This video, found thanks to Graham Attwell, highlights the role of the teacher in creating and sustaining a learning community, developing presence and fostering engagement. What additional tips might you offer faculty seeking to develop a sense of "presence" in their online teaching?

One of the biggest problems for language learners at any stage is to find people to practice their conversational skills with. Language exchange is probably one of the most popular methods but as I wrote back in the days, it’s complicated. i2istudy aims to provide language learners and teachers with a platform that does most of the heavy lifting by providing them with interactive content and ideas to work on. Introduce your startup and give a short description of what you are doing. i2istudy is an international online community, where people teach and learn foreign languages. On i2istudy anyone can be both a student and a teacher. It is an easy and effective way to speak a foreign language with a native speaker. Who are the founders, how did you meet, what are your different roles in the startup. The founders are Ilya Osipov, Anna Prasikova and Vadim Grishin. Before i2istudy.com we worked together on a different IT project. Ilya Osipov CEO (IT entrepreneur) Anna Prasikova CIO (linguist) Vadim Grishin CTO (programmer) How was the idea for your startup born? The project started in 2014. The founders of the project are a group of linguists, programmers and entrepreneurs experienced in creating large Internet projects. We noticed that the most effective way of teaching is when a person studies face to face with another person, and, unlike math, for instance, almost every person in the world has a perfect command of their native language, or at least its conversational part. We realized that the native language is a precious knowledge that can be an object of exchange. By teaching your native language you can take lessons in a foreign language in exchange for free. However, the difficulty is that sometimes there is nothing to talk about even in your native language and with a person you already know. Now two unacquainted people are able to talk for a long time in a foreign language, teaching each other at the same time! Besides, it’s one thing to speak a language, but teaching it to someone else is another! We created a new model of online studying, which had not existed before i2istudy: studying face to face with a system of slides according to the principle of time banking free, simple, on the spot What is the main problem in education that you aim to solve. «I understand how I can learn a foreign language. But how am I going to teach? I don’t know what to do!» - that’s the most common question that we get from people. We help people to find interlocutors for language practice and solve their contact problem - created the special connection platform, time banking, gave all training materials for the dialogue. There’s no need to be a professional teacher on i2istudy! You get dialogues that have been prepared for you, along with games, pictures and films. The teacher doesn’t have to prepare for a lesson, only read the assignment and add your personal touch to it. That’s why anyone who speaks a language freely can teach it! Who are your main competitors? What sets you apart from them? The main competitor is www.italki.com. They use Skype for communication. Our advantage is that we have audio and video integrated into the system, a platform for dialogue with educational materials and Time Banking. In which markets / regions are you active. What markets / regions are next. At the moment English, Russian, German and Spanish are in the system. Our regions are all countries who speak these languages. We plan to add French and other European languages as well as extending the service to the Asian market. Right now we already have a few lessons in Chinese. Who is your target audience. They are people whose occupation requires them to spend much time in front of a computer. They are those who want to brush up their knowledge of a foreign language but don’t have an opportunity to visit a tutor or have one come to their place and overpay for that. They are people who want to study whenever they have free time - at a lunch break, while the baby is sleeping, simply when they have a free evening. They are those who would love to talk to native speakers but don’t have foreign friends. Those who don’t want to slave over textbooks and do homework on their own, but simply communicate in a foreign language without concentrating on grammar. How do you engage with your target audience. How do you convert them into users of your product. We actively use Time Banking and Gamification in i2istudy. We motivate our users to invite their friends for sharing their native language and learning foreign languages. Each invited user receives bonuses from our system. What is your business model. How much does your product / service cost. We have two kinds of study options: for free and for money. FOR FREE - If you teach your native language and then you learn some different language. It`s like a barter. You share your language with each other, not using your money, but your time and knowledge as a currency. FOR MONEY - If you don't want to teach somebody, then you pay money for learning. Some people say «I don’t have time to teach, but I want to learn myself!» or «I don’t need to learn a foreign language, English is more than enough for me». If you don’t have the time to do both, you can teach and earn money from those who want to learn with you. In this case, users pay or, respectively, get money for their services. You can pay and or withdraw money on i2istudy. OUR BUSINESS MODEL: We take a commission of 15 percent from paid study. If you raised funding, how much did you raise. Who are your investors. If not, are you planning to raise funding. We raised $ 300K from private investors. Are there milestones you are especially proud of and would like to share. At the moment we are especially proud of the fact that users invite each other and we observe the viral growth of our user base. What are the next steps in growing your startup. Next milestones for us are growing the user base to a few million users and add more languages to the platform. How can people get in touch with you. For communication purposes with our users we use the feedback form in i2istudy, we use groups in social networks. We teach and learn in i2istudy with our users as well!

