According to data released by the CNNIC (China Internet Network Information Center) the number of mobile Internet users in China rose by over 11% to 557 million in 2014 compared to 2013. This means that over 86% of Internet users in Mainland China are accessing the web via their mobile phone, an increase by 5%. The overall Internet access rate is now at 48% with 649 million Chinese using the world wide web in total. 27% of Internet users are located in rural areas. 35% of Internet users own a tablet, the number goes up to 51% for users in higher education. The group of Internet users who consume video on a mobile phone is slightly bigger than those who watch videos on a computer or tablet. These numbers clearly show that edtech startups who want to reach learners in China need to provide a native mobile experience, even more so in the years to come. Further Reading China now has 557M mobile internet users, grand total of 649M netizens | Tech in Asia China Reaches 649M Internet Users in 2014: Report | TechNode Links Cyberspace Administration of China Picture License  Some rights reserved by the measure of mike

The higher education landscape will change more in the next ten years than it has in the previous one hundred and fifty. Technology has challenged traditional assumptions about learning, and the proliferation of MOOCs and vocational training programs has led to new choices for aspiring students. Education is undoubtedly becoming more global, with record numbers of students seeking to go abroad for further study. These shifts all point to one truth: students all over the world face an increasing number of choices about what, how, and where to study. Theoretically, it has never been easier for a Korean teenager who decides that she wants to pursue an education at one of Britain’s world-class universities to do so. She might opt to become one of over four hundred thousand international students studying in the UK for many reasons—not least because four of the world’s top ten universities are in the UK—and if she did so, it wouldn’t be just her who benefits. A recent report estimated international students’ financial contribution to the UK at over £14 billion pounds. From a cultural standpoint, international students are integral to creating a diverse university environment that can help prepare all students for a globally interconnected world. We can largely credit technology for creating massive shifts in how we think about education; technology has facilitated our ability to know about other educational options, travel with ease to study in different places, and even learn from a distance (MOOCs). Yet this rapidly evolving education landscape is not serving its students well. The fact is that the way that many students are making decisions is at best misguided and at worst detrimental to their futures. Nothing illustrates this better than the case of international students, who face the additional hurdle of navigating an unfamiliar and bureaucratic process with less support. Too many students finish their undergraduate degrees only to report that they didn’t attend a majority of their lectures, or were left uninspired by their chosen course, or with no real sense of how to translate their studies into a career. There are, of course, many reasons for these shortcomings, but we need to ask why we aren’t focusing more on how students make decisions and what to study in the first place. Are students’ chosen universities necessarily a good fit for them? This question, I believe, is one that applies to international and domestic students alike. The money that is being spent (and there is a lot of it) is resulting in gross inefficiencies that mean students are underserved by the status quo. In the case of international students, universities are painfully reliant on the agent model, in which recruiters receive commission for sending students to a given university. The problem with agents is that they are incentivised by the universities. They are only accountable to universities that pay them to recruit students; finding a match for the student was never their priority. Outside of agents, students can employ expensive private counsellors to help them think about how to make higher education decisions. But it is only the wealthy who can realistically afford these services, and particularly for international students who are operating in an environment where their schools may know little about international admissions processes or may have limited resources, the problem is exacerbated. Students whose parents didn’t go to university are even more disadvantaged in that the confusing university applications process may appear even more opaque. The truth is that we are failing our students, and the collateral damage of this failure is an increasingly unequal educational system whereby we are not maximising the potential of our students, and we aren’t getting enough different types of students through the door in the first place. As the education sector is disrupted by exciting advances that have the potential to revolutionise education, it is increasingly important to rethink what options serve students—and our educational system itself—best. In my opinion, technology presents a massive opportunity to democratise access to higher education by making students aware of the options they have and encouraging them to explore, think critically, and find universities that are good matches for them academically, socially and financially. It is only by scrutinising how students are making decisions about what and where they study that we will get closer to creating a higher education landscape that is fairer, more diverse and a better fit for our students’ needs. Picture License  Some rights reserved by ToastyKen

Blackboard shares in this infographic ‘best practices’ and ‘lessons learned’ from some of their cutting-edge professional college and university clients about their journeys into online learning. Click image above to enlarge

Student loan refinancer CommonBond announced a strategic partnership with education planning and financing provider Nelnet. As part of the deal Nelnet invested an undisclosed amount in CommonBond and agreed to finance at least $150 million of CommonBond's annual loan volume. The announcement comes on the heels of SoFi’s $200 million Series D at a $1.3 billion valuation. Founded in 2011, CommonBond raised over $100 million in venture capital to date. Nelnet is the first participant in CommonBond’s new forward flow program which lets interested capital providers buy loans directly on the CommonBond platform. "We believe that having a diversity of funding sources and funder profiles makes the most sense for building a strong and sustainable financial marketplace," states David Klein, Chief Executive and Co-Founder of CommonBond in the press release. The company also expanded its loan financing options to over 700 programs in the US. CommonBond connects students with alumni investors to offer easier and cheaper student loans. These investors tend to be genuinely interested in supporting grad students which leads to CommonBond’s other goal: building a community around the product. Further Reading CommonBond Announces Innovative Financing Partnership With Nelnet | PR Newswire CommonBond Obtains $150 Million in Boom for Online Lenders | Bloomberg CommonBond goes from disruptor to player | Crain’s CommonBond Boosts Its Student Loan Refi Footprint With $150 Million Investment From Nelnet | Forbes Links commonbond.co | Twitter | Facebook | LinkedIn | CrunchBase | AngelList

