Category: Top News

“Learning should be thought as a lifelong pursuit. With a continual demand for professional development –and the personal fulfillment that goes with additional education– there are many reasons to keep on learning”, wrote Anant Agarwal, CEO at edX and Professor at MIT, in an article on LinkedIn.

More opportunities than ever before

“There are now more opportunities for lifelong learning than ever before. With the advent of online learning, open education resources, and MOOCs, we have amazing opportunities to engage in high-quality courses from the best schools around the world, for a very low cost, or for free. Anyone with Internet access can participate in these courses and, ultimately, more minds can be opened than ever before.”

Filling gaps left by under-resourced schools

“Online educational opportunities can help complement students’ in-classroom learning, filling gaps left by under-resourced schools”. An example of this gap can be found in computer science classwork. “A study showed that 90% of parents feel that computer science instruction would be great for their children, and over 60% believed that CS classes should be even mandatory. Yet 75% of the school principals polled said that their schools offer no CS programming classes whatsoever. The same is true of advanced courses.”

Growing mismatch between qualifications and demanded skills

“The working world is changing faster than any time in history. Keeping up is the challenge. Much of our modern world is driven by this microchip technology and it requires society to continually keep up the pace – and not just in engineering and computer science. The skills gap results as there is a growing mismatch between the qualifications of workers in the economy and the skills demanded by employers.”

Middle-skills gap

“There is also a ‘middle-skills’ gap in technology that involves the use of more everyday digital tools like spreadsheets or word processors. As these programs have become ubiquitous in modern workplaces, additional training is needed for people to keep up and/or get employment where they couldn’t before.”

A must-have for anyone working in a career that encourages innovation

“Similar innovation occurs daily in all fields – medical sciences, chemistry, space exploration, business, finance and far too many others to name here. We must continue to educate ourselves on all the latest findings, techniques, and opportunities. Lifelong learning isn’t a nice-to-have, it’s a must-have for anyone working in a career that encourages innovation.”

University’s “learn-then-work” model has become antiquated

“Traditionally, university systems have been designed around a “learn-then-work” model – a concept that came about in a centuries-old world where change was slower. It has now become antiquated. Universities must retool for this continuous learning world; approaching an unbundled model.”

Starting higher education largely online

“In an unbundled model, students might begin their higher education largely online, perhaps even their entire first year. Then they might have two years of on-campus schooling, followed by in-the-field instruction. For years after that, they would continue learning new skills, potentially again online, throughout their careers. This more flexible, continuous model is better suited for modern times.”

“Unbundling may also enable learners to obtain the education they need in a pay-as-you-go model, unlike today where you are betting all your effort and dollars on a major at age 18 – much like a roll of the dice.”

The University of Michigan (U-M), a founding partner in Coursera, is joining the edX consortium this month.

This university will use the name MichiganX and will launch at least 20 new courses on edX during the next two years. The first one will be titled “Finance for Everyone: Smart Tools for Decision-Making”, and it is scheduled for April 5, 2016. The coming two courses will focus on learning analytics and data science ethics.

U-M’s relationship with Coursera will continue, along with the existing one with NovoEd.

Leaders at U-M say edX adds yet another opportunity for faculty to experiment in the digital space.

Open edX Symposium’s organizing committee has announced the opening keynote. It will be delivered by Kenneth Koedinger, professor of Human-Computer Interaction and Psychology at Carnegie Mellon University.

Prof. Koedinger’s research aims to understand human learning and create educational technologies that increase student success. He is widely known for developing Cognitive Models and Cognitive Tutors: computer simulations of student thinking and learning, and software applying artificial intelligence to guide students through problem-based learning.

He recently co-authored the paper “Learning is not a spectator sport: doing is better than watching for learning from a MOOC” supporting the “learning by doing” movement.

The first Open edX Universities Symposium will be celebrated on November 11, 2015 at The George Washington University, in Washington DC.

This one-day event will bring together faculty, technologists, and leaders of higher education to share experiences and reflect on innovative uses of open-source technologies like the Open edX platform for online and blended learning, including degree-accruing, open, and professional education.

The inspiration for this symposium has come from an interest in having conversations with others who are thinking about owning and controlling their online content and platforms via open-source solutions.

The conversation will be structured around topics of general concern in online learning:

— Web-enhanced learning and pedagogy
— Learning analytics
— Inter-institutional collaboration

PRE-SYMPOSIUM EVENT

In addition, the organizing committee has setup a special pre-symposium event on November 10, 3-5 PM, with two prominent speakers:

 

—Barbara Oakley, instructor of one of the most popular MOOCs of all time, “Learning How To Learn,” with more than a million registered so far, will give an updated version of her Harvard talk “Lessons from a basement studio: how to make a riveting online class.”

–Charles Severance (Dr. Chuck), instructor of the legendary course “Programming for Everybody” will give a special presentation titled “Creating student-teacher connections at scale.”

