by Joshua Kim, Inside Higher Ed (ed note: In this thought-filled posting, Josh Kim addresses issues related to the new book. These issues are relevant much more broadly.) In Reclaiming Conversation, you make the mistake of characterizing MOOCs as interchangeable with online education. This mistake is distressingly common amongst journalists, but in a book as influential as Reclaiming Conversation I find the conflation of these two educational methods to be particularly troublesome. The only thing that MOOCs and traditional online education share is a common enabling set of technologies - the internet and the phone. MOOCs contain two attributes that put them in a separate category to traditional online learning. First, they are built for scale. Second, they are built to be open. Traditional online courses are designed neither for scale or for openness. Traditional online courses are built around a model of a private community, one consisting of an educator and a limited number of students. https://www.insidehighered.com/blogs/technology-and-learning/open-letter-sherry-turkle-moocs-and-online-learning Share on Facebook

By MEG P. BERNHARD and MARIEL A. KLEIN, Harvard Crimson Provost Alan M. Garber ’76 reiterated the challenges of sustaining edX’s current financial model in a document released Friday and pointed to potential areas where the non-profit virtual education platform could improve, such as developing mobile platforms and accommodating students from different backgrounds. The 33-page "white paper" summarizes edX’s three-year history after its initial founding by Harvard and MIT and emphasizes the company’s three main goals: to improve on-campus learning, expand college-level course offerings to the world, and conduct research on learner behavior. Garber, though, projected that the current models for funding HarvardX—Harvard’s branch of the massive open online course provider—are unsustainable, given the high cost of generating online material and the time investment of professors producing the online courses. http://www.thecrimson.com/article/2015/10/26/garber-edX-financial-sustainability/ Share on Facebook

by eLearning Editorial Team Learn the best and easy ways to create an engaging online learning course through this wonderful infographic. Make the content relevant to students: The purpose of a course should be to provide students with relevant content that is packed with useful information, it’s easy to understand, and helps students reach their learning goals. Make the content visually appealing: An e-learning course should include a variety of elements that make it more appealing and keeps the students engaged. Make sure that the content is clean, easy to follow, and includes resources such as pictures, videos, and other multimedia files. Use gamification: Students enjoy gamified elements such as leaderboards, earning points, and badges because they make the learning experience more enjoyable and drive participation. Allow students to collaborate…. http://edtechreview.in/e-learning/2167-how-to-create-an-online-course Share on Facebook

by Distance-Educator Plan-Do-Study-Act (PDSA) is a continuous improvement process that can be used to inform practice in online education. This article describes how the PDSA cycle was used to enhance a new online health policy course in an accelerated online Registered Nurse- to-Bachelor of Science (RN-BS) program at one Southeastern University. A General Questions Forum (GQF) was used as the central repository for student questions. Questions (n=61) in the form of textual data were analyzed for similarities and differences and five themes were identified: (a) clarifying information, (b) figuring it out, (c) using technology and tools, (d) seeking confirmation, and (e) needing more information. Actions to improve the course included clarifying directions, facilitating transfer of knowledge, strengthening the link to technology support, providing opportunities for feedback, and improving course navigation. http://distance-educator.com/continuously-improving-online-course-design-using-the-plan-do-study-act-cycle/ Share on Facebook

by Claudio Sanchez, NPR Federal law does not prohibit undocumented students from enrolling in college, but it does something nearly as effective, banning them from receiving government aid. In recent years, though, some undocumented students have stumbled upon a little-known, nonprofit online university that doesn’t charge tuition and doesn’t care about students’ legal status. University of the People certainly got the attention of Miguel Angel Cruz. The 27-year-old entered the U.S. illegally from Mexico a decade ago. He settled near Tampa, Fla., where he now shares a small trailer with his father. Cruz learned English and earned his GED. But his dream of going to college was just that — a dream — because of the high cost. Then, he started searching online. "I was Googling, not for free but for cheaper universities, and I found the University of the People," Cruz says. http://www.npr.org/sections/ed/2015/10/26/449279730/the-online-college-thats-helping-undocumented-students Share on Facebook

by Don Ames, WWL Online degree programs are gaining credibility as more and more students embrace online learning. New Orleans area universities began to embrace the trend after Hurricane Katrina displaced the area’s population. "People, obviously, could take them at a distance," says Mark Rosa, Professor of Business at Tulane University. "You don’t have to be in the area, physically. You can partake in the classes from afar." Rosa says he wasn’t always a fan, preferring a more traditional ‘brick and mortar’ education. http://www.wwl.com/Online-learning-growing-in-acceptability/22108693 Share on Facebook

By India Express News Service For the first time in India, engineering education content is available in 3D on the internet. The web portal is aptly named LearnEngg.com. It delivers visual-based engineering content for the entire degree course. A total of 214 subjects across different branches of engineering are available now. Further, the product is customised for the syllabus of Anna University to offer direct benefit to the students. According to S Srikanth, MD, Infoplus Technologies, "LearnEngg.com will revolutionise engineering learning in classrooms as well as home. It is a pathbreaking initiative in delivering visual engineering content directly to the students." The course level contents are named as 3DM Classroom because of its 3D visuals across the subject. http://www.newindianexpress.com/cities/chennai/3D-Online-Course-on-Engineering/2015/10/26/article3096947.ece Share on Facebook

by GREGORY FERENSTEIN, Read, Write, Web The search giant recently announced a partnership with online course provider Udacity for a 4-month curriculum in how to build, monetize, and manage their very own business. All of the courses are free, with project feedback and coaching for a monthly fee of $200. Why would Google get into the business of business school? Google is vying for the same "app economy" as Apple. It needs countless developers to build amazing applications for their smartphone software, Android, web browser, Chrome, and various other products. The more developers who build for Google (as opposed to Apple or Facebook), the more attractive the tech giant’s products are to users. http://readwrite.com/2015/10/26/google-udacity-nanodegree-mba Share on Facebook

by Seb Murray, Business Because Google has become the latest big tech company to edge into business schools’ territory with the recent launch of a mini online degree for tech entrepreneurs. The search giant’s push into the nascent educational technology market follows the recent $1.5 billion purchase of online learning company Lynda.com by LinkedIn, which could see management courses hosted on the social network. It also comes as business schools strive to offer a market to entrepreneurs. Google’s partnership with Udacity, one of the top Mooc or massive open online course providers, will bear a four-to-seven-month long digital course on how to design, validate, prototype, monetize, and market a tech start-up. It is priced at up to $1,400. http://www.businessbecause.com/news/mba-distance-learning/3563/google-edges-into-business-education Share on Facebook

By Roger Riddell, Education Dive The coding bootcamp’s 99% job placement rate is verified by an independent audit. Coding bootcamps and other alternative credentialing programs have boomed in popularity since arriving in the higher ed space, largely on the promise of a more cost-effective and efficient path to a career. With that rapid ascent, particularly as various fields have taken their graduates’ credentials increasingly seriously, has come questions of oversight and accreditation. At the end of the day, who guarantees quality and outcomes? And should these programs be eligible for federal aid? The U.S. Department of Education recently took the first step in answering those questions with the announcement of its Educational Quality Through Innovation Partnerships (EQUIP) program, a pilot that will provide Title IV funding to partnerships between higher ed institutions and nontraditional programs. http://www.educationdive.com/news/flatirons-enbar-talks-bootcamp-accreditation-jobs-for-profit-concerns/407994/ Share on Facebook