Voice Assistants Not Ready for Classrooms

Representatives of Amazon and Google made it clear at the recent International Society for Technology in Education conference that voice-assistant devices should not be used in K-12 classrooms because of compliance and privacy issues. While privacy issues is still a concern, the devices are finding their way into campus dorms and classrooms.

Amazon donated 1,600 Echo Dots to engineering students at Arizona State University, Tempe, and is providing grants to institutions that create class curriculum using Alexa-enabled devices and mentorship. Additionally, Northeastern University, Boston, MA, will give some students the option to connect an Echo Dot device to their university accounts this fall.

Jason Hong, associate professor at Carnegie Mellon’s Human-Computer Interaction Institute, has studied the home use of Alexa and said the device isn’t quite ready for educational use. He noted they could be handy in specific college situations, such as a lab where students need hands-free interaction but added there are risks, such as demands to view the dialogue history stored in the device.

“These things are not geared for schools and for lots of people at the same time,” Hong said, adding that could change as the technology improves. “I think it could be really exciting, but also rather thorny.”

Digital Learning Tools Are Helping Students

A 2017 survey of chief academic officers (CAOs) found that more than 85% said they believe digital learning tools make learning more efficient and effective for students. In addition, 92% said adaptive learning has great potential to improve learning outcomes and nearly 90% would like their faculty to use the technology more often in entry-level and gateway courses.

Students clearly agree, as 94% responding to the fourth-annual McGraw-Hill Education digital student trends survey said using digital learning technologies helped them retain new concepts and 60% said the tools helped to improve their grades.

“Powerful digital learning technology can customize the learning experience for every student, helping him or her understand challenging concepts more fully and empowering them to improve their classroom performance,” said Scott Virkler, chief product officer, McGraw-Hill Education. “As these solutions continue to make inroads on college campuses, we look forward to seeing even more improvements in student learning outcomes.”

Students said digital learning tools were helpful in preparing for tests and exams and completing assignments, and made self-study easier. The survey also reported a majority of students use laptops more than printed materials to complete homework and in test preparation, while just 38% said they used their smartphone on assignments or for test prep.

On the other hand, the CAOs told pollsters that students without the necessary digital devices were holding back campus efforts to go more digital or all-digital.

“Owning a digital device—a laptop or tablet—really is essential for digital access,” said Kenneth C. Green, founding director of The Campus Computing Project. “Although well-intended, extended hours in campus computer labs do not adequately serve the needs or the schedules of full- and part-time students who have families, jobs, and other community commitments beyond their college coursework.”

Higher-Ed Critics of Net Neutrality Repeal

While some in higher education argue that repeal of the 2015 “net neutrality” orders will have little effect on campus, nearly every major higher-ed organization came out against the move. It’s feared that education could become more expensive and have slower Internet access unless the institution has the means to pony up the additional fees Internet Service Providers (ISPs) are now able to charge.

The old rules prevented ISPs from charging content producers and customers more for faster service. Ajit Pai, the new chair of the Federal Communications Commission (FCC), contended the rules also stifled innovation and the move was passed in a Dec. 14 vote.

Repealing the rules is intended to spur competition among ISPs, which could mean institutions will be able to pick and choose the best provider for the campus. It’s also possible that universities could face higher charges because of the broadband demands of virtual courses or cloud-based storage and services.

Rural campuses are concerned that they will not benefit from any competition since they rely on a single Internet provider. Colleges and universities are fearful that research projects could be moved to slower speeds if the institution is unwilling to pay more for faster service. And if costs go up for colleges, it will likely trickle down to student fees.

“The new FCC rules do not follow in the liberated direction imagined by the Internet’s inventors,” Robert Ubell, vice dean emeritus of online learning at the Tandon School of Engineering, New York University, wrote in a column for EdSurge. “With ISPs given the reckless authority to block and shut down sites, academic freedom is a potential target—along with other guarantees of equal access.”

Editor’s note: The CITE will be on hiatus as all NACS Inc. offices are closed Dec. 25-Jan. 1. Look for the next post to appear on Jan. 3, 2018. From all the staff of NACS Inc., have a safe and happy holiday season.

Digital Diplomas? There's an App for That

The Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, launched a pilot program in the summer that gave graduates the option to receive their diplomas on their smartphone through an app, along with the traditional paper version. The Blockcerts Wallet app uses blockchain technology to provide students easy access to their diploma that is verifiable and tamperproof.

“From the beginning, one of our primary motivations has been to empower students to be curators of their own credentials,” said Mary Callahan, MIT registrar and senior associate dean. “This pilot makes it possible for them to have ownership of their records and to be able to share them in a secure way, with whomever they choose.”

