online learning

Mobile education: Lessons from 35 education experts on improving learning with mobile technology [Citrix]

On 11/04/2013, in 21st century, 24x7x365 access, A/V -- audio/visual, attention, blended learning, collaboration, communications, convergence, creativity, Daniel S. Christian, digital audio, digital learning, digital storytelling, digital textbooks, digital video, e-books, education, education reform, education technology, educational games / serious games, elearning, emerging technologies, engagement / engaging students, experimentation, future, game-changing environment, heutagogy, higher education, human-computer interaction (HCI), hybrid learning, ideas, innovation, interactivity, internet, K-12 related, learning, learning ecosystem, Learning from the Living [Class] Room, learning theories, mobile learning, mobile technologies, MOOCs -- Massive Open Online Courses, more voice more choice more control, multimedia, online learning, smart classrooms, smart/connected TV, social learning / networks, student-related, technologies for your home, technology (general), telepresence, tools, trends, vendors, web-based collaboration, workplace, by Daniel Christian

Description:

Education is at a tipping point. From the rising cost of a college education and the financial pressures upon local districts and state agencies to fund K-12 schools and programs, to the questions of how to employ mobile technologies and leverage social platforms to support the growing trend toward mobile, collaborative learning models, educators face an almost overwhelming set of challenges. While there are no easy answers to these and other issues, Citrix believes strongly that online learning technologies can help enhance and extend the teaching and learning process and provide greater, more wide-spread access to education to students. We are committed to developing and delivering learning solutions that will meet the evolving needs of teachers and students in this changing landscape. We hope that our sponsorship of this ebook and other projects will help you, the reader, gain a better understanding of the opportunities that online learning technologies provide, increase your mastery of these solutions, and enable you to put them to productive use. We look forward to working with you as we explore new and effective ways to help teachers teach and learners learn.

CaIlin Pitcher
Product Line Director, Collaboration, Citrix

Comments/disclosure from DSC:
I do not work for Citrix — I have been at Calvin College since
March 2007. I was not paid to develop/contribute this piece.

I’d like to thank David Rogelberg for his work on this project.

Reflections on “U.S. teams up with operator of online courses to plan a global network” [Lewin]

On 11/01/2013, in 21st century, 24x7x365 access, accreditation, Asia, Australia, blended learning, budgets, business side of he, career development, changing business models, cloud-based computing / apps / other cloud-related, collaboration, colleges, communications, communities of practice, community colleges, corporate / business world, corporate universities / corporate training, cost of getting a degree, dangers of the status quo, Daniel S. Christian, digital learning, distance education, education technology, elearning, entrepreneurship, Europe, experimentation, face-to-face, future of higher education, game-changing environment, global / globalization, higher education, hybrid learning, ideas, informal learning, innovation, internet, lifelong learning, MOOCs -- Massive Open Online Courses, more voice more choice more control, New "Amazon.com" of Higher Education, new business models, online learning, participation, professional development, reinvent, social learning / networks, staying relevant, STEAM-related, streams of content, student-related, teachers, teaching & learning, training / L&D, UK, United States, virtual field trips, virtual tutoring, vision/possibilities, web-based collaboration, webinars, workplace, by Daniel Christian

U.S. teams up with operator of 0nline courses to plan a global network — from nytimes.com by Tamar Lewin

Excerpt (emphasis DSC):

Coursera, a California-based venture that has enrolled five million students in its free online courses, announced on Thursday a partnership with the United States government to create “learning hubs” around the world where students can go to get Internet access to free courses supplemented by weekly in-person class discussions with local teachers or facilitators.

The learning hubs represent a new stage in the evolution of “massive open online courses,” or MOOCs, and address two issues: the lack of reliable Internet access in some countries, and the growing conviction that students do better if they can discuss course materials, and meet at least occasionally with a teacher or facilitator.

“Our mission is education for everyone, and we’ve seen that when we can bring a community of learners together with a facilitator or teacher who can engage the students, it enhances the learning experience and increases the completion rate,” said Lila Ibrahim, the president of Coursera. “It will vary with the location and the organization we’re working with, but we want to bring in some teacher or facilitator who can be the glue for the class.”