For the next several days, I’m in Las Vegas for the Sloan Consortium 6th Annual International Symposium on Emerging Technologies for Online Learning. I’ve had the privilege of serving on the steering committee for this conference this year and also will be presenting. I look forward to accepting the "challenge" of sharing my experience and takeaways of the conference. My blog here will be the primary home for my shared notes and social media, more to follow on my plan to knit my social media tools together to here on my blog and to "mob log" my experiences using just my iPhone. Let the sharing begin! You’ll find me sharing my et4online experience at the following social media locations.

Former textbook rental juggernaut Chegg is on the home stretch to turn itself into a 100% digital company. Ingram Content Group will take over the entire physical textbook business of Chegg and market it under the Chegg brand starting May 1st 2015. Chegg will exit its warehouse operations by the end of this year. The strategic Chegg Ingram partnership was launched in August 2014. Under the partnership Chegg will only earn 20% commission on printed textbook, but CEO Dan Rosensweig believes that digital revenues from services will balance out the loss in the long run. Overall digital revenue grew 71% year-over-year to $28.5 million and made up 34% of total revenues in Q4 2014, up 12% from Q4 2013. The year-over-year growth of subscribers to Chegg’s digital services is 54%. Chegg will use the freed capital from textbooks to further grow its digital services. The Student Hub currently reaches 50% of college students in the US and 75% of college-bound high school students. Further Reading Chegg outsources Textbook Distribution to Ingram in its Transition to Digital Company | EDUKWEST Chegg and Ingram Content Group Announce Agreement in Principle Setting Chegg on Path Towards 100% Digital Revenue | Press Release Chegg Reports Fourth Quarter and Fiscal Year 2014 Results | Press Release Chegg Will Outsource All Its Print Textbooks to Remake Itself as a Digital-Only Company | Re/code

If you are looking for an elegant way on your mobile device to follow #ET4Online conversations on Twitter, consider creating a custom section on Flipboard for following the saved Twitter searche #et4online. Here’s a quick tutorial on how to do so. Similar steps could be followed to add other streams of #et4online social media to Flipboard…give it a try!

GuideSpark, which provides HR organizations with a platform to turn paper-based training material into interactive and mobile courses, has raised a $22.2 million Series C led by Meritech Capital Partners with participation from previous investors New Enterprise Associates, Storm Ventures, and IDG Ventures. The new round brings the total funding raised to $42.2 million and will be used to invest in product, sales, and marketing. GuideSpark raised a $15 million Series B a year ago. According to GuideSpark the company has over 500 customers ranging from small businesses to 15% of the Fortune 500. GuideSpark’s platform helps those organizations to communicate and engage with their employees through customized video and mobile experiences throughout every stage of the employee life cycle. Further Reading GuideSpark Raises $22.2 Million in Series C Financing Round | Market Wired GuideSpark Raises $22.2M To Create Customized Videos That Make HR Less Tedious And Confusing | TechCrunch GuideSpark Snags $22M Series C for Developing HR Communication Tools | Xconomy Links guidespark.com