Once students download the app, a set of unique numerical identifiers are created that is used in the digital diploma to prove ownership. The technology allows students to share their diploma, which can be immediately verified as authentic, for free with employers or schools.

“It really is transformative. And it could be as big as the web because it affects every sector,” said Chris Jagers, co-founder and CEO of Learning Machine, which worked with MIT on the technology. “It’s not just academic records. It’s being able to passively know that digital things are true. That creates a whole new reality across every sector.”

Tech Makes Studying Easier

Technology helps improve grades and makes it possible to study from anywhere, according to students who responded to a 2016 survey from McGraw-Hill Education. The report noted 74% said they preferred to study at home, while 82% claimed digital tools helped them spend more time studying.

The research found that more than 90% of students use laptops and 60% make use of their smartphone to study. More than half said digital learning technology saved them time, better prepared them for class, and gave them more confidence in their knowledge of the course materials.

“College students enjoy and regularly use digital learning technology,” the authors of the report wrote. “Overall, college students agree that digital learning technology is helpful across a wide variety of activities, including doing homework, preparing for exams, and doing research.”

Robust Mobile Apps a Must on Campus

Students don’t always bother with email, but they do check their smartphones, making it more important for colleges and universities to have a mobile strategy. The University of Texas at San Antonio (USTA) investigated its approach and found three issues institutions must address to connect with their student bodies through a mobile app.

The initiative was part of a 2015 grant the university received to develop its PIVOT for Academic Success Program. PIVOT stands for prepare, inspire, validate, orient, and transition students, and is part of an effort to understand the needs of the increasing number of first-time Latino, low-socioeconomic, and first-generation students on the UTSA campus.

Researchers found that push notifications about grade announcements, assignments, and tuition deadlines helped keep students on track, particularly those struggling to balance their academics and family responsibilities. It also discovered low-income students don’t always have access to a personal computer at home, so it created a mobile app that allows them to add and drop classes, buy textbooks, and communicate with faculty within the app.

The university integrated its student information system into its app so personal financial-aid information can be accessed, such as balances, charges, and alerts when payments are due, right from a student’s mobile devices. Along with all of the campus life information found on most mobile apps, the USTA tool also is compatible with most of the languages found on the USTA campus, which makes communications with students easier.

“Effective communication is key to keeping today’s diverse, mobile-first students engaged,” wrote Chris Hopkinson in an article for eCampus News. “As higher-education institutions continue to focus on boosting graduation rates for all students, a robust mobile strategy is quickly becoming the mainstay to increasing engagement and promoting an inclusive student experience.”

Taking Back Textbook Sales

There are plenty of reasons for college stores to consider offering a virtual online solution for course materials. The model can reduce costs while providing guaranteed commissions to make up for some of the lost revenue. The newfound space created by the absence of textbooks can also be dedicated to merchandise that produce higher margins.

The Florence O. Wilson Bookstore, The College of Wooster, Wooster, OH, gave the hybrid model a try, but soon discovered that a virtual solution was actually keeping students away. After two semesters, the store decided to offer textbooks again because a branded website with competitive prices simply became another place for Wooster students to search instead of the place to go for course materials.

“College stores have long provided value, serving faculty and students in equal measure with technology, processes, and expertise to support the academic needs of the institution,” Director Kevin Leitner, CCR, wrote in a LinkedIn post. “The hybrid model, while it offers some advantages, puts a college store in danger of disintermediation and irrelevance, the ultimate danger to a college store.”

Editor’s note: The CITE will be on hiatus as the NACS offices and warehouse in in Oberlin, Westlake, and Cincinnati, OH, as well as in California and Washington, D.C., are closed the week of Dec. 26-Jan. 2. Look for the next post to appear on Jan. 4, 2017. From all the staff of NACS Inc., have a safe and happy holiday season.

Access Codes Have Students Riled Up

College students have always complained about the cost of course materials. The latest target for concern is access codes for digital content.

Such codes typically range from $80-$150 per course and are often required to access homework assignments and quizzes. Since the fees are time-limited licenses, the codes can’t be shared or sold back to the campus store, and that’s generating criticism.

“When we talk about access codes, we see it as the new face of the textbook monopoly, a new way to lock students around this system,” Ethan Senack, federal higher-education advocate for the U.S. Public Interest Research Group, told BuzzFeed News. “Rather than $250 [for a print textbook], you’re paying $120, but because it’s digital, it eliminates the used-book market and eliminates any sharing, and because homework and tests are through an access codes, it eliminates any ability to opt out.”

