IBL News

Author: IBL News

  • Spain's 2017 Open edX Meetup Will Take Place This Thursday, October 5

    The third Open edX Meetup in Spain – the 2017 edition – will take place this Thursday, October 5 in Madrid. The event, scheduled at 7pm, is free and open to anyone interested in education technology and pedagogy. There is a limit of attendance to 120 people.

    The two speakers will be Michael Amigot, Founder at IBL Studios & IBL Open edX in New York, and Javier Calvo, CEO at Campus FP, a leading vocational training organization in Spain and a recent Open edX adopter.

    Local leaders in education at the university, industry and government level will attend the event with the goal of sharing knowledge and networking with attendants.

    Talks, in Spanish, will be recorded and live streamed. A Spanish wine will be served at the end of the event.

    All of the details are featured in the official page of this meetup.

    Spain’s Open edX community has attracted so far 350 members. The main Open edX projects in Spain have been presented in these meetups.

    UPDATE: Here is the video stream of the event. 

  • Juilliard Releases Six Free Open Courses For Musicians and Music Lovers

    The Juilliard School has just joined the edX consortium, and, as a result, launched on Sept. 26 six new, free MOOCs intended for musicians and music lovers.

    • Discovering the Instruments of the Orchestra, with Dr. L. Michael Griffel. Learn to listen more deeply to classical music by discovering the four families of instruments: strings, woodwinds, brass, and percussion.This course helps students learn to hear and appreciate the nuances of each instrument in the orchestra, enabling them to listen more deeply to classical music.Dr. Griffel, chair of Juilliard’s Music History Department, and eight Juilliard faculty and alumni take students on a journey into the orchestra and introduces the history of its principal instruments.
    • Perform at Your Best: Foundations of Performance Psychology, with Dr. Noa Kageyama: Learn performance psychology fundamentals to help you overcome anxiety and perform at your best under pressure.Dr. Kageyama’s performance psychology classes are a favorite among Juilliard music students.This course combines applied exercises, insights gleaned from interviews with renowned performers, and research in performance psychology and motor learning.
    • Piano Preludes: Bach, Chopin, and Debussy, with Dr. Michael Shinn. Improve your piano skills by learning to play three famous preludes from Bach, Chopin, and Debussy.The course features instructional lessons, downloadable scores and performances by Juilliard students, and covers piano preludes from the Baroque, Romantic, and Impressionist eras composed by Bach, Chopin, and Debussy.
    • How to Listen to Great Music for Orchestra, with Dr. L. Michael Griffel. Learn how to listen to five important orchestral works that span styles and genres and are composed by Handel, Mozart, Beethoven, R. Strauss, and Bartók.Students who sign up for the Verified Certificate gain exclusive access to full HD performances and artists interviews featuring the Berliner Philharmoniker, as well as listening guides for each of the five works.
    • Music Theory 101, with Dr. Steven Laitz. Learn the fundamentals of music theory in an engaging and straightforward approach, and develop the music theory knowledge you need to become better players, superior listeners, and feel more confident writing for any musical genre.
    • Sharpen Your Piano Artistry, with Dr. Michael Shinn. Improve your technique and overall piano playing by learning to play two classical pieces from a curated list of 19 advanced beginner and intermediate level pieces by Beethoven, Mozart, Clementi, and others.Students have access to downloadable scores, performances by Juilliard students and alumni, instructional videos, warm-up guides, and expert insights from a variety of Juilliard faculty.

     

  • "Self-Driving" Signature Course at Udacity Attracts 10K Students

    Udacity.com has attracted 53,000 students to its Nanodegree program, with 18,000 graduates, doubling this way their revenues and multiplying by four the number of enrollments, according to Class Central.

    The Self-Driving Nanodegree has enrolled 10,000 students and received 43,000 applications. The first cohort has not yet graduated, but 60 students have already found jobs at companies like BMW, Lockheed Martin, NIO, Volvo, and Amazon Robotics.

    As Sebastian Thrun says, “this program has already educated more self-driving car engineers than all universities combined.”

    Udacity, one of the three top learning platforms along with Coursera and edX, has nine million learners enrolled across its free and paid courses.

  • MongoDB Will Go Public This Year

     

    MongoDB, the company whose technology powers the courseware database of the Open edX platform, has filed its IPO (Initial Public Offering) with the SEC to go public and raise up $100 to 150 million in fresh capital in order to pursue product development.

    Founded in 2007 and based in New York, MongoDB’s is a database software company that provides the enterprise with an open source NoSQL database platform, which stores data in JSONB-like documents. Its community server “freemium” offering has been downloaded more than 30 million times.