Registration for the event is open to anyone at OpenedXUniversities.org, although space is limited.

 

[Disclosure: IBL is part of the Organizing Committee and a Technical Partner of the Symposium]

A group of edX partners and developers lead by Phil McGachey, from Harvard University, has successfully tested the LTI standard as a tool provider in edX’s Edge environment (for edX’s partners only), with Canvas and Blackboard as tool consumers. This development, that fits with edX’s goal of improving on-campus education for its partners, is a pilot for now –not a complete implementation of the LTI 1.1 protocol.

As a result of this preliminary effort, elements of Open edX courses –including video and advanced assessments– are embedded as learning experiences into other LMSs which are more specialized in student management. This way course teams can reuse content they are developing in edX MOOCs for residential courses delivered through Canvas or Blackboard. The Open edX platform can also be treated as a library of learning objects.

In addition, it will offer transfer of grades and synchronization capabilities: data about their performance on Open edX assessments will flow into the gradebook they use along with the grades for all their other assessments.

“At Harvard, our faculty want to to use these materials not just in their edX MOOCs, but also on campus. Integrating Canvas and edX through LTI gives us a transparent way to combine the strengths of each platform,” said Phil McGachey.

—
Documentation: Open edX as an LTI Tool Provider

This is a summary of the talk “MOOCs and Their Impact on Corporate Training: the edX Experiences”, that IBL’s Founder Michael Amigot gave at EC-TEL 2015 in Toledo, Spain, on September 17.

Michael Amigot ran, along with Carmen L. Padrón-Nápoles, manager at ATOS, the Industry Track at EC-TEL 2015, one of the main European conferences in e-learning.

 

MOOCs ON CORPORATE TRAINING

MOOCs are having a big impact on corporate training. Increasingly business organizations are considering MOOCs as part of their professional development activities, intended to educate employees.

• “Corporate universities” –over 4,000 around the world, such as General Electric, Arcelor Mittal and Apple– are building curriculums tailored to their strategies that include MOOCs.

• There is even a name for these corporate MOOCs: EPICs – Enterprise Private Internet-enabled Courses. This is reminiscent of SPOCs (Small, Private Online Courses).

• Corporate training is now delivered through online, blended or hybrid courses.

• Coursera, edX and Udacity are the main platforms that offer university-style MOOCs.

 

OPEN EDX’S MAIN ADOPTERS

However, Open edX is the only system that allows companies to create internal corporate platforms for MOOCs.

The main corporate adopters are McKinsey & Company, Johnson & Johnson, International Monetary Fund, MongoDB, Salesforce, HP and EMC.

They are using the Open edX open-source technology to educate employees, customers, partners, and prospects. They also use Open edX as a recruiting tool.

As an open source platform, Open edX benefits from the software contributions of universities and major companies such as McKinsey, Google, Microsoft and Qualcomm.

A PREMIUM LEARNING PLATFORM

The Open edX platform is a worthy competitor of more established LMSs such as Cornerstone, Saba, SumTotal – Skillsoft, Canvas LMS, Blackboard and Moodle.

The Open edX project is a global success. It powers major MOOC initiatives from all around the world, hosting blended and online courses.

It was created by MIT and Harvard University, and was quickly supported by universities such as UC Berkeley, Georgetown, and Stanford, and companies such as Google and Microsoft.

• Open edX makes learning easier and studying faster. It offers an engaging learning experience for learners and instructors. It has a fresh and intuitive UI, managed by the powerful “Studio” authoring tool.

• It promotes active learning by using video snippets, interactive components and game-like experiences.

• It has shown that it can scale to millions of users.

Princeton University has joined the edX Consortium as a charter member.

Its first course on edX.org is scheduled for October, “Making Government Work in Hard Places”. The second one will come in January 2016: “The Art of Structural Engineering: Bridges”.

Jeff Himpele, director for teaching initiatives and programs at the University’s McGraw Center for Teaching and Learning, said that the decision to join edX is a response to the needs of faculty members.

“Faculty continue to ask for an expanding set of online tools, different kinds of environments, as well as tools for learning analytics they can use to study student learning in open courses and in private campus courses.”

Professor Jennifer Widner, who will teach “Making Government Work in Hard Places”, explained that she was attracted to edX by its clear, simple structure.

“Online courses can be confusing to navigate. EdX’s clarity is a highlight and is important if not all users speak the same language.”

Maria Garlock, who will lead the “The Art of Structural Engineering: Bridges” course, said that she hopes to make engineering education accessible to everyone.

“I believe that all of us, not just engineers, should be educated about the design of our civil works and their history and significance,” she stated.

“We’re joining a consortium of edX member universities whose primary mission is expanding access to education and advancing it through research,” Himpele said. “There are a number of faculty at Princeton who want to do research on open online courses and others who will be able to enhance their teaching on campus by analyzing student learning in online environments connected with their courses.”

