ACE Suggests Online Learning Standards

The American Council on Education (ACE) is pushing for standards for recognizing online degree programs across different states. Implementing uniform national standards would protect students and make sure institutions provide a quality education.

Each state conducts oversight and regulation of its postsecondary education, but each also deals differently with out-of-state institutions. In addition, institutions that enroll out-of-state students online must adhere to a variety of agencies and requirements that can be cumbersome and costly.

In the paper A More Uniform Way of Recognizing OnlineDegree Programs Across State Lines, with SARA as a Focus, ACE suggested that the State Authorization Reciprocity Agreement (SARA) provide a solution because it would be similar to the way drivers’ licenses are recognized across different states.

SARA, administered by four regional higher-education groups, is a voluntary program that could help develop reasonable standards and quality for online programs, according to the report. It also found that participating in SARA could lead to lower costs for states and institutions, and, ultimately, students.

“The current process is too varied among the states to ensure consistent consumer protection, too cumbersome and expensive for institutions that seek to provide education across state borders, and too fragmented to support our country’s architecture for quality assurance in higher education—the quality assurance triad of accrediting agencies, the federal government, and the states,” the authors of the report wrote.

VR Heading to the Classroom

With companies such as General Motors and Ford using virtual-reality technology to train employees, it was only a matter of time before it gained a foothold in education. And its place in the classroom is only going to get bigger as the cost of VR technology keeps falling.

Student-built VR headsets made of foam and cardboard are now available for about $18 each. The inexpensive headsets use smartphones to run graphics and don’t require new technology or operating systems to function. In addition, developers keep creating new ways to use the technology.

More importantly, tech-savvy students are pushing the move to VR technology in schools. They have grown up using tablets and smartphones and are ready and willing to use the devices for school.

“Educational opportunities will literally only be limited by our own imaginations,” Richard L. White, emerging-technologies developer at the Southeast Kansas Education Center, said in an article for EdTech.

Report Looks at Cost of Online Courses

Colleges and universities make online courses available to students at significantly lower fees than traditional on-campus classes. At the same time, the size of the institution plays a role in that cost, according to a report in eCampus News.

A University of Massachusetts Dartmouth study found online courses cost about a third less than traditional classes. It also noted that medium-sized institutions tended to set online fees higher than small and large universities, and that private schools were lower than public institutions.

The research compared the online and on-campus course offerings from 103 colleges and universities in the United States. The pricing information was freely available online for each institution.

“This study makes an initial attempt to test hypotheses of whether different types of educational institutions set the same prices for their online courses and on-campus courses,” wrote Shouhong Wang, professor of management information systems at UMass Dartmouth and author of the report. “The database evidences might be helpful for administrators to understand more about how different types of educational institutions adopt different online course pricing strategies and practices.”

Microdegree May Rival Four-Year Degree

New players in higher education may be upending the concept of a degree. Instead of pursuing a traditional degree over a number of years, more college students may opt for a much shorter path to a “microdegree.”

According to a report in Campus Technology, Udacity stirred up some chatter at the Google I/O conference with its new Android application developer program, which enables students to achieve the credential within 12 months. Udacity offers five other skill-based programs leading to a “nanodegree,” a term the company has trademarked. Coursera also has a number of shorter-term study programs that award microdegrees upon completion.

Campus Technology noted that “the concept of an institution-agnostic microcredential isn’t new,” but the fresh angle is that for-profit companies such as Udacity and Coursera are partnering with major companies to create the course content. That ensures the curriculum meets the needs of potential employers and gets students through the program quickly so they can fill positions.

“A growing number of industries are open to the idea of employing people with portfolio backgrounds—that is, people without four-year degrees who have done different things and can show you what they’ve done,” said Cathy Sandeen, chancellor of the University of Wisconsin Colleges and University of Wisconsin-Extension, in the article. Wisconsin is taking part in the Lumina Foundation’s project to construct a “credential registry” for students.

Others think microdegrees won’t replace traditional degrees, but will allow people to add credentials as they proceed through their career. “It just means that those four-year programs that are best able to integrate with ‘nano-,’ ‘micro-,’ and ‘meso-’ certificate programs will be more likely to thrive,” said Alexander Halavais, associate professor, School of Social and Behavioral Sciences, Arizona State University.

Matching Online Courses to Real Skills

Some critics have blasted colleges and universities for failing to ensure students are taking subjects that prepare them adequately for jobs after graduation. Coursera has kicked off a new program intended to align college coursework with the skills needed by major companies around the world.

Dubbed the Global Skills Initiative, the program pairs Microsoft, Cisco, UBS, Qualcomm, BNY Mellon, and Splunk with one of the 120 schools that provide online courses through Coursera. Together they will develop online course content specifically designed for each corporate partner’s field of specialty.

“The Global Skills Initiative brings together the knowledge of industry leaders and the world-class teaching and academic research of top universities to create highly applicable curricular material,” said Coursera CEO Rick Levin in a press release. Some of the partner companies may also use the collaborations to create internal training programs for existing staff.

