IBL News

Category: Platforms

  • Code with Google, a New Computer Science Resource for Educators

    Code with Google, a New Computer Science Resource for Educators

    IBL News | New York

    Google has launched an initiative called “Code with Google” to train teachers in Computer Science (CS). It brings together Google’s free curriculum and programs that build coding skills.

    Educators can integrate CS First into their classroom, guide their high school students through the learning app Grasshopper to learn JavaScript, and share CS scholarship, summer programs, and internships opportunities.

    Alongside these resources, Google.org also announced a grant of $1 million to the Computer Science Teachers Association (CSTA) to expand the CS learning.

    Currently, many schools don’t offer CS courses that include programming.

    “Code with Google is the next step in our ongoing commitment to closing equity gaps in CS education,” wrote Google VP of Education and University Relations, Maggie Johnson, in a blog post.

    With this initiative, Google continues its education strategy for schools. Affordable Chromebooks, free resources and cloud-based software is is how the giant company is trying to solidify its position among educators and students.

  • An Innovative, Stackable Online Master’s in Supply Chain Management from ASU On edX

    An Innovative, Stackable Online Master’s in Supply Chain Management from ASU On edX

    IBL News | New York

    edX, Arizona State University (ASU), and MIT announced today the launch of an innovative, stackable online Master’s of Science in Supply Chain Management, starting in January 2020.

    Learners who pass the MIT MicroMasters Supply Chain Management on edX.org will have the opportunity to transition to a full master’s degree from ASU’s W.P. Carey School of Business and ASU Online (also hosted on edX).

    “This new offering truly transforms traditional graduate education by bringing together two top-ranked schools in supply chain management to create the world’s first stackable, hybrid graduate degree program. This approach to a stackable, flexible, top-quality online master’s degree is the latest milestone in addressing today’s global skills gap,” said Anant Agarwal, edX CEO and MIT professor.

    “We believe there will be many students who are eager to dive deeper after their MicroMasters program to earn a master’s degree from ASU, and that more learners will be drawn to the MIT Supply Chain Management MicroMasters program as this new pathway to a graduate degree within the edX platform becomes available,” added Amy Hillman, dean of the W. P. Carey School of Business at ASU.

    Students currently enrolled in, or who have already completed, the MITx Supply Chain Management MicroMasters program can apply now for the online Master of Science in Supply Chain Management from ASU, with an application deadline of Dec. 16.

    With this new offering, the MIT Supply Chain Management MicroMasters program now offers learners pathways to completing a master’s degree at 21 institutions.

    Master’s degrees on edX are stacked, degree programs with a MicroMasters program component.

     

  • Amazon Partners with George Mason University to Launch a Cloud-Based Degree

    Amazon Partners with George Mason University to Launch a Cloud-Based Degree

    IBL News | New York

    George Mason University (GMU) and Northern Community College (NOVA) are partnering with Amazon Web Services (AWS) to offer students a pathway to earn a Bachelor’s of Applied Science degree and pursue a career in cloud computing.

    Both institutions worked with AWS Educate curriculum designers to create a degree program which will be mapped to in-demand technical skills required by Amazon and other employees in cloud services, cybersecurity, software development and DevOps.

    Students will first earn an Associate degree at NOVA and transfer to George Mason to complete a four-year Bachelor’s degree.

    “This degree pathway marks the beginning of a ground-breaking initiative that will deliver innovative educational opportunities to students across the commonwealth. The collaboration with AWS helps give our students, and our region, a competitive edge,” said Ángel Cabrera, president of George Mason University, at Campus Technology.

    “We are delighted to be working with George Mason University and NOVA to turn the growing demand for cloud skills into pathways in technology for students from all backgrounds,” stated Teresa Carlson, vice president for worldwide public sector at AWS.

    Amazon, which is building its second corporate headquarters in Northern Virginia, expects to bring 25,000 jobs to the region by 2030.