    According to TechCrunch, MongoDB’s post-money market valuation is $1.6 billion, after receiving $303 million in nine rounds from 14 investors. In 2015, the company brought in $65.3 million in revenue on losses of $73.5 million.

    MongoDB has a partnership with edX to provide free online training at edX.org, although its only course (“Introduction to MongoDB using the MEAN Stack”) is not currently available to enroll. Its MongoDB University has an extensive catalog of free courses; overall, it has attracted 200,000 learners.

     

  • Top 50 MOOCs of All Time, According to Class Central

    The Class-Central.com course-listing website has come up with the list of Top 50 MOOCs of All Time, based on “thousands of reviews written by our users.” This is the page.   

    Today there are over 8,000 MOOCs from around 750 universities worldwide.

    Among the top courses, we find Learning How To Learn, Harvard’s CS50x, ModPo, Coding in your Classroom, Now!

    The Top 50 also contains courses from prominent personalities, like The Science of the Solar System by Mike Brown and Functional Programming Principles in Scala by Martin Odersky (the creator of Scala).

    Most of the courses are in Technology (19) and the Sciences (15). There are 6 on Business and 8 in Humanities.

    1. Coursera is the top provider with 28 courses in the Top 50, and edX is second with 9 courses;
    2. Stanford and MIT top the list with four courses each, and the University of Cape Town has three courses in the Top 50 — two on FutureLearn and one on Coursera;
    3. The list includes courses from 35 universities and one research institute (Santa Fe), of which 22 universities are in the US; and
    4. Barbara Oakley and Terry Sejnowski, the instructors of the most popular MOOC in the world, have two courses in the top 50. Their new course Mindshift joins Learning How To Learn in the top 50.

  • English Preparation Course at edX.org Gets Half a Million Enrollments

    The edX IELTS Academic Test Preparation course, developed by The University of Queensland in Australia, has hit a 500,000 enrollment milestone, according to this institution.

    The course, launched in 2015, averages about 1,000 enrollments per day. It incorporates 80 hours of materials presented through various activity types and online tools, and includes built-in comprehensive and corrective feedback.

    “With this course, we have been able to translate 35 years of experience and expertise in teaching classroom English into a free innovative online learning platform,” said director Julian Wilson.

    “IELTSx has brought high-quality IELTS preparation training to communities where there is low-quality English language teaching, or where there is no English language teaching at all,” he added.

     

  • EdX Adds 11 Professional Certificate Programs to Its Catalog

    edX announced this week 11 new Professional Certificate programs designed to build or advance critical skills in fields where employers are seeking top talent, such as front-end web development, big data, java programming and cybersecurity.

    Today edX Professional Certificates, 23 in total, are offered by 19 partner institutions and endorsed by corporations including Google, Microsoft, GE and Stables.

  • Flipped Learning Solves a Basic Structural Problem of Traditional Teaching, Says Prof. Robert Talbert

    Flipped learning goes beyond innovation. It is a necessity to reach students who struggle with the traditional model based on learning in class.

    “The more difficult work happens in individual papers, projects and homework outside of class, where access to help is much more limited. And while professors may still be available outside of class via office hours or other modes of contact, only traditionally “good” students tend to seek out those resources,” said Professor Robert Talbert during a recent workshop at The George Washington University.

    “We set students up for failure in some ways,” said Dr. Talbert, a math professor at ‎Grand Valley State University. “They’re encountering the most difficult material at the moment when they’re most alone…and on the flip side we’re giving them the simplest stuff when we’re most accessible.”

    In a “flipped” model, by contrast, students’ initial contact with material takes place before class, freeing up classroom time for active learning. The “classroom” may also be virtual, as in an online course. Students might watch a videotaped lecture, read a guide to the material and complete worksheets before any teacher introduces them.

    Preliminary studies suggest impressive results, like increased student engagement and improved pass rates, in classes that flip their curriculum.

    “Flipping” is a response to a basic structural problem of traditional teaching models, in which students generally do the easiest work—learning vocabulary, new ideas and basic principles—in class, where they have the most access to help from peers and teachers.

    In general, the flipped model is a win-win for students and teachers, Dr. Talbert said. “Students will prepare if they’re given an activity that makes it worth their while,” he said. “And we should only give assignments that we want to grade.”

    “I firmly believe that higher education has the power to transform everything and everybody it touches for good—but I feel that higher education today isn’t living up to its potential,” he said. “So making simple changes will do a lot of work to get higher education back to its roots.”

