High schools now offering online classes

By Dani Anguiano, Chico Enterprise-Record
Not so long ago, if a high school student wanted a job, they were limited to working after school, on weekends or during the summer. Now, through a relatively new program in Chico Unified School District, students who want to work, as well as students who have health issues that prevent them from going to school and those who just don’t want to be on campus, have another option available to them.  The school district is for the second year offering the Panther Online Academy and the Viking Online Academy, which allow students to take some or all of their classes online. The program came about as district staff, led by former Director of Secondary Education Dave McKay, tried to find ways to better serve students and keep those students connected to the district, CUSD Director of Secondary Education Jay Marchant said.

http://www.chicoer.com/social-affairs/20170831/high-schools-now-offering-online-classes

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from Educational Technology http://people.uis.edu/rschr1/et/?p=31506

Online classes help high school students graduate

 

by Mark Wilson, Fox 13

“We pulled our data to find our students that were off track last year, that were in danger of not graduating and we met with them and their parents and then we started the program,” said Wesley Chapel High Assistant Principal Kelly McPherson.  And it’s been successful. “Of the 19 seniors we enrolled in [the program], 18 did graduate, so that was really exciting,” said McPherson. Dr. James Hatten is a USF professor who specializes in this kind of education. He emphasizes that this track to a diploma is not easier than a regular classroom. “People think wrongly that an online course is easier to take for a student. Often times it’s more difficult for a student because there’s no way to hide in an online course. There’s no way to not participate. You either have to be active or you’re not active,” said Dr. Hatten.

http://www.fox13news.com/news/local-news/277873279-story

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from Educational Technology http://people.uis.edu/rschr1/et/?p=31496

Mass. has tools to lead in online learning — but doesn’t

By Julie Young, Lowell Sun
For two years running, Bloomberg’s State Innovation Index has hailed Massachusetts as the country’s most innovative state economy. Looking at such metrics as R&D; concentration of science, technology, engineering, and math employment; and numbers of science degrees, it’s no wonder that the commonwealth placed first.  But it’s not just postsecondary education that makes Massachusetts a leader in innovation. Its K-12 public schools also boast some of the most dynamic and thoughtful approaches to brick-and-mortar education, providing a model for the rest of the country. Despite these successes, Massachusetts struggles to keep pace with innovative online educational offerings that have helped students thrive throughout the nation.

http://www.lowellsun.com/news/ci_31267702/julie-young-mass-has-tools-lead-online-learning

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from Educational Technology http://people.uis.edu/rschr1/et/?p=31486

Digital Tattoo project aims to increase awareness of online privacy issues

By Hussein Hatim, the Ubyssey

As technology advances, the world has become a more convenient and far less secretive place. Services like Facebook, Google and Instagram have created and replaced avenues of communication in a way that allows everyone to share more information with more people. UBC’s Digital Tattoo project aims to increase awareness of online security and privacy issues. Created with grant funding from UBC’s teaching and learning enhancement fund and from BCcampus, the project brings students and university community members together to discuss ways in which they can help students make thoughtful decisions about their online presence. The project also works with other universities including Thompson Rivers University, the University of Victoria and the University of Toronto.

http://ubyssey.ca/news/digital-tattoo-project/

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from Educational Technology http://people.uis.edu/rschr1/et/?p=18021

Choosing a new school? Study up

By Sarah Shemkus, Boston Globe

As kids grab their backpacks and notebooks and head back to school, it is only natural that many adults start thinking about their own education. And there are dozens of choices available. But many of the best-advertised programs have been accused of scamming students, charging outsized fees, and offering little useful training. Just recently, the federal government barred for-profit education behemoth ITT Tech from using federal financial aid to enroll students. So how can an ambitious student pick a solid program and make a savvy financial decision?

https://www.bostonglobe.com/business/2016/09/02/choosing-new-school-study/ged8PjNwXJmmOK5iyhLRrL/story.html

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from Educational Technology http://people.uis.edu/rschr1/et/?p=18006

Education professor develops progress-monitoring software

By Jessica Buterbaugh, Penn State

If there is a common complaint among teachers, it is that there is not enough time in the day to complete all the duties with which they are tasked. From lesson plans to assessments to grading and student reports, the day is gone, and for most teachers, so are their evenings. A new software suite out of Penn State’s Learning, Design and Technology program is addressing those time constraints, while also improving the literacy of young students. Named avenue pm for its audio-visual environment and progress monitoring capabilities, the suite helps teachers track the literacy development of school-aged children, specifically for students who are deaf and hard of hearing. It consists of four different assessments that measure reading and writing aptitude, and is available for free for all educators and school districts.

http://news.psu.edu/story/421902/2016/08/22/research/education-professor-develops-progress-monitoring-software

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from Educational Technology http://people.uis.edu/rschr1/et/?p=17991