The schools and companies will identify specific skill sets, especially those in high demand. The university creates the course, with funding from the corporation, which also furnishes industry expertise in the form of case studies, applied projects, and guest lectures. For example, Qualcomm is working with the University of California, San Diego, on course content related to the “Internet of things,” a concept focused on building computerized connectivity into ordinary objects such as household appliances.

Wearable Offers Mobile Books for the Blind

A new wrist device slated to debut this December is intended to help sight-impaired users read Braille versions of books and text messages while on the go.

The face of the Dot, which resembles a fitness tracker, features four sets of six raised dots. The dots lift or recede to form four Braille letters at a time. The device—which also functions as a watch, alarm, and navigation system with Bluetooth capabilities—can be used for five days before needing to be charged.

“Touchscreens are not conducive to the blind as they cannot see the shifting pixels on the smooth device,” said a Popular Science article about the Dot. “That has not only slowed down the technological literacy for the blind, but has also impaired their reading literacy, cutting them off from most information that isn’t published in print.”

The device was developed by a company based in South Korea, but most of its young design team are fairly recent graduates of U.S. universities. The company claims the Dot will retail for about $300, while Braille-enabled e-readers cost upwards of $2,000. The only other alternatives to Braille books—audio recordings and text-to-speech software—are either expensive to create or don’t always work properly.

One immediate drawback for the device is a lack of reading material. Only about 1% of published books have been converted into Braille, but the company hopes the availability of the Dot will encourage publishers to offer more titles in that format.

Study Finds Students Accept Digital

There have been plenty of studies that show students prefer printed text to digital when it comes to their course materials. The educational technology firm VitalSource Technologies thinks students are starting to appreciate digital more.

The company’s fifth-annual survey on the impact of technology in education reported that 78% of students use digital course materials, up 48% from 2011. Affordability was the greatest benefit to using digital textbooks, according to 34% of the responding college students, while 31% said digital was more convenient, and 20% said it was more engaging.

To 61% of the responding students, digital homework was more interactive and 48% felt their learning was enhanced by digital elements. A majority of the students (61%) thought the ability digital content provides to have instant feedback from professors improved their learning and 55% said the ability to personalize their education with digital was helpful.

“Technology continues to be of critical importance to students, especially in the classroom,” said Cindy Clarke, VitalSource vice president of marketing, in a release. “The research validates the degree to which students depend on technology to provide them with a competitive edge while they are in school and after graduation as they prepare to enter the workforce, which is increasingly digitally literate and globally connected.” 

The Myths about MOOCs

Massive open online courses (MOOCs) have been a topic of debate for a number of years. Pundits have proclaimed they would be the end of higher education as we know it, while critics point to poor completion rates as proof that they simply don’t work.

What MOOCs have done is create a conversation about how we learn and teach, according to Joshua Kim, director of digital learning initiatives at the Dartmouth Center for the Advancement of Learning and a contributor to Inside Higher Education.

“Every college and university is working to make sure that the classes offered on campus offer greater value than what can be had online and for free,” Kim wrote in a recent blog post. “Methods and practices around residential education are being re-examined and rethought. Learning is understood as a competitive institutional differentiator.”

At the same time, Kim has issues with the assumptions both experts and detractors make about open online education. The first is the idea that MOOCs are a substitute for traditional courses.

“Higher-order learning is an activity that cannot be scaled,” he wrote. “Foundational knowledge may be appropriate for a MOOC (or a textbook, or even a really well-designed educational video game), but advanced learning works best with an educator.”

Other things about MOOCs that Kim said are often misleading include the idea that MOOCs are the same as online education; that open online courses will lower the cost of education; that the work of traditional colleges and universities is being threatened; that the cost of producing MOOCs is prohibitive; that MOOCs remain a fad; and that they will not change higher ed.

“The bigger higher-ed story that nobody seems to be telling is just how much better colleges and universities are getting,” Kim wrote. “Where everyone is focused on climbing walls and lazy rivers, the real story is improved learning.”

Software Hinders Online Learning

Joanna Cabot has been taking online courses for the last seven years. In a blog post for TeleRead, she claims they haven’t gotten much better over that span.

Her biggest complaint is how the courses are implemented. A check of the gradebook function for her latest online study required a variety of clicks and scrolling, then waiting and more scrolling, before the function was accessed.

“It would be like driving to the grocery store and finding that all of the fruits and vegetables had been taken out of the bins and replaced with paper copies of a map you can use to drive to the farm,” she wrote. “Why on earth would somebody design a forum software this way?”

She also had issues navigating the digital content, the course readings, and library databases that were not integrated into the software.

“I understand that technology is harder to do right than most people think it is,” she concluded. “I understand that there is no perfect system and there will always be bugs and glitches in something like this. I am not saying everything has to be perfect just yet. But it startled me just how little things have improved in all the years I have been taking these courses online. It’s not that we should have progressed to perfection just yet. But we should have progressed a little.”

High Schools Aren't Preparing Students

Critics are claiming college isn’t getting students ready for the workforce. Perhaps the issue starts before students even get to campus.

