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This blog is dedicated to the topics of Course materials, Innovation, and Technology in Education. it is intended as an information source for the college store industry, or anyone interested in how course materials are changing. Suggestions for discussion topics or news stories are welcome.
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Monday, September 24, 2018
Thursday, August 30, 2018
An OMG about EMV
Europay, MasterCard, and Visa (EMV) chip cards were meant to make
transactions more secure, but Texas IT consultant and forensic investigator
Colman Ryan has pointed out that after three failed attempts to read a chip, a
terminal will allow the card to be swiped.
A criminal presenting a cloned credit card embedded with a fake chip will
still have the stolen account information stored on the card’s magnetic strip.
If the point-of-sale terminal can’t read the chip after three tries, a fallback
feature will ask the user to swipe the card instead. That fallback feature
cannot be switched off.
The EMV chip is designed to protect the retailer against fraudulent charges
by verifying the card was physically present during the transaction. But if the
chip isn’t read, the merchant—not the bank—will be on the hook for any fraud.
Labels:
consumer payments,
retail technology,
retailing
Wednesday, August 22, 2018
Horizon Report Offers Tech Outlook
A
greater emphasis on measuring educational outcomes, coupled with new efforts to
modernize college classrooms, is likely to drive technology adoption on
campuses in the next couple of years, according to the NMC Horizon Report, 2018
Higher Education Edition.
The
report was recently released by Educause, which has taken over the project from
the now-defunct New Media Consortium. The report looks at key trends,
challenges, and developments facing technology adoption in higher ed.
The
types of technologies most likely to be adopted include analytics that can help
institutions track at-risk students and customize the learning experience.
Makerspaces for activities such as 3-D printing and virtual reality are also on
the rise, as these functions become more mainstream in the work world.
Adaptive
learning technologies and artificial intelligence may require another two to
three years before they have much impact on colleges and universities.
Technologies such as robotics and mixed reality (a blend of digital and
physical objects) are at least four years out, according to the report.
While
there has been considerable public debate on the role of higher education in
preparing students for work, the Horizon Report analysis shows that aligning
college campuses with workplace practices will be a “difficult” challenge, as
institutions will need to “adopt more flexible, team-based matrix-like
structures to remain innovative and responsive.”
Monday, August 20, 2018
Tool Helps New Students Adjust to Campus
With
more than 6,000 first-year students expected to arrive soon for the fall term,
Florida State University, Tallahassee, is deploying a new online tool to assist
them in reducing stress and adjusting to the campus. Called the Student
Resilience Project, it was developed by the Institute for Family Violence
Studies at the school’s College of Social Work.
As
part of the project, all incoming freshmen and transfer students receive mandatory
training through animations, TED Talk-style audio presentations by faculty
members and mental-health providers, and videos of current FSU students
recounting their own first-year issues and how they dealt with them. The project
website also offers audios for mindful meditation and music therapy, along with
journaling tips and connections to university and community trauma resources.
Recognizing
that the transition to higher ed and new surroundings can be very stressful for
some students, the project’s aim is to guide new arrivals in building on their
existing strengths and promote strategies for resilience and coping with that
adjustment and the frustration, stress, and feelings of loss or grief that may
accompany it.
“Unmanaged
stress responses can interfere with student success in college and cause
long-term negative consequences,” Karen Oehme, director of the Institute for
Family Violence Studies, said in a release.
Labels:
coping,
first-year students,
freshmen,
resilience,
student stress,
transition
Friday, August 17, 2018
Free College in New York Is Complicated
Complications appear to be bogging down the “free college”
movement, particularly in New York. An August report from the Center for an Urban
Future found that just 3.2% of the undergraduates statewide received an
Excelsior Scholarship.
The program requires students to earn at least 30 credits
every year of enrollment, which proved to be the main reason students applying
for the funds were rejected. According to the report, 43,513 of the 63,599
scholarship applications in 2018 were rejected, with more than 36,000 denied because
of insufficient credits.
