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A 360-degree display, engineered by Sony, with potential applications in marketing and the medical industry

The following is a rounded, 360 degree display that can be viewed at any angle. Sony sees potential use of this technology in the medical imaging industry, as well as marketing/signage.

Business still early in development. They are trying to provide solution for this problem: 'it's extremely difficult to track, quantify and contextualize the diversity of experiences in informal lifelong learning." Too early to say if this is even a sustainable business model but we will see. 

Berklee College of Music launches first accredited online bachelor's degree programs in music.

An interesting experiment attempting to get an equivalent of a 4-year college degree in just 1 year with MOOCs.

"Although Coursera's founders have presented their MOOCs as a way to democratize higher education by making it available online, free, to anyone in the world, the Penn survey found that in the United States and developing countries alike, most Coursera students were well educated, employed, young and male."

FYI, I went to Penn last year and was aware of this type of survey. Apparently, if you have a chance to look into their methodology, then they probably select a far larger number of Penn alumni than a representative portion. Considering that many Penn alumni love the idea of taking classes for free at their Alma Mater, I feel a bit skeptical about that reported unusually high percentage of bachelor's degree holders.

I think that this makes a lot of sense. You have to be very self-motivated with a desire to learn AND have the online resources and time to take a MOOC. That's a lot - and I would guess that people who are highly educated tend to be self-motivated. And then young men probably have more time than working parents. There's a lot of constraining factors despite the 'openness' of a MOOC.

This article is really informative. I guess I knew much of the article intuitively but I didn't have hard facts. My biggest question is his depiction of middle class Americans as viewing education as an expense as opposed to an investment. Our non- Univ of Pheonix college students mostly hail from middle class families who are worried if their child doesn't have a degree. His evidence for his viewpoint is that 50% of peope don't have a degree. However, what percent went to college and dropped out? I remember that in 1990's that 25% of Americans had college degrees. Sounds like there is some growth. Regardless, his views on the Asia market and servicing struggling districts is food for thought. Thank you.

Wisconsin officials tout the UW Flexible Option as the first to offer multiple, competency-based bachelor's degrees from a public university system. Officials encourage students to complete their education independently through online courses, which have grown in popularity through efforts by companies such as Coursera, edX and Udacity. No classroom time is required under the Wisconsin program except for clinical or practicum work for certain degrees.

"Coastline Community College is set to create low-cost, online bachelor's degree pathways where students can enroll simultaneously at one of three public universities, none of which are in California."

The STEM fields (science, technology, engineering, and math) saw a definite increase as of the year 2000, with 26% of those in the field now women. This is certainly not indicative of the amount of women in the work force as a whole, currently 47% of the nation.

consistent with our discussion in class.

"This new agreement is part of an ongoing effort by University of Phoenix, the nation's largest institution of higher education, to open the doors to new educational pathways for prospective and current students in the field of Information Technology." Interesting hybrid of college-credit and training/certification programs...

As a foundational pillar in Affnet's Education business, the DotSchools portal is a free online resource that can assist prospective students in search of top online colleges and campus schools find degree and certificate programs best suited to advancing their professional and personal goals.

The idea of "showing what you know" and earning badges instead of degrees? In this economic downswing, could something like this become the new emergent way of learning and of assessing? Thoughts?

Sounds like the digital badge is more lke a digital portfolio- which I would more likely support. I find it interesting that our education system (which strives and struggles to provide consistent, high quality education from coast to coast) is seen as deficient but this badge proposal will be the answer? It's like the flood of support for home-schooling after a home-schooler wins a national competition but no one knows about the tens of homescholers I had to remediate in rural NH. Standardization is the key for any system to be integrated into another system. The variety of education models we have in our country makes it difficult for employers to integrate employees. If this digital badge concept relies on a variety of models, they will have the same problem.

The prospect of digital badges to show what you know is both exciting with its potential affordances and worrisome with some of its limitations and ambiguity. It'd be great if the ideal came to pass that digital badges would allow valid demonstration of super-specific skills and knowledge over a greater range of fields and topics than what having a B.A. or B.S. currently does. Digital badges could represent the most particular concepts or skills at a granular level even-- those that are essential in the real-world (whether that be desired by employers or otherwise). If the task or test or challenge, or whatever else would be the means of assessment for earning a badge, was carefully designed and evaluated to be a truly valid measure of proficiency, then earning a badge for something would be a clear indication that you know something. But like Allison said, standardization would be key. What would these assessments/ badge challenges be- so that they would be truly valid indicators of proficiency? Who would be the purveyors or authorities to determine the assessments or challenges to accomplish a badge? Given the medium (completing badge assessments on one's own computer or mobile device - from any site they're at potentially) - what's to stop a user from going "open book" or "opening another tab" in order to look up answers to questions or tutorials on how to do a task, in order to complete the assessment? Doing this would allow a user to ace the assessment and earn the badge- but would defeat any value of the badge in truly demonstrating knowledge or skill. By imagining if digital badges did reach mass-acceptance and use in the real world, and we were to ultimately find them all over the internet like we're now finding social media widgets, it made me realize that the "prove proficiency anywhere I am in any way I want" won't work. I changed fields and career paths from what I studied in college, so I definitely appreciate the value in being able to truly show e

Interesting list to reflect on. "Here are 8 signs that your online college is just another extension of the School of Hard Knocks handing out Masters Degrees in Gullibility."

One of nations best University systems, University of California, is about to start its first group of fully online courses for undergraduates. At the same time, the California State Universities (CSU) starting its computer-based options for its 412,000 students. Currently, there are master's degrees in 63 disciplines entirely online. Some educators are skeptical and raise concern on cheating and of "walmartaization" of CSU education.

"Minerva..... is an entirely different pedagogical species. The San Francisco-based company aims at a soup-to-nuts undergraduate education, resulting in a traditional bachelor's degree, but all via the Web, and with all of the social cachet of the country's priciest sheepskin. ....Nelson, its 36-year-old founder, has no experience in education; .....But Nelson managed to not only score a huge investment from Benchmark - the same VC firm that backed the likes of eBay, Yelp, and Mint -but also persuaded a group of A-list luminaries, including former Harvard president Larry Summers, to be on its board of advisors.

interesting that the founder has no experience in education.... :/

The possibility for MOOC's to gain some legitimacy by offering credit through the administration of a fee-based exam.

There is an "uncollege" movement that encourages people to complete college degrees by pursuing self-study, then taking CLEP exams to gain college credits. The problem has always been that many higher-priced/name-brand colleges (e.g. Harvard) don't accept CLEP credits, requiring students to pay for credits the old-fashioned way. I wonder whether established schools will accept credits from MOOC courses.

Halifax County High, VA. Nearly one-fifth of its 407 seniors earned associate degrees by the time they graduated last school year, and 91 percent finished high school with a college transcript. The approximately 1,700-student school has become a leader in dual-enrollment participation in the state for its emphasis on dual-enrollment courses.