A 2015 survey of students, faculty, and employers found that only 14% of the instructors felt high schools did an adequate job of preparing students for college, down from 28% in a 2004 survey. Just 29% of employers felt students were ready for the workplace in 2015, compared to 49% in 2004.

High schools are doing well at teaching computers and technology, teamwork, and verbal communications. Unfortunately, there appear to be major gaps in student preparation involving critical thinking, comprehension of complicated content, work and study habits, writing, problem-solving, conducting research, math, and science.

A bigger issue is that students indicated in the survey they understood there were problems with their high school education. Nearly 90% said they would have worked harder if expectations for earning a diploma were higher and 20% said it was “easy to slide by.”

“We know that our schools can do a better job of preparing students for success in their next steps,” Michael Cohen, president of the not-for-profit educational organization that sponsored the survey, said in a report in Campus Technology. “We hear students saying that they are certain they would have worked harder in high school if they’d been held to higher expectations. It’s critical that schools clearly communicate the expectations of colleges and employers early in a student’s high school experience and help them understand the coursework they will need to complete. When we set rigorous expectations, students can and will rise to the challenge.”

Students Paying More for College Costs

Spending on college expenses was roughly 16% higher for the 2014-15 school term than the year before, according to a new study. The average spent on college, including tuition, room and board, living costs and items such as textbooks and transportation, was $24,164—the most since 2010, when the average was $26,271 after adjustment for inflation.

The report, How America Pays for College 2015, also found that 88% of the respondents would “stretch” their budget to afford college for their kids. The study concluded that parents are increasingly positive about the chances of their children landing jobs and are hopeful about the economy, according to Inc. magazine.

The survey of 800 parents and 800 undergraduates found that economic conditions over the past five years left parents with less money to spend on college. This year’s study showed a surge in spending by high-income parents, while spending by lower-income families stayed nearly the same.

“Traditional economic concerns such as job loss, declining home values, and decreased value of savings are less worrying for parents this year, allowing families greater freedom to concentrate on college,” the author of the report said.

Younger Students Taking Online Courses

A recent survey of 1,500 students found that online undergraduate programs are becoming more popular with younger students. Online College Students, released in July by Aslanian Market Research and the Learning House, found that 34% of undergraduate online students were under the age of 25, up from 25% in the 2012 report.

The percentage of online graduate students under 25 jumped from 13% in 2012 to 19% in the 2015 report. The economic pressures of working and going to school and increasing familiarity with online courses are considered the main reasons for the increase.

“Students have had online courses in their background because many high schools now require an online course,” Carol Aslanian, author of the report and senior vice president of Aslanian Market Research, said in U.S. News & World Report. “If they have started college and are going back, many colleges have them. They are going to be groomed to appreciate it.”

The report found that half of the students enrolled online live within 50 miles of campus and 65% live within 100 miles. In addition, 45% of the respondents said they enrolled in programs that were the least expensive option, up from 30% in the 2014. Two-thirds reported that they did not receive a scholarship for the online program.

Women made up 59% of undergraduates taking online courses in a 2015 report from the National Center for Education Statistics, up from 56% in 2013.

“A lot of professions for which you need further education—health, social services, education—they are dominated by women,” Aslanian said. “Many men may go into business and on their own. The women-oriented employment fields require more education.”

Gaming Lets Collegians Build Real Skills

It’s easy to see how educational games might hold the attention of grade-school youngsters and help them learn vocabulary or practice math. But how do educational games work for college-aged students?

Two games created by Pearson’s Center for Learning Science and Technology, with its technical and testing partners, provide a means for postsecondary students to build their skills in argumentation and bioengineering through collaboration and role-playing in fictitious environments.

In the Argubot Academy game, students debate how the first colony on Mars should function, such as the best types of food for the inhabitants to raise. Students conduct research to prepare their arguments and use a “robot battle” format to present their points and refute those of their opponents. If student-players back their arguments with insufficient or irrational evidence, their robotic power diminishes and they lose the battle.

“They can see not only that their argument wasn’t strong, but also what the weakness was, based on the types of attack an opponent launched,” wrote Kristen DiCerbo, principal research scientist for Pearson’s center, in an Educause Review article about the games. Students proceed through multiple levels of mastery.

In the Nephrotex game, students act as interns working on a nanotechnology project for a bioengineering firm. The students collect technical information and data, develop and test hypotheses, and analyze results, all the while recording their activities and communicating with team members via chat and email.

To enable the participation of first-year students, who have just begun to study the field, the setup is adjusted to their knowledge level, with the game automatically filling in the areas the students haven’t studied yet. Students can also interact with live mentors through the game. The purpose is to build a sense of professionalism early on and points “to the promise of games to encourage student persistence in difficult STEM [science, technical, engineering, math] subjects,” DiCerbo said.

Both games allow instructors to track and assess students’ progress.

Security Is a Problem for Higher Ed

Higher education continues to receive failing grades when it comes to keeping its files safe from hackers, finishing last in a recent study conducted by the security ratings firm BitSight. The problem for higher ed is tight budgets, a lack of control, and an open environment needed for bring-your-own-device programs.

