learning setting. This decreases gas and oil consumption, and also reduces greenhouse gasses. In addition, online learning cuts down on paper used in and out of the classroom. With online learning, and some other classrooms, assignments are created and turned in online, either through email or another online forum. Correspondence between teachers and students can also take place with the use of emails or websites.

https://www.neat.com/go-green/online-learning/

by Steve Brawner, Courier-News

Dr. Bruce Bobbitt, president of the University of Arkansas System, told the House and Senate Education Committees Monday how his system is adapting. The eVersity program will offer degrees starting this fall that are designed to reach older Arkansans who need employment skills but not the on-campus college experience. It’s meant to fill jobs that are available right now. Bobbitt said a student will be able to earn a degree from home in five years at a cost of $18,000 — maybe significantly less. Interviewed in a Capitol hallway after his presentation to legislators, Bobbitt said that faculty acceptance of the new online model has varied from professor to professor, but as a rule, “They understand that we don’t want to be Kodak.” That’s a reference to the film manufacturer and developer that failed to respond to digital photography and ended up declaring for bankruptcy.

http://www.couriernews.com/view/full_story/25107743/article-Colleges-go-online-to-avoid-Kodak-s-fate

By Pek Murray Goldberg, Marine Link

It’s time to put that question behind us. Once a question has been carefully analyzed and a reliable answer has been found, it is time to use this new knowledge to help answer the next series of important questions. This is the current situation in some parts of the maritime industry surrounding the question of whether eLearning works. We will cover the evidence in a moment, but first let me clearly state the answer to the question, “Does eLearning work”? The answer is an unequivocal “YES”. But as with any complex topic, there are many parts to that answer. So here are a few quick, but very important, considerations.

http://www.marinelink.com/news/elearning-does-work369170.aspx

by ADELE PETERS, Fast Coexist

In this unique course at the Open Online Academy, 5,000 students team with local organizations to go head-to-head developing ideas for the developing world. The typical design competition tends to result in a lot of fantastical ideas that are far from realistic. But the Open Online Academy had set up real-world contests to solve world challenges with an unusual structure: The participants who compete are all enrolled in a MOOC (or massive open online class). “We’re basically using education as a way to promote change and build a better world,” says Ivan Shumkov, the school’s founder. In one recent class, the Open Online Academy took on the challenge of building resilient schools in the Philippines, after Typhoon Haiyan destroyed 4,500 schools there last November. Other class challenges have included designing emergency shelters, smart mobility, and infrastructure in the developing world.

http://www.fastcoexist.com/3030535/this-online-class-helps-designers-solve-real-world-problems

By Linda L. Briggs, Campus Technology

When Ohio State University math professor Jim Fowler and his colleague Thomas Evans, a senior instructional designer at the school, decided to create a calculus MOOC, they envisioned a course with an adaptive learning engine that would give students lots of practice doing math problems that matched their skill level. But when the pair moved forward with building the course in Coursera, they came up with a problem: The system did not include tools to support their adaptive learning agenda. To give their Coursera course the adaptive flavor they were looking for, Fowler and Evans created an add-on, dubbed “MOOCulus.” Bolted on to Coursera’s MOOC platform, the tool is designed to feed students progressively harder questions based on previous answers.

http://campustechnology.com/articles/2014/05/14/enhancing-a-mooc-with-adaptive-learning.aspx

By John K. Waters, THE Journal

Partnerships between tech companies and publishers are turning an ed tech buzzword into a reality, but, as one expert says, “It’s going to take some time to get it right.” But interest in adaptive learning has been heating up in the last couple of years, thanks to new attention from the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, new partnerships among education publishers and adaptive platform providers, and a growing list of product vendors. Along with that increasing interest and expanding vendor landscape has come a fair bit of confusion about exactly what the term “adaptive learning” means. In conversation, it’s almost synonymous with “personalized learning,” but in practice, these are different concepts, and K-12 districts investigating systems that promise to deliver adaptive learning should understand that difference.

http://thejournal.com/articles/2014/05/14/adaptive-learning-are-we-there-yet.aspx

by Debbie Morrison, Online Learning Insights

“Teaching as a Subversive Activity” puts forth ideas about education that are radical, controversial, bold and fresh. It suggests eliminating syllabi, formal curriculum and textbooks from education settings. It introduces ideas of student-centered learning over teacher-centered teaching, and leading students to learn by asking questions, not by teachers giving lectures. The book was first published in 1969—considered radical among educators then, and today. Hands down it’s on of the most challenging, thoughtful, practical books I’ve read about transforming education.

http://onlinelearninginsights.wordpress.com/tag/neil-postman/

By Karen Kucher, U-T San Diego

With California’s community colleges offering more online instruction than any other public higher education institution in the U.S. — and the state allocating millions of dollars to expand online courses — the Public Policy Institute of California took a look at student performance. It found that in 2012, 60.4 percent of students enrolled in online courses completed them with a passing grade — compared to the success rate of 70.6 percent in traditional courses.