Few things have changed in the last few centuries as much as the way we learn. Students have gone from attending one-room school houses to having the world at their fingertips in the classroom. Here’s a look at how evolving technology has impacted education. Courtesy EdTechTimes

In January 2014 I started my first Massive Open Online Course (MOOC) after reading a blogpost on Poets & Quants. I did not know back then this would be the start of the many MOOCs I would complete in the next 10 months. Over the course of these 10 months I learned 3 important things about this new way to gain knowledge: The wealth of knowledge accessible through MOOCs is enormous Whether you want to study about the work of Scandinavian authors, the intricacies of app programming or just want to know something about horses there is a MOOC that will fit. The wealth of knowledge that is currently available through MOOCs is amazing. They cater to people with different needs from those who are working towards a MBA equivalent (I am one of them) to people who just want to know more about their field of interest and professionals with many years of experience. This wide range of people have something in common though: the desire to learn something new and to update their knowledge. This is great in an economy which requires everyone to keep on learning after they left formal education. Completing a MOOC requires a good amount of discipline With completion rates around 10% there is a fair chance you will not finish a MOOC you sign up for. Even though this low completion rate is not necessary a bad thing, it does indicate it requires a fair amount of discipline to complete a MOOC successfully. As there are no incentives other than your own motivation and discipline to continue learning, dropping out becomes easy. Where you have peer support and financial incentives (you already paid your tuition fee for the whole year) to help you to continue studying if it gets tough, these things are all absent in MOOCs. This is why MOOC users fall back on traditional forms of support such as study groups to maintain their motivation. Employers do not yet know how to treat MOOCs If you completed one or more MOOCs you might put it on your CV to demonstrate your learning. However, you just might soon find yourself explaining what MOOCs are to potential employers. As a recent graduate who was looking for a job I was in contact with several recruiters, none of which knew how to interpret those 3 lines on my CV. During the initial phone screening this was something that came up regularly. The most interesting questions I got was when I intended to finish my MOOC studies. As I see MOOCs as part of a lifelong learning strategy I kindly answered him I probably would never finish after which I explained the idea behind this answer. These interactions with recruiters show to me employers do not yet fully understand the potential impact of MOOCs can have on the professional development of their employees. Having enjoyed this new learning opportunities, I continue in my journey towards new knowledge. This post has first been published on LinkedIn. Picture License  Some rights reserved by Photomatt28

Do you pin? There are plenty of educators who are in fact pinning via Pinterest, sharing quotes, lectures, notes, research material, and more. This infographic depicts Pinterest’s role in education. For a text version of the ‘Using Pinterest in Education’ guide, check out ‘The Teacher’s Quick Guide to Pinterest.’ Source: WorldWideLearn, via Edudemic