Despite eight recorded breaches this year, higher ed has stayed out of the headlines because the attacks tended to be small. However, the large amount of valuable intellectual property, connections to other campus organizations, and student information are tempting to hackers.

“They have a lot of intellectual property that would be nice for others to have, and their systems aren’t very well protected,” Stephen Boyer, chief technology officer and co-founder of BitSight, said in an article in CRN Magazine. “I think we’re going to continue to see these types of breaches.”

The open culture of academia is another security issue, according to Robert Desman, director of business development at Carceron Managed IT Services.

“More than any single thing, it’s a cultural issue, and we’re still in the infancy of where the institutions are in terms of being security-conscious,” Desman said. “They’ll go ahead and build up their police forces if they have a lot of incidents, but it’s always a case of closing the barn door after the horses have gotten out.”

Delivering Ed Content to Any Device

Skyepack is a digital publishing platform developed at Purdue University that allows faculty to assemble low-cost e-content students can access from nearly every operating system or mobile device. Purdue offered eight courses using the e-text platform in a pilot last year. That pilot is being expanded to 11 more courses for 2015-16.

The team that created Skyepack, originally known as Jetpack, wanted to develop an e-textbook that was easy for faculty to produce, while delivering more than just text and images to students. They were also trying to find a new way to save students money on their course materials.

“The project was designed to reimagine instructional material to take advantage of the technologies we have today,” Kyle Bowen, chief technology officer of Skyepack, said in a report from Campus Technology. “In particular, mobile technologies—smartphones, tablets—that allow us to access this material from everywhere.”

Any Purdue faculty member can use the platform to create their own content, but must apply to participate in the digital-textbook pilot program. Those accepted receive a stipend of several thousand dollars to create a textbook and must agree to use the book for two years and make the text available for $10-$20, depending on if the author opts to receive royalties for their work.

The e-texts are developed on a web-based interface, similar to a blogging platform. Students have unlimited access to the content and continue to receive any updates the instructor makes to the textbook after the class has been completed.

“If you drop a video into Skyepack, it re-encodes that video in such a way that it’s designed for delivery to smartphones with smaller screens or tablets with midsized screens or laptops with larger screens,” Bowen said. “It does that translation for you and it does the same thing with text and images and the interactive tools, so it makes it possible for the author to deliver content in all these different environments without having to understand the nuances of each individual environment.” 

National Study Eyes Competency-Based Ed

As interest grows in competency-based education (CBE), planning is underway for the largest survey to date of institutions using CBE programs and for a national conference on the topic this fall. The effort, led by the nonprofit research organization Public Agenda, will help institutions plan and develop CBE degrees, certificates, and other postsecondary credentials, according to a report in eCampus News.

Research on models and trends in CBE is being conducted to create a publicly available online source of information. In addition, research-based design elements of CBE programs and online tools will be made available to institutions interested in building a program.

The survey of institutions with CBE programs will be presented at the CBExchange, Sept. 30-Oct. 2, in Phoenix, AZ. The purpose of the study was to collect data on programs already in use, gauge the practices and design elements of those programs, and measure the importance of those elements to each institution.

A free CBE online resource is also set to launch in the fall, housed on the Competency Based Education Network (C-BEN).

“As competency-based education gains momentum nationwide, there is a growing need for resources that will help interested colleges and universities develop thoughtful plans that lead to quality progams,” said Alison Kadlec, senior vice president and director of higher education and workforce programs at Public Agenda. “This 15-month project was designed to produce a baseline understanding of the landscape and advances in competency-based education and help inform various higher-education stakeholders.”

Interactivity Takes Place of Reading

While electronic devices may be distracting in the classroom, long readings in dull textbooks can be like a sleeping pill for many students. The online learning platform zyBooks is trying to change that.

The website replaces text with learning activities such as questions and animation. Instructors at nearly 250 universities are using the platform instead of traditional textbooks to help students engage with the material, according to a report in The Chronicle of Higher Education.

“They say a picture is worth a thousand words. I say an animation is worth 5,000,” Frank Vahid, computer science and engineering professor at the University of California, Riverside, and co-founder of zyBooks, told UCR Magazine last spring. “So we don’t have to write as much because we can replace a whole page of text with an animation or with learning questions.”

Platform creators also took a look at ways to improve homework. zyBooks integrates assignments into the platform, which are personalized to students’ ability levels. It also allows a way for instructors to track progress.

Students can subscribe to the service for $40-$60 per class, with discounts available for subscription renewals and extensions. The company offers special pricing for high schools and large numbers of multiterm subscriptions.

A two-year study of nearly 2,000 students done by Zyante Inc., the company founded by Vahid and Smita Bakshi, a former UC Davis engineering professor, found that those using zyBooks averaged a quarter-grade higher than those using traditional content. In addition, a controlled group of 136 students showed they spent twice as much time using the interactive zyBooks material when compared with reading electronic content.

Website Helps Chinese Grads Find Jobs

Colleges and universities around the world try to help students find employment after graduation. A university in China has taken that effort online.

