IBL News

Author: IBL News

  • President Trump Pushes Universities to Reopen Despite a Spike of Virus Infections

    President Trump Pushes Universities to Reopen Despite a Spike of Virus Infections

    IBL News | New York

    President Trump urged universities to continue reopening their campuses, even as some institutions have reported clusters of COVID-19 outbreaks and hundreds of new cases.

    “We have learned one thing, there’s nothing like campus there’s nothing like being with a teacher as opposed to being on a computer board,” Trump said during a White House press briefing yesterday. “The iPads are wonderful but you’re not going to learn the same way as being there.”

    President Donald Trump blasted universities that have canceled in-person classes, arguing that the virus is akin to the seasonal flu for college students–despite the commonly shared view of health experts that the novel coronavirus is deadlier than the flu and more easily transmitted.

    “For older people and individuals with underlying conditions, the China virus is very dangerous, but for university students, the likelihood of severe illness is less than or equal to the risk of the seasonal flu.”

    Currently, universities are rethinking opening plans after a spike in infections in the last week as students returned to campus. The pressure is mounting to close campuses. The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill decided on Monday to suspend in-person classes for the fall. Notre Dame, Michigan State University, and The University of Pittsburgh also pivoted to online-only classes for undergraduates before they arrive on campus.

    The COVID-19 virus is already spreading through colleges mostly because of off-campus parties, and daily life in sororities and fraternities. A recent example was known yesterday. Last weekend at the University of Alabama, in Tuscaloosa, bars and sidewalks were crowded with sorority members and other students reveling in their return-to-school rituals, sparking the fury of university officials.

    Also, yesterday, The New York Times linked at least 251 cases of the virus to fraternities and sororities across the country, including in Washington, North Carolina, Berkeley, Calif., and Oxford, Miss.

     

  • More Colleges Expected to Follow UNC’s Switch to Remote Learning Amid a Surge of Covid Cases

    More Colleges Expected to Follow UNC’s Switch to Remote Learning Amid a Surge of Covid Cases

    IBL News | New York

    Experts predicted yesterday that many colleges will follow the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill’s decision to backtrack plans to reopen its campus for in-person learning and shift to remote learning amid a surge of COVID-19 cases among students.

    For now, two major research universities have announced to reverse plans to resume in-person instruction, although at a smaller scale than UNC. The University of Notre Dame decided yesterday to suspend in-person classes for almost 12,000 students, moving undergraduate classes online for two weeks while keeping students on campus. Michigan State asked undergraduates who had planned to live in residence halls to stay home.

    Crowded, mask-free parties at Oklahoma State University, Notre Dame, Iowa State, Villanova, and other colleges took place over the weekend. The lack of social distancing, along with dorm contact environments, are predictable scenarios for the spread of the pandemic–epidemiologists claim.

    UNC-Chapel Hill decided to move all undergraduate classes online starting today Wednesday, while it offered students the opportunity to cancel residence hall requests with no penalty.

    The announcement on Monday followed reports of four Coronavirus clusters over three days in dorms, apartments, and a fraternity house. As a result, 130 students tested positive.

    As of Monday morning, 954 students were tested, 177 students were put in isolation and another 349 in quarantine.

    This week, UNC’s infectious disease experts are making changes to de-densify campus.

    “As much as we believe we have worked diligently to help create a healthy and safe campus living and learning environment, we believe the current data presents an untenable situation,” UNC-Chapel Hill’s Chancellor, Kevin M. Guskiewicz, and Provost, Robert A. Blouin, wrote in a statement.

    In April, the interim president of the UNC announced that he wanted all campuses to re-open in the fall. In August, the UNC Board of Governors announced their mandate for campuses to reopen. Last week they all got their way, with the dorms at UNC re-opening at full capacity, despite faculty and staff workers’ protests.

    Yesterday, the editorial board for the Daily Tar Heel, the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill’s student newspaper, called out university leadership after the outbreak.

    “Everybody told the university not to reopen, and it was only a matter of time,” said Nikhil Rao, a student government senior adviser who has participated in online meetings with provost Bob Blouin every month since April along with other student leaders. “I would be shocked if I didn’t know this was going to happen.”

    Meanwhile, university officials are blaming off-campus parties and activities for the surge in COVID-19 cases.

