5 education trends of the future catapulted by blended learning

BY JULIA FREELAND FISHER, eCampus News

A leading education researcher looks at the evolution of “a disruptive force that is increasingly changing how we teach and learn.” As blended learning practices are becoming more widespread, it is increasingly challenging to collect accurate data on the number of schools that have gone blended, but by examining student enrollments in online courses and edtech vendor data, we estimate the number of students engaging in some kind of blended learning to be approximately 9 million, which represents about 20 percent of K-12 student enrollment. With so many students engaged in this mode of learning, it’s important to examine current trends and technologies to try and predict where blended learning could take students in the future.

http://www.eschoolnews.com/2017/04/27/ed-future-trends-blended/

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from Educational Technology http://people.uis.edu/rschr1/et/?p=27016

Building Accessibility Into IT Procurement

By David Raths, Campus Technology

Michigan State has developed rubrics and procedures to help its information technology procurement officers evaluate products’ accessibility more effectively. “Essentially, the university purchases a lot of things, and we need to be able to provide a certain level of engagement in terms of accessibility with all those things,” said James Jackson, Electronic Information Technology (EIT) accessibility coordinator for MSU IT Services. But MSU’s resources are limited, especially with the central team that has the highest degree of knowledge about what constitutes an accessible product. University leaders decided to create a process in which almost every product gets assessed, with particular focus on products that are going to have the highest degree of impact.

https://campustechnology.com/articles/2017/04/27/building-accessibility-into-it-procurement.aspx

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from Educational Technology http://people.uis.edu/rschr1/et/?p=27006

Everfi raises $190 million to teach life skills and touchy subjects online

by TechCrunch

EVERFI Inc. has raised $190 million in Series D funding to teach students online the life skills and touchy subject matter that they never learned in school. A sampling of courses offered by Everfi range from “Harassment Prevention Training” for the workforce, to “Alcohol EDU” for college students and “Vault Understanding Money” for fourth-, fifth- and sixth-graders. TPG Growth and The Rise Fund led the Series D investment, contributing $150 million combined, along with Main Street Advisors, Advance Publications and earlier backers of Everfi including Jeff Bezos, Eric Schmidt, Ev Williams and Allen & Company, according to a company statement. Everfi CEO and co-founder Tom Davidson said his startup operates as a for-profit, for-good venture. “We look at these major, intractable social problems and aim to eradicate them by educating citizens from second graders to seniors,” he said, “but we also want to be the dominant learning platform for major institutions.”

https://techcrunch.com/2017/04/26/everfi-raises-190-million-to-teach-life-skills-and-touchy-subjects-online/

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from Educational Technology http://people.uis.edu/rschr1/et/?p=26991

Coding: 16-year-old Fremont student writes AP test-prep book, creates online course

By Sharon Noguchi, Mercury News

Moksh Jawa, 16, captures the essence of Silicon Valley startup thinking and energy. “Why not?” might be his motto. As a seventh-grader, he studied up on the Internet and taught himself coding. As a freshman, after studying on his own, he passed the AP Computer Science A exam with a 5, the highest score possible. As a sophomore, because his Fremont high school didn’t teach coding, he developed his own online course and shepherded classmates through it. As a junior, he distilled those lessons into a 450-page test-prep book, now sold on Amazon.

http://www.mercurynews.com/education/ci_29834312/coding-16-year-old-writes-ap-test-prep

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from Educational Technology http://people.uis.edu/rschr1/et/?p=15753

The richest 25% of American families account for more than half of all college graduates

By Jillian Berman, Market Watch

A new report offers more insight into why student debt is often an unequal burden. Graduating college is much harder if you’re poor, a new report indicates. In 2014, just 10% of dependent family members who said they received a bachelor’s degree by the time they were 24 years old came from families in the lowest income quartile, according to a study released Tuesday by the Pell Institute for the Study of Opportunity in Higher Education in Washington, D.C. and PennAhead, an organization at the University of Pennsylvania focused on higher education policy. By contrast, 54% of bachelor’s degrees awarded to dependent family members went to those in the highest income quartile.

http://www.marketwatch.com/story/college-graduation-another-reason-it-pays-to-be-rich-2016-04-19

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from Educational Technology http://people.uis.edu/rschr1/et/?p=15749

Washington State colleges struggling to meet computer science demand

By Tara García Mathewson, Education Dive

Students and local employers in Washington seem to have an insatiable demand for computer science skills, and the state’s colleges and universities are struggling to expand program capacity fast enough to satisfy them. The Seattle Times reports computer science pre-majors and majors numbered 100 students at Western Washington University five years ago. Now they number more than 500, and other institutions have seen their own computer science programs double in size in that time. Two-year Bellevue College is seeking approval for a bachelor’s degree in computer science to help the state’s four-year colleges meet demand that so far has made the majors increasingly competitive for students to get into.