    AWS Educate Free Courses

    On the other hand, AWS Educate released three new credentialed, 25-hour, free courses. Campus Technology reports.

    These courses are AWS RoboMaker, Amazon Sumerian and AWS DeepRacer.

     

  • Coursera’s Google IT Support Certificate Program Gets a Good Response

    Coursera’s Google IT Support Certificate Program Gets a Good Response

    IBL News | New York

    Out of 75,000 enrollees, over 8,000 students have completed the Google IT Support Professional Certificate program, hosted in Coursera.

    Google created this $49 a month program in early 2018. It was designed to take beginner learners to job readiness in about eight months.

    There are 215,000 unfilled IT support staff roles nationwide, Google estimates. The average annual starting salary for these entry-level IT jobs is $52,000, federal data shows.

    Around 70 percent of enrollees come from underrepresented populations in tech, including women, Latinos, African-Americans, veterans and learners without a college education.

    Employers that are recruiting from the Google IT Support Certificate program include Bank of America, General Electric, Walmart, Wyndham Hotels, Sprint, Home Depot, H&R Block, Infosys, Intel and Cognizant.

    Community colleges with a strong track record in workforce development are also successfully offering the certificate to their students with additional support and in-person instruction. Google partnered with an initial group of 25 community colleges in 2018 but intends to grow that number to 100.

    The Internet giant provided a grant that allows community colleges to offer the program for free.

    Some colleges are offering the course for credit as part of a degree program. Others are including it as part of their continuing-education programs.

    “The IT support role, which involves troubleshooting and solving technical issues, typically doesn’t require a four-year college degree, so it should be a strong entry point for nontraditional talent,” Natalie Van Kleef Conley, Product Manager for Grow with Google, said in Inside of Higher Education.

    Moving forward, Google wants to expand partnerships and move into new areas of tech training.

  • An Institution Prepares Students for Jobs which Won’t Be Automatized

    An Institution Prepares Students for Jobs which Won’t Be Automatized

    Mikel Amigot | IBL News (Boston)

    Job automation has already started. Stats indicate that 10% of American jobs will be automated in 2019. An upsetting forecast indicates that up to 73 million U.S. jobs will be automated by 2030.

    But there is hope. First: nearly 2 million new non-routine jobs which machines cannot easily perform are being created every year in the United States. Second: an increasing number of colleges and universities understand the challenge and are starting to prepare students who demand jobs which won’t be automated.

    Foundry College is one of them. Its Founder, Dr. Stephen Kosslyn, addressed the issue yesterday during the Eduventures Summit in Boston with a physician example. “Diagnosis of illness will soon be accomplished well by machines. But sitting with the family to discuss treatment options will be difficult to automate.”

    At least two skills are automation resistant: “Recognizing and responding to emotion when communicating and making decisions. And taking context into account when analyzing situations, creatively solving problems, and prioritizing goals,” Stephen Kosslyn said.

    Foundry College, which is focused on what’s difficult to automate, has listed five key underpinnings:

    • Critical thinking
    • Creative problem solving
    • Clear communication
    • Constructive personal interactions
    • Good judgment

    To pair these essential skills, this institution has reimagined a future-proof, two-year curriculum. On the first year, Foundry teaches:

    • Critical Analyses
    • Practical Problem Solving
    • Clear Communication
    • Learning at Work
    • Working with Others
    • Managing Yourself at Work

    On the second year:

    • Communicating and Conveying in Business
    • Navigating Work
    • Thinking with Software
    • Customer Service and Sales
    • Health Care Management
    • System and Service Management

     

  • Georgia Tech Will Deploy this Summer an Improved Version of its AI-Based Teacher Assistant

    Georgia Tech Will Deploy this Summer an Improved Version of its AI-Based Teacher Assistant

    Mikel Amigot | IBL News 

    A refined and revised version of Georgia Tech’s first AI-based teacher assistant will be introduced this summer as a way to enhance some of the syllabi at the school. This virtual agent, known as Jill Watson and developed by Professor Ashok Goel, will turn three years old.

