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"It is best summed up by the mantra from the Harvard education expert Tony Wagner that the world doesn't care anymore what you know; all it cares "is what you can do with what you know." And since jobs are evolving so quickly, with so many new tools, a bachelor's degree is no longer considered an adequate proxy by employers for your ability to do a particular job - and, therefore, be hired."

"I'm not a radical, or anti-establishment - I've loved and respected working at every university I've joined. I just happen to have moved into a different learning delivery model because I knew it would give me greater flexibility to continue with my academic interests and spend more time with my family. It's a model that fits around my life. That's something I share in common with my students. They aren't unusual either. They just choose to study online because the flexibility suits them. Online higher education means students can combine education with employment - often fast-tracking their careers as a result - or fit study around family commitments."

""The first thing an employer is going to do is Google you," Alexandra Levit, generational speaker and author of Blind Spots: 10 Business Myths You Can't Afford to Believe on Your New Path to Success tells Mashable. "The worst thing is to have something negative pop up. In the absence of anything negative, having nothing come up really doesn't say much about your level of seriousness in terms of being out there and being professional."" In the digital era, sharing your story is easier than ever. Your job is to consistently build your credibility and visibility online. Being active in crafting your personal brand ensures you're getting the right ideas across to the companies and brands you want to work for.

"A study out this month made the point all too clear. Most of the 543 university students involved in the analysis didn't bother to read the terms of service before signing up for a fake social networking site called "NameDrop" that the students believed was real. Those who did glossed over important clauses. The terms of service required them to give up their first born, and if they don't yet have one, they get until 2050 to do so. The privacy policy said that their data would be given to the NSA and employers. Of the few participants who read those clauses, they signed up for the service anyway."

"You probably know most of the interviewing tips that can help you forge a connection with a potential employer. Now it's time to learn some of the things you must avoid in an interview to ensure the interviewer doesn't end up hating you by the end of it. These things really do happen. Just make sure they don't happen to you."

Coursera just raised $43m of funding - what potential do investors see in MOOCs? Based on recent Forbes article - do you see MOOCs as replacing parts of traditional higher ed? Will growing numbers of online students reduce hesitation of employers to hire online students? How does this affect institutions being proxies for quality? What applications are there for MOOCs beyond academic programs? (with interesting answer from Michael based on DS106)

Brandon, like many blue-collar millennials, is stuck on a journey to adulthood with no end in sight. His own parents, who had just high-school degrees, were married, steadily employed at the college, and homeowners well before they reached his age. But working-class kids today are growing up in a world where taken-for-granted pathways to adulthood are quickly eroding. Since the 1970s, stable blue-collar jobs have rapidly disappeared, taking family wages, pensions, and employer-subsidized health insurance along with them. Unlike their parents and grandparents, who followed a well-worn path from school to the assembly line-and from courtship to marriage to childbearing-men and women today live at home longer, spend more time in school, change jobs more frequently, and start families later.

The professional connections site LinkedIn is launching a new section of its social network Monday: University Pages targets younger users who want to connect with colleges. More than 200 schools now have profile pages, according to LinkedIn. As part of the new effort, the company also dropped its minimum age to 14 in the U.S. The new college profiles allow prospective students to see how many of a school's graduates are on LinkedIn, as well as a breakdown of the main fields in which they work. The pages also list the top employers of alumni.

The UL system has teamed up with the SAS software company of Cary, N.C. and MyEdu, of Austin, Texas, to create a massive data trove that should help make students more marketable to prospective employers and help those companies find the desired types of students. "This partnership allows us to use data to connect the dots," Woodley said. "It allows us to use data to target-market opportunities to our students they may not have known about."

"they've shifted to what's becoming a more familiar Silicon Valley narrative about the future of employability: a cheap and precarious labor force. That's the unfortunate reality of "Uber for Education.""

"As a result, the tuition pricing at America's universities has evolved into something akin to a discount mattress retailer, though Graber's employer, a consultancy named Noel-Levitz, has come up with a more august name for it: "financial aid leveraging." Noel-Levitz might be the most influential force in higher education pricing that you've never heard of, empowering what's become a three-stage, market-distorting game for college administrators."