Publishers point out the codes are not only less expensive than printed textbooks, they also provide additional features such as personalized knowledge checks and video. McGraw-Hill Education reported a 12% increase in paid activations for its LearnSmart and Connect programs in 2015, while Pearson showed a 3% gain in global digital registrations for its MyLab programs.

“These digital products are not just mechanisms for students to submit homework, they offer all kinds of features,” said David Anderson, executive director of higher education for the Association of American Publishers. “It’s very robust in helping students understand in a way that you can’t do with a print homework assignment.”

What's Better than Apps? Chatbots

College students value their smartphones and the apps that allow them to play games and make purchases. Chatbots could replace apps as the interface, allowing users to find the things they want and need from the same messaging applications they already use to talk to friends.

“Chatbots are the singularity that smart devices have been waiting for, the streamlined experience that will finally unshackle us from the burden that our apps put on our devices,” Craig Elimeliah, director of creative technology for the digital marketing agency VML, wrote in a column for VentureBeat. “Apps slow us down. For most of what we do on our mobile devices, the chatbot and chat interface are ideal.”

Elimeliah said chatbots will be a better way for businesses to engage customers with their brands because they can be used in so many places and with so many different platforms. They can also be voice- and text-enabled.

“The ability that chatbots have to parse language for meaning and context means we can now create much more meaningful and precise 1:1 experiences that can scale way beyond the finite interfaces of an app,” he concluded. “In the end, chatbots are going to make apps look like clunky experiences that don’t really take into account that today’s mobile users need the most lightweight and easily accessible features and functions to blaze through their day.”

A New Look at MOOC Completion Rates

Researchers have been trying to figure out why completion rates for massive open online courses (MOOCs) tend to stay around 10%. A new study showed that putting learners into study groups based on communication preferences isn’t the answer.

The research done at Pennsylvania State University showed that the groupings had no significant impact on students’ performance or completion. Participants in the survey were put into groups based on their preferred methods of communications for the course: asynchronous, which allows students to learn at their own pace with common online communication such as email or discussion boards, or synchronous, a more facilitated form of communication such as videoconferencing.

“These differences were statistically different and were moderated by English language proficiency, gender, level of education, and age,” Adelina Hristova, a Penn State doctoral student and one of the collaborators on the report, said in an article for Penn State News. “Although the groups designed for the study did not significantly influence students’ course performance and completion, our study can serve as baseline data for making grouping decisions in future online courses, including MOOCs.”

The study did note that older learners were more likely to complete the course. It also found that female students preferred to study in groups, while males preferred synchronous communications for the course.

“It has provided me with a fabulous opportunity to study how students of different ages, cultures, genders, and educational backgrounds learn and practice some of the subjects that I teach—namely, design, problem-solving, and creativity,” said Kathryn Jablokow, a Penn State associate professor of mechanical engineering and engineering design. “Those insights influence how I formulate new research studies, and the MOOC also gives me a unique setting in which to test and disseminate new research results.”

Mixed Results from Adaptive-Learning Study

The largest study to date of adaptive-learning software found that results have been modest at best. Nearly 20,000 college students and 300 instructors using the most popular learning software on the market participated in the research, conducted by SRI International for the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation from 2013-15.

Students were no more likely to pass a course using adaptive-learning tools than in a traditional classroom. Researchers also found that the software by itself isn’t enough and that universities didn’t do a good job of making sure the technology being used actually worked.

The study indicated that the tools functioned better when the instructor used the same language utilized in the software during face-to-face instruction and when student usage was monitored closely. Learning results also improved when the course was redesigned around the software.

“I wouldn’t characterize our report as cynical, just cautious,” Barbara Means, director of the Center for Technology in Learning at SRI International, said in an article in The Hechinger Report.  Means was also quick to point out that more and better technology has come to market since the study started in 2013. “It shouldn’t be regarded as though this is the last word. It’s just a very early snapshot.”

Slow K-12 Tech Taking Pressure Off Hi-Ed?

Many assume that students enrolling in college a decade or so from now will have high expectations for classroom technology based on their hands-on experiences in elementary and secondary schools.

However, a new annual survey of teachers and instructional specialists conducted by Education Week indicates K-12 academic technology may not be ramping up all that quickly at this time. The survey report, Technology Counts 2016: Transforming the Classroom, found that close to three-quarters of the respondents enjoyed working with new educational technology, yet for the most part their classes were using tech solutions for only mundane activities such as practice drills and reviewing lesson content.

“These findings echo previous research showing that, despite an influx of technology in schools, many teachers still mainly rely on digital programs to supplement traditional instructional strategies rather than to support more creative, inquiry-based learning,” the report stated. “But the results also suggest that digital learning in some form is ingrained in many classrooms, and that there is momentum toward new practices.”