Maria H. Anderson, Ph.D. Director of Learning & Research, Instructure maria@instructure.com @busynessgirl Canvas Network: http://canvas.net Many of us have experience with SPOCs = Small Private Online Courses Recommendations: 2-4 hrs/wk, 3-6 weeks Considerations for Teaching MOOCs - Assessments - Resources provided - Required materials - Length - Access to resources Samples Social Media MOOC - http://learn.canvas.net/courses/1 Request student access to SoMe - http://bit.ly/sloancmooc Recommendations from Maria Resources Provided Wherever possible, provide resources that are freely accessible in most of the world Consider your role to be the curator of the millions of resources on the Internet Assessments The assessments should provide another opportunity for learning (ex: design a quiz that is designed for students to fail unless they read the readings, then let students go back and take quiz again after failing first time and then completing the readings) Activities The activities should provide a chance to apply what you’re learning in the real world Activities should provide a way for students to share and delight in what they are learning Discussions Discussions provide a place to truly leverage the diversity and life experiences of your participants. Discussions don’t have to be required unless the purpose of participating will be valuable to every student individually Length of Course MOOC students want to spend fewer hours per week and commit to less weeks This doesn’t mean you teach a less rigorous version of the same course. It means you teach a different course. It might mean you teach three courses instead of one. My Takeaways MOOCs (massive open online courses) are fundamentally different from SPOCs (specialized private online courses) student-created content are some of the most interesting and valuable components of MOOCs MOOCs can be great venue for experimenting with new learning opportunities for students MOOCs can be considered "service to the community" and are a great way to showcase the institution motivation for offering MOOCs still must be identified "enroll has become the new like button" ongoing availability adds a unique dimension

Lately, I have been looking at a lot of job postings. I often get excited about a possible opportunity and look at the company and become fascinated with who they are and what they represent. "My, what I would love to bring to an organization like that, I appreciate their message, their mission. I have experience in what they are asking for and needing. Oh, they require a college degree. Next…" Most employers now expect applicants to have at least a Bachelor’s in order to be able to contact them. The message is clear- Do not bother contacting us if you do not have a college degree. Nope. Stay away. We don’t care who you are, who you know, what you’ve done or what you are passionate about, or capable of. Sometimes, employers don’t even make a notation as to what you have to be degreed in at all; only that you have one. It is as if, they check a box on the form and that’s it. No exceptions. This brings up a few thoughts. My mother went to USC and received a degree in dental hygiene. Only to own her own remodeling company for 35 years. My father carries a zoology degree from USC and has spent most of his career life as a purchasing manager, writer, and business owner. For people who switch career paths in life, a degree becomes just a piece of paper. They still have to learn everything new that they need to know. Most of them do that with mentorship and work experience. This current college degree only applicants phenomenon strikes me strange for the following reasons. With standard protocol in (big) business over the last twenty years, being to either outsource work to other countries or to pay people as little as possible to help their bottom line- Why would employers now demand a degree that will mean they will have to pay them more than someone without? Older workers were weeded out of positions because they had nice salaries, longer vacations and benefits. Only to be replaced by inexperienced workers who had to learn on the job but were paid much less. Now let’s hire people we have to pay more. People get bored. The few people I know that were completely born to do the same job are engineers. They are wired for it, love it, breathe it and usually have enough change to keep it exciting for them. Other than the Professional roles, (doctors, lawyers, teachers) I think people in general want to mix it up a little. When people (Yes, I am making sweeping generalizations here, but as this is only my opinion, I think it’s ok) find a new something that gets them excited, they want to pursue it. They have big energy for it; strive to learn as much as they can about it. They try really, really, hard. Reading the article reference here- it takes much longer to fill a position when one requires a degree than it does if it is open to other applicants. Sixty one days to fill a college degree demanded position or 28 days for the same position without the moniker. That is potentially wasted productivity time. When employers add the must have 5-10 years of completely related work experience. Again, people get bored. Maybe they are looking for a new job because they are sick of their last job. They will bring that energy to a new company if they are tired of that work or market. Some employers complain that they can’t find any good applicants, no one fits the bill. Maybe it’s because you have knocked out 60 % of the potential people before you even know their name. Sometimes it feels like a secret club, one that takes significant money and time to get into. I am in NO WAY undermining a college education. It is very important and is becoming even more so as the years go on. However, for some, like me, a middle aged woman who has one daughter in college now and another one starting next year; taking the time and money away from them is not what I want to do. I do want to work, I want to work hard. I have ideas, energy and passion coming out of my ears. But I don’t have the degree. Next. Further Reading How 'Upcredentialing' May Close the Middle-Class Path Picture by Scott Beale / Laughing Squid

