by Lyndy Berryhill, Oxford Eagle By staying up to date with how today’s students learn, University of Mississippi instructors also are keeping up with how they are distracted. A new app called Pocket Points is designed to reward students for not checking their cellphones during class with coupons. Once the app is downloaded, a student can sit down in class, open the app, lock their smartphone and start scoring points. Points vary throughout the day, but the more students use the app on campus, the points per class can increase. Students can score up to three per class period. The points can then be redeemed at local businesses or in larger chain stores as well as online. http://www.oxfordeagle.com/2015/10/11/app-helps-students-pay-attention-in-class/ Share on Facebook

by Susan Groenwald, The Philadelphia Inquirer Mark Zuckerberg and Bill Gates have some company. Today, more than one in five working-age Americans is a college dropout. Unfortunately, most dropouts aren’t tech billionaires. Many are nontraditional students who leave school not because of academic concerns, but because of issues specific to their stage of life: a sick family member, a job loss, a lack of family support or just the pure shock of returning to school after a long hiatus. Colleges must do more to reverse this trend. After all, they bear at least some responsibility for the fact that 20 percent of their students walk away. Schools can drive down the dropout rate — and get more students to graduate — by investing in staffing support and resources for high-risk students. http://www.dailyegyptian.com/opinion/article_885bfc2e-76c5-11e5-b949-d3c41c451a76.html Share on Facebook

By Tara García Mathewson, Education Dive Kennesaw State University in Georgia has dubbed its entry into the world of massive open online courses a success — not by the traditional standard of course completion, but based on branding, student access, and return on investment. According to eCampus News, MOOCs have increased the brand visibility for the university and expanded student access to KSU course materials. Researchers also measured the ROI, defined by the number of MOOC participants who later enrolled in a university program, and in the first year, KSU far exceeded its goal to simply break even. http://www.educationdive.com/news/value-of-moocs-more-nuanced-than-completion-rates/407548/ Share on Facebook

by Mir Juned Hussain, Tech Portal Google, during its I/O 2015 developer conference in May had announced a partnership with Udacity to launch a six-course Android Development Nanodegree. The company wanted to allow developers to learn how to write apps for Google’s mobile operating system. Surprisingly, these new Nanodegrees turned out to the most popular ones by Udacity, attracting more than 300,000 people to enrol in the courses. As a part of that initiative, Google has now introduced a new Nanodegree, which will consist of a Tech Entrepreneurship certificate, access to coaches, guidance on your project, help staying on track and career counseling. If all you want is the content, quizzes, and projects, all of that is available online for free at udacity.com/google. http://thetechportal.in/2015/10/19/google-teams-up-with-udacity-introduces-tech-entrepreneur-nanodegree/ Share on Facebook

by Today Online Chinese universities are spending hundreds of thousands of dollars on sleek videos and translations. They are advising instructors to abandon dull lecturing styles. And they are coaching professors on how to deal with foreign students, telling them to embrace open discussion and dissent. But the effort faces significant challenges, most notably convincing overseas students that their courses are intellectually compelling and rigorous, despite China’s strict limits on academic freedom. It also puts online education providers in a difficult position, forcing them to strike a balance between preserving academic freedom and maintaining high standards for thousands of courses. Mr Yong Zhao, an education professor at the University of Oregon, compared China’s push in online education to its efforts to build an international following for its flagship news network, CCTV, in the past decade. "China has been on the receiving end of education for a long time, and now it has a big opportunity," Professor Zhao said. "The question is, can it really reach anybody? Does it have the same credentials, quality and authenticity?" http://www.todayonline.com/chinaindia/china/china-turns-online-courses-promote-culture Share on Facebook

by KTHV Universities across the state are expanding and strengthening their online degree programs. According to Arkansas Business, it’s an attempt to attract some of the 300,000 plus potential students who can’t attend classes on a campus. The University of Arkansas system recently launched its online-only university called the eVersity, which is designed to go after Arkansans who have some college credits but aren’t in a position, either financially or personally, to attend college to complete or earn a degree. Online degree programs have been around in Arkansas for years and now many Arkansas universities are ramping up those efforts. http://www.thv11.com/story/money/business/arkansas/2015/10/19/arkansas-business-ark-colleges-doing-more-to-get-online-students/74244500/ Share on Facebook

By Joshua Kim, Inside Higher Ed If I worked for any of the open online learning platforms - EdX or Coursera or NovoEd or OpenLearn - I’d create a dedicated mobile only team. I’d send the team to China (or India) and have them design an open app learning platform from scratch. I would accept that the future of higher education is in the emerging countries of East and South Asia, Africa, and South America. If the future of learning is digital, and the digital future of learning is mobile, will that future unfold on the mobile web or the app? Do learning platform providers have the bandwidth to code for both the mobile web and the app? Is trying to do both mobile web and apps for education limiting the quality and reach of both? https://www.insidehighered.com/blogs/technology-and-learning/mobile-learning-apps-vs-web Share on Facebook

BY SUSAN FISER, the Concordian Concordia has joined with the Council of Independent Colleges, an organization dedicated to helping small liberal arts colleges, in offering a new program called Consortium for Online Humanities Instruction this year. Concordia was among 100 colleges who applied to be a part of the program, and was one of 21 colleges who were accepted, according to Dr. George Connell, chair of the humanities department. The program was mostly sponsored by the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation, which helps promote and support the department of humanities in the United States. Each college offers two classes to the program. http://theconcordian.org/2015/10/22/humanities-courses-go-online Share on Facebook

by Phil Tann, Android.net As part of a seemingly long running partnership, Google has today announced a new collaboration with Udacity in the form of a new course focusing on Android Wear development. The course includes practical advice, code snippets and sample code, the clear aim of which appears to be to get more developers involved with Android Wear and make it the dominant wearable platform. The best part about the course from Udacity is that its not an expensive course, in fact; it’s free. They’re looking at 6 hours per week from developers to work through the course and expect it to take most users around 2 weeks so it’s not a huge commitment to take your app to greater heights on Android Wear. http://ausdroid.net/2015/10/22/udacity-google-collaborate-help-developers-get-best-android-wear/ Share on Facebook

by Harvard University Welcome to your window into online learning at Harvard. Curated by Harvard Alumni Association alumni volunteers, this selection of courses reflects the variety of topics, platforms, and structures the University has to offer. Engage with classes that interest you at your own time and pace, wherever and whenever you want. Offerings will be refreshed throughout the year, so check back for updates. This is just a starting point. If you don’t find what you’re looking for on this page, explore the rest of the Online Learning site. You can use the tools at the top of the page to sort by category or course title. Harvard Online Learning provides opportunities for lifelong learning, including open courses from HarvardX, for-credit programs from Harvard’s Division of Continuing Education, and a selection of offerings from across Harvard’s professional schools, from business to public health. Dive in now and learn something new. http://online-learning.harvard.edu/alumni Share on Facebook