“Princeton’s commitment to open education for both learners and faculty aligns with the edX mission to increase access to education, enhance teaching and learning, and to conduct research,” said Anant Agarwal, edX chief executive and MIT professor. “We are honored to welcome Princeton and connect this prestigious university with the edX global learning community as we join efforts to make high-quality education accessible for all.”

OPEN EDX FOR COURSES ON CAMPUS

“EdX also offers an open-source platform, Open edX, which will allow the University greater flexibility to design and develop custom sites for courses offered on campus”, Himpele said.

“In adopting these customizable environments, it will allow us to take further our experiments in relating online learning environments to our curriculum on campus and integrating them with existing courses or creating new courses or course modules,” Himpele said.

Princeton also offers open online courses on the Coursera platform and plans to offer courses on Kadenze, an online learning platform specifically created to support the arts and creative technologies. The University has also offered courses through NovoEd.

Princeton’s open online courses are free and do not result in credit.

https://youtu.be/luQfWSfb1s0

Google has launched a new version of its Course Builder LMS, the 1.9.0 release.

Course Builder 1.9, available on GitHub, improves the instructor’s user interface and skill mapping capabilities to visualize competencies of students –as shown in the image below.

This initiative –which tries to compete with Open edX– is part of Google Open Education.

The way to learn from a MOOC is by doing.

A study by Carnegie Mellon University found that just watching videos without engaging interactively is an ineffective way to learn.

The title of this paper is eloquent: “Learning is Not a Spectator Sport: Doing is Better than Watching for Learning from a MOOC”.

“When one is watching a lecture or reading material, there’s an illusion of learning,” said in Wired Campus’ Blog Kenneth Koedinger, a professor of human-computer interaction and psychology at Carnegie Mellon, and an author of a report on the study. “Lessons communicated in a lecture don’t stick.”

“When students listen to a lecture or read text, it is easy for them to feel confident that they know the material. But that feeling is deceptive, because sometimes students come away from lectures with misconceptions. And without trying to replicate what they’ve learned in lectures or receiving feedback on their work, they won’t know when they’re making mistakes.”

“MOOCs can be a great way to get learning distributed to more people. But we need to put more emphasis on developing interactive materials.”

Anant Agarwal, CEO of edX, highlighted that edX courses already contain the kinds of interactive activities and instant feedback described by the researchers.

Kenneth Koedinger will be the keynote speaker of the first Open edX Universities Symposium on November 11 in Washington DC.

– Download the research paper (PDF)

Udacity’s “Nanodegree” program is showing “a glimmer of success”, according to The New York Times. Within one year, 10,000 students have enrolled into the program and the number is growing by one third every month. Hundreds have found new jobs as a result of this workforce certification.

This would be one of the first MOOC programs –if not the first– that proves to be financially successful.

Udacity –a four-year-old MOOC private platform competing with Coursera and edX.org– has developed its nanodegree courses in conjunction with technology companies such as Google and AT&T, interested in hiring people with technical skills mostly in mobile programming, data analysis and web development.

Udacity charges $200 a month for the courses; it gives back half of the tuition when the student completes the course. A typical student earns a nanodegree credential in about five months, for $500. The graduation rate is 25 percent.

Udacity’s founder, Sebastian Thrun, said that after years of trial and error it has hit a model of vocational training than can be scaled up to teach millions of people technical skills and help them find jobs.

“It’s a mistake to think that a single college education can carry you for a lifetime. To keep pace with change, your education has to be done throughout your life,” he says.

To solve the need of one-on-one coaching, mentorship, career counseling and job-interviewing skills, Udacity has created a network of paid graders who asses students’ submitted projects. Graders can earn $50 to $100 an hour.

Udacity achieved profitability in July, according to its founder. This company of 150 employees raised $35 million from investors last year.

The type, size and number of AWS’ EC2 instances needed to support your Open edX platform depend mostly on the amount of simultaneous students enrolled during peak times.

Based on the edX experience, one its engineers, Ned Batchelder, has given a rough guideline:

“An LMS worker will support about 75 simultaneous active users.  To be on the safe side, give each LMS worker 1Gb of RAM.  When choosing an AWS instance model, RAM will be the bottleneck, not CPU.  Use your active simultaneous user estimate to decide how many workers you need.  Choose an AWS instance model: m2.2xlarge is a good choice.  Divide the number of workers by the amount of RAM (30Gb for m2.2xlarge) to determine the number of instances you need”.

“As an example, suppose you estimate that you will have 800 active simultaneous users at your busiest time. 800/75 –> 10.6, so you will need 11 workers.  You need 11Gb of RAM.  This fits easily within a m2.2xlarge instance”.

Batchelder also recommends to allocate at least two AWS instances and start larger than you need –“you can scale it back once you see the real system under real load”. 

In addition to the web workers, at least one more machine needs to be configured for the database.

– This website compares Amazon (AWS) EC2 instances.