The Kunming University Talent Shop is an online site that features top graduates on the Alibaba retail platform, Taobao. Students are divided into four categories that “promote Chinese infrastructure investment and manufacturing power,” according to a report from CNBC.

The site includes a photo, a summary of career goals, and salary expectations for each student. Prospective employers are then able to bid for the right to offer a student a contract. The bidding fees start at $160, according to a report in People’s Daily Online.

Chinese officials expect more than seven million graduates to be looking for jobs in the country in 2015. At the same time, the number of new jobs created has fallen from 3.44 million in the first quarter of 2014 to 3.24 million during the same period this year.

Books Go Multimedia to Lure Kid Readers

What were your favorite books as a child? Chances are, those same titles would earn bored yawns from many kids today. According to The Atlantic, some teachers and children’s publishers are experimenting with digital enhancements to hold the interest of elementary-school readers.

The term “reader” may not be entirely accurate. The Atlantic noted that some of these e-books are heavy on multimedia and light on text; some are actually interactive apps. Yet parents and their children are responding positively to them, while teachers and librarians report they’re having a hard time holding their classes’ attention with all-text books, no matter how popular the titles once were.

If children get used to multimedia entertainment in their reading books in grade school, they may expect the same when they get to college. In fact, they may not even be able to effectively study pages of text without digital enhancements. Two researchers at West Chester University “found that students tend to spend more time reading enhanced books, but that they often comprehend less of the material,” said The Atlantic article.

In some cases, publishers are putting digital extras into e-books just because they can—audio of noises in the story, for instance—and not to help young readers understand the book’s themes or learn new vocabulary. In others, though, the digital books and apps were intentionally created to be used in conjunction with print books as a means to extend the reading experience.

Video a Key Part of Blended Learning

There was a day when video in the classroom, particularly a high school classroom, meant an easy afternoon for both student and teacher. A white paper from the London educational technology firm Knowledgemotion reported today’s students prefer to learn through video.

The report, Perfecting Blended Learning: Why Video IsThe Missing Ingredient In Blended Learning, found that using relevant video provides an alternative teaching tool to traditional textbooks. It also reinforces reading and comprehension, enhances different learning styles, and promotes teacher effectiveness.

The study found video should comprise of short, edited clips categorized with the curriculum. It should also be used as a complementary resource with textbooks and other content.

“The impact and value of video in ‘blended learning’ represents an ongoing field of research,” wrote the authors of the report. “Recent surveys, empirical studies, and industry reports overwhelmingly agree that video in education, when used correctly, can significantly boost student engagement, enjoyment, and learning outcomes.”

Why Nontraditional Students Take MOOCs

Massive open online courses (MOOCs) are being used to supplement traditional learning, according to a survey from Duke University, Durham, NC. The study of 13 MOOCs offered by Duke looked specifically at students younger than 18, older than 65, and those with limited access to higher education.

“The idea was trying to get a better handle on individuals who were underserved because so much of the popular press has focused on highly educated, white (for the most part), upper-middle-class folks taking Coursera courses,” said Lorrie Schmid, lead researcher on the study. “We wanted to get a sense of these other groups and how they might be approaching, in similar or different ways, these types of classes.”

Younger students often take MOOCs on subjects not taught in their school and to help them make academic and career choices, according to the Duke Research blog. Older students take MOOCs to keep their minds active, pursue lifelong learning, and to help younger associates in their professional field. Convenience and availability were the main reason students with limited access to college chose to participate in MOOCs. 

The GHOST in Your Touchscreen

Imagine a touchscreen that can expand while a movie is being viewed and then shrinks back to its original size when the movie is finished, or a smartphone that bends and stretches automatically to shield the user’s fingers while entering private data. Such devices could be on the market in the next five years.

Generic, Highly Organic Shape-Changing Interfaces (GHOST) technology is being developed by four European universities to let consumers use their touchscreens as 3-D displays. Users will be able to pull objects out of their computer screen and manipulate the information as it is suspended in the air with a swipe of their fingers.

Deformable screens and ultrasound levitation technology makes the GHOST research possible, according to a report from Fox News. Researchers have already developed touchscreens that automatically change shape and ways to project data into the air. One prototype allows users to break down bar charts into rows and columns once they have been pulled out of the touchscreen.

“It’s not only about deforming the shape of the screen, but also the digital object you want to manipulate, maybe even in midair,” Kasper Hornbaek, professor at the University of Copenhagen and GHOST coordinator, said in a statement. “Through ultrasound levitation technology, for example, we can project the display out of the flat screen. And thanks to deformable screens, we can plunge our fingers into it.”

Ed Platform Takes the Arts Online

The arts are taking a back seat to career-focused degrees on many campuses. A new online learning platform is trying to remedy that by offering an affordable way for students to fulfill their first-year requirements.

Kadenze was launched in June with 22 art courses from leading colleges and universities, such as Princeton, Stanford, and UCLA. Seven of the schools participating in the program are even offering college credit for completed Kadenze courses for as little as $300, depending on the number of units.

