LINK: Big Names Don’t Trump Good Service When it Comes to Student Satisfaction

Interview with Diana Wu, Dean of Extension at UC Berkeley, about students’ choosing institutions based on level of support as much as (or more than) the institutional reputation.

While the higher education marketplace is becoming increasingly competitive, both analysts and leaders have suggested that elite, big-name universities are protected from the change. However, this is not necessarily the case. Although students still want to be aligned with big names, they have the same heightened expectations of the institution as learners industry-wide. In this interview, Diana Wu discusses these heightened expectations, and shares her thoughts on why big-name institutions are not immune from this industry shift.

Big Names Don’t Trump Good Service When it Comes to Student Satisfaction.  Evolllution. March 16, 2015.

Link: Online Teaching, it Turns Out, Isn’t Impersonal

Excellent reflections by UCONN professor Gregory Semenza, who taught an online course for the first time this year, over on the Chronicle’s Vitae site.

Now that I’ve completed this first course, I feel strongly that Edmundson and other critics — however well-intended — are simply misguided about online learning being too impersonal. I got to know my group of 30 online students as well as, or better, than any undergraduate course I’ve taught in recent years.

Read the full article here.

8 Characteristics of Good Online Video

video-online-learningAccording to a report published in the MERLOT Journal of Online Learning and Teaching, instructor-generated video can have a positive influence on student satisfaction with, and engagement in, online courses. But not all videos are created equal.

Research conducted by the American Academy of Neurology also reveals that “watching videos helps boost brain plasticity,” or the ability of the brain to undergo physical changes at any age. Learners who were trained to perform a particular task through videos performed better than those who learned through images and text, the researchers found—and they concluded that video has a “higher impact on the brain.”

 

Learn 8 high-impact strategies here.

Rubrics for Assignments in Online Courses

An important aspect of an online course is grading assignments and providing feedback. This is especially true in an asynchronous course where there is no real-time interaction between the instructors and students. Once a student completes a learning activity, the instructor teaches via the grading of the assignment and provides clear and helpful feedback to the student.

Read full article here.

Udacity and Google Unveil Co-Developed Nanodegree

For-profit online education provider Udacity and Google today unveiled a new micro-credential program, the Senior Web Developer Nanodegree. The online program is designed to provide students with “the tools, frameworks, and techniques needed to write robust code for progressive Web applications that are secure and easy to use,” said Sarah Clark, program manager in Google’s Developer Training group, in a blog post.

 

Read full article here.

Link: Coursera Chief: iMBA A Glimpse At Future

I think graduate education is about to undergo a massive disruption.

Daphne Koller, co-founder of Coursera, suggests that innovative online graduate programs–such as the “stackable” online MBA programming now offered by the University of Illinois, entirely through MOOCs–will expand in the coming years.

Read full article here.

Link: 4 Ways ePortfolios Are Going Beyond College Resume Building

What happens when you take the original ePortfolio concept and expand its horizons to include other purposes?

This roundup summarizes recent case studies in the use of portfolios in undergraduate education. Read the full article here.

Link: Why Someone Else Takes Your Online College Class

There are services, multiplying as you read this, that offer the services of a human being who will “attend’’ any online college course you want a surrogate for, with a promise of getting a passing grade, or even a high grade if you are willing to pay for that add-on.

These cheating services advertise openly on websites frequented by college students, on sites like Craigslist, which advertise to students within the specific areas the colleges are “located” in. So even if you are part of a “blended’’ program, which combines online classes with on-campus classes, the cheating services can help you get through that class you don’t have to show up for.

Read full article here.

Link: 7 Trends That Will Revolutionize Online Learning

The idea that online learning could actually be better than face-to-face instruction has gained credence in recent years as new technology solutions promise to make the educational experience more personalized and engaging. Has that time finally arrived? Here, eCampus News looks at seven trends that have the potential to remake the world of online learning.

Read full article here.