http://www.educationdive.com/news/washington-state-colleges-struggling-to-meet-computer-science-demand/418024/

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from Educational Technology http://people.uis.edu/rschr1/et/?p=15746

Turn Your Students Into Data Sleuths With Geographic Information Systems

By Brittni Brown, Edudemic

Geographic information systems are essentially large databases that are able to connect entered data to a geographical reference point. More than that though, the program can be used to display data visually, which allows scientists and GIS specialists to quite literally see connections that were previously hidden in the data. It isn’t just a classroom tool used to aid in teaching the subject matter; GIS professionals can be found in almost every modern industry ranging from police departments using map data to find crime hot spots, to epidemiologists tracking diseases like Ebola in Africa, to insurance companies determining natural disaster risk. Integrating GIS into a STEM curriculum enables students to learn professional job skills before ever graduating.

http://www.edudemic.com/data-sleuths-geographic-systems/

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from Educational Technology http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/uis/edtech/~3/MIS_eS9zAi8/

The Four Negative Sides of Technology

By Pamela DeLoatch, Edudemic

We live in a high tech world—with high tech classrooms. We embrace the benefits of using iPads during class, integrating tweets during presentations, and teaching students while using smart TVs. We know the many benefits of incorporating technology while teaching, such as adding diversity to lessons, increasing student interaction, and to bringing new perspectives and knowledge to the class. But there can be a negative side resulting from inappropriate or overuse of technology, and that negative side can have serious and long-term consequences. To make the best out of tools of technology, teachers and parents must also recognize their downsides and how to avoid them.

http://www.edudemic.com/the-4-negative-side-effects-of-technology/

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from Educational Technology http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/uis/edtech/~3/g0HFWZfYFqc/

Online Peer Reviews Improve Literacy Instruction

by Chris Sloan, Literacy Daily

English language arts teachers have long recognized the critical role meaningful feedback from peers has in process-writing classrooms. However, one limitation of traditional face-to-face peer response I noticed in my own teaching is that I never knew who was engaged with others and at what level. I didn’t have an efficient way of knowing who was giving (and who was getting) good feedback. Over the past few years, peer feedback has been integrated into learning management systems like Canvas, Blackboard, and Turnitin. Stand-alone applications like Peerceptiv and Eli Review are online peer review systems that provide data never possible in traditional face-to-face settings. I’ve recently begun incorporating Eli Review into my teaching and am excited about the potential for learning and literacy development.

http://www.reading.org/literacy-daily/classroom/post/engage/2015/05/01/online-peer-reviews-improve-literacy-instruction

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As Law Schools Recover, Online Learning Part Of The Equation

By MICHAEL BRINDLEY, NHPR

The way the dean of the UNH School of Law John Broderick describes it, the precipitous drop in enrollment came on fast and furious. Officials at the school say they’re exploring options to keep law education moving forward – including expanding into online learning. Later this year, the school will launch an International Criminal Law and Justice online program. “We will have within a year’s time, an online master’s degree in intellectual property. And that can be totally where you are. Or it can be where you are and half of it will be here in residence.” Law schools have been historically slow to embrace online learning, a market in which many other higher education institutions have seen soaring enrollment and revenue.

http://nhpr.org/post/law-schools-recover-online-learning-part-equation

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Why These Apps Can Make High School a Nightmare

By ALYSSA NEWCOMB, Good Morning America

High school gossip has evolved over the years from a few nasty words scrawled in magic marker on a bathroom wall to anonymous apps that smartphone-savvy students can check instantly. “Inadvertently, the people who developed these apps have created a digital bathroom stall for thousands of people to see,” John Dodig, principal of Staples High School in Westport, Conn., told ABCNews.com. The problem of hurtful words being transmitted over anonymous apps at Staples became such an issue that Dodig said his school received a “geo fence” from Yik Yak, a popular anonymous bulletin board app. The geo fence works by taking the school’s latitude and longitude and blocking the app on campus.

http://abcnews.go.com/Technology/secret-messaging-apps-make-high-school-nightmare/story?id=23597535

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from Educational Technology http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/uis/edtech/~3/I6F-7jfkP2E/

Blended Learning Grows Dramatically in California Schools

By Tanya Roscorla, Center for Digital Education

California is seeing a major uptick in blended learning as more schools become comfortable with the model. The California eLearning Census shows that more students this year are taking blended classes, which include both face-to-face and online components. The California Learning Resource Network, a statewide education technology service from the California Department of Education, has conducted the census for the past three years to find out how blended and online learning are changing in the state.

http://www.centerdigitaled.com/news/Blended-Learning-Grows-Dramatically-in-California-Schools-.html

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