“We’re really trying to build that first-year experience where students can learn the key assets for their particular field and then apply to college, maybe with a semester done,” Kadenze CEO Ajay Kapur told eCampus News. “Our goal is not to replace the university; it’s to get people prepared for it while also reducing the costs.”

Kadenze also hopes to attract lifelong learners by allowing anyone to audit courses for free. In addition, for a nominal monthly membership fee, students can participate in as many courses as they want and earn official verification for completed courses.

The platform was built with an emphasis on collaboration, peer and algorithm-based assessment, and high production values. Each course provides students with a gallery in which to share their work and have it assessed by other students. The algorithm-based assessment tools were designed specifically for an arts education.

“A student can submit a piece of music, for example, and our software is able to actually listen to the music and provide feedback,” Kapur said.

“I really want to mentor the students, not just present information to them. I could put up YouTube videos if that was the only goal,” added Jay LeBoeuf, a Stanford lecturer who is teaching a Kadenze course. “The aim is to have a really immersive environment where students are asking questions in the forum and submitting their assignments. That way, students can make comments on those assignments and see how other students are thinking.”

Store of the Future May Be a Hologram

For years, technologists have predicted that virtual-reality applications are right around the corner—apps that can provide an immersive 3-D experience to enhance students’ learning, allow a customer to try products, or provide employee training. At long last, they may be right.

Most of the virtual-reality applications so far have dabbled in gaming. Microsoft has been trying to scare up companies to develop more practical software for its augmented-reality headset known as HoloLens. Last week, one company stepped forward with plans to build apps for HoloLens with businesses in mind.

Object Theory, whose founders include a former Microsoft engineer and an entrepreneur who created mobile apps for Starbucks and Whole Foods Market, told the IDG News Service it expects to leave the gaming apps to the entertainment industry and instead focus on business needs.

“High-end jewelry and fashion stores and car dealerships could use HoloLens to show customers products that are customized to their specifications,” said IDG’s article in PC World. “Holograms can help retailers plan store layouts and shelf placement, among other in-store uses.”

Recent advances in the technology that underpins augmented reality are making it more commercially feasible to develop apps that businesses could actually deploy.

Educators Asked about Digital Tech Use

A survey by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt found that 97% of K-12 educators and school administrators used some kind of digital content and more than 50% used apps, websites, and digital games in the classroom. The 2015 Educator Confidence Report also showed gaps in how teachers and administrators view the way technology was being used.

For instance, 71% of the responding teachers said they used free or open educational resources (OER) in their classrooms, while 87% of the administrators thought OER content was being used. Teachers and administrators also have different opinions on the use of online assessments (42% of the teachers said they used the tools, compared to 66% of administrators), learning management systems (36% vs. 64%), and adaptive learning content (35% vs. 49%).

Most educators said technology improved student engagement (66%) and provided students with better access to instructional content (55%). A majority (58%) were also either “very” or “somewhat” concerned about student privacy issues, according to the eSchool News report.

However, just 41% of those responding said they felt positive about teaching and 23% of teachers with less than 10 years of experience said they plan to leave the profession within five years.

“There is no denying that the education sector is undergoing an exciting—and challenging—transformation,” HMH Chief Content Officer Mary Cullinane said in a release. “Understanding the views of the teachers who are navigating this transformation is crucial. There is no one size fits all, which is why it is so important educator voices are heard and their real needs understood.”

Facial Recognition to Become Commonplace

The use of facial-recognition software is about to become much more widespread. MasterCard is set to launch a pilot using the technology, while a new report predicted the number of devices with facial-recognition software will rise from 28.5 million in 2015 to more than 122 million by 2024.

The marketing intelligence research firm Tractica also expects the annual revenue for facial biometrics to grow by 22% annually, to more than $880 million over the next nine years, according to a report in VentureBeat.

“Adoption of facial recognition will be particularly strong during the next several years in mobile-device authentication, but areas of growth will also include government applications, such as national ID cards and biometrics passports, as well as finance/banking and retail applications,” the authors of the report wrote.

The MasterCard pilot is aimed at finding ways for shoppers to use biometric scans or voice recognition to verify their identity for purchases. According to reports, MasterCard is working with several hardware and software companies on the project, along with two banks.

Carnegie Mellon Trying a Blended Approach

Because Carnegie Mellon University, Pittsburgh, PA, has too many students signing up for some of its computer science courses, the institution is planning a “blended learning” approach to the courses to meet demand this fall.

The program, funded by a $200,000 prize from the Google Computer Science Capacity Awards program, will be like other blended learning courses, but also combine video lectures with optional mini-lectures and group meetings with instructors to reinforce concepts that need to be taught in person. If successful, some of the materials from the course could be used in high schools next year.

While there are no guarantees, some research indicates the Carnegie Mellon approach should work, according to a report for Slate. A study by Columbia University’s Community College Research Center found that students taking hybrid courses had results similar to those taking traditional classes. Other research has found the blended-learning model helped poor-performing algebra students do better than their counterparts in a teacher-led class.

