New distance learning agreement draft forthcoming

The online learning drafting team hopes to have language for state legislatures to consider next year.

Drafters of an interstate agreement on distance learning in higher education are entering the final stages of creating a model agreement that would make it much easier for colleges and universities offering online classes to students from different states to get approval from those states.

The draft agreement would allow colleges and universities with online programs to meet controversial “state authorization” requirements—without the huge expense this otherwise would require. The Education Department’s state authorization rules, which would have cut off federal aid to non-compliant colleges, were struck down on a technicality by a federal appeals court earlier this year, but experts agree they could reemerge in the next reauthorization of the Higher Education Act.

The draft agreement would eliminate redundancies and inefficiencies for states and higher-education institutions by establishing “reciprocity” among states that sign onto the effort—in effect creating a single standard for online-education programs to meet in order to gain approval across state lines.…Read More

The role of smartpens in the flipped classroom

Six in 10 students in a recent survey said flipped learning has proven effective.

In a perfect world where students always do their homework and come to class completely prepared, flipping the classroom would be the ideal solution for keeping students engaged in class.

However, one of the challenges of teaching is that some students do not always come to class completely prepared. Maybe flipping the classroom would be easier in a high school setting, where parents can enforce homework time. But college students have a choice — they’re adults.

No one is standing over their shoulders and making them do their homework.…Read More

Unpopular federal rules still might have life

HEA talks could involved state authorization rules.

Online education policy analysts say a set of federal regulations aimed at web-based college programs, struck down by a U.S. Court of Appeals, could re-emerge in Congress’s debate over the next Higher Education Act (HEA) renewal.

“State authorization” regulations would have required colleges with online programs to register courses in every state in which they operate—a hugely expensive undertaking for many colleges. Before the court ruling against the rules, many colleges and universities said they no longer would offer online classes in states with the most arduous regulatory standards.

Failure to abide by state authorization rules would have cut off federal aid to non-compliant colleges.…Read More

Tech experts, educators see massive online learning shift by 2020

Three in four Americans say college is too expensive.

Higher education’s economics are unsustainable and vulnerable to technologies that could make college campuses the hub of the privileged few, according to a vast collection of opinions from international technologists and educators.

The Pew Research Center’s Internet & American Life Project and Elon University’s Imagining the Internet Center recently asked more than 1,000 digital learning experts to weigh two drastically different scenarios for how higher education would look in 2020.

About four in 10 survey respondents said there would be “modest” changes in the way college is taught and paid for over the next eight years, and six in 10 expected a fundamental shift in the use of web-based technologies to upturn the current campus order, lowering costs, making education more accessible, and, in some cases, lowering standards.…Read More

Free online courses for college credit? Sort of

Coursera will have more than 100 courses in 2013.

The University of Washington (UW), unlike the 11 other universities that pledged this month to host classes in Coursera’s Massive Open Online Course (MOOC) platform, will offer credit to anyone who completes the open course. That, however, won’t be free.

UW officials, since the school’s Coursera partnership was announced July 17, have touted the university’s decision to offer course credit, while other schools will give certificates to people who complete their Cousera classes.

New details have emerged about UW’s Coursera classes, outlining three options for anyone with an internet connection and a desire to learn. There will be free courses, certificate courses, and “enhanced” courses led by instructors. The last option will likely be offered at the same rate as other UW online classes, about $350 added onto tuition costs.…Read More

Top campuses jump into the free online course game

Two universities gave millions to Coursera this week.

A dozen of the country’s top universities will make courses available for free on the open online class site Coursera by the beginning of 2013. The announcement was made on the same day that investors — including two campuses — invested millions in the web-based learning site.

By January, Coursera officials expect the site to offer 100 free courses in the arts, computer sciences, health, mathematics, history, literature, and other disciplines. All courses will be free for any individual with a computer and internet connection to enroll.

Coursera was founded in the fall of 2011 by Stanford Computer Science Professors Daphne Koller and Andrew Ng, and in April 2012 announced that Princeton, University of Michigan, Stanford and Penn were entering into agreement with Coursera to bring course content online for free.…Read More

Popular video forecasts the end of traditional higher education

Sams says certificates and badges will soon replace degrees.

In Bill Sams’ future, only the children of the ultra-wealthy will attend on-campus college courses, the student loan industry will collapse, and Google will build an omniscient online educational system while Apple and Amazon team up to create a learning resource leviathan.

And all of that comes to pass by 2020.

Sams, an executive in residence at Ohio University, made the web video, “EPIC 2020,” grabbing educators’ and technologists’ attention with brave predictions of how the college campus will cease to be a learning hub, and online schools will become the new standard in a world where Stanford, MIT, and Harvard don’t much matter.…Read More

For-profit lobbying group questions federal stats after unflattering report

For-profit officials pushed back against Duncan's latest comments on federal regulations.

The president of the country’s for-profit college association said school officials have “severe concerns” about an Education Department (ED) report that showed 5 percent of for-profits are in danger of losing access to federal student aid.

For-profit colleges, which have some of the country’s most expansive online learning programs, that have not met any of the federal government’s three “gainful employment” requirements would be cut off from federal aid, which accounts for as much as 90 percent of for-profit schools’ annual profit.

Losing aid would force many colleges or universities to shut down, higher-education officials said.…Read More

Online learning platform uses ‘Hollywood Squares’ model to boost engagement

Most MBA@UNC class sections have a dozen students.

The ever-present temptations of Facebook, Twitter, eMail, instant messaging, text messages, and online shopping are no match for face-to-face-to-face-to-face interaction.

The cure for the perpetual web-based distractions of class time in the online classroom might be webcams that put every face of every student on screen for everyone to see. Accountability might be the key to holding students’ attention.

Officials from the University of North Carolina’s online MBA program, known as MBA@UNC, said an online learning platform designed and operated by a Maryland-based company called 2tor has created a web-based classroom more engaged than any they have seen.…Read More

Public university becomes first to endorse untraditional online model

About 20 percent of Wisconsin adults have some postsecondary course credit.

Students at the University of Wisconsin (UW) can earn college degrees based on proven competency in a subject, making UW the first publicly-funded school to launch a competency-based degree program.

Led by officials at UW-Extension, a continued learning program with offices located across Wisconsin, the UW Flexible Degree will let incoming students demonstrate their knowledge and cut down on the time it takes to earn a degree.

UW Chancellor Ray Cross and Gov. Scott Walker unveiled the Flexible Degree program June 19 as a way to help Wisconsinites boost their education credentials and fill empty jobs that require a two-or-four-year degree.…Read More

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