  • Online Learning | August 2020: Stanford, Financial Distress, Harvard, OMSCS, Google, Apple…

    Online Learning | August 2020: Stanford, Financial Distress, Harvard, OMSCS, Google, Apple…

    [ Newsletter format  |  Click here to subscribe ]

    AUGUST 2020  –  NEWSLETTER #36  |  Breaking news at IBL News  |  Noticias en Español

     

    COVID-19 and Education

    • Children’s Learning Worldwide Is a Priority But 818 Million Students Lack Basic Hand Washing

    • Is Your School Under Financial Stress? An Interactive Tool Shows Institutions’ Readiness

    • Stanford Produces a Visual, Evidence-Based Course to Train Healthcare Workers on COVID-19

    • A Paradigm Shift Among Students Towards Online Degrees: 73% Will Consider Enrolling

     

    Trump vs Schools

    • Stanford Reverses Plans and Decides to Deliver All Instruction Remotely

    • Harvard and USC Tell First-Year International Students to Stay Home

    • New International Students Barred for Any F-1 or M-1 Visa for Online Programs

    • European and U.K. Students Who Already Have F-1 and M-1 Visas Are Welcomed Back

    • The Trump Administration Drops Restrictions for International Students Amid Pressure from Colleges

     

    Universities

    • Georgia Tech’s OMSCS Program Surpasses a Milestone: 10,000 Students Enrolled

    • Seven Large Universities Will Share Their Online Courses Among Undergraduate Students

    • New NSF Centers with Research Universities Will Focus on Health, Transportation, Quantum, and Agriculture

    • View: Education and Training as a Tool to Attract Customers and Enhance Presence on Google

     

    Industry

    • Google Announces 100,000 Scholarships for Three Career-Oriented Certificates

    • Apple Renews Its Free Coding Training Program in Swift and Xcode

     

    2020 Events 

    • Education Calendar  –  AUG  |  SEP  |  OCT  |  NOV  |  DEC  |  Conferences in Latin America & Spain

     

    This newsletter is created in collaboration with IBL Education, a New York City-based company specialized in AI and credential-driven learning platforms. Read the latest IBL Newsletter   |  Archive of Open edX Newsletters

  • Children’s Learning Worldwide Is a Priority But 818 Million Students Lack Basic Hand Washing

    Children’s Learning Worldwide Is a Priority But 818 Million Students Lack Basic Hand Washing

    IBL News | New York

    Access to handwashing stations and safe toilets that are clean and disinfected are key requirements for a safe reopening children’s schools worldwide –United Nations officials told IBL News.

    There are 1.6 billion students in 190 countries. According to UN data, roughly 43%, that is, 818 million lack access to basic handwashing facilities at school, with soap and water. A third of them are in Sub-Saharan Africa.

    The COVID-19 virus pandemic has created the largest disruption to education ever recorded. And the lack of hand hygiene and clean water in half of the student population dramatically aggravates the crisis.

    “Access to water, sanitation, and hygiene services are essential for effective infection prevention and control in all settings, including schools”, said Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, General Manager at the World Health Organization, this week. “It must be a major focus of government strategies for the safe reopening and operation of schools during the ongoing COVID-19 global pandemic.”

    A report built on reopening guidelines published on Thursday 13th by the World Health Organization (WHO) and the UN Children’s Fund, UNICEF, encouraged governments to seek control of coronavirus spread by balancing the need for implementing public health measures against the social and economic impacts of lockdown measures. There is substantial evidence of the negative impacts of prolonged school closures on children.

    Henrietta Fore, Executive Director at UNICEF, stated, “We must prioritize children’s learning, making sure that schools are safe to reopen.”

    –

    • Resource: Unicef.org: 2 in 5 schools around the world lacked basic handwashing facilities prior to COVID-19 pandemic 

     

  • Stanford Reverses Plans and Decides to Deliver All Instruction Remotely

    Stanford Reverses Plans and Decides to Deliver All Instruction Remotely

    IBL News | New York

    A dramatic reversal in Stanford University’s reopening.

    Stanford University reported yesterday that it altered its plans announced in June for graduate education during the autumn quarter and that it won’t be bringing students back for on-campus learning, due to the increased spread of COVID-19. (There have now been nearly 600,000 COVID-19 cases and more than 10,000 deaths in California, and much of the state, including the whole Bay Area.)

    “We are planning for almost all undergraduate instruction to be delivered remotely during the autumn quarter, with very limited in-person offerings,” explained Marc Tessier-Lavigne, President of Stanford, in a letter to the institution community.

    “We will continue to offer on-campus housing for those undergraduates who were previously approved to be in residence due to a special circumstance and who continue to wish to be on campus, despite the plan for mostly remote instruction,” he added.