From DSC:
Some thoughts here:

1) When institutions of higher education cling to the status quo and disregard the disturbing trajectories at play*…when we don’t respond, people — and governments it seems — will find other options/alternatives.

* Such as middle class incomes that continue to decline
while the price of higher education continues to escalate

2) I wonder if this type of setup might predominate in some countries.
i.e. blended learning types of setups in learning centers around the world where people can come in at any time to learn with a relevant Community of Practice, aided by faculty, teachers, trainers, coaches, etc. Some of the content is “beamed in” and shared electronically, while some of the learning involves face-to-face discussions/work. Will schools become more community centers where we will pool resources and offer them to people 24×7?

Also see:

The New Innovator’s Dilemma — from huffingtonpost.com by Michael Moe and Ben Wallerstein; with thanks to Lisa Duty for the Tweet on this
Excerpt (emphasis DSC):
Increasingly, we’re worried that a generation of entrepreneurs is facing a “new innovators dilemma” — where innovation is stymied by regulatory and political environments focused on outdated needs and the wrong set of “customers.” The truth is, Silicon Valley investors and techies will get by just fine without addressing our big, societal problems. But if we encourage our nation’s top entrepreneurs to join search engines and social networks, we will miss the opportunity to apply their genius to solving society’s most pressing problems.
…
This isn’t about the classic political divide of right versus left. This is about policies and regulations written in a different era that are not easily translated to modern technology. It’s no secret that the challenge stems, in part, from the motivations of regulators and the politics of protecting the status quo.
…
Change is difficult. And no one is arguing that the transportation, hospitality, and higher education industries don’t need to be regulated. New approaches, in particular, warrant close scrutiny. But if we are ever going to experience the sort of revolutionary change that technology might afford to virtually every sector of the American economy, we need to be willing to rethink the traditional ways of regulation to make innovation easier and more responsive to the consumers and students these regulations were originally enacted to protect.

Addendum 11/1/13:

MOOCs are about to shake up the corporate and non-profit world — from corporatelearningnetwork.com by Inge de Waard

Beyond the course: Reducing higher education’s overall cost [NCAT]

On 10/30/2013, in change, changing business models, cost of getting a degree, dangers of the status quo, Daniel S. Christian, higher education, more voice more choice more control, New "Amazon.com" of Higher Education, new business models, online learning, by Daniel Christian

Beyond the course: Reducing higher education’s overall cost — from The National Center for Academic Transformation (NCAT)

Excerpt (emphasis DSC):

In the October 2012 issue of The Learning MarketSpace, NCAT announced that this newsletter would undergo a substantial change in its content and format to reflect NCAT’s new direction. NCAT is making a transition from a focus on conducting redesign programs and public events to concentrating on analysis and change strategies based on the data we have collected and the experiences we have had over the past 13 years. The following article came to fruition following a solicitation from the White House asking NCAT for ideas in addition to course redesign about how higher education productivity could be increased. Among the options: redesign the department, redesign the curriculum, redesign academic support and student services, and redesign the administration.

Sixteen years ago, I wrote, “A major problem that continues to confront higher education is that of rising costs. With the average cost of attendance consuming a substantial portion of the median family income, for many Americans what is at stake is nothing less than the continued viability of the American dream. The stakes are high for higher education as well. Caught in a closing vise between new demands for enrollment and declining rates of revenue growth, colleges and universities must figure out a way to do more with less.

Recognizing that tuition increases can no longer be used as a safety valve to avoid dealing with the underlying issues of why costs increase so much, campuses have begun the hard work of cost containment. But after sharpening priorities, sometimes making tough choices in light of those priorities, and asking everyone—administrators and faculty alike—to work harder, campuses are still groping for ways to wrestle costs under control.

At the same time, colleges and universities are discovering exciting new ways of using technology. For most institutions, however, new technologies represent a black hole of additional expense as students, parents, and faculty alike demand access to each new generation of equipment and software. Most campuses have bolted on new technologies to a fixed plant, a fixed faculty, and a fixed notion of classroom instruction. Under these circumstances, technology becomes part of the problem rather than part of the solution of cost containment. By and large, colleges and universities have not yet begun to grab hold of technology’s promise to reduce costs.