For the first time, the 2016 survey included a Tech Confidence Index to determine teachers’ levels of confidence in performance, funding, policymaking, and public support for K-12 educational technology. On a scale of zero (most negative) to 100 (most positive), the respondents scored an average of 43 for the present—a relatively lukewarm level of confidence—but the average score rose to 55 when respondents were asked about the near future.

Why has K-12 technology adoption been so slow?

“The teacher respondents indicated that having too few digital-learning devices in their schools and a lack of tech-oriented professional development remain barriers to more regular use of classroom technology,” said the report. “In addition, wireless-connectivity problems and computer breakdowns are still far from infrequent, according to the responses.”

UF Researcher Articles Easier to Access

The University of Florida, Gainesville, is working with publisher Elsevier to make it easier to find the research articles it produces every year. The institution recently launched a pilot that links its repository of scholarly works with ScienceDirect, the Elsevier online journal and e-book catalog.

The pilot allows the university to store journal article searches on ScienceDirect and make them available automatically. Users can now search the university repository and find links to more than 31,000 articles that have appeared in Elsevier journals, according to a report in Inside Higher Education.

“The nice thing about this pilot is it opens up the repository,” said Alicia Wise, director of access and policy for Elsevier. “Rather than being the end destination, it’s part of the fabric of interconnected platforms.”

The university is pursuing similar partnerships with other publishers and wants to expand the current pilot to increase access for users who aren’t subscribers. It would also like to be able to allow all users to view some text of published articles.

Not everyone is as excited about the pilot. A group of university librarians and press directors said the partnership essentially turns the institutional repository into “discovery layers for commercialized content,” according to another Insider Higher Ed report.

Georgia School Taking Classes to Students

In 2013, Central Georgia Technical College, Warner Robbins, received a grant to test blended-learning methods in its health-care program over an 11-county area of rural Georgia. That led to BlendFlex, an initiative that provides students the option to switch instructional delivery formats.

“In the past, students had to sign up for face-to-face, hybrid, or online courses—they had to make a choice,” Carol Lee, educational technology director at CGTC, said in an article in eCampus News. “We have a lot of students who would sign up for a face-to-face class, but then lifestyle changes, sickness, or family issues would force them to drop out and we would lose those students.”

Even though CGTC has satellite campuses for rural students, before BlendFlex the only choice for many was to drive to one of the institution’s central campuses or take the course online. Once the telepresence option was added, faculty could teach in their classroom as well as to students who joined from the rural centers via the videoconferencing that is part of the program.

CGTC reports that BlendFlex classes have only a 12% dropout rate, compared to a 21% rate among other classes the institution offers. In addition, evaluations indicated that 99% of students said they liked the ability to switch delivery methods, 93% would recommend a BlendFlex class to other students, and 91% would definitely take another BlendFlex course.

“The biggest challenge is getting teachers to [rethink their role] in the classrooms that are now student-centered,” Lee said. “But that’s what it’s going to take to be a successful college these days.”

Most Schools Now Use Digital Content

Some college store professionals believe digital content will only become a dominant format when students begin using it in grade school. That day has gotten much closer.

Digital Content Goes to School: Trends in K-12 Classroom e-Learning found that 80% of school and district leaders who responded to the survey said they are using digital content in some way. Of more than 2,000 respondents, 73% had a digital-device strategy and 64% are using digital content with that strategy.

The survey, released by the Association for Supervision and Curriculum Development and content distributor OverDrive Inc., also reported that most educators use digital content for English and language arts (74%), science (62%), math (61%), and social studies (56%), according to a report in eSchool News. Respondents added that use of digital content will continue to grow as long as teachers receive professional development.

Equity concerns and lack of Internet access top the list of issues educators have with going digital. Teachers also listed not being comfortable with digital learning, not enough devices in the classroom, lack of funding, and content that doesn’t work on every device as other concerns.

“We believe the paradigm of instruction needs to change,” Kahle Charles, executive director of curriculum, St. Vrain Valley School, Longmont, CO, said in response to the survey. “Devices bring more knowledge to students’ fingertips than the teacher can give, so the traditional lecture model is no longer applicable. We want content that will engage students and the ability to introduce flipped classrooms with content that students can access at any time, at any place.”

Understanding Bandwidth Usage Is a Must

Today’s college students arrive on campus expecting fast and reliable Internet connection. At the same time, many institutions have implemented bring-your-own-device policies that make providing the connection even more important.

The mix of educational needs and recreational usage is stretching network capacity to the limit. In order to work efficiently, networks must be able to prioritize what usage is important and even block what isn’t, according to a column for eCampus News.