How do rollouts of new Blackboard releases impact institutions? What steps are institutions taking to prepare faculty, teaching staff, and students for the changes brought about by Blackboard upgrades? During this presentation at the 2013 Blackboard Product Development Offsite on May 15, 2013, Northern Illinois University shared its comprehensive faculty development strategy for supporting faculty and preparing the campus community for new upgrades. Specific steps taken to prepare faculty and staff for each service pack were shared, including the initiatives underway in conjunction with NIU’s upgrade from Learn 9.1 SP8 to SP11 in June 2013. Walk away with practical examples of how an institution is compiling and integrating available support documentation and resources from Blackboard to share with its campus as well as the wider Blackboard user community! Slides are available here | mobile-friendly slides

The internet is a fabulous thing and has shaped modern life in numerous ways. And clearly it had its impact on the way people learn today. Not only are there countless learning resources available, often one can learn something new completely free of charge. However, when looking for something on the Internet today, especially with the intention to gain knowledge, information and learn something new, the experience can be pretty overwhelming as there is so much content available. This is why curation in education has become so prominent over the past 2-3 years. Learners, and teachers alike, often rely on experts to cut through all the noise and come up with the best pieces of content, may it be articles, videos, infographics or other forms of content. MentorMob allows experts to create playlists where they can break down a longer and often complicated process of learning something into small and digestible steps. Introduce your startup and give a short description of what you are doing. MentorMob makes learning easier for everyone.The MentorMob community finds the best free learning content on the web and organizes it into free, comprehensive learning guides. MentorMob’s mission is to empower anyone to start, enhance or master any skill or hobby by making the best free learning content of the web easier to find. Who are the founders, how did you meet, what are your different roles in the startup. MentorMob was started by University of Illinois Alumni Kris Chinosorn and Vince Leung. After meeting at UIUC, both Kris and Vince knew there had to be a better, more efficient way to learn for free online and that is when MentorMob was born. Kris Chinosorn is a University of Illinois alum who acts now as the strategic and creative head of MentorMob. An early dotcom entrepreneur, Kris worked on several projects with the earliest employees of Facebook, Google and Paypal before coming across his realization of how to use the Internet to solve a worldwide problem. Vince comes in as the tech head of MentorMob with an engineering degree from the University of Illinois. He started his career in California working for exciting projects for both enterprise and consumer spaces, including the Motorola Razr. How was the idea for your startup born? The idea for MentorMob sprouts from the backgrounds of Kris Chinosorn and Vince Leung. Both avid learners, they found early on that the Internet was not quite the incredible tool for learning new skills and hobbies that everyone thinks it is. Even with millions of free lessons online, the content is almost impossible to navigate. Enter MentorMob. What is the main problem in education that you aim to solve. We are addressing a problem that everyone has, but have yet to realize. Search engines find information, but don’t organize it. By curating and organizing the best online learning content, MentorMob allows people who spend all their time searching to actually start learning. And MentorMob provides the community a way to learn and interact with anyone else who’s learning it...anywhere in the world. Who are your main competitors? What sets you apart from them? Google. YouTube. The internet. All give you a lot of content and most is of questionable quality. MentorMob provides one definitive learning guide of the highest quality content that is out there on the web. In which markets / regions are you active. What markets / regions are next. We are anywhere people are searching the web to learn a new interest, hobby or lifestyle. We make top quality education accessible for everyone. Currently, we have launched with kiteboarding, photography, snowboarding, parenting, wedding planning, salsa dancing, bachata and entrepreneurship. We have a list of mobs we will be moving into shortly. Any you want to see? Who is your target audience. Hobbyists, educators and lifelong learners around the global. YOU! What is your business model. How much does your product / service cost. The first phase involves brand sponsorships. The value proposition is building a relationship with a highly qualified group of users learning the hobby that the brand wants to sell, to be coupled with a very high engagement experience. Since users are on MentorMob to learn a hobby it is natural to learn about related products and services that you will need. Are there milestones you are especially proud of and would like to share. We are especially proud of watching our community grow, learn and interact around the world. From our internal standpoint it has been extremely gratifying to see our name in Times Square for the ringing of the NASDAQ bell. Also, this past year we were top 3 at SXSW Entertainment and Content. What are the next steps in growing your startup. Getting the word out there to more people around the world. Sharing the love! How can people get in touch with you. Kristin@mentormob.com @MentorMob www.facebook.com/mentormob

jrhode posted a photo:

One Education, an Australian non-profit partner of One Laptop per Child (OLPC), aims to breathe new life into the project. It revealed a prototype of a new version of the educational computer that takes some pages out of Google’s modular smartphone project Ara. The XO-infinity is a modular laptop, meaning the main components like WiFi antenna, battery, screen, camera and core are easily interchangeable through a Lego-like system. This makes the laptop easily repairable or upgradeable by simply switching out the desired components. Through the system One Education hopes to reduce electronic waste as older or broken components can be changed separately instead of replacing the entire laptop. One Education aims for a lifespan of ten years instead of two for most laptops and tablets. The XO-infinity can be used as stand-alone tablet or as a laptop and there are different processor units which enable it to run on Android, Linux or Windows. The first working model of the XO-infinity is expected to be shipped in August with a public launch in early 2016. Further Reading To infinity and beyond: A computer designed to outlast a childhood | Medium OLPC Australia to Launch a Modular, Hybrid Laptop/Tablet Called the XO Infinity | The Digital Reader Meet Rangan Srikhanta, the former refugee who wants to change the world one laptop at a time | Sydney Morning Herald Links one-education.org/infinity

jrhode posted a photo: via Instagram bit.ly/10Kl3oP

jrhode posted a photo:

jrhode posted a photo:

In this episode of Meet Education Project, Jessie Arora talks about new education technology companies, Teacher Square, and building a link between teachers and ed tech products.  Don’t miss it! Jessie Arora, founder of TeacherSquare, is focused on improving educational outcomes for all types of learners and empowering educators to play a more active and meaningful role in tech adoption in our schools.  She is particularly passionate about cultivating the education startup ecosystem to help create tools and services that improve teaching and learning for all students. As an angel investor she focuses on the K12 education space, applying her experiences from Google, Citizen Schools & the Stanford Graduate School of Ed. She blogs at edcrunch.org and you can follow her @Jessie_Arora. Social media & key links from the episode: Twitter:  @Jessie_Arora Blog:  edcrunch.org LinkedIn:  www.linkedin.com/in/jessiearora/ Goalbook:  Streamlining the IEP Shawn Rubin, and teacher/entrepreneur community building in RI EdTech Accelerators: Socratic Labs 4.0 Schools Imagine K12 School Models: Zaya.org For more episodes featuring thought leaders in education visit MeetEducationProject.com, subscribe to the podcast on iTunes and follow Nick DiNardo on Twitter.

E-commerce giant Alibaba together with Peking University launched a joined MOOC platform. Chinese MOOCs currently features over 20 courses from lecturers at Peking University which can be accessed for free. Some of the courses offer certifications for completion. According to Tech in Asia, the platform also lists six other universities as partners, including University of Hong Kong, National Taiwan University, and Beijing Normal, yet there are no courses available from these institutions at the moment. Chinese MOOCs enters a competitive market as both Coursera and edX have launched portals with Chinese partners over the past two years alongside homegrown portals like Kaikeba, Guokr, Jike Xueyuan or Xingshuai Teach. Online education is growing fast as it has become an attractive alternative for students in China who feel those offerings are more flexible and cheaper compared to traditional alternatives. Further Reading Alibaba and Peking University Establish Chinese MOOC Platform | TechNode Alibaba and top Chinese university launch new education portal for MOOCs | Tech in Asia China Sees Rise in Online Education as Students Prefer Its Flexibility | Yibada Links chinesemooc.org