Containing costs—and making use of new technologies to help contain costs—requires a fundamental shift in thinking. It requires one to challenge the fundamental assumption of the current instructional model: that faculty members meeting with groups of students at regularly scheduled times and places is the only way to achieve effective student learning.”

These words are more true today than they were 16 years ago.

AUDIO | Looking to the newspaper industry to understand higher education’s transformation [White]

On 10/28/2013, in 21st century, change, changing business models, future of higher education, game-changing environment, higher education, innovation, internet, journalism, lifelong learning, New "Amazon.com" of Higher Education, new business models, online learning, personalized/customized learning, strategy, streams of content, web-based collaboration, by Daniel Christian

AUDIO | Looking to the newspaper industry to understand higher education’s transformation — from evoLLLution.com by Byron White | Vice President for University Engagement, Cleveland State University

Except (emphasis DSC):

One of the lessons I do think can be learned is really tailoring a focus to individual students … and moving more toward a reader-driven kind of format, where you really are having to pay attention to individuals who are coming, each one, and having to customize and personalize what they are looking for.

The other thing I think [is] a lesson to learn is to really be focused on the outcomes those individual users … are looking for. I don’t think the newspaper industry ever really redefined the kind of outcome or value newspapers were providing to readers, other than providing them with the news of the day. You know, the New York Times, “All the news that’s fit to print.” In reality, what we should have been shifting toward was helping people make sense and navigate their lives and their worlds. And I think we started talking that way, but we never really developed the evidence we were really helping people do that.

Higher education can learn from that. If we can move from providing students [with] knowledge, information, even a credential, to seeing ourselves as being in the business of developing people to have lifelong success … I think we’ll start to see the ways we provide that might be different than just the traditional ways of sharing knowledge.

That’s a lesson we can learn from what newspapers, I think, weren’t able to transition to.

3. The move to free online content significantly changed journalism, both in terms of the value readers put into written news and their expectations for accessibility and speed of reporting. What kind of an impact do you see the growth of online learning having on students’ expectations of higher education?

The attraction of online shopping [Kuper]

On 10/28/2013, in 21st century, 24x7x365 access, corporate / business world, corporate universities / corporate training, higher education, online learning, training / L&D, workplace, by Daniel Christian

The attraction of online shopping — from evoLLLution.com by Shaul Kuper | Chief Executive Officer, Destiny Solution

Excerpt:

While there has been much debate on how to attract the dwindling numbers of high school students, there has been much less discussion focused on attracting adult students and corporate partners. To my mind, this is a more important issue. Corporations spend on average $485 billion a year on postsecondary training and development but, currently, little of this money goes to accredited higher education institutions. [2] Combine this market with the 9 million adults already enrolled in higher education and the 80 million potential adult enrollees, and you are left with a big opportunity. [3],[4]

If we are going to attract these students, we need to know more about them, more about how they think and more about how they shop. Here’s what I know:

“The program is neither ‘massive’ nor ‘open.’ It is, however, the future.” [Ferreira]

On 10/22/2013, in 21st century, future of higher education, game-changing environment, higher education, MOOCs -- Massive Open Online Courses, online learning, reinvent, staying relevant, using teams, by Daniel Christian

Excerpt from A Direction for Online Courses from LinkedIn.com by Jose Ferreira, Founder at Knewton (emphasis DSC)

The Non-MOOC Landscape
The improvements — such as high quality textbooks, materials, and supporting services —needed to turn MOOCs from lectures into fully developed courses cost money. In response, some MOOC facilitators are beginning to offer non-MOOCs, sometimes called SPOCs — “small, private online courses.” Udacity partnered with Georgia Tech to offer a Masters in Computer Science priced around $7,000.

The program is neither “massive” nor “open.” It is, however, the future. Within a decade, virtually every large university in the United States, and many elsewhere as well, will offer online courses — for credit and for fee. These courses will be particularly useful to students who don’t already have access to comparable courses.

…

The for-profit universities have just a few years — until there is widespread market awareness that these not-for-profit degree programs exist — to improve and in some cases reinvent their operations.