http://www.utsandiego.com/news/2014/may/14/online-classes-community-colleges-PPIC-study/

by Center for Digital Education

The California Legislature is considering a bill that would allow high school students to count their computer science classes toward college math admission requirements. SB 1200, sponsored by State Senator Alex Padilla (D-Pacoima), asks the state’s two university systems to match up their admissions standards in math and language arts to those of the Academic Content Standards Commission. The comission benchmarks at least 85 percent of its standards to the Common Core State Standards. The bill would require the California State University system to align its standards, but requests the same from the University of California system. It also would have them develop guidelines so that high school computer science courses could satisfy math requirements for admissions purposes.

http://www.centerdigitaled.com/news/California-Computer-Science-College.html

by Steve Kolowich, Chronicle of Higher Ed

Massive open online courses will not fundamentally reshape higher education, nor will they disappear altogether. Those are the conclusions of separate reports released this week by Teachers College at Columbia University and Bellwether Education Partners, a nonprofit advisory group. Neither report contains any blockbuster news for those who have followed the decline of the MOOC hype over the last year or so. But they support the theory that the tools and techniques Stanford University professors used in 2011 to enroll 160,000 students in a free, online computer-science course will be subsumed by broader, incremental efforts to improve higher education with technology.

http://chronicle.com/blogs/wiredcampus/conventional-online-higher-education-will-absorb-moocs-2-reports-say/52603

by The Associated Press

Jenni Small has good reason for avoiding 8 a.m. world literature classes at Dalton State College in northern Georgia. The 23-year-old works night shifts as an operator for carpet manufacturer Shaw while finishing her bachelor’s degree in mathematics. Instead of heading straight to class from work, she uses eCore — an online system that focuses on “core” classes that every Georgia state college or university student must take — for one or two courses each semester. Cost was the only thing that kept her from taking even more classes online, Small said. On-campus credit hour charges at Dalton State this year are $97.27, compared to $189 for eCore. System officials are hoping to address that in the fall, when the cost of eCore classes will drop $20 per credit hour.

http://www.navytimes.com/article/20140512/EDU03/305120032/Georgia-online-tuition-decreasing-1st-time

By Sidneyeve Matrix, Metro

In April 2014 a Totaljobs.com survey of over 8,000 job seekers found that seven out of 10 respondents feel today’s employers expect them to be more qualified than ever before. To meet those expectations, 80 per cent of the survey participants said they would be up for taking a training course if it led to more job offers. In spite of the obvious convenience factor and other possible cost savings, only half (49 per cent) of those job seekers confirmed they would prefer to complete that professional development training online, rather than on campus or in a traditional classroom setting.

http://metronews.ca/uncategorized/1032928/how-to-stay-motivated-when-taking-an-online-course/

by Giovanni Rodriguez, Forbes

“The Science of Happiness” — a MOOC (massive open online course) sponsored by UC Berkeley’s Greater Good Science Center (GGSC) — will launch in September of this year. And though they announced the course only recently, it has already generated close to 40,000 registrations, according to UC Berkeley’s Professor Dacher Keltner. They’re on track to reach more than 100,000 people, when the first class bell rings. But given the momentum they’ve gained in such a short amount of time, his projection seems modest. A number of MOOCs have reached even bigger audiences (never mind the dropout rates; the topic of another story I am writing). And if there were a competition, “The Science of Happiness” might have an unfair advantage.

http://www.forbes.com/sites/giovannirodriguez/2014/05/13/happiness-the-most-popular-course-in-the-world/

by Ambient Insight

According to a report from Ambient Insight, the revenue of the U.S. corporate market for e-learning products and services is expected to reach $7.1 billion by 2015, out of which, the growth rate of the healthcare vertical will be a staggering 45.1%. The high growth rate in e-learning market is an indication of the popularity of the growing demand of online learning in healthcare. Whether they’re in a hospital setting or a clinic, healthcare professionals across the medical industry are opting for e-learning as they provide a valuable reference point that can be accessed anytime, anywhere. The U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS)* projects healthcare industry will add more jobs than any other sector through 2018. The job prospects for medical billing and coding specialist is expected to increase by 20%, which is much faster than average for all occupations.

https://ca.finance.yahoo.com/news/e-learning-healthcare-expected-grow-121000676.html

By Devon Haynie, US News

Pennsylvania State University–World Campus, for example, also offers a free eight-week-long course for prospective students curious about whether they are prepared for online learning. The course, which students don’t earn credit for, asks students to develop an academic and career plan. Students turn in assignments and have access to the learning management system, the library and academic advisers. “This is for students to decide, ‘This is right for me,’ or maybe ‘No, this isn’t right for me right now,'” says J. Richard Brungard, program manager for the World Campus. “That way we don’t have students who are racking up debt or using financial aid and not completing their courses.”

http://news.yahoo.com/why-online-students-bother-orientation-140000392.html