Online Learning Update

By Cait Etherington, eLearning Inside

The introduction of VR headsets is designed to help online students in life sciences courses complete lab work. In an article posted on the ASU website in late August, Amy Pate, manager of instructional design for the School of Life Sciences, explains, “We always talk about it in terms of the online classroom, but even some of the labs we do on campus have a limited number of seats or only run once a year. The virtual side of things can get more people into the lab.” Over the summer, Pate worked closely with a team from Labster to test out the technology and address its glitches in various different simulations.

ASU Online Is Giving VR Headsets to Biology Students

BY ANGELA PASCOPELLA, eCampus News
What if a special lab at the University of Rhode Island (URI) could educate the community on the ethical, technological, and social consequences of artificial intelligence (AI)? That’s what Karim Boughida, dean of the URI Libraries, is counting on with a unique AI lab in the Robert L. Carothers Library at URI. Students, faculty members, state officials, business people, and community members can all use the lab for answers. And although AI labs have been around for decades, this is the first-of-its-kind in a common area, open to the public.

This college opened a one-of-a-kind AI lab

Skye Learning

While most college grads believe their college educations were worth the cost, many of them say their degrees did not help much when it comes to excelling in today’s workforce. More than two-in five say that their college degrees helped only to get them in the door for a job interview — or did not help them in their careers at all. The first annual Workplace Confidence study, commissioned by the online learning destination, Skye Learning, found that almost half of workers surveyed (44 percent) don’t think their college education played an important role in giving them the skills needed to succeed on the job.

https://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/study-almost-half-of-todays-workforce-believes-college-degrees-prepare-them-for-the-job-interview-not-the-job-300732157.html

By James Paterson, Education Dive

Online learning continues to expand in higher ed with the addition of several online master’s degrees and a new for-profit college that offers a hybrid of vocational training and liberal arts curriculum online.
Inside Higher Ed reported the nonprofit learning provider edX is offering nine master’s degrees through five U.S. universities — the Georgia Institute of Technology, the University of Texas at Austin, Indiana University, Arizona State University and the University of California, San Diego. The programs include cybersecurity, data science, analytics, computer science and marketing, and they cost from around $10,000 to $22,000. Most offer stackable certificates, helping students who change their educational trajectory.

https://www.educationdive.com/news/online-educations-expansion-continues-in-higher-ed-with-a-focus-on-tech-sk/539880/

Susan Adams, Forbes

Maggioncalda doesn’t foresee the demise of the old-fashioned classroom, but he is staking Coursera’s future on his belief that technology will continue to change the way people learn. High-quality affordable online classes will prove the most effective way for working people to gain new skills like data analytics and programming languages like Python, he believes. “I think almost every degree will move online,” he says. “It is so efficient, so compelling; it will be highly personalized and powered by data. We’re going to have virtual and simulated learning experiences that will transport students into totally different learning environments that will give them access to things they can only get in the virtual world.”

https://www.forbes.com/sites/susanadams/2018/10/16/this-company-could-be-your-next-teacher-coursera-plots-a-massive-future-for-online-education/

Josh Moody,  Forbes

For EdX, a pioneer of massive open online courses, this is an ambitious expansion, taking the current MicroMasters certificate program and scaling it up. Aside from the 50 MicroMasters listed online, EdX now is making nine fully fledged master’s degrees available through partner universities. Costs range from a low of $9,900 for a master’s in analytics from the Georgia Institute of Technology to $22,379 for a post-baccalaureate marketing degree from Curtin University. By comparison, EdX officials note the same GIT degree costs $36,000 for residents and $49,000 for out of state students.

https://www.forbes.com/sites/joshmoody/2018/10/14/how-mooc-based-masters-degrees-may-transform-higher-ed/#41339eb34efc

Michael T. Nietzel, Forbes

It takes institutional courage to quit the ratings rat-race and replace merit awards, which go disproportionately to middle or upper-class students, with need-based aid that enables poor students to attend college. Franklin and Marshall College summoned that courage, when it ended almost all merit scholarships, redirecting those funds to students in financial need. The results? The percentage of Pell recipients more than doubled, overall enrollment held steady, and for those who care, Franklin and Marshall continues to fare well in national ratings. More colleges need to follow its lead. Declining confidence in higher education is not merely a partisan issue. It signals that real reforms are necessary. Changing how we finance institutions and fund students are two changes that can restore some lost confidence.

https://www.forbes.com/sites/michaeltnietzel/2018/10/16/two-things-college-leaders-can-do-to-restore-confidence-in-higher-education/#427237ca88cb