    With this announcement, Stanford University joins other major universities who decided to go fully online.

    Princeton University, Johns Hopkins University, University of Massachusetts Amherst, Howard University, Loyola University Maryland, and Smith College made a similar decision last week.

    Columbia University’s President, Lee C. Bollinger, wrote in a letter that the school has to drastically reduce the number of undergraduate students who can live on-campus to only students who need to for approved personal or academic reasons.

    In parallel, Stanford announced this week its decision to postpone sports competition.

  • edX Incorporates UAF as a New Partner and Launches a Master’s in Civil Engineering with Purdue

    edX Incorporates UAF as a New Partner and Launches a Master’s in Civil Engineering with Purdue

    IBL News | New York

    edX announced yesterday that the University of Alaska Fairbanks (UAF) joined its Consortium. The engagement started with the launch of five online courses at edX.org–already open for enrollment:

    UAF is known as “America’s Arctic university. “Our first-class faculty integrate teaching, research, and public service into all they do, creating a center for groundbreaking science, education, and the arts, with an emphasis on the circumpolar North and its diverse peoples,” explained the institution.

    Master’s Degree in Civil Engineering

    Another recent announcement by edX was the launch of an online Master of Science in Civil Engineering from Purdue University’s Lyles School of Engineering. The degree, fully online, is priced at $22,500 (30 credits).

    “The Master’s degree in Civil Engineering is designed for working professionals to complete part-time, and provides a deep dive into civil engineering with three interdisciplinary tracks: water infrastructure; infrastructure design, resilience and sustainability; and transportation systems. The degree is ranked the #6 civil engineering graduate degree program by U.S. News and World Report,” edX explained in a blog post.

    This is the third online Master’s degree from Purdue offered on edX. Purdue’s online Master’s in Mechanical Engineering was announced in June 2020, and the Electrical and Computer Engineering degree was announced in September 2019. All three degrees are top-10 ranked programs and priced at $22,500.

  • Researchers Develop an Open Source Tool for Social Conversations on Events and Conferences

    Researchers Develop an Open Source Tool for Social Conversations on Events and Conferences

    IBL News | New York

    Three researchers at MIT Sloan and Northeastern University developed an experimental tool called MINGLR, which supports conversations at virtual conferences and other types of online events.

    “Even though many people have found today’s commonly used videoconferencing systems very useful, these systems do not provide support for one of the most important aspects of in-person meetings: the ad hoc, private conversations that happen before, after, and during the breaks of scheduled events—the proverbial hallway conversations,” explained the authors.

    A paper about the idea was written and released on July 31st, 2020.

    This open-source software was used at the ACM Collective Intelligence 2020 virtual conference. According to the developers, 86% of people who used the system successfully at the conference thought that future virtual conferences should include a tool with similar functionality.

    “We expect similar functionality to be incorporated in other videoconferencing systems and to be useful for many other kinds of business and social meetings, thus increasing the desirability and feasibility of many kinds of remote work and socializing.”

    Functioning is simple. Users log on via a web browser and see a list of people who are available to talk, select who they want to talk with, accept or deny chat requests, and enter a private video room for those impromptu conversations.

  • Whole Foods Launches a Series of Life-Skills Courses Taught by Instagram Influencers

    Whole Foods Launches a Series of Life-Skills Courses Taught by Instagram Influencers

    IBL News | New York

    Amazon’s Whole Foods Market launched this week an online learning brand, Home Ec 365, to teach young consumers household tricks, and shopping secrets, while incentivizing purchasing at the grocery chain via coupons.

    These life-skills courses, hosted at the Teachable platform, are taught by Instagram lifestyle gurus and YouTube personalities with thousands of followers.

    Learners can find for now just four free classes, such as “Swap-Savvy Baking: Getting Creative with Recipes & Replacements”, “So Fresh & So Clean: How to Effectively Clean Your Appliances”, “Use ’Em Up! How to Transform Food Scraps & Leftovers”, “Smarter Shopping: Save, Stock & Invest”.

    “Far from the boring high school class you slept through, Home Ec 365 is an educational platform and full playbook to maximize your home life for the 21st century. Powered by Teachable, these courses are here to make your life easier and more delicious, with study guides and coupons to pick up your 365 school supplies at Whole Foods,” states the marketing claim.

    Molly Siegler, Senior Program Manager for Culinary Development at Whole Foods Market, participates as an instructor in the courses.