“Admittedly, it’s still early days for the program, so
the numbers may drift upwards a bit,” Matt Reed, vice president for learning,
Brookdale Community College, Lincroft, NJ, wrote in his Confessions of a Community College Dean column for Inside
Higher Ed.
“But with complicated paperwork requirements, an extraordinarily high credit
requirement, and a postgraduation residency requirement in place, it’s not
surprising that the impact has been minimal.”
To Reed, the more complicated the program, the fewer resources
it will receive. Free colleges should be simple and transparent, not screening
people out.
“Beat
the program with a simple stick,” he continued. “Get rid of income caps, postgraduate
residency requirements, and unrealistic credit requirements. Over time, make it
as free, open, and easy to use as a public library. The future is worth it.”
Wednesday, August 15, 2018
Research: Bigger Role for CC Libraries?
A new
Ithaka S+R research project aims to determine whether campus libraries could do
more to help community-college students complete their studies. The first phase
of the project discovered that libraries and students aren’t always on the same
page.
For
libraries, “student success” often has been defined by measurable academic data,
such as the number of students who attain degrees or certificates, according to
EdSurge’s account of the project. On the other hand, researchers found students
viewed success in school in terms of personal satisfaction with their work and
their lives—a much more nebulous goal.
However,
when students were asked about ongoing challenges, their answers provided some
insights into how libraries could lend a hand to help them. Many students reported
that applying for financial aid was confusing and they were having trouble
paying for normal living expenses. Quite a few students were working parents
who said they struggled to find affordable care for their kids so they could
attend classes or study.
The
second phase of the research project is looking more closely at how some campus
libraries are already addressing these problems, either directly or indirectly.
For example, one library provides private study spaces where students can do
classwork while their children play, so they don’t have to pay a sitter.
Another library tackles the problem from a different stance, requiring all
first-year students to meet with a librarian to review library services to
ensure they’re aware of available resources and won’t be intimidated to ask for
help.
The
final report is expected to be out in mid-2019.
Monday, August 13, 2018
Have the Social Giants Peaked?
Last
week, when Facebook, Twitter, and Snapchat reported their latest quarterly
earnings, all three social platforms noted a slowdown or drop in users.
Facebook’s
user numbers remained flat in North America and fell in Europe on a
quarter-over-quarter basis, Twitter reported a slight downturn in monthly users,
and Snap posted a decline in daily active users for the second quarter.
CNBC floated the possibility that social-media growth has peaked, with no room to
add significant numbers of new users—at least in the West. Facebook still hopes
to use “lite” versions of its apps to secure gains in huge, virtually untapped markets
such as India and Indonesia. And, of course, China, with its billions of
potential users, remains closed for now to Facebook and other popular
platforms.
Facebook
and Twitter both blamed the European Union’s new data privacy law, the General
Data Protection Regulation, as a factor in their declines. However, Facebook’s
monthly page visits have been falling sharply for some time, according to a study by market research company SimilarWeb, from 8.5 billion to 4.7 billion over
the past two years.
Thanks
to that drop, YouTube, experiencing increased traffic and viewership, is poised
to potentially pass Facebook within the next few months to become the second-biggest
website in the U.S.
Friday, August 10, 2018
States Risk Missing Higher Ed Opportunities
A new study found that not one state in the United States
has enough adult workers who have earned some sort of postsecondary degree to
meet its workforce demands. Even those states that graduate a high number of
workers with degrees are projected to fall well short of their expected needs
by 2025.
The College Opportunity Risk Assessment,
a state-by-state comparison of risks to higher educational opportunity from the
University of Pennsylvania’s Graduate School of Education (Penn GSE), also noted
that even states making the most per-student investments are struggling to produce
enough graduates.