By Paul Fain, Inside Higher Ed
The bachelor’s degree remains by far the best ticket to a well-paying job, according to new research from the Georgetown University Center on Education and the Workforce, which defines “good jobs” as ones that pay at least $35,000 — and an average of $56,000 for workers with less than a bachelor’s degree. But the report found that all of the growth of new good jobs in the non-bachelor’s-degree economy has been in so-called middle-skills jobs, especially those that require an associate degree. And workers are earning a growing array of credentials to help meet that demand.

https://www.insidehighered.com/quicktakes/2018/10/17/credentialing-evolves-demand-grows-middle-skills-jobs

By Mark Lieberman, Inside Higher Ed
Google announced its latest higher education foray Wednesday: technology courses developed in-house and delivered to students at 10 four-year institutions. Students at eight institutions can enroll this semester in two introductory courses on computer science and data science. The company developed the curriculum and provides the content and materials; institutions supply faculty members to lead in-class projects. Google is also accepting applications for additional institutions that want to offer the introductory computer science and data science courses. Priority consideration will go to institutions with no existing computer science program or one that’s at capacity.

https://www.insidehighered.com/quicktakes/2018/10/18/google-brings-computing-courses-10-colleges

By Robert Ubell, Inside Higher Ed

Robert Ubell spent years encouraging professors to overcome their fears, try something new and teach on the web. Now he’s trying to practice what he preached. For years, I’ve led hundreds of professors to the virtual well, gratified that they’ve been responsible for instructing about 30,000 online learners, but I never got close to teaching on screen. I’ve been an online general who sent his virtual troops into battle but, shamefully, never fought in the digital trenches myself. Feeling like a fraud all these years, it was time to step up to the challenge.

https://www.insidehighered.com/digital-learning/views/2018/10/17/online-dean-describes-how-he-gained-confidence-teach-virtually

By Scott Jaschik, Inside Higher Ed
Massachusetts Institute of Technology on Monday morning announced a $1 billion plan to create a new college of computing within MIT, and to promote teaching and research on computing and artificial intelligence. MIT’s announcement says the effort “marks the single largest investment in computing and AI by an American academic institution, and will help position the United States to lead the world in preparing for the rapid evolution of computing and AI.”

https://www.insidehighered.com/quicktakes/2018/10/16/mit-announces-plan-1b-effort-computing-ai

by Larry Gordon, EdSource

Now, student job schedules are receiving more scrutiny from educators who are increasingly worried that working more than 15 or 20 hours a week can harm students’ grades and academic progress. That is an important issue in California where the state’s public universities are trying to push more students to finish their bachelor’s degrees in four years rather than five or six. For example, across the California State University system, the most current four-year graduation rate among students who entered as full-time freshman averaged 23 percent last year; 59 percent finished within six years.

New warnings about California students juggling college and jobs

By Dian Schaffhauser, Campus Technology
A mixed team of seven Penn State undergraduates — one in the College of Arts and Architecture and six from the College of Engineering — received $30,000 to continue development of an application to help students figure out the shortest path to graduation. “LionPlanner” won first place in a competition that challenged students to use artificial intelligence to solve real problems. The multi-phase contest was put on by the Nittany AI Alliance, a group of faculty and companies working together to give students opportunities to learn more about AI.

https://campustechnology.com/articles/2018/10/15/ai-team-at-penn-state-gains-30k-to-define-fastest-path-to-graduation.aspx

Carolyn Gentle-Genitty, Tomorrow’s Professor

Since students who choose online learning often have multiple other commitments, Gentle-Genitty makes very clear how much time students can expect to invest preparing for class, listening to lectures, doing homework, and taking part in chat rooms. “Very specific information gives students a realistic picture of the commitment they’re making,” says Gentle-Genitty. “I want them to understand that a three-credit course may translate into more than nine hours of work per week. If they know exactly when, on what weekday, we discuss their papers, they can become very efficient at structuring their own time. Structure is liberating.” Her course framework enables students to be organized and connected. It comprises a teaching presence, a cognitive space where students interact with content, and a social presence—online discussion forums and chat rooms—where she and her students interact, build personal connections, form teams, and work in small groups.

https://tomprof.stanford.edu/posting/1672

by Cheryl Dowd and Russ Poulin, WCET Frontiers

On Friday, October 13, the U.S. Department of Education published the unofficial version of its plan to establish an “Accreditation and Innovation” negotiated rule making committee. The final version should be published in the Federal Register today and includes the call for nominations to serve on the committee and three subcommittees. Quite simply, these discussions may result in the most sweeping set of changes witnessed in higher education in the United States since the middle of the last century. For WCET members and Frontiers readers, the issues highlighted for consideration are the very ones that will have a deep impact on our day-today operations.