…

It will be these high-production value, for-credit online courses that will play the central role in the ongoing educational revolution. It will be the institutions themselves who are the great disruptors.

From DSC:
Valerie’s interactive chart speaks to many of the items I was trying to capture a while back in this graphic:

50+ Percent Off! The Walmart of Education [Christian & Grush]

On 10/17/2013, in 21st century, 24x7x365 access, changing business models, cost of getting a degree, dangers of the status quo, Daniel S. Christian, digital learning, disruption, education reform, education technology, experimentation, future, future of higher education, game-changing environment, higher education, ideas, innovation, internet, learning ecosystem, Learning from the Living [Class] Room, MOOCs -- Massive Open Online Courses, more voice more choice more control, multimedia, New "Amazon.com" of Higher Education, online learning, reinvent, social learning / networks, staying relevant, strategy, surviving, trends, universities, workplace, by Daniel Christian

From DSC:
This piece is from a recent interview I did with Mary Grush (Campus Technology; @Campus_Tech) re: The Walmart of Education. Though this vision dates back to 2008, we are most assuredly seeing signs of this vision taking place today. Thanks Mary for your time!

It’s important to note that this vision also aligns with what I’ve been saying about Learning from the Living [Class] Room. Videos regarding this vision have been designed, shot, edited — and they are forthcoming. I’d like to thank Mr. Steven Niedzielski (@marketing4pt0) here at Calvin College and also Mr. Sam Beckett (@samjohnbeck) for their help and assistance with those videos.

Reflections on “Behind the scenes in the making of a MOOC”

On 10/15/2013, in 21st century, blended learning, Daniel S. Christian, digital learning, digital video, education technology, higher education, hybrid learning, innovation, instructional design, K-12 related, MOOCs -- Massive Open Online Courses, multimedia, New "Amazon.com" of Higher Education, online learning, participation, using teams, by Daniel Christian

Behind the scenes in the making of a MOOC — from forbes.com by Michael Horn

A couple of thoughts hit me here:

1) This article is a great example of the use of TEAMS of people to create and deliver learning materials. Consider some quotes:

…we’ve been working for the past few months with Silicon Schools Fund and the New Teacher Center to create a MOOC on Coursera about high-quality blended learning.

…

Without the hard work of an entire team—from our team at the Clayton Christensen Institute to our partners and friends at the Silicon Schools Fund and New Teacher Center and from our videographer Eric L. Wong to The Learning Accelerator, which provided support—it’s been clear to me that we could not have pulled this off.

…

We could not have created this course without the amazing cooperation and insights from the students, teachers, and leaders at these schools.

Also see this posting on this topic.

2) There is no silver bullet in how to achieve learning objectives. Again, consider some quotes:

What we’ve learned–and what emerges in the course–is that there is no definitive way to do blended learning. The schools that we profile have made many different decisions and all produced wonderful results for students.

…

In the process, we believe that they will create a host of new innovations and make a series of novel choices around blended-learning design.

Interesting concepts embedded at Coursmos.com

On 10/14/2013, in 21st century, higher education, innovation, instructional design, learning agents, learning ecosystem, Learning from the Living [Class] Room, lifelong learning, love of learning, online learning, streams of content, by Daniel Christian

From coursmos.com

Complete a micro-course in just one hour or less.
Learn just what you need or are interested in right now.
Expand any lesson as a separate micro-course.
Request a new micro-course and get it in a few days.

From DSC:
Would be interesting if this type of model gets integrated into Learning from the Living [Class] Room type of approach. It brings to my mind “just-in-time learning” as well as the idea of tapping into “streams of content.”

Also see:

Video: Enstitute: The entrepreneurial alternative to college — from PBS NewsHour Online

Humanizing your online class [Pacansky-Brock]

On 10/14/2013, in online learning, pedagogy, teaching & learning, teaching online, by Daniel Christian

Humanizing your online class — from InsideHigherEd.com and Academic Partnerships, by Michelle Pacansky-Brock

From DSC:
Resources include the recording of this recent webinar, the accompanying slides, etc. Also see:

Humanizing Your Online Class Webinar: A Success! — from facultyecommons.org

B of A partners with Khan Academy to help people develop better money habits

On 10/14/2013, in 21st century, 24x7x365 access, business, collaboration, cost of getting a degree, Daniel S. Christian, digital learning, disruption, elearning, MOOCs -- Massive Open Online Courses, New "Amazon.com" of Higher Education, online learning, workplace, by Daniel Christian

From DSC:
Thanks to Krista Spahr, Senior Instructional Designer at Calvin College, for this resource.

