Harmony School Board to consider participation in online learning program

By Dianne Byers, the Progress

At Tuesday’s Harmony Area School Board meeting, the board will be asked to consider a partnership with Central Intermediate Unit No. 10 for a pilot program that would allow Harmony students currently enrolled in cyber schools to participate in online learning offered by the school district. Although there would be an upfront annual cost to Harmony of $5,000, the partnership has potential. Superintendent Terry Young said she believes to save the district thousands it spends to educate Harmony students at cyber schools by getting students to return to Harmony for their education. Young told the board the district has 12 students who currently utilize cyber schools for a variety of reasons including discipline problems, family situations and emotional-social difficulties. The use of cyber schools by those 12 students costs the school district more than $161,0000 per year in its basic education funding received from the state.

http://www.theprogressnews.com/progress_news/harmony-school-board-to-consider-participation-in-online-learning-program/article_93694dab-16e5-53c1-b388-c6e9ed1d0e74.html

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from Educational Technology http://people.uis.edu/rschr1/et/?p=17971

Big Companies That Help Older Workers Finish a College Degree

By Lisa Rabasca Roepe

Nearly 3 ½ million Americans age 50 or older have taken some college courses but haven’t earned a degree or certificate, according to the National Student Clearinghouse Research Center. Some big employers, such as Starbucks, JetBlue, Fiat/Chrysler and Pizza Hut are now helping them finish a college degree. These companies have launched programs allowing their employees of any age to earn a college degree online for little or no out-of-pocket costs. (The specifics vary for each program and are noted at the end of this article.) It’s a win/win for employees and employers. “When people are working on improving themselves, their productivity and performance improves,” says John Fox, director of dealer training, FCA Performance Institute, Fiat/Chrysler. Others offering college-completion programs say this benefit helps them with recruitment, retention and employee engagement.

http://www.nextavenue.org/ompanies-help-older-workers-finish-a-college-degree/

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from Educational Technology http://people.uis.edu/rschr1/et/?p=17981

A free online university course will teach you Mars survival skills

By ARIEL BOGLE, Mashable

We could be living on Mars by the year 3000, so it’s time to get prepared. To help us earthlings ready ourselves for the journey, Monash University in Melbourne, Australia is offering a free online course focused on how to survive the red planet. Developed by astrophysicist Jasmina Lazendic-Galloway and chemistry professor Tina Overton, the course “How to Survive on Mars: The Science Behind Human Exploration of Mars” will run over four weeks, three hours per week with the first instalment beginning on Oct. 24. According to Lazendic-Galloway, the course emerged from she and Overton’s love of Andy Weir’s bestselling novel, The Martian, which was made into a 2015 film starring Matt Damon.

http://mashable.com/2016/09/01/university-mars-survival-course/#cof70vhIU8ql

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from Educational Technology http://people.uis.edu/rschr1/et/?p=17961

New AI Tool Helps High Schoolers with College Admissions

By Richard Chang, THE Journal

SchoolWise, an online platform for high school students interested in college, has launched GoSchoolWise.com, a new website that’s designed to help high school students and their parents during the often arduous college admissions process. The new site utilizes artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning (ML) tools such as IBM Watson, a platform that uses natural language processing and personality traits to reveal insights from large amounts of unstructured data, to help students find the right college for them. According to a report by the private, Indianapolis-based Lumina Foundation, only about 40 percent of high school students in the United States graduate from college. SchoolWise aims to improve that number by assisting students at the beginning of the college admissions process.

https://thejournal.com/articles/2016/08/29/schoolwise-launches-website-to-help-high-school-students-with-college-admissions.aspx

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from Educational Technology http://people.uis.edu/rschr1/et/?p=17946

Virtual Reality to Drive Rapid Adoption of 360 Degree Cameras

By David Nagel, Campus Technology

Fueled by a growth in virtual and augmented reality, 360 degree cameras are expected to see rapid growth over the next five years. 360-degree cameras allow users to shoot spherical videos and still images, which can be shared on services like Facebook and YouTube and experienced as virtual reality using a phone, tablet or dedicated VR headset. The 360-degree video at the link below, for example, shows a Blue Angels flight from the perspective of one of the planes’ cockpits. On a phone or tablet, users can view the scene from different angles just by turning their devices left, right, up or down. (On a traditional computer, these movements are controlled using a finger or mouse.)

https://campustechnology.com/articles/2016/08/31/virtual-reality-to-drive-rapid-adoption-of-360-degree-cameras.aspx

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from Educational Technology http://people.uis.edu/rschr1/et/?p=17931

How to Revamp Your Learning Spaces on the Cheap

by David Weldon, Campus Technology

Often, the learning spaces that get the most attention are the big, flashy projects, complete with all the bells and whistles associated with cutting-edge technology-enhanced classrooms. But for many colleges and universities, those kinds of facilities are a dream, not a reality. With that in mind, Sutch and her colleague Mark Frydenberg, senior lecturer in computer information systems and director of the CIS Learning and Technology Sandbox at Bentley, presented the session “Spruce up Your Campus Learning Spaces without Breaking Your Budget” at the recent Campus Technology Conference in Boston, offering ideas on how campus technologists can outfit their learning centers “on the cheap.”

https://campustechnology.com/articles/2016/08/31/how-to-revamp-your-learning-spaces-on-the-cheap.aspx

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from Educational Technology http://people.uis.edu/rschr1/et/?p=17916

Report: Social Media a Top Cybersecurity Challenge in the Workplace

By Rhea Kelly, THE Journal

Safe social media use is the top cybersecurity challenge for employees, according to the latest report from Wombat Security Technologies on security awareness issues in enterprise organizations. The 2016 Beyond the Phish Report evaluated two years of assessment data from Wombat’s Security Education Platform and surveyed hundreds of security professionals to find out how well end users are able to identify and manage security threats. The data came from a variety of sectors, including finance, technology, healthcare and education. Overall, 31 percent of end users missed assessment questions related to using social media safely in the workplace.After social media, the least understood cybersecurity topics across all industries were protecting and disposing of data securely (30 percent of questions missed); identifying phishing threats (28 percent of questions missed); protecting confidential information (27 percent of questions missed); and working safely outside the office (26 percent of questions missed).

https://thejournal.com/articles/2016/09/01/social-media-a-top-cybersecurity-challenge-in-the-workplace.aspx

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from Educational Technology http://people.uis.edu/rschr1/et/?p=17901