Indiana U Expands Remote Support for IT Help

By Dian Schaffhauser, Campus Technology

Indiana University has gone public with its multi-year usage of a remote support application to deliver IT help. The university system, which has 114,000 students, 23,000 employees and eight campuses is using Remote Support from Bomgar. The institution’s experience with remote support for IT got off to a rocky start. In 2007 the university’s Clinical Affairs schools (part of the School of Medicine) had four service technicians supporting about 600 desktops. Although the technicians tried to implement remote support, frequently, they simply had to visit the device in person to resolve problems. As Lisa Schunk, manager of client services for clinical affairs IT services (CAITS), explained in a prepared statement, “Our service technicians tried other tools, but these solutions were slow and they often dropped connections.” So she began hunting for a better approach. After assessing several contenders, the team chose Bomgar for ease of use and reliability.

http://campustechnology.com/articles/2015/09/03/indiana-u-expands-remote-support-for-it-help.aspx

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from Educational Technology http://people.uis.edu/rschr1/et/?p=13757

A Better Way to Find the Right OER

By Dian Schaffhauser, Campus Technology

For a lot of educators who want to use open educational resources (OER), the challenge is finding the “good stuff.” Useful lessons, textbooks and whole courses may be freely available online, but pinpointing the ones that can really help students with a particular learning objective can become a major hurdle to their adoption. Russ Walker is an advocate for OER usage at DeVry University Long Beach as a professor in the College of Business & Management. He especially likes OER for supplemental materials. “Very often a textbook or other resources that are built into the course don’t quite hit a learning objective right on the head,” he noted. Students often come at the content with their own perspectives, interests and backgrounds, and they may need to learn a concept “in another way or from another viewpoint,” he said, or they may just need a review on a topic they haven’t worked with in a long time. So Walker does what he can to “provide a variety of resources, including OER.”

http://campustechnology.com/articles/2015/09/02/a-better-way-to-find-the-right-oer.aspx

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from Educational Technology http://people.uis.edu/rschr1/et/?p=13755

3 Key Trends in AV Technology for Schools

by David Pierce, THE Journal

In schools from coast to coast, classroom learning environments are becoming more active and collaborative. Students are contributing to discussions and presentations, and the days of the “sage on the stage” are waning. This change is having a profound effect on the deployment of audiovisual technology in education. According to Mike Tomei, an independent audiovisual consultant who designs and installs AV systems for classrooms, “Classroom AV technology plays a big part in facilitating active learning environments.” Makers of AV equipment have responded to districts’ needs by developing new products that support more active and collaborative learning. Here are three key trends that show how they’re doing it.

http://thejournal.com/articles/2015/08/11/3-key-trends-in-av-technology-for-schools.aspx

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from Educational Technology http://people.uis.edu/rschr1/et/?p=13753

5 simple ways to streamline campus technology

by Paige Francis, eCampus News

Somewhere along the line, it seems that higher-education technology leaders hit a development gap where the KISS principle [2] was routinely ignored. The “Keep It Simple Stupid” adage states that “systems perform best when they have simple designs rather than complex ones.” It appears this gap has coincided with significant advancements in technology, leading to near-immediate obsolescence—and resulting in an overabundance of clunky technology and an over-outfitting of space. In a nutshell, more has resulted in less. We oversupplied and over-indulged, and now many institutions are forced to maintain these cumbersome environments … or are they? Here are five suggestions for getting back to the basics and streamlining campus technology.

http://www.ecampusnews.com/top-news/streamline-campus-technology-329/

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Here’s how you do tablet integration

by eCampus News

Dozens of Fresno State classes have introduced a new interactive tablet curriculum that began Aug. 21 when fall semester classes began. The first 1,200 students have enrolled in the university’s DISCOVERe program and 33 faculty members will teach a variety of courses incorporating tablet technology. Fresno State had been preparing to launch the DISCOVERe program since President Joseph I. Castro arrived on the campus a year ago, and on Thursday, Castro officially launched the program with a scissor-free, virtual ribbon cutting at the new DISCOVERe Hub, a technology help desk similar to Apple’s Genius Bar, located on the first floor of Fresno State’s Henry Madden Library.

http://www.ecampusnews.com/top-news/tablet-integration-fresno-436/

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from Educational Technology http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/uis/edtech/~3/j7e52AMwE3Q/

Textbook giants are now teaching classes

By Gabriel Kahn, Slate

This summer, Chad Mason signed up for online general psychology at the University of North Carolina at Charlotte. This spring, Jonathan Serrano took intro to psychology online at Essex County College in Newark, New Jersey. Though the two undergraduates were separated by more than 600 miles, enrolled in different institutions, and paying different tuitions, they were taking what amounts to the same course. That’s because the course wasn’t produced by either school. Instead, it was a sophisticated package devised by publishing giant Pearson PLC and delivered through a powerful online platform called MyPsychLab.

http://www.slate.com/articles/life/education/2014/09/online_college_classes_textbook_companies_offer_courses_with_minimal_university.html

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