  • Newsletter About Open edX #1 – September 2017

    Welcome to our newsletter on Open edX. After 500+ news posts and four years writing about the Open edX and edX universe, I’ve decided to launch a monthly newsletter with the must-read stories in this topic. Click here to subscribe. Feel free to share your thoughts! 

     

    SEPTEMBER 2017 – NEWSLETTER #1

    • Gingko. The edX organization released Ginkgo, the latest Open edX version of the platform. Ginkgo is the seventh release of Open edX, and includes changes to the course navigation, video player, proctored exams, accessibility, emails and problems.

    • We’re UBER. Interesting definition of edX. “In many ways, you can think of edX as an Uber for education”, said Anant Agarwal, CEO at edX, during the a webinar hosted by EdCast.

    • iOS, Android. The 2.10 Open edX and edX’s app for iOS and Android came up with two new features which allow learners to access all course videos in one place as well as delete downloaded clips.

    • MicroMasters. edX’s MicroMasters initiative celebrated its first anniversary this September with the extension of the program to 39 subjects from 24 international universities. Top employers (IBM, GE, Boeing, Walmart, Adobe, Ford, PwC…) endorsed this program.

    • Open edX Courses. The “Freshman Year for Free” program, a non-profit initiative done in partnership with edX and IBL, launched a catalog of 40 online College Board CLEP courses on an Open edX platform. The Washington Post, The Wall Street Journal and other media outlets praised the project.

    • France. France University Numerique (FUN), the French national MOOC platform and the first national platform using Open edX, reached an agreement with edX.org to share course content and strengthen its partnership.

    • Top 10. Nine of the world’s top 10 universities use the Open edX pedagogy and technology on their courses at edX.org, and one (Stanford) has its own independent instance.

    • MITx. MITx will launch 30 MOOCs at edx.org this fall. These MOOCs, which allow learners to get an MITx certificate as a credential, will feature the same content as on-campus courses.

    • Hiring. edX started looking for an Open edX Community Lead to work in its headquarters in Cambridge, Massachussets, in order to replace Joel Barciauskas, who left the organization on August 29th.

    The Open edX Newsletter is a topic-curated monthly email report compiled by Michael Amigot, Founder at IBL Studios & IBL Open edX. If you enjoy what you read please consider forwarding it to spread the word. Click here to subscribe. View this email on the web 

  • Course Production Newsletter #1 – September 2017


    Welcome to our monthly newsletter on online course production and emerging initiatives. We think course design is a game changer, and we want to keep you informed with all the must-know news, insights, cases and technologies. Click here to subscribe.


    SEPTEMBER 2017 – NEWSLETTER #1

    • Syllabus reimagined. The Fall semester is here, and syllabi are the subject of attention. Sean Morris, an instructional designer at Middlebury Digital Learning, reimagines the syllabus in an online environment, encouraging its use as a pedagogical tool.

    • Course performance. Recent research from the National Bureau of Economic Research with 4,000 student concludes that task-based goals  (i.e. completing online practice exams) have large and robust positive effect and increase course performance.

    • Credit for free. A non-profit initiative called the “Freshman Year fro Free” is offering an open catalog of 40 online College Board CLEP courses, intended to allow students to get college credit for free.

    • Science of learning. Coursera’s “Learning How to Learn” course, by Barbara Oakley, has become the most successful MOOC ever, with 1.8 million students in 200 countries. The New York Times dedicated an extensive column to this course.

    • Top 50 MOOCs. How many MOOCs have been produced? Over 8,000 from 750 universities worldwide. Class-Central.com has collected the Top 50 MOOCs of All Time. Most of the courses are technology (19) and sciences (15); there are 6 on business and 8 in humanities.

    • MicroMasters. edX’s MicroMasters initiative is helping MIT’s and Harvard’s founded consortium to achieve its goal of being economically sustainable in 2020. This year MicroMasters will include 39 subjects from 24 universities. Top brands are endorsing the program.

    • Corporate Learning. There’s a shift happening in corporate learning: less professionals and face-to-face classes, new roles, and more asynchronous online classes, skills training and external sourcing. Elliott Masie, CLO at The Masie Center think tank, analyzes this shift.

    • Teaching Newsletter. The Chronicle has launched a weekly newsletter about teaching and learning called “Teaching”.

    • Transformation. In the same way electricity transformed manufacturing, digital technologies will change higher education. However, it might take a similar 50-year transition, writes Dr. Joshua Kim.

    —

    The Course Production is a topic-curated monthly newsletter compiled by Michael Amigot, Founder at IBL Studios & IBL Open edX. If you enjoy what you read please consider forwarding it to spread the word. Click here to subscribe. View this email on the web.