“The world has changed, but our public policies haven’t,”
said Joni Finney, professor of practice at Penn GSE and director of the Institute
for Research on Higher Education. “We’re still touting the successes of a
system designed in the wake of World War II to allow 30% to 40% of the country,
drawn mostly from white, affluent backgrounds, to earn a college degree, even
though that system now leaves us woefully unprepared for the challenges of the
21st century.”
According
to Finney, states should be prioritizing those students who are traditionally
left out of higher education, such as low-income, first-generation, minority,
and working-adult students. At the same time, policymakers have to understand
that cutting education budgets is turning many students into dropouts with debt
and no degree.
Wednesday, August 8, 2018
First Impressions Count in STEM Retention
How
can universities attract and retain more students in science, technology,
engineering, and mathematics (STEM) courses to fill the growing need for
employees in these fields? As it turns out, one of the ways is to ensure
students have a positive first experience with STEM education, according to University Business.
After noticing that a lot of students who enrolled in an
introductory STEM course never took any more, Michigan State University put
more resources toward bolstering instruction in these 100-level classes. When
the instruction improved, so did student success, and more students continued
to sign up for STEM classes.
“Twenty
years ago, especially at research universities, a lot of faculty would see
their primary job as research, and teaching as something they had to do,” James
Fairweather, professor emeritus of higher adult and lifelong education at MSU,
told UB. “I’d say the attitude of
faculty toward teaching today is more positive. I don’t think they see it as
the dregs of their job.”
Other
institutions—including the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, Howard
University, and Purdue University—also found that providing more professional
development to faculty to help them brush up their teaching skills resulted in
better student outcomes in STEM courses. Some faculty needed ideas for
strategies to help struggling students get up to speed, such as giving regular
quizzes to see how they were progressing or providing questions they could
consult while reading course assignments.
The
University of Arizona also placed more emphasis on introductory STEM courses,
creating more interactive classroom spaces to encourage hands-on learning and
collaboration among students. A storage room for library journals was converted
into a learning space with tables and chairs that could be moved around into
groups. The configuration worked so well that UA will have a total of 30
similar spaces available for classes this fall.
Monday, August 6, 2018
Google Glass May Help Autistic Kids
While
the first iteration of Google Glass was scuttled in the market by concerns
about privacy, etiquette, and safety, the smart glasses may find fresh
relevance in helping children with autism spectrum disorder to socialize with
others.
A new report published in the journal npj Digital Medicine details a pilot study in
which autistic children used Superpower Glass, a prototype machine
learning-assisted app designed to run on Google Glass paired with an Android smartphone.
The app, trained from hundreds of thousands of facial images, displays an
onscreen emoticon to alert the wearer when someone with whom they’re
interacting expresses one of several core emotions, such as anger, happiness,
or surprise.
After
using this tech at home for an average of about 10 weeks, the families in the
study reported that their kids demonstrated increased eye contact and greater
ability at reading facial expressions, results that were confirmed by testing.
Anecdotally, those behavioral changes have persisted beyond the end of the
pilot.
The
researchers wrote that “our system’s ability to provide continuous behavioral
therapy outside of clinical settings will enable faster gains in social acuity,
and that within a limited and self-directed period of use, will permit the
child to engage in increasingly more complex social scenarios of his/her own.”
Additional
clinical trials are planned to validate Superpower Glass’s impact and
suitability for home behavioral therapy.
Friday, August 3, 2018
Games Help Make Learning Fun
Playful design, the blending of serious educational games
(SEGs) with immersive technologies such as virtual and augmented reality, is
becoming the next big thing in higher education. Playful design works because people
like to play games and games make learning fun, according to David Chandross,
professor of education, Ryerson University, Toronto, ON, Canada.
“Serious games work by practicing skills and tracking
achievement, but also by giving learning an addictive quality,” he wrote in an article for The Conversation. “The ‘one more move’ thinking that keeps video gamers up
all night is harnessed for learning.”
Chandross noted peer-reviewed studies show SEGs encourage
students to use what they learn while playing, engage them better than most
lectures, and reward learners for their achievements. It’s a form of active learning that helps students
succeed.
