Course Manager App Does Its Job Well

There are many things the Course Manager app from iTunes U does not do. It does not integrate with learning management systems. There are no discussion boards or blogs. There are no assessments or gradebooks. Plus, it only works on Apple devices.

On the other hand, Joshua Kim reports in his Inside Higher Education blog that it looks good and runs well. He also points out that it’s a curricular content-consumption experience that should be viewed as a supplement to a learning management system.

“Mostly, the whole experience on the iTunes U app just feels smooth and polished,” Kim wrote. “Content is easy to find, everything opens up quickly, and everything is logical and seamless.”

In an earlier post, Kim suggested curriculum content consumption supports the way students learn and that because it’s so easy to use, the iTunes U app should not be ignored.

“The fact that Course Manager and iTunes U is free to use, works with all sorts of text documents, handles video beautifully, allows for easy content downloading (hence offline viewing), and works great on an iPhone should make the incumbent coursepack platform providers take notice,” he wrote. “The iTunes U app is a significant threat to their business models.”

Concern Over Online Course-Taking Sites

It didn’t take long for reports to surface that people were cheating in massive open online courses (MOOCs). Coursera even took a proactive approach by adding honor-code reminders to its courses.

Now, web sites are popping up offering to take the online course for students and promising them at least a “B” in the class. There’s a price for this service, ranging from $95 for an essay to $900 to complete an entire course, according to a report in Inside Higher Education.

“It’s what they say about cockroaches: when you see one there are hundreds that you don’t see,” said A.J. Kelton, director of emerging and instructional technology at Montclair State University.

A graphic description perhaps, but Inside Higher Ed could find little about the sites. Some even appeared to be operated by the same person or group. In addition, administrators like Kelton are concerned it could be the beginning of an online higher ed black market.

“The difference with something like wetakeyourclass.com is that if you’re going to pay someone to go to your 300-person Psych 101 class, that person can only go to one exam at a time,” Kelton said. “That same expert, however, could take six, eight, 10, 12 online courses simultaneously.”

One result from the article was the wetakeyourclass.com site has been taken offline, according to an update on the Inside Higher Ed web site. 

Higher Ed Needs to Get Mobile Platforms Right

Mobile platforms are important new tools in engaging college students, so it stands to reason that higher education should have a vested interest in the subject. However, many schools have it wrong, according to Mehdi Maghsoodnia, CEO of education technology company Rafter.

The problem is a piecemeal approach to the issue. Too often, a school creates separate apps for various departments and organizations around campus that are developed on different operating systems. The end result is a disjointed experience that students simply won’t use. In his GigaOM article, Maghsoodnia suggests schools need to an all-inclusive approach that is easy to use and captivating for students. He also understands that will not be easy.

“Professors are a notoriously stubborn group and getting them to adopt mobile platforms isn’t simple,” he wrote. “Plenty of training, education, and practice are necessary. It’s also not cheap. And then there’s the daunting challenge of trying to keep 18- to 21-year-olds engaged for more than a few minutes.”

However, mobile apps also create opportunities to engage with students, who are often already on campus and looking online for easy ways to access information. They’re also more than willing to move on when they don’t or can’t find it.

MOOCs Will Grow Up, Must Become Sustainable

Burck Smith, CEO and founder of online education firm StraighterLine, may be showing his age in his recent blog post. After all, he references Marky-Mark, the leader of a 1990s hip-hop group who ultimately grew up into award-winning actor Mark Wahlberg.

Smith’s point is that massive open online courses (MOOCs) will almost certainly grow up, just as Wahlberg did, once the excitement of the moment dissipates. When that happens, firms such as Coursera and Udacity are going to have to produce revenue, which will likely mean they will no longer be massive, open, or free.

“As providers of open content and open courseware have recognized over the past 15 years, simply making content free doesn’t change the dynamics of the higher education market at all,” Smith wrote. “Further, free content isn’t very good business, just ask the newspaper industry—and their content changes every day.”

Students earning credit for online courses taken will be the key to sustainability.

“Only those who have created a low-cost, low-risk pathway to credit will have results to show,” Smith continued. “It is the hard work necessary to create this pathway that transforms flash-in-the-pan Marky-Mark organizational models to mature and sustainable Mark Wahlberg ones.”

K-12 Schools Trying Out Tablets

A growing number of K-12 school districts, anxious to save money while preparing students for 21st-century work, are purchasing iPads in lieu of print textbooks and sometimes instead of desktop computers. Districts view the tablets as more budget-friendly than computers and more versatile than books for class use.

Across the U.S., there are tales such as this one in Seattle where the district decided all 181 middle-school youngsters should bring their own iPads to class this year. Students who couldn’t afford to buy one could borrow from a pool of 100 tablets bought with funds originally designated to replace several computers.

According to an investors’ report cited by C/Net, PC sales to the K-12 market are dwindling at about the same rate as K-12 iPad sales are rising, indicating schools are switching to tablets. They’re not just buying iPads, either.