"Righting the ship will require borrowing a page from the community-college playbook, by adding employment-ready programs like nursing (as Holy Family has done) and computing to entice disaffected degree-seekers. Developing online and hybrid teaching methods might also raise revenue from adult learners. Mostly, self-preservation will require both professors and administrators to accept cost-cutting, which will hardly be easy. Even though St. Joe's ended the year with a $7 million surplus by embracing some of these measures, its administration became cannon fodder for faculty. But if more schools don't follow suit, it could spell closures. "For those college presidents unwilling to reboot," Hartman warns. "I've got one word for them: Detroit.""

"Digital badges recognize a particular experience or signify accomplishments, such as completion of a project or mastery of a skill. In a professional context, a learner typically earns a badge by conducting presentations, attending institutes to develop a specific competency, or serving on advisory boards or committees. Digital badges enable professional communities to identify new competency areas and recognize mastery or demonstration of those competencies. Badges signal to colleagues and to current and prospective employers a professional life of active learning, engagement, and ongoing development."

"Competency-based learning turns higher education on its head - starting not with the curriculum, but rather the competencies one should exhibit upon completion (according to, say, employers). From there, course developers design assessments that test for these competencies. Then - and only then - do we turn to the task of developing the curricula that prepares students to demonstrate mastery on the assessments. In a competency-based program, failure becomes an anachronism; students continue until they demonstrate competency."

"Graham said Georgetown University research on undereducated workers and "opportunities to upskill them" was a major impetus behind Workforce Education Solutions. The unit is working with industry and NUS academic leaders to reduce friction for workers looking to get more education, potentially for promotions or transfers  - a necessity for employers, too, as their managers retire."

"The Fourth Industrial Revolution is interacting with other socio-economic and demographic factors to create a perfect storm of business model change in all industries, resulting in major disruptions to labour markets. New categories of jobs will emerge, partly or wholly displacing others. The skill sets required in both old and new occupations will change in most industries and transform how and where people work. It may also affect female and male workers differently and transform the dynamics of the industry gender gap. The Future of Jobs Report aims to unpack and provide specific information on the relative magnitude of these trends by industry and geography, and on the expected time horizon for their impact to be felt on job functions, employment levels and skills."

"According to Code of Talent, micro-learning is the solution that instructors, learners and employers deserve. This technique involves daily learning sessions which are 10 minutes in length, in a virtual environment where there is a maximum of 40 participants per educator (also known as a "content provider.")"

Many companies now search candidates' social-media accounts to get a better feel for their personalities, to see if they have creative flair, and to find out how well they communicate. Done right, your profile can work in your favor. Of 2,184 hiring managers recently surveyed by CareerBuilder, one-fifth said a candidate's online profile helped them land a position. More often, though, it backfires: 43 percent said they found information that led them not to hire a candidate, up 9 percentage points from last year. That trend means either that more job applicants are behaving badly online or that human resources is getting stricter in sniffing out problems.

I think this article raises a point that we should absolutely acknowledge. Although I don't believe I am "behaving badly" online, what if some of my viewpoints do not entirely mesh with a future employer. Are they less likely to hire me because I have critical opinions about certain policies, etc.? I think it is this issue in particular that makes people reticent to fully participate. However, this is our new reality. How to balance it?

Pig farmers, electricians, plumbers, bridge painters, jam makers, blacksmiths, brewers, coal miners, carpenters, crab fisherman, oil drillers…they all tell me the same thing over and over, again and again - our country has become emotionally disconnected from an essential part of our workforce. We are no longer impressed with cheap electricity, paved roads, and indoor plumbing. We take our infrastructure for granted, and the people who build it.

"The definition of "a state education" may also change. Far more money should be spent on pre-schooling, since the cognitive abilities and social skills that children learn in their first few years define much of their future potential. And adults will need continuous education. State education may well involve a year of study to be taken later in life, perhaps in stages."