One of the major tasks for college and university students is to stay organized. Away from the (loving) supervision of parents keeping track of what is due and when can become overwhelming, especially when the student has difficulties to set up a proper learning and work routine. WhatsDue aims to help organizationally challenged learners to keep up with their assignments through a simple to use app that reminds them of due dates through customizable reminders. Introduce your startup and give a short description of what you are doing. WhatsDue is the simplest way for students to keep track of due dates. Professors or students send us their syllabi and we input all of the due dates into our system. Then, students simply subscribe to their courses in our app on iOS or Android and have all their due dates in one place. Students receive automatic reminders before due dates as well as push notifications when assignment details change. Who are the founders, how did you meet, what are your different roles in the startup. WhatsDue has four co-founders: Dan Green, Aaron Taylor, Brennan Gleason, and Techtone. Dan is the technical director of WhatsDue and our sole developer. When he isn’t writing code, Dan can be found testing out new features for WhatsDue. Aaron is responsible for business development, growth, operations, and making sure that WhatsDue grows as quickly as possible. Dan and Aaron met 3 years ago at the start of their studies at the Interdisciplinary Center in Herzliya, Israel. Both are completing business degrees with a specialization in finance and are set to graduate in 2015. Techtone is a cloud integration firm based in Vancouver, Canada whose founder Omer Segoly is a long time friend and former classmate of Dan’s. Techtone ensures that no matter how many students are using WhatsDue, the app will always be quick and reliable. Brennan Gleason is our graphic designer, responsible for all of WhatsDue’s gorgeous graphics and interfaces. Brennan and his designs have been featured in the Daily Mail UK, as well as on ABC News. What is the main problem in education that you aim to solve. Many students have a hard time keeping track of due dates. Most schools recognize this problem and are trying to find solutions, but they rely on archaic learning management systems (LMSs) like Moodle or Blackboard. Most LMSs don’t offer students a place where they can see all of their due dates in one place, and this problem is amplified by many professors not using the LMSs properly. We address this problem at every level. First and foremost, our app is easy to use for students and gives them exactly what they want: every due date in one place. Instead of relying on professors to use complex systems, WhatsDue employees input syllabi into our database. Any changes to assignments are immediately reported to all users via push notifications. But we didn’t stop there. In order to make sure that nobody using our app ever forgets to start an assignment, we added customizable reminders. Our ultimate goal is to help students succeed by tearing down a major barrier to academic success: forgetting what’s due and when. In which markets / regions are you active. What markets / regions are next. We are currently active at select universities in the US, Canada, and Israel. We also have a number of K-12 teachers testing the app for their classes. Who is your target audience. Our target audience is university students who are organizationally challenged. These students often have dozens of assignments to complete throughout each semester and need some extra help keeping up with the workload. How do you engage with your target audience. How do you convert them into users of your product. The core of WhatsDue’s strength is our team. Our campus ambassadors are students who share their enthusiasm for WhatsDue with their peers and professors. We convert students into users by making their lives easier by helping them keep organized. What is your business model. How much does your product / service cost. WhatsDue is free and will always be free. For the time being, we are focused on gaining users. When we hit critical mass, we will earn revenue by offering school-related services that students normally use. These may include buying textbooks, hiring tutors, or searching for jobs. Who are your main competitors? What sets you apart from them? Our main competitors are homework apps like iStudiez and myHomework Planner. However, students need to enter all their own due dates into these apps, which is time consuming and a barrier to the organizationally challenged. With WhatsDue, this isn’t necessary; students only need to select their class in the app. As a bonus, we keep the students updated about changes to assignments. As soon as we verify one, everyone subscribed gets a push notification. If you raised funding, how much did you raise. Who are your investors. If not, are you planning to raise funding. We are actively looking for funding. Are there milestones you are especially proud of and would like to share. We did an alpha launch at Dan and Aaron’s university, and approximately half of the roughly 1000 students in the international program became regular users. What are the next steps in growing your startup. We are experimenting with different techniques for user acquisition, and our most promising one so far is working with professors. We have found that professors are excited about WhatsDue, especially because we don’t ask them to do anything other than send us a syllabus. Once we get the seed funding we need, we will expand our data entry team and target more North American universities. How can people get in touch with you. aaron@whatsdueapp.com www.whatsdueapp.com @whatsdue facebook.com/whatsdue

Results from the 10th annual survey conducted by the Sloan Consortium, the Babson Survey Research Group, and the College Board, are now available in the complete survey report titled, Changing Course: Ten Years of Tracking Online Education in the United States. This annual study has become the leading barometer of online learning in the United States. Some of the key report findings include: Over 6.7 million students were taking at least one online course during the fall 2011 term, an increase of 570,000 students over the previous year. 32% of higher education students now take at least one course online. 76% of academic leaders rate the learning outcomes in online education as the same or superior to those in face-to-face. Only 30.2% of chief academic officers believe that their faculty accept the value and legitimacy of online education - a rate that is lower than recorded in 2004 The complete report can be downloaded here. This infographic below highlights a few more of the key takeaways from the study. Click image above to enlarge

Google Helpouts will be shut down due to "slower than expected growth" on April 20th. Users can download their Helpouts history until November 1st using Google Takeout. Launched in November 2013, Google Helpouts was an expert directory built upon the Google Hangouts infrastructure. At launch, the platform was used by several education companies including Coursera, Rosetta Stone and Alliance Française. On the one hand, it is not unusual for Google to shut down products that do not gain enough traction, even though those products might have a dedicated group of users. On the other hand, there is a growing number of startups that offer the same service focused on a specific vertical. Berlin-based Flexperto offers its platform to banks and insurance companies, Miami-based LiveNinja offers its Katana platform to a broader range of businesses that want to offer video chat based advice to their customers. And then there is of course Chegg which uses InstaEDU’s on-demand technology to offer a low-cost college guidance counseling service. After being acquired by Chegg in June 2014, InstaEDU (now Chegg Tutors) offers on-demand tutoring sessions for students who are stuck during their studies or prepare for an exam at $0.40 per minute. via The Verge Further Reading Helpouts is shutting down | Google Coursera, Rosetta Stone, Alliance Française among the first to offer Google Helpouts | EDUKWEST Chegg Launches Affordable Online College Guidance Counseling Service | PR Newswire HEDLINE: Chegg acquires InstaEDU for $30 million | EDUKWEST