“Carnegie Mellon’s determinate efforts provide a spark of hope—if the school is successful, others may follow in its path,” Amy X. Wang wrote in a Future Tense blog post. “Perhaps we will begin to see more diverse teaching methods, as well as fewer students crouching in the aisles of overcrowded lecture halls.”

Beware of Technology Addiction

Technology has become a driving force for most people, but, just like anything else, too much of a good thing can be too much. Technology can become addictive, and that can starts as early as infancy.

Kids now grow up in a world where they play with toys that link them to the Internet and television shows that encourage live tweeting. The increase in screen time boosts the chance that children may suffer from low self-esteem and relationship problems, which follow them through their teenage years and into adulthood, according to a report in InformationWeek.

Social awkwardness can be the least of the concerns for adults who develop symptoms from excessive digital dependence. They also suffer from insomnia, short-term memory and hearing loss, eye irritation, and spinal damage.

“There are plenty of ways to minimize your risk of digital overload,” wrote Kelly Sheridan. “Start by monitoring your smartphone use. An hour before bed, leave you phone in the kitchen to charge instead of putting it on your bedside table overnight. If you have a desk job, set a timer every 20 minutes so you know when to stand and stretch you legs. Alter the volume limit on your iPod, which lets you adjust the maximum level of sound emitted from the earbuds. And finally, walk past the couch when you get home, put on a pair of sneakers, and go for a stroll. Your body will thank you for it.”

ASU, edX Team on Freshman MOOCs

Arizona State University and online learning platform edX are working together to offer massive open online courses (MOOCs) to cover an entire freshman curriculum. The Global Freshman Academy will launch this fall with three courses. Those will be increased by two courses per semester until reaching a full 12-course catalog.

Students will be able to participate in the classes for free, but required to pay a $45 identity-verification fee to gain credit. Students will be able to take proctored exams for credits, which will cost $200 each. The estimated cost to students in the program will be around $6,000 for a full year’s tuition.

The fees fund administrative services, including transcription assistance. ASU plans to add details in course descriptions about which classes will be helpful for certain majors.

“It is in our minds to eventually reduce tuition,” said Adrian Sanier, chief academic technology officer at ASU. “Once we are running at full volume, we believe we’ll be able to lower the cost to students.”

Cybercriminals Target Ed Sector

The 2015 Global Threat Intelligence Report found that the education sector accounted for more than a third of all the reported malware incidents. NTT.Com Security analyzed more than six billion attacks and reported that the bring-your-own-device (BYOD) format instructors are beginning to use could be to blame.

Students and staff use a variety of devices on institutional networks, often providing personal information in the process. Cybercriminals understand that and so focus their attacks on those networks.

“The history of open networks at education institutions has resulted in network architectures where there is usually no strong separation between areas containing sensitive data and untested areas where professors, students, or visitors can connect,” said Chris Camejo, director of assessment services for NTT.Com Security. “This makes it more difficult to prevent, detect, and respond to attack. IT officials must develop a strategy that is custom to the BYOD culture that they have embraced.”

Enjoy the Fourth!

From all of NACS Inc. staff in Oberlin, Westlake, and Cincinnati, OH, as well as our staff in California and Washington, D.C., have a safe and happy Fourth of July.

Wearable Market Triples in Growth

The New Media Consortium advised that wearable technology was becoming “increasingly relevant” in education when its 2015 Horizon Report, released in February. The International Data Corp. (IDC) followed by reporting that shipments of wearable devices have grown for eight consecutive quarters.

IDC reported a growth in shipments for the first quarter of 2015 of 11.4 million units, a 200% increase over the same quarter in 2014. That doesn’t include the Apple Watch, which has sold around 2.8 million units since its release in April.

“What remains to be seen is how Apple’s arrival will change the landscape,” Ramon Llamas, IDC research manager, told Campus Technology. “The Apple Watch will likely become the device that other wearables will be measured against, fairly or not. This will force the competition to up their game in order to stay on the leading edge of the market.”

Authors of the Horizon report expect that experimentation with wearable devices will be high in education circles, especially with college-aged students. The study found that 71% of students in the survey wanted to use wearables. In addition, two Nebraska universities are working on curricula that would help students in grades 4-6 use wearable technology to learn more about engineering.

The quarterly report said Fitbit topped the market with 3.9 million devices shipped in the first quarter, grabbing 34% of the total market. The Chinese firm Xiaomi was second with 2.8 million units shipped, mostly in China, followed by Garmin (700,000 devices shipped), Samsung (600,000 units), and Jawbone (500,000 units).

EdX Cure for the Summertime Slide

There’s more to summer than good times, relaxation, and vacations. The time away from school makes students susceptible to “summer slide.”

While “summer slide” research tends to focus on how parents should work with their K-12 students on their reading skills, edX and the National Summer Learning Association teamed up to launch a collection of more than 60 courses on core subjects for high school and college students. Select courses will also help high school students with advanced placement (AP) and college-admission exams.

“The summer slide is a very real challenge faced by many American students and it can be detrimental to their overall educational development,” edX CEO Anant Agarwal said. “Online learning, because it offers free and openly available tools and resources, enables motivated students to combat this head-on.”