“We
learn a lot when we love what we are learning,” Chandross said. “It’s a basic
trademark of achievement in higher education. Human beings love doing certain things,
and learning to become a master of their own world, however fantastical it
might be, is one of them.”
Wednesday, August 1, 2018
We Write Good, Say College Students
College students hold a fairly high opinion of their
writing skills, even when their grades don’t merit it.
According to Inside Higher Ed, a new survey by Primary Research Group found that 46% of
students didn’t think they needed any more instruction in writing and just over
half said they didn’t require assistance with spelling or grammar. About a
third were willing to concede their writing and grammatical skills could use a
little work, but believed they were able to brush up on their own without
formal instruction.
Students
who earned A grades were more likely, as you might expect, to say their writing
skills were just fine, but students with lower scores were almost as confident.
Only 17% of C students admitted to needing more instruction in writing.
Students
in their first or second year of college overwhelmingly held a positive view of
their writing capabilities, but seniors (who had presumably by then received
more feedback from professors on their papers) were somewhat more apt to say
they should get more instruction in this area.
The
study also determined that about 30% of students have never been assigned to
write a paper with more than 10 double-spaced pages, the type of paper
typically calling for deeper research and/or analysis. Social-sciences majors
were more likely to have written such papers.
Monday, July 30, 2018
Classroom Multitaskers Get Poorer Grades
Despite
students’ claims to be adept at dividing their attention, their use of phones,
laptops, and tablets during classroom lectures does have a negative impact,
according to a just-published study by researchers at Rutgers University,
Piscataway, NJ.
Rather
than testing college students against a control group of their peers, the
researchers tested two sections of an upper-level psychology course—118
students in all—against themselves. The students were permitted to have their
electronic devices out during half the lectures, but were prohibited from using
them during the other half. Immediate retention of information was assessed
with daily quizzes, and longer-term retention by three unit exams and a final
exam.
Students’
scores proved to be “significantly worse” on device-approved days, even for those
who opted not to use their electronics, demonstrating how devices’ capacity for
distraction extends beyond just the actual user. In addition, the study posited
that what was—and wasn’t—learned in the classroom influenced the quality of students’
out-of-class studying for exams.
“Dividing
attention between an electronic device and the classroom lecture did not reduce comprehension of the lecture,
as measured by within-class quiz questions,” the authors pointed out. “Instead,
divided attention reduced long-term retention
of the classroom lecture, which impaired subsequent unit-exam and final-exam performance.”
Professor
Arnold Glass, the lead researcher, told Insider Higher Ed that he recommends
other faculty follow his lead and call out students they see using their
devices during lectures, “not because I’m tremendously offended by this, but
because I know it negatively affects them.”
Friday, July 27, 2018
Pediatricians Should Ask about Social Media
When doctors examine kids, especially adolescents, they often use
a HEADSSS (home life, education, activities, drugs, sexual activity, safety,
and suicide and/or depression) assessment to identify any potential mental
health or alcohol or drug issues.
Now, an editorial in the May 2018 journal of the American Academy
of Pediatrics advocates that health-care providers add in queries about social
media use, including sexting, cyberbullying, and the impact of social media on
self-worth.
While noting that social media does provide some positive benefits
in terms of social connection and support, the researchers behind the article
noted that teens who devote the most time to it are at higher risk of negative
effects.
“Aberrant and/or excessive social media usage may contribute to
the development of mental health disturbance in at-risk teenagers, such as
feelings of isolation, depressive symptoms, and anxiety,” the authors wrote.
A study of 500 college undergrads who were active social media
users, presented at the annual meeting of the Association for Psychological
Science in May, found that how they used social media—especially passive
consumption vs. active engagement—was associated with depression, with depressed
users more likely to:
• Score highly on a survey of social media addiction.
• Compare themselves to others they perceived as “better off than
me.”
• Say they were bothered by being tagged in an unflattering photo.
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