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The University System of Maryland will this fall launch a pilot project to gauge the efficiency of open educational resources (OER), James Jalandoni, president of the system's student council, said on Monday. "We have made it a priority to start tackling the issue of textbook costs and the impact they have on college affordability," Jalandoni said.

The result, should the trend continue, might not be a learning management system, but what analysts call a "learning ecosystem." Not a black hole where content is dumped at one end of the semester and grades at the other, but an open platform where faculty members are free to browse and embed the tools they want to use -- for example quizzes from Khan Academy, plagiarism detection from Turnitin or a homegrown solution -- regardless of whether they logged into Learn or Sakai, and regardless of whether their system has its own, similar tool.

"Google Design are open-sourcing 750 glyphs as part of the Material Design system icons pack. The system icons contain icons commonly used across different apps, such as icons used for media playback, communication, content editing, connectivity, and so on. They're equally useful when building for the web, Android or iOS."

"When a college goes out of business, all of its alumni can suddenly find themselves in an unexpected dilemma: How can graduates prove they actually earned their degrees when no one is left at the institution to send academic transcripts to prospective employers or graduate schools? That scenario is one reason that a group of nine universities, led by the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, today announced a collaboration to build a system that would let institutions issue digital diplomas and credentials in a way that can be verified without needing to check with a human registrar. The idea is to encourage widespread use of digital credentials across all kinds of academic institutions, and even at more informal places of learning, so that students end up taking ownership of how to communicate their learning to employers."

"To enable learning environments of greater quality, scale, and power, with continuous and instantaneous digital connections to information, services, and communities, the learning management system of today must be reimagined. New systems are needed that capitalize on the transformative possibilities of technology to personalize instruction and integrate the diverse resources that support learners."

"An exciting path forward in achieving the NGDLE vision is a next generation learning system designed to create great learning experiences that improve learning outcomes. This learning system will understand learning outcomes, learner assessment, the learner record, and how to launch the right learning moments for each student."

"Synapse®, the cloud-based Learning Experience Design System, brings all the pieces and people you need together to design and prototype learning experiences quickly, easily and effectively."

A student-driven initiative plans to turn the page on skyrocketing textbook costs by promoting an affordable, online educational resource that's picking up steam across the nation: open-source textbooks. Starting this fall, the University System of Maryland Student Council will pilot a program to allow interested faculty members in high-enrollment, entry-level classes to use open-source textbooks.

"Big data is everywhere-even in education. Researchers and developers of online learning, intelligent tutoring systems, virtual labs, simulations, and learning management systems are exploring ways to better understand and use learning analytics to improve teaching and learning."

We face a critical need to prepare children and adolescents to thrive in the 21st century-an era of rapidly evolving technology, demanding and collaborative STEM knowledge work, changing workforce needs, economic volatility, and unacceptable achievement gaps. This report takes a close look at a core set of noncognitive factors-grit, tenacity, and perseverance-that are essential to an individual's capacity to strive for and succeed at important goals, and to persist in the face of an array of challenges encountered throughout schooling and life.

The course management system (CMS) reinforces the status quo and hinders substantial teaching and learning innovation in higher education. It does so by imposing artificial time limits on learner access to course content and other learners, privileging the role of the instructor at the expense of the learner, and limiting the power of the network effect in the learning process. The open learning network (OLN)-a hybrid of the CMS and the personal learning environment (PLE)-is proposed as an alternative learning technology environment with the potential to leverage the affordances of the Web to dramatically improve learning.

Abandon LMS at Universities?

I think there is still a need for LMSs, but not all the features of the LMS. We need a gradebook, a quiz engine, and a private massaging/forum system for convenience and compliance. Everything else can be done elsewhere, as long as instructors are willing to open up their course materials. My $0.02.

This 12 week course, starting September 10, 2012 will explore openness in education - its roots, its growing influence, and economic and systemic impact. We have adopted an open online format (massive open online courses, sometimes referred to as MOOCs...though we expect this course won't hit that "massive" target achieved by initiatives like Coursera and EDx. For a quick introduction to connectivist courses and how they work, please view the videos below.

"There are 8 possible monetization strategies that MOOC providers like Coursera, or Learning Management System providers could adopt:"

"Drawing on her experience as a consultant for VoiceThread in which she hosts monthly Google+ Hangouts, she created the very first "Teach & Share" Google+ Hangout, an online gathering of educators who, for this installment, shared their experiences using the learning management system Canvas. "I started thinking about how much faculty learn from simply talking to one another. These are always the most powerful professional development experiences," Pacansky-Brock said of her decision to host the event. "Faculty need to connect with each other to keep innovation moving forward. [...] That's the premise of the Teach & Shares.""

Tables, counters and whiteboards will eventually become displays. Meeting rooms will have touch panels, and chalk boards will be replaced by large systems that have digital images and documents on a display that teachers can mark up with a stylus.

"Shirky's point is that for a functioning online community, all you really need is some kind of system for attaching reputation points to a user's "handle" or pseudonym. Klout is trying to do that with a number that rises and falls based on your activity on networks like Twitter, Facebook, Flickr and Tumblr. "

"Fast-forward to October 2012: OERs have failed to significantly affect the day-to-day teaching of the vast majority of higher education institutions. Traditional textbooks and readings still dominate most teaching venues even though essentially all students are online: Course management systems are used only for the dissemination of syllabi, class notes, general communications, and as a grade book. OERs are out there…somewhere. Why aren't they on campus?"

Smartphone usage continues to climb in the U.S. More than three out of five (61%) mobile subscribers in the U.S. owned a smartphone during the most recent three-month period (March-May 2013), up more than 10 percent since smartphones became the mobile majority in early 2012. When it comes operating system preference, Apple remained the top smartphone manufacturer in the U.S., while the majority of smartphone owners used Android OS handsets. Fifty-three percent of smartphone owners used the Android OS, and 40 percent owned iPhones.

" Reward-motivated learning: Mesolimbic activation precedes memory formation provides easy to read findings to support the claim that rewards promote learning. The reward structure seems to have many positive effects not only on learning, but on the learner's personal development. Learners are able to gain confidence and develop openness to others through virtual games and the reward system."