     

     

    View this post on Instagram

     

    Since I know there are probably a good few of you who always seem to have veggies in their refrigerator that are “about-to-go-bad”, I figured it was as good a time as any to talk about pesto! Now trust me, there are pesto snobs out there who will tell you that it isn’t pesto if it doesn’t have basil, some variety of hard cheese, and of course olive oil. However, I never have been a snob, and certainly not about pesto. — — Pesto truly only has four guidelines. 1) there must be a green element 2) there must be a fat element 3) there should be some kind of aromatic (note* for those who can’t have garlic or onion, I have had pesto with lemongrass and ginger that’s also DELICIOUS) 4) they should be evenly balanced aka ALWAYS SEASONED — — The pesto I make in this video was thrown together with what I happened to have in my refrigerator. You’ll notice that I blanch the spinach (that’s not necessary, I just like to do it when freezing my pesto) — — I have had delicious pesto with everything from jalapeño to fennel to even Brazil nuts. So TRUST YOUR TASTE BUDS, and get to experimenting! Near the end of this video, I talk about what it means to create “depth” when developing recipes at home, and when it really comes down to it, the only way..is to TASTE and EXPLORE! One of my favorite things is to see you all take a technique that I have taught you, and come up with YOUR OWN RECIPES! You’re all becoming chefs right before my eyes, and honestly..I could cry! #pesto #party #presto ps—thank you so much for tuning into these “kitchen IG lives”—-most of you know by now that I end up posting them to my IGTV afterwards, but it still feels great that so many of you tune in live—it’s fun knowing that you’re all there with me❤️

    A post shared by i am sophia (@sophia_roe) on

     

  • Skillshare.com, with 30,000 Creative Skills-Oriented Courses, Raises $66 Million

    Skillshare.com, with 30,000 Creative Skills-Oriented Courses, Raises $66 Million

    IBL News | New York

    Skillshare.com–a New York City-based veteran learning provider with a catalog of 30,000 video-courses in creative skills–announced yesterday it raised a $66 million in a Series D round lead by OMERS Growth Equity. The funding will support the creation of localized content for international users and expand the enterprise offering, called Skillshare for Teams.

    Existing investors Union Square Ventures, Amasia, Burda Principal Investments, and Spero Ventures also participated in the investment.

    The company–which claims to have over 12 million registered users and 8,000 teachers– has raised $106 million to date. Taught by industry experts, the video-driven classes are mostly about graphic design, photography, painting, and interior design.

    Other consumer-oriented learning platforms have also attracted investors. Udemy raised $50 million at a $2 billion valuation in February and MasterClass.com got $100 million funding in May.

    According to CrunchBase, due to the pandemic, the online learning market is now poised to become a $375 billion marketplace by 2026. For example, Skillshare said that its rate of engagement more than doubled in most markets within the first half of 2020, while sales nearly doubled year-over-year.

    “Our shift as a business earlier this year has uniquely positioned us to meet that need and resulted in incredible growth, deeper user engagement and interest from new partners during a time where creativity is more important than ever,” said Matt Cooper, CEO at Skillshare.

     

  • New NSF Centers with Research Universities Will Focus on Health, Transportation, Quantum, and Agriculture

    New NSF Centers with Research Universities Will Focus on Health, Transportation, Quantum, and Agriculture

    IBL News | New York

    The U.S. National Science Foundation (NSF) announced it will invest $104 million to create four new engineering research centers, each with several American research universities collaborating as partners.

    Each center–which will receive $26 million apiece for an initial five-year period– will focus on:

    • Preserving biological systems, including cells, tissues, organs, and whole organisms. This center will involve four partner universities: University of Minnesota (lead); Massachusetts General Hospital; University of California, Berkeley; and University of California, Riverside.
    • Designing a sustainable infrastructure for electrified vehicles. With four partner universities: Utah State University (lead), Purdue University, University of Colorado, and University of Texas at El Paso.
    • Creating new technologies to build the capacity of the quantum internet. With the University of Arizona (lead), Harvard University, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, and Yale University.
    • Advancing precision agriculture by promoting food, energy, and water security and minimizing resource use and environmental impacts of agricultural practices. With the University of Pennsylvania (lead); Purdue University; University of California, Merced; and the University of Florida.

    “For the last 35 years, engineering research centers have helped shape science and technology in the United States by fostering innovation and collaboration among industry, universities, and government agencies,” said NSF Director Dr. Sethuraman Panchanathan.

    Since the program’s inception in 1985, NSF has funded 75 centers and will support 18 in this fiscal year, including the four new centers.