Test and Promote for Appy Ever After

Some schools are developing mobile apps for a variety audiences: students, faculty, and staff, even the general public. The purposes also vary, from news alerts, security warnings, and event information to campus maps, bookstore purchases, and mobile access to school systems.

The one thing all of these apps have in common is their likelihood of failure. According to CIO magazine, most people download an app, use it once, and that’s it. Some 78% of apps never get used again. “This is part of the reason why the majority of mobile strategies stall, according to a recent Accenture survey of nearly 1,500 C-level executives,” noted writer Tom Kaneshige.

Ongoing promotion and helpdesk support are among the key factors for getting people in the habit of using an app regularly. Usability testing with the target audience, especially early in the development process, can help resolve confusing interfaces and clumsy or unwanted features before they get in the hands of users.

Once an app has been released, tracking and parsing analytics can reveal how people are actually using the app. “Follow the launch with social media and internal forums for users to provide feedback and increase app awareness,” the article suggested. “In fact, feedback is so valuable that a CIO might want to offer a monetary or recognition reward for it.”

Georgia Works on Digital Content Solution

Affordable Learning Georgia was launched last year by the University System of Georgia to create a platform for the free online texts educators were developing. The state Board of Regents kicked in $2.5 million to the effort with a goal of creating content for 26 basic college courses all students at any state public institution could take online.

Small grants were made available to professors creating online content. They ended up with resources for 22 of the 26 classes, called e-Core courses that were targeted. That will add up to $2.7 million in savings on textbooks, according to the chief academic officer of the University System of Georgia.

Faculty at the University of North Georgia, Dahlonega, generated digital content for 10 courses from grants they received. Its estimated students will save about $1 million next year using that content.

Affordable Learning Georgia is already upping the ante. A second goal of the initiative was to create online textbooks for the 50 courses with the highest enrollment, but administrators now want content for the top 100 classes.

“I believe it’s going to be the future of delivering content to students, especially for these kinds of courses,” Mark Goodroe, professor of mathematics at the University of North Georgia, told the digital news platform Styrk.

Smartwatches Banned from Exams

A lot of people are buying smartwatches, particularly since the Apple Watch launched. The devices are a little too popular to suit some educators.

A pair of universities in Australia issued warnings against wearing wearable technology to class during final exams, and similar policies could soon be in place at some American universities. La Trobe University in Melbourne barred smartwatches from the exam room, while the University of New South Wales required students to put all wristwatches in clear bags under their desks, according to a report in The Chronicle for Higher Education.

The Educational Testing Service, which gives the Graduate Record exam and the Test of English as a Foreign Language, has for years used wands to make sure test-takers weren’t carrying cellphones. The proctors now use the wands, which are like the ones used in airport security lines, to check for cellphones and watches.

“As we get better at our educational systems, it will seem less like we need to ban these things, because the kinds of things we’ll be putting on an exam students won’t be able to store on a watch,” said Eric Klopfer, director of the Scheller Teacher Education Program, Massachusetts Institute of Technology. 

Games Aren't Trending in K-12

Maybe gaming in the classroom isn’t that big of a deal. At least that’s the word from the 2015 New Media Consortium (NMC) Horizon Report, which retired the concept from its list of emerging technology for K-12.

“We don’t see it making the mainstream,” said NMC CEO Larry Johnson in an article for EdTech. “For most people, it’s just too hard to integrate and there are no tools to make it easier.”

Fundamental concepts of gamification are still on the list, such as awarding digital badges for learning games, which NMC lists as a trend that will be adopted within four or five years. Use of drones and visual data analysis, along with wearable technology, should also be mainstream education tools for K-12 within four to five years.

Classrooms allowing students to bring their own electronic devices for educational purposes, cloud computing, makerspaces with tools such as 3-D printers, and mobile learning are trends making an impact right now. Adaptive learning, 3-D printing, information visualization, and learning analytics should be mainstream trends in two or three years, according to the report.

TV Show Helps MOOC Hook New Students

The FX television series The Strain is about a city under attack from a mysterious epidemic and a devastating cyber-virus attack. It’s also a great way to teach virus and parasite biology, cybersecurity, and epidemiological modeling.

The software firm Instructure is betting on it by partnering with the video learning company Zaption to create a massive open online course (MOOC) based on the real-world science presented in the show.

“We expect many participants in The Strain MOOC will have never taken an online course before,” Melissa Loble, vice president of partners and programs at Instructure, told eCampus News. “But because of this partnership with Zaption, they will be able to interact with highly engaging video-based content that will enrich the learning experience.”

The MOOC designers are working with the University of California, Irvine (UCI), on content for each unit. That content will be updated weekly with new lecture videos, quizzes, a discussion forum, additional readings, and extra videos based on UCI research.

Students will earn digital badges for each strain completed and have the option of doing a final multimedia project to showcase their learning. Instructors will also be able to monitor discussions to answer questions.

“The entertainment piece is the hook, but we hope people will walk away with a much deeper understanding,” said Chris Walsh, CEO of Zaption.