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.
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Category Archives: Adult Learning
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.
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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: 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.
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Link: A Sergeant Works Toward A UW Degree–In Korea
An overview of UW’s Integrated Social Sciences bachelor’s, launched in 2014 as a degree completion program delivered online, with the story of one active military member who is enrolled.
…ISS courses are part of a carefully constructed degree program with five core courses and dozens of upper-level electives. The program culminates with a capstone project in which students curate their best work—learning plans, articles, self-reflection essays, maps, and other materials—organizing them in an electronic portfolio that showcases their learning and achievements.
Link: An iPad in Every Home
Straumsheim, C., (2014) An iPad in Every Home
Lynn U.’s tablet revolution marches on. Its next initiative: affordable online degree programs delivered exclusively through iPads — at tuition rates that are a fraction of what the university regularly charges.Since its moment in the national spotlight, Lynn has replaced textbooks with Apple’s iPads and iBooks, adopted iTunes U as its learning management system and built its own attendance and gradebook app. Its revamped distance education programs, launching next fall with seven degree options, will extend the tablet revolution to Lynn’s online students at a fraction of what the programs used to cost.
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Letter to the Editor: Online Learning Success Depends on Student Effort
“Online learning is not for everyone — not for all students nor all faculty. It takes the ability to motivate oneself and the expectation of doing work on your own. Some researchers have identified a trait they call “learning presence,” which is a combination of self-efficacy and self-regulation, and found that it is needed for students to succeed in online classes.
Students need to begin an online class with the expectation of doing at least the same amount of work as they would in a face-to-face course. The standard is that students should spend two to three hours per week outside class for every hour in a class. So for a three-credit hour course, students should be spending nine to 12 hours per week in total. The same standard is used for online classes; even though there typically is no “class time,” students should expect to spend approximately 10 hours each week on the class in a regular term.”
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Link: The Quest for Demonstrable Outcomes
Schejbal, D., (2015) The Quest for Demonstrable Outcomes.
There is a buzz, even a frenzy, about competency-based education (CBE). Brought together by the Lumina Foundation-sponsored organization C-BEN (the Competency-Based Education Network), 30 institutions and 4 university systems have developed or are developing competency-based programs. About another 600 schools have claimed to be developing CBE programs, though there is no accurate data to substantiate that number. Why and why now?
Discover the Weekly Number of Hours Online Students Study
Instructors and students new to online learning often wonder about the optimal weekly number of hours needed to succeed in the course. This article reveals guidelines set forth by Arizona State University.
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Link: The Market is Sending a Message About Modalities; Are We Listening?
Online education did not develop with the intention to replace traditional education; it is a modality in response to a market need. It should be supported with infrastructure that suits the medium and the learners, which often differ from place- or “building-based” learners.
The market is pushing education to offer alternative modalities. Are we strategically planning on delivering high-quality products with exceptional service infrastructures, or are we forcing the proverbial square peg in the round hole running online options with building-based services?