Kuno, a tablet created specifically for K-12 use by the CurriculumLoft company, is among the Android gadgets competing head-to-head with the iPad for school sales. Business2Community says Kuno is attractive to district decision-makers because its base model costs 25% less than an iPad and it comes with built-in filters to protect kids from accidentally (or intentionally) accessing web content they shouldn’t.

Samsung is also working with Memphis, TN, schools on a new tablet system geared to K-12 grades. Each tablet comes with a stylus that lets students hand-write notes, which can be converted to type and saved.

Why are tablets getting all the attention from school districts and not e-readers such as the Kindle or the Nook, given their lower price point? In the view of Good E-Reader blogger Michael Kozlowski, it’s mainly because most e-readers lack text-to-speech software for vision-impaired pupils and can be more cumbersome to use.

Getting the Most of Online Education

Today, there is a growing trend of more and more people enrolling in online education. Most have chosen to further their education and their careers by way of online study.

This trend is making this education one of the fastest growing industries in the education sector of business. Earning an online degree is now in vogue and it already had earned its respectability years ago.

For people who are eying of getting one through online education, here are some of the ways to make the most out of this new style in education.

Flexibility

One of the biggest - if not the biggest - reasons of the strong attraction in education through the internet is flexibility. The student can afford to incorporate his classes into his daily schedule without sacrificing work time and family commitments.

These classes are all online and are provided to a forum or a class manager website. These forums (or sites) are where the assignments, messages, and study materials are made available. Student home works are also turned in here.

Working students can work their job schedules around their study times. Students with children to care can choose the time for their class work. Those who travel need not worry because their school work can be accessed anywhere in the world where there is Internet.

Student-centered lessons

In online education, student-centered approach in teaching is more evident than in the traditional style of instructions. Online, the instructor can tailor-fit the lessons according to the student.

For instance, some students are visual learners and some learn by doing. Online, the student gets to decide when and how best to study and digest his lessons. They are left to find what works best for them.

Instructors

In online education, instructors are more accessible than their face-to-face counterparts in on-campus schools. Talking with the instructors is simply done in newsgroup discussions, online chats, or through emails.

Interacting with an instructor does not need an actual appointment during office hours like in normal circumstances.

This convenient setup saves time and encourages warm student-instructor communications and rapport. It can also produce a positive effect in the student's academic work in general.

Online education also reflects the status of the instructors. They may also be located in other parts of the world since the teaching is done on the Internet.

This is one type of diversity that is advantageous to the student. The main reason is that this allows the student more exposure to the different concepts and perspectives that can happen only if the instructors are from all over the globe.

Education counselors

When the student is committed to an online education program, education counselors are also available to them. These are the people responsible for making your online education experience positive, trauma-free and successful.

They help plan the overall course of study as well as help in choosing the right classes. They are available all the time to answer any question. The student's urgent questions are answered quickly via emails or instant messaging.

In turn, they can contact you during evenings or weekends, if those are your only available times. They are sensitive to your needs and they are especially easy with first-timers.

By the look of things, online education may just be the wave of the future.

MOOCs on a Smaller Scale

Massive open online courses, or MOOCs, have become big news in higher education. Tens of thousands of students are taking advantage of the free, not-for-credit courses offered by some of the most prestigious universities in the nation.

Now, throw LOOCs and anti-MOOCs into the mix.

LOOCs, or little open online courses, are being tested at the University of Maine, Presque Isle. The pilot program, called OpenU, offers four online courses open to between two and seven online students for free, in addition to the regular paying students taking the class. The online students get no formal credit for completing the course, but, unlike MOOCs, can receive personalized responses from instructors on assignments and tests.

“Students are not paying, but they are getting the full experience,” said Presque Isle Provost Michael Sonntag in an article about the program in Inside Higher Education. “If they want to write every paper and take every test, our faculty members have agreed to give them feedback.”

There are even ways for students to receive some credit for the course. OpenU students can earn up to six credit hours through the UMPI prior-learning program if they enroll in the school, according to the university web site.

The UnderAcademy College appears at first to be a joke, with courses such as Grammar Porn and Underwater Procrastination and Advance Desublimation Techniques. However, it is also “offering serious content taught by professors at some well-known institutions,” according to a report in The Chronicle of Higher Education.

UnderAcademy offers classes limited to 15 students. The goal is to deliver quality liberal arts and humanity classes by providing “students with the opportunity to focus on the process of learning and control the courses themselves rather than worry about the end product,” Talan Memmott, founder of UnderAcademy and lecturer of digital culture and communications at Blekinge Institute of Technology in Sweden, wrote in an e-mail to The Chronicle.

“Based on some spirit of humor that seemed to underlie everything, I assumed it was largely a joke,” said Mark C. Marino, associate professor of writing at the University of Southern California, who taught his “Grammar Porn” class last spring. “But Talan would say that this project is research into alternative pedagogical practices that are collaborative, less hierarchical, and take place online. That piqued my interest.”