    Yakut Gazi, Associate Dean of Learning Systems at Georgia Tech, highlighted during the 2019 Learning Impact Leadership Institute conference, last week in San Diego, the fact that her institution “is leading efforts in Artificial Intelligence’s development”. “Many students of the OMSC degree didn’t know that an AI agent was responding their questions until the end of the semester,” she added.

    Jill Watson is the result of the work of Prof. Goel [in the picture] with a team of graduate students in his Design & Intelligence Laboratory (DILAB). This team created this chatbot to answer routine, frequently asked questions in the forum for his online Knowledge-Based Artificial Intelligence (KBAI) class.

    The original intent was to free up time for the course TAs (Teacher Assistants), so they could concentrate on more creative and less repetitive tasks. But an expected outcome arose: more learner engagement. Before Jill Watson, students averaged 32 comments per semester; after Jill Watson, each student averaged 38 comments per semester.

    In the spring of 2016, once this AI-agent’s identity was revealed, the reaction was overwhelmingly positive.

    One student wanted to nominate Jill for the Outstanding TA award, and not one student complained.

    National news outlets such as the Wall Street Journal and Washington Post ran stories on her. Ashok Goel gave a TEDxTalk on Jill, and he was invited by the Gates Foundation in January 2018 to participate in a brainstorming session on the future of AI in education.

    Georgia Tech’s motto is affordability, accessibility, and applicability, and Jill Watson can help human teachers deliver education at scale.

    • Georgia Tech: Jill Watson’s Terrific Twos

  • A Fascinating Free Course About Beethoven’s Music from Stanford University

    A Fascinating Free Course About Beethoven’s Music from Stanford University

    John G. Paul | IBL News

    Stanford University has launched this spring a new online, free course on Beethoven, his music and development as a composer.

    The class, led by music historian Stephen Hinton, is designed for any level of musical literacy, with the aim of enhancing people’s understanding of Beethoven’s music through the study of his string quartets –a genre of music involving two violins, a viola, and a cello. It features performances by and discussions with the St. Lawrence String Quartet, Stanford’s ensemble-in-residence.
    “His last five string quartets are widely considered to be the pinnacle of Western art music,” said Professor Stephen Hinton.

    Defining the String Quartet II: Beethoven, a seven-week course, now open for enrollment, has attracted nearly 800 participants so far. Many of them share their interpretation and experience with Beethoven’s music in the course’s online forums. Students who successfully complete the full course can receive a statement of accomplishment that reflects their level of participation and achievement. After June 11, the class will reopen on a self-paced modality.

    This course –which is included on Stanford Online’s Open edX-based platform– is a sequel to Stanford’s first free online course on classical music appreciation, called Defining the String Quartet: Haydn, that launched in 2016.

     

     

     

  • Chatbots Gain Traction Among Businesses – Now a Course About Them on edX

    Chatbots Gain Traction Among Businesses – Now a Course About Them on edX

    Mikel Amigot | IBL News

    Chatbot–based customer services are increasingly in demand. Advancements in AI technology, natural language processing, neural networks and speech recognition are making chatbots more effective and affordable. However, they are still in an early phase of development.

    These revolutionary applications – which allow users to engage in interactive conversations using text or natural voice – have the potential to save businesses a fortune – over 8 billion annually by 2020 according to Juniper.

    Artificial Intelligence Chatbot technology is not ready to replace top customers agents when assisting customers yet, but is advancing rapidly. A well-performed human experience is unbeatable.

    Trying to trick customers by making them think that an AI chatbot is a real person only speaks poorly about that company. Customers get easily annoyed if they are asked the same information repeatedly. If they feel that an algorithm is in the works trying to match the best response, they will inevitably feel played.

    Antonio Cangiano, an IBM manager who teaches a class on chatbots on edX, highlights that these tools “augment humans, not replace them.” Despite being imperfect, they represent a growing business opportunity.

