by Molly Hensley-Clancy, BuzzFeed With online for-profit schools leading a boom in black college enrollment, historically black colleges are learning, cautiously, from the model. Now, amidst a push by one of the largest benefactors of historically black colleges, the country’s HBCUs are beginning to figure out how they fit into an online space once dominated by for-profit colleges. They are struggling, too, with the question of what an online education at a black college looks like. "Generally speaking, HBCUs, especially public HBCUs, are behind the curve on this one," said Johnny Taylor, the president of the Thurgood Marshall College Fund, which supports most of the country’s public HBCUs. Taylor believes that building online programs is a matter of dire urgency, and even survival, for historically black schools. They need online programs to compete with majority-white institutions for the older, nontraditional students that tend to be attracted to online programs. http://www.buzzfeed.com/mollyhensleyclancy/black-colleges-are-going-online Share on Facebook

by Richard N. Van Eck, EDUCAUSE Review What will DGBL look like in another ten years? Who knows? Maybe the digital game natives won’t have arrived after all. Or perhaps they will be very different from what we are expecting—just as today’s digital natives are not what we expected in 2006. Or maybe DGBL will help usher in a new era of effective (though not entirely game-based) teaching. What we do know today is that we have the evidence and the design tools to demonstrate that digital games are powerful learning tools. Whether we choose to take advantage of the opportunity before us is a completely different question. http://er.educause.edu/articles/2015/10/digital-game-based-learning-still-restless-after-all-these-years Share on Facebook

by Elke M. Leeds and Jim Cope, OJDLA KSU redefined the MOOC value proposition through collaboration of university leadership and faculty. The new proposition shifts measures of success beyond just course completion to include measures that benefit students, faculty, and the institution. Students benefitted through access to open educational resources, the acquisition of professional learning units at no cost, and the potential of college credit at a greatly reduced cost. Academic units benefited through a mechanism to attract students and future revenue while the university benefited through digital impressions, branding, institutionally leveraged scalable learning environments, streamlined credit evaluation processes and expanded digital education. http://www.westga.edu/~distance/ojdla/fall183/leeds_cope183.html Share on Facebook

by Veronica Outlaw and Margaret Rice, OJDLA The rise of online and hybrid courses at the higher education level increases the need for distance learning infrastructures to nourish online faculty preparedness and student online learning success. One part of the distance learning infrastructure is incorporating the use of educated and trained instructional designers to assist faculty in developing robust and quality online courses. Developing online courses with an instructional designer is a very laborious process, but the results can outweigh the struggles that faculty encounter when doing it on their own. The authors explain what is involved in an established six-step course development model for developing, reviewing, and delivering a quality online course. http://www.westga.edu/~distance/ojdla/fall183/outlaw_rice183.html Share on Facebook

by Debra Hughes, eMPR In a little less than 4 years after massive online course company Coursera’s existence, what began in a Stanford University classroom of 400 students has become a global classroom of 100,000, with 16 billion total course enrollments. "We envision a world where anyone, anywhere can transform their life by accessing the world’s best learning experience," said Daphne Koller, PhD, said, in delivering the 2015 ACR/AHRP Annual Meeting Opening Lecture. "The impact in the real world can be quite significant and inspiring." The implications for education—more specifically, the process of learning—are enormous. This is relevant when one considers that 91% of millennials change jobs in less than 3 years, and new jobs often require new skills. Consider, too, that 65% of tomorrow’s job don’t exist, Dr. Koller said, and that "58% of employers worldwide believe that new college grads are inadequately prepared for work." http://www.empr.com/acrarhp-annual-meeting-2015/coursera-transforming-lives-worldwide-through-education/article/452552/ Share on Facebook

by Maha Bali, Chronicle of Higher Ed When we use technology extensively in our teaching (or work in general, really), how do we handle unexpected changes to that technology? Such changes could be a website going down, a tool changes or disappears, or even worse! Here are some thoughts and workarounds. http://chronicle.com/blogs/profhacker/when-the-technology-changes-on-you/61291 Share on Facebook

by Jeff Campbell, University Business Going digital doesn’t have to mean creating an impersonal academic experience. Far from it. The challenge in creating a virtual classroom setting is how to do so while making it as focused on the student’s experience. This is important for advanced degrees that cater to individuals who are active in their careers. These students desire to learn as much from their peers as they do their professors. I believe there’s no better platform to engage a global student body so long as the environment is set up correctly. Following are three ways to accomplish this. http://www.universitybusiness.com/article/three-ways-make-virtual-classroom-personal Share on Facebook

By Anayat Durrani, US News These courses combine online and on-ground learning, even as online degree programs are rare in the Arab region.  Online courses can give students the flexibility to learn on their own schedules. The use of blended learning is becoming more common at Arab region universities, and can prove an added benefit to traditional learning for Arab international students studying in the region. Somali national Zakaria Mohamed Hagi Hassan is currently taking a mix of in-class and online learning for his course on advanced crop physiology in the College of Food and Agricultural Sciences at King Saud University in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia. "Online classes play an important role in a student’s full understanding of the course, and sometimes it’s a supplement for what you have learned in the class," says Hassan, who is pursuing a Master of Science in crop science. http://www.usnews.com/education/best-arab-region-universities/articles/2015/11/10/more-arab-region-universities-offer-blended-learning Share on Facebook

By Ian Quillen, US News Traditional-age college students in online programs can benefit from campus access and success courses. Because online higher education has generally been aimed at older students, so has most advice for online students. But with an increasing number of 18- to 24-year-olds turning online for at least some of their undergraduate study, perhaps it’s time to update that advice. Here are five suggestions for traditional college-age students considering a new-age virtual approach to a degree. http://www.usnews.com/education/online-education/articles/2015/11/09/5-ways-younger-students-can-be-successful-in-online-programs Share on Facebook

By Toni Fuhrman, Campus Technology Two visionary IT experts discuss the biggest trends in mobile for the coming year, from 3D touch and virtual reality to wearables and the Internet of Things. For years, mobile technologies have had an enormous influence on higher education, changing the way students communicate, access information and learn. And there’s no sign of mobile losing steam anytime soon. According to the 2015 NMC Horizon Report, which forecasted the most important ed tech developments in higher education, mobile-related trends will rule for at least the next five years: In the short term, with a time-to-adoption horizon of one year of less, the bring-your-own-device (BYOD) phenomenon will proliferate; in the mid-term (two to three years) wearable technologies will see significant growth; and in the long-term (four to five years), the Internet of Things (IoT) will have wide-reaching impact. https://campustechnology.com/articles/2015/11/10/top-mobile-trends-to-watch-in-2016.aspx Share on Facebook