2U, which offers select partner colleges and universities a cloud based SaaS platform, reported its fourth quarter and full year 2014 financial results last week. For the fourth quarter 2014 revenue was up 34% to $30.8 million. For the full year, revenue was up 33% and reached $110.2 million. Co-founder and CEO Chip Paucek expects revenue increase of around 31% for 2015 and called 2014 a milestone year for the company. 2U made its stock market debut on March 30th 2014 and extended its contract with the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill's Kenan-Flagler Business School for an additional 10 years in February 2015. 2U now has a list of 18 partner universities that offer over 30 programs. The company also managed to further cut its losses down to $14.2 million in 2014 from $21.2 million in 2013. Further Reading 2U, Inc. Reports Fourth Quarter and Full Year 2014 Financial Results | Press Release

Massive Open Online Courses have been around now for just over 3 years. Since then they have become more popular and are more known. Nevertheless, completion rates of MOOCs remain low (on average, completion rates are below 13%). This is often seen as something that shows MOOCs will not revolutionize education as, in order to be successful, completion rates would need to increase. However, I do not believe this is as big of problem because of the following 3 reasons: There are no incentives to keep you from dropping out. Unlike traditional university, where dropping out of a class would results in you having to re-enrol in your programme, there is no negative incentive if you drop out of a MOOC. There are no cost involved in dropping out as you did not invest any money it (you can even get a voucher on some platforms if you did) and the only thing lost is the time you had already invested. It will not affect your degree in any way because there is no fixed curriculum and no one will blame you for not finishing. This lack of incentives makes it very easy for people to stop participating or un-enrol from the course. Even though I completed over 60 MOOCs, I have also stopped participating for various reasons. The lack of incentives was one of them. Not everyone feels the need to complete the course. As MOOCs cater to a varied public which is much more diverse than traditional education, it is likely the things MOOC participants expect from this type of education is different than traditional students. Some of the students that are enrolled might pursue to complete the course but others might just be interested in a specific element or topic of the course. Time commitments differ more than traditional education as MOOC students might do this next to their regular job or educational programme as something that is a great supplement to their main activity but does not require completion to benefit them. Concepts such as ‘enrolment’ have different meanings from traditional education. In traditional education, enrolling in a course often includes some consideration of the added value of the course to your overall programme. In the world of MOOCs, this is not necessarily the case. As Robert Wright, a Pinceton lecturer, pointed out ‘enrolment’ in a MOOC could mean as little as "Sure, what the hell, send me an email when this course starts." making it have a fundamental different meaning than enrolling in more traditional education. As a result of this the metrics we use to measure the success of a MOOC should differ from those used in traditional education (at least for now). The combination of the lack of consequences, the greater variety in the student population of MOOCs compared to traditional education and different meanings of the same concepts are some of the reasons MOOC completion rates are so low. Nevertheless, this is no problem as students do gain valuable knowledge and skills from participation in these courses which they can use both inside and outside the classroom. Picture License  Some rights reserved by drocpsu

I was honored to learn that I’ve been nominated for Blackboard’s first ever Key to the Community Award. This award will recognize Blackboard clients who go above and beyond the call of duty to support, share, and contribute to the success of their peers and colleagues in the Blackboard Learn and Blackboard Collaborate client community. Twenty three individuals have been nominated for the Key to the Community Award. Six winners will be awarded at the Blackboard Client Community Center during BbWorld. Blackboard is leaving the decision of who will receive the awards up to the vote of Blackboard users - who has provided you with great information, answered your questions, shared something you were able to leverage at your own organization to improve the way teaching and learning happens? Voting ends on Monday, July 1st at 11:59pm ET. You can VOTE HERE. I’d appreciate your vote Spread the word on Twitter, #votebbworld13