    The mentioned course helps to build, analyze, and deploy chatbots powered by IBM’s Watson. In addition, it teaches how to make money by selling chatbot services to clients, even by deploying them in WordPress sites.

     

  • View: Instructional Designers Forget What Makes a Course Successful

    View: Instructional Designers Forget What Makes a Course Successful

     

    Mikel Amigot |  IBL News

    When we create courses, we follow the latest pedagogical innovations along with Backwards design rules, and this seems to be the right approach. The problem arises when our online courses get few enrollments and the economics of the course put our project in danger.

    What we are doing wrong? What needs to be fixed?

    As instructional designers, we forget what motivates enrollment and purchase’s decisions.

    Learners want real outcomes. How the online class they are enrolling in is going to change their life.

    It is all about career advancement. It is all about a direct impact on their earnings, income, and job promotion.

    If the promised transformation is not convincing, we won’t attract enough students to make the course or the program sustainable.

    A second requirement: we need to establish trust.

    Our instructor, or staff or instructors, need to prove that they are the right fit for the job. They should be authorities in that instructional field. They must be committed to teach you and deliver a transformational experience, too.A welcome trailer will prove all of it. Additionally, video testimonials from learners will be helpful.

    Third, we need to avoid unnecessary material and present a compelling, content outline. We will feature only the lessons required to achieve the goal. Long programs usually discourage learners.

    To make sure, it’s key we collect continuous feedback from reviewers prior to the launch, in order to validate the concept and the outline. Redo what needs to be redone, including videos and animations, and remove whatever seems redundant.

    Refining the course will ensure a great performance when it goes public.

    Let’s follow all of these ideas when we engineer a program!

  • Udacity Offers Two Programs to Train Cloud Engineers on AWS

    Udacity Offers Two Programs to Train Cloud Engineers on AWS

    John G. Paul | IBL News

    Udacity.com introduced this week its School of Cloud Computing, which will be focused on two training programs offering learners to become cloud developers and DevOps engineers on AWS (Amazon Web Services). The two courses (4-month, 10 hours/week) will start on June 11 and cost $1,436 per course.

    Developers in this field are in high demand. There are over 50,000 jobs available in the US with a median salary of $146K, according to Forbes. Cloud tech services, which allow companies to innovate at a faster pace and reduce costs, are projected to grow to $206 billion in 2019, an increase of 17.3%, according to Gartner.

    “The cloud brings unlimited access to computing power, security, storage, networking, messaging, and management services to large organizations and everyday builders. When you no longer need to maintain data centers, your engineers can focus on that which differentiates your business from the competition. The cloud provides high availability, on-demand scalability and elasticity, and you pay only for what you use,” explained Kesha Williams, Software Engineering Manager, at Chick-fil-A and Udacity Cloud Computing Instructor.

    Udacity.com, a MOOC-platform that competes with Coursera, edX, and FutureLearn, highlights the employability of its programs (called Nanodegrees), offering them at a significantly higher price than rivals, at $1,436 per course. This platform prefers to produce their own online courses and feature industry experts as instructors rather than rely on college professors.

    “We are taking a huge step towards becoming the University of Silicon Valley (…) Going forward, Udacity will now provide one-on-one technical mentorship, along with expert feedback to student projects and individual career coaching to help students advance their careers (…) Our team of expert reviewers is available to give individual constructive feedback to every student project, with a median turnaround time of just 3.9 hours,” recently announced Sebastian Thrun, Founder at Udacity.

    “With more than 75,000 Nanodegree program graduates and over 200 industry partners, the Nanodegree program is well on its way to becoming a de-facto standard for hiring and corporate training in the tech industry,” he claimed.

    • Udacity Blog: Introducing Udacity’s School of Cloud Computing
    • Syllabus of Become a Cloud Developer (PDF)
    • Syllabus of Become a Cloud Dev Ops Engineer (PDF)