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IN LITTLE MORE THAN A YEAR, discussion of the role of online learning in higher education has undergone a qualitative shift. With the launch of for-profit educational start-ups such as Coursera, Udacity, and the MIT and Harvard-founded nonprofit platform edX, Massively Open Online Courses (MOOCs) have moved from obscure experiment to major initiative. MOOCs are online classes, generally composed of short lectures, that allow for open, often free enrollments (thousands can easily enroll in a single course), assessing students through periodic quizzes and discussion forums.

"A growing number of Fortune 500 companies, like Walmart, have grown tired of waiting for colleges and universities to produce the skilled workers they need and have started offering their own classes instead. And as an added bonus for employees: Many of these courses -- from Starbucks' Barista Basics to Jiffy Lube's finance fundamentals -- are eligible for college credit. "What companies like is just-in-time learning that gives somebody a skill they need at the time they need it," says Mark Allen, a Pepperdine University business professor and author of The Next Generