Major tech partnership to deliver “interactive” lectures

Top Hat and OpenStax College partner to deliver peer-reviewed textbooks and an interactive teaching platform.

openstax-top-hatTop Hat, a digital learning platform for higher education, today announced it is teaming up with OpenStax College, Rice University’s non-profit educational materials initiative.

Through the partnership, college professors are able to engage students through OpenStax College’s digital textbooks and be involved every step of the way before, during and after lectures through Top Hat’s interactive teaching platform. Professors have already adopted OpenStax College with Top Hat in a number of universities and colleges, including University of Kentucky, College of William and Mary, Collin College, Eastfield College, Tidewater Community College and Northern Illinois University.

“It’s becoming more evident that online learning alone cannot replace face-to-face lectures,” said Mike Silagadze, CEO of Top Hat. “Student outcomes continue to be superior when there is a component of live interaction as opposed to purely web-based learning. With digital textbooks from OpenStax College, Top Hat brings a new level of ease and depth to the university lecture. In-class student assessment can now encompass visual and auditory stimuli, and new ways of manipulating and interacting with classroom material through sorting, matching, click-on-target and word or number answer questions.”…Read More

OpenStax College expands higher-ed offerings for fall curricula

Odigia comes to market with OpenStax College.

openstax-odigia-courseOdigia has partnered with OpenStax College, an initiative of Rice University, to offer a catalog of interactive courses this fall.

Odigia’s educational platform aims to transform the traditional classroom experience with teaching and learning tools that are designed for college-level learning, and are also used by businesses and non-profit organizations for advanced training.

“We’re not digitizing the traditional learning experience, we’re transforming the entire learning model for students and teachers,” said Joshua Moe, CEO of Odigia. “We support true student engagement and ways for students to progress through content using their own learning styles, at their own pace, using the tools that help them learn best. Odigia also provides teachers with real-time learning data, giving insight into how to best use class time. Traditional learning management systems (LMS) don’t track student learning the way we do, so this is a big breakthrough.”…Read More

Is Gen Z #Unemployable?

College and university focus on picking a major may be more of a hindrance than a benefit to today’s graduating students, say business leaders.

graduate-z-jobThe students of Generation Z are a confident group that almost always believe they are ready to take the next step or take on the next task, no matter how prepared they actually are. Whether it’s taking a final exam after one night’s worth of cramming or earning a promotion in their first year, today’s youth truly believe they can get the job done. Gen Z’s confidence about their capability to successfully perform in the workplace upon graduation even trickles down to their educators, as 96 percent of chief academic officers believe their graduates are ready for the workforce.

However, public view of this generation’s preparedness to contribute upon entering the workplace is shockingly different. In fact, only 11 percent of American business leaders agree that students are graduating with the necessary skills and competencies to succeed in the workplace.

So where do business leaders believe colleges and universities are falling short in graduating employable students?…Read More

Lumens showcases new lecture capture technology at InfoComm

Expands its portfolio of audio visual solutions

lecture-captureLumens Integration Inc. will showcase its complete lecture capture solution at InfoComm in Orlando, Florida from June 15-19, 2015 at booth #2973.

Lumens will showcase the new CaptureVision VS-LC101, a video capture box and the VC-A20P HD network PTZ camera.
With its ability to capture and stream live, Lumens lecture capture station is of interest to the education, medical, and house of worship markets.

For those conference attendees who are interested in educational technology products that are joining next generation classrooms, Lumens Ladibug visualizers, ceiling cameras and RHINO charging carts will be available at the booth.…Read More

New cost calculator aims to be the “Kayak.com” of college prices

Education big-names ACT and Noodle team up with College Abacus to further higher ed cost transparency through different online calculator integration.

college-cost-calculatorHailed as one of CNNMoney’s best new money ideas of 2014, College Abacus seeks to increase transparency in the college tuition market by allowing families to access the net price calculators of more than 4,500 U.S. schools in one place and compare their individualized options in an apples-to-apples format, rather than having to search on each school’s individual website.

Millions of parents and students looking to compare the cost of colleges can now do so with ACT Profile and education resource site Noodle through new partnerships with College Abacus, a free online tool that allows students and families to calculate and compare their bottom-line tuition bills across U.S. colleges and universities.

College Abacus has integrated its newly created app, or “widget,” directly into the two organizations’ websites, enabling students and their families to seamlessly explore all of their education options.…Read More

Penn State launches online bootcamp to help close supply chain skills gap

Business School specializing in supply chain management taps technology firm to design online program to engage learners and meet employer demand.

penn-chain-bootcamp

Penn State’s Smeal College of Business, Gartner’s No. 1 graduate and undergraduate supply chain program, today unveiled the Supply Chain Leadership Academy.

With online and multichannel retailers like Walmart and Amazon leading the charge on rapid-fire ecommerce and shipping logistics, demand for supply chain talent is outpacing supply and putting pressure on corporate leaders and hiring managers, says Penn State. According to data from Gartner, analysis shows that the demand for supply chain professionals now exceeds the available talent pool by 6 to 1. “Changes in global supply chains and the talent marketplace are challenging supply chain leaders to think about learning and development in a new way,” according to Ken Chadwick, research director at Gartner.…Read More

Twitter + mini MOOCs = new social sharing called EdCasting

EdCast launches a “Twitter for education” with its new mini-MOOC social sharing platform.

edcastingresizedDuring the Future Learning 2020 Summit, EdCast–a personal learning network platform– announced what it says is a new social media platform that allows people to post mini-MOOCs, or video snippets of educational content; the new functionality is called “EdCasting.”

According to a news from the Stanford and EdCast-hosted Summit, EdCasting is a less formal version of online courses, and is akin to tweeting, “with the difference being that each post is based on a video or link that can be described without being limited to 140 characters.”

“Just as podcasting and Tweeting made it easier to share general content, EdCasting empowers everyone to share their knowledge and help create the new culture of lifelong learning in this knowledge economy,” said Karl Mehta, CEO and Founder of EdCast. “With EdCasting, you are just a button push away from being connected to subject experts.”…Read More

edX: This is how you do online courses for credit

New ASU, edX program turns to a unique virtual proctoring solution.

proctoring-verification-edXOffering online courses for credit is a unique endeavor for each institution, but the fundamentals are the same: To offer courses for credit, you need to verify student I.D. and protect against exam cheating. But how can a program do this most efficiently and successfully?

According to Anant Agarwal, CEO of edX, one answer lies in the ability of a virtual proctoring solution’s decoupling of exam taking from proctoring verification.

“The solution we choose for this program is unique because instead of having thousands of employees monitor a live video stream of student exam taking, the video is stored in the cloud and watched offline at a later time,” said Agarwal in an interview with eCampus News. “What this means is that students around the world, in any time zone and at any time can take their online exam.”…Read More

Harvard partners with liberal arts colleges for business programs

HBX, Harvard Business School’s online education initiative, announces additional agreements with liberal arts colleges.

harvard-liberal-businessHarvard Business School’s online digital education initiative has announced that it has entered into agreements to work with several U.S. liberal arts colleges to provide additional benefits for their students taking the Credential of Readiness (CORe) program.

CORe is an online program, consisting of approximately 150 hours of learning, for students and early career professionals to learn the fundamentals of business on what HBX says is a highly engaging and interactive platform designed by Harvard Business School faculty.

The newly-announced colleges are Carleton College of Northfield, MN; Grinnell College of Grinnell, IA; Hamilton College of Clinton, NY; Wellesley College of Wellesley, MA; and Williams College of Williamstown, MA.…Read More

Barracuda updates NG Firewall

Updates include simplified setup, new functionality for K-12 and higher education.

firewall-ngBarracuda has released the latest version in its NG Firewall product line, which includes a number of new features and updates designed to simplify setup, administration and management for K-12 and higher education.

Barracuda NG Firewall now includes self-service configuration for remote end users using MacOS, Windows and iOS to configure their VPN connection in a few clicks.

The latest version also allows administrators to activate SafeSearch and YouTube for Schools enforcement in the firewall rules settings. With the new version, Barracuda released the new Barracuda NG Firewall Remote iOS application, designed for system administrators needing simple access to NG control centers from iOS devices.…Read More

Oops! We could not locate your form.