21 months have gone by since our last report on how much top course creators on the online learning platform can make. That definitely qualifies for an update as Udemy shared new data on its course creator earnings. At the time of our first post, Udemy’s Top 10 course creators had earned a combined $5 million with the top person having made $450k over the course of two years. While back then these numbers were a strong confirmation that learning online literally pays if you are a top instructor, I think they also showed that learners were willing to give up-and-coming startups, like Udemy, a chance instead of only putting their money with established players in the field, like Lynda.com for instance. Today we already think of it as normal or an established business that learners choose online courses to acquire new skills and are willing to pay for them, and people can make a nice living creating such courses. Let’s take a look at the evolution of Udemy. Not only has the startup added some senior executives last year along with raising more money as well as heavily invested in their marketing efforts. They have also expanded into offering part of the course catalogue in seven local languages and opened a first overseas office in Dublin, Ireland. All of it should translate into making the platform and its creators more money, shouldn’t it? It does. The first Udemy instructors have become millionaires teaching via the platform with the Top 10 Udemy instructors earning a combined $17 million and individual earnings ranging between $500,000 and $8 million. The top three Udemy instructors are currently Web Development - Rob Percival Earnings: $2.8 million Students: 120,000 Web Development - Victor Bastos Earnings: $900,000 Students: 52,000 Personal Development - Alun Hill Earnings: $650,000 Students: 47,000 Once more, work skills for the knowledge and tech economy make the top of the list. It also shows that talented instructors are not a nine day wonder. Victor Bastos who comes in on second place teaches on Udemy since 2011 and made top of the earners list in 2013. Since then he doubled his earnings. Udemy states to have 12,000 instructors and 5 million students on its platform. The US-based startup raised $48 million to date with a $32 million Series C in May 2014 to ramp up its international expansion. Further Reading Sharing Economy Millionaires: Top Udemy Instructors Continue to Crack Major Earnings Threshold | PR Newswire Picture License  Some rights reserved by Thomas Hawk

In October 2004, I joined the Faculty Development and Instructional Design Center at Northern Illinois University (NIU) in the role of Online Technology Coordinator, where I was tasked with developing and offering in-depth training programs and consultations on teaching with technology, teaching online using the institution’s learning management system (Blackboard). as well as developing online and hardcopy documentation on online teaching and related topics. In October 2006, I stepped into the role of Assistant Director, providing leadership on technology-related issues and working closely with units at NIU to address faculty needs related to online teaching, and performing supervisory functions at the Center. I also have taught as an adjunct for several institutions, designing and teaching a wide array of blended and online courses in instructional design and educational technology. I have enjoyed the opportunities I have had to share my expertise designing and teaching online and blended courses with others. July 1st I officially step into a new position at NIU as Director of Distributed Learning. I’ll be tasked with providing leadership and central coordination for the Office of the Provost on various aspects of online learning at NIU. I’ll also continue working closely with my colleagues in the Faculty Development and Instructional Design Center to address faculty needs related to online teaching. Some of my new responsibilities include: facilitating partnerships with external and internal infrastructure providers streamlining distributed learning support services offered by various campus units assisting academic units with their curricular needs for implementing marketable distributed learning programs researching and coordinating the development of institutional policies, quality standards and technology resources to support distributed learning needs and growth managing staff, budgets, and web resources coordinating faculty training and support on distributed learning pedagogies serving on committees related to distributed learning handling other duties for the Office of the Provost as assigned I look forward to this new opportunity to help lead the advancement of online learning at NIU while continuing to serve the institution I’ve grown to know and love.

AltSchool, a collaborative community of micro-schools that aims to transform K-8 education, has hired four seasoned tech executives from Google, Uber, Zynga and Rocket Fuel. Joining the AltSchool team are Bharat Mediratta from Google, who has been appointed CTO. Uber’s former head of global security Michael Ginty has been appointed to head of safety at AltSchool. Former Rocket Fuel VP Sue Yoon and former Zynga Director of Product Rajiv Bhatia are also joining. AltSchool was founded by Max Ventilla, a long term Google executive and founder of social search engine Aadvark, which was acquired for $50 million by Google in 2010. AltSchool raised a $33 million Series A in March 2014 led by Founders Fund and Andreessen Horowitz. The startup now has four private schools in San Francisco with a total of 150 students and will open two new schools in Palo Alto and Brooklyn in fall 2015 and aims to grow to 500 students. Tuition costs around $20,000 per year. Further Reading Tech veterans jump on startup aiming to overhaul education | Silicon Valley Business Journal From wearables to Uber for kids, start-ups look to tech to protect children | FT HEDLINE: AltSchool raises $33 million Series A | EDUKWEST Links altschool.com