The first step in addressing the problem is to understand current usage, according to Bruce Miller, vice president, product marketing, for Xirrus Wi-Fi Network. Miller identified streaming media, cloud backups and updates, virtual private networks (VPN), and social media as the applications that are the biggest bandwidth hogs an institution must deal with. Streaming media, such as movies, is the largest problem, but cloud backups can also be an issue because they move gigabytes of data at a time.

“True enterprise Wi-Fi systems must have the ability to identify, prioritize, and limit applications appropriately to ensure a good user experience for those who use the network and approach utility-grade nirvana,” Miller wrote.

Silicon Valley Shares Its Expertise

Silicon Valley entrepreneurs are morphing the concept of massive open online courses (MOOCs) into 10-minute mini-MOOCs. Known as 10 Minute Insights, the series of mobile-enabled, live-streamed videos are hosted by innovators talking about a variety of topics.

One unusual feature of the videos is viewers are able to ask questions directly of the presenters during the live-streaming event, even on their mobile devices, according to a report in eCampus News. The micro-learning classes are hosted on the social knowledge platform EdCast, with many presenters scheduling their broadcasts in advance to notify those interested in participating.

There are no credits or credentials offered for taking the micro-courses. Instead, the goal is to help entrepreneurs, students, and small-business owners develop baseline business skills.

“There is a huge demand for knowledge and skills in entrepreneurship right now, as often it can be more efficient to create a job than to find one in today’s economy,” said Karl Mehta, founder and CEO of EdCast. “Silicon Valley, specifically, is well-suited for imparting advice on how to scale entrepreneurial skills rapidly.”

MOOC Instructors Need More Support

A new study found that teaching massive open online courses (MOOCs) takes its toll on instructors. The research concluded that supporting instructors may be as important to creation of successful courses as attracting students, according to a report on phys.org.

When researchers from Penn State University and the University of Central Florida interviewed 14 MOOC instructors for the study, they found only four who expressed interested in teaching them on a regular basis. Two instructors said they won’t teach another MOOC and another four worried about the demands of teaching a MOOC as well as a regular class.

Instructors said they struggled to find new ways to teach a MOOC and needed support in course preparation, implementation, and feedback. Dealing with teaching a class the size of a MOOC can be a challenge. One instructor told researchers that the preparation for a course took nearly 400 hours on top of regular teaching responsibilities.

“Most of the research on how we can make MOOCs successful has focused on the student side—how do we attract and retain them, for instance—but now attention is starting to switch to instructors, who make the MOOCs happen,” said Sajing Zheng, a doctoral candidate in information sciences and technology at Penn State who helped conduct the research. “So it’s important to know the motivations of the instructors for teaching this new format and their experiences and challenges when they teach these MOOCs.”

Pindex Launched as 'Pinterest for Education'

A new social media site launched in February allows users to collect educational materials on pinboards. If the concept sounds familiar, Pindex bills itself as a “Pinterest for education.”

“I started Pindex out of frustration with the dull, dry material my 10-year-old daughter would bring home from school,” John Leaver, one of the co-founders of the startup, told British newspaper The Telegraph. “Making every topic engaging is a huge task—too much for any one person. Pindex enables teachers and professors to share their best materials. Working together like this is the only way to solve the problem.”

On the site, a bookmark button captures content from the web and adds it to the users’ “boards.” Instructors can post quizzes on the boards and visitors can earn grades on the tests, according to a report from Campus Technology. One of the co-founders of Pindex is British actor and writer Stephen Fry, who narrates videos for the site.

Topics already on the site range from Fry’s video on the Large Hadron Collider to drones, robots, and colonizing Mars. As the site grows, the founders expect the Pindex library to collect more content from educators and researchers.

“At a time when it is easy to lose faith in an online world that seems to center around trolling, bullying, hating, trivializing, and belittling, it is worth remembering the incredible power of the Internet to inform and educate, lucidly and entertainingly,” Fry said.

Health Concerns and E-Books

American University professor Naomi Baron noted in her book Words On Screen: The Fate of Reading in a Digital World, that 92% of college students prefer print textbooks over e-books. That may be a good thing, as a Seton Hall University researcher has discovered potential health issues associated with reading e-books.

Diane Lynch, assistant director of health services at Seton Hall, claims students could be susceptible to eyestrain, headaches, blurred vision, and dry eyes related to computer vision syndrome. There is also a risk for carpal tunnel syndrome for students using mobile devices and tablets.

Lynch told The Setonian that there is evidence the brain doesn’t process as well, store, and retain information read in a digital format. There’s also the issue of distractions attached to reading on a computer or tablet.