It’s interesting to see the lines blurring between the workplace, higher education, and even K-12. Pooling resources, establishing more collaborations, etc. may be part of our future — especially if it initially costs a lot create the materials. But then — as with the Walmart of Education — there is some serious volume underlying these trends.

It appears from the introductory piece here that Sal’s not out to make money with this — he’s trying to stay true to their mission.

Harvard Business School launching online learning initiative [Lavelle & Zlomek]

On 10/10/2013, in 21st century, digital learning, distance education, education technology, elearning, future of higher education, game-changing environment, higher education, innovation, MBA, MOOCs -- Massive Open Online Courses, online learning, organizational change, United States, using teams, by Daniel Christian

Harvard Business School launching online learning initiative — from businessweek.com by Louis Lavelle and Erin Zlomek

Excerpt:

Harvard Business School is quietly developing its first online learning initiative, which it hopes will make HBS the world’s top provider of high quality online business education.

The move has the potential to shake up the nascent online education market and give the elite business school a toehold in the world of MOOCs, or massive open online courses. It’s a high-stakes gamble for HBS, which has one of the world’s best-known—and carefully burnished—educational brands.

Smart Machines: IBM’S Watson and the era of cognitive computing [Kelly &Hamm]

On 10/09/2013, in 21st century, analytics, Artificial Intelligence/Agents/LLMs/and Related, business, computer science, corporate universities / corporate training, cost of getting a degree, Daniel S. Christian, education technology, emerging technologies, experimentation, future of higher education, game-changing environment, heutagogy, higher education, homeschooling/homeschoolers, human-computer interaction (HCI), innovation, intelligent systems, intelligent tutoring, K-12 related, learner profiles, learning agents, learning ecosystem, Learning from the Living [Class] Room, lifelong learning, MOOCs -- Massive Open Online Courses, more voice more choice more control, New "Amazon.com" of Higher Education, new business models, online learning, online media, online tutoring, platforms, programming, research, vendors, by Daniel Christian

Smart Machines: IBM’S Watson and the era of cognitive computing — from cup.columbia.edu by John E. Kelly III, Director of IBM Research, and Steve Hamm, writer at IBM and former business and technology journalist

Excerpt (emphasis DSC):

Computers today are brilliant idiots. They have tremendous capacities for storing information and performing numerical calculations-far superior to those of any human. Yet when it comes to another class of skills, the capacities for understanding, learning, adapting, and interacting, computers are woefully inferior to humans; there are many situations where computers can’t do a lot to help us.

…

But the goal is not to replicate human brains or replace human thinking with machine thinking. Rather, in the era of cognitive systems, humans and machines will collaborate to produce better results, each bringing its own skills to the partnership. The machines will be more rational and analytic-and, of course, possess encyclopedic memories and tremendous computational abilities. People will provide judgment, intuition, empathy, a moral compass, and human creativity.

From DSC:
Consider what Watson “read in” to come up with some recommendations:

Watson

Addendum on 10/14/13 (emphasis DSC):

Watson is being used to assist with the treatment of cancer patients. According to an article from medicalnewstoday.com, Watson is “revolutionizing cancer care and research and speeding up progress for patients.”

In that same article, it mentions that, so far, Watson has ingested:

Over 600,000 pieces of medical evidence
2,000,000 pages of text from 42 academic journals and clinical trials based on oncology research
A huge number of patients’ records spanning decades of cancer treatment history, including medical records and patient outcomes. Watson can sift through 1.5 million pieces of such records and provide doctors with evidence-based treatment options within seconds.

One of IBM’s General Managers who works with Watson said:

“breakthrough capabilities bring forward the first in a series of Watson-based technologies, which exemplifies the value of applying big data and analytics and cognitive computing to tackle the industry’s most pressing challenges.”

Learning Ecosystems