The Department of Education’s Plans for Overhauling Accrediting and Innovation Regulations

by Peter Hopkins, Big Think

W. Daniel Hillis is an inventor, engineer and author, Professor at the MIT Media Lab and Judge Widney Professor of Engineering and Medicine at the University of Southern California. Decentralizing knowledge and making information provenance transparent will be a revolution in the so-called “post-truth age”. The Underlay, a revolutionary knowledge graph, is being developed at MIT by Danny Hillis, SJ Klein, Travis Rich. “So the idea is that what we really need to do is we need to separate up two things. We need to separate the record of what different people said and who said it—the provenance of what was said—And then separately have in some sense a network of trust which is going to be different for different purposes…. A fact is a fact. It’s not copyrightable, to own truth.”

https://bigthink.com/videos/google-2-0-why-mit-scientists-are-building-a-new-search-engine

By Lindsay McKenzie, Inside Higher Ed

The nonprofit university, which has one of the largest online enrollments in the country, announced today that it is acquiring the nonprofit LRNG — a Chicago-based organization that helps young people find job opportunities by encouraging them to acquire digital badges on its game-based learning platform.  With LRNG, Southern New Hampshire plan to launch physical community-based learning spaces where students aged 14 to 24 can study toward free or low-cost credentials. LeBlanc plans to create a pathway for students to earn digital badges on the LRNG platform that can then be counted toward a competency-based degree through the university’s College for America program. Ray Schroeder, associate vice chancellor for online learning at the University of Illinois at Springfield, agreed the merger may help to “address the disconnect between degrees and jobs.” Efforts to develop a pipeline of students between school, college and work are not new, he said, adding, however, that “this is the first time that I have encountered such a relationship that reaches down to early teenagers.”

https://www.insidehighered.com/digital-learning/article/2018/10/19/acquisition-university-seeks-pathway-between-k-12-college-and

By Jeffrey R. Young, EdSurge
Alternative higher education programs don’t always work out. But one former Harvard University dean is giving it a try. That former Harvard dean, Stephen Kosslyn, opened an online two-year college this week with an experimental academic program promising something between a vocational education and a traditional general-education curriculum. Among its innovations: no homework. It’s called Foundry College, and it is a for-profit college that plans to seek regional accreditation so that its students can eventually qualify for financial aid. Its leaders hope to partner with employers and convince them to cover some of the tuition costs for students.

https://www.edsurge.com/news/2018-10-11-new-two-year-online-college-aims-to-grow-quickly-but-without-traditional-gen-ed-courses

Sandy Nelson, Las Cruces Sun

Not everyone has the resources to go to college for an MBA, but anyone with an internet connection and some self-discipline can learn business basics through the DreamBuilder program offered by the nonprofit small-business development and training organization WESST. DreamBuilder targets women who want to start their own businesses or need additional support to increase profitability. It’s one of a growing number of massive open online courses (MOOCs) that offer busy people a way to explore subjects that interest them — and often to earn credit for their efforts.

https://www.lcsun-news.com/story/money/business/2018/10/12/online-course-can-help-boost-business-savvy/1574044002/

by Katherine Donnelly, Independent

Education does not end with a Leaving Certificate or a college degree. New challenges are emerging all the time, but there are also rapid advances in knowledge. For any career, the key is to keep up to date with developments. Such thinking was part of the rationale underpinning the bringing together of traditional teacher training colleges such as St Pat’s, Drumcondra, and the Church of Ireland College of Education into Dublin City University. It is regarded as important for trainee teachers to study in a research-intensive environment so they have access and are alert to cutting-edge knowledge, both to aid their education and to lay foundations for a culture of professional curiosity and discovery when they are working in classrooms. The child and family agency, Tusla, has brought that a step further with a new initiative, EPPI, giving practising social workers access to an online, interactive resource based on the most up-to-date research.

https://www.independent.ie/irish-news/education/tusla-equips-social-workers-with-valuable-online-learning-tool-37401090.html

By Lindsay McKenzie, Inside Higher Ed
Six more institutions are following Georgia Tech’s lead and launching affordable online master’s degrees with edX. Online learning provider edX this week took a big step into the online degree space by announcing plans to launch nine low-cost, large-scale, fully online master’s programs from selective institutions. The nonprofit company, one of the early providers of massive open online courses, or MOOCs, will offer the degrees from seven universities: the Georgia Institute of Technology; the University of Texas at Austin; Indiana University; the University of California, San Diego; Arizona State University and two Australian universities — the University of Queensland and Curtin University.

https://www.insidehighered.com/news/2018/10/12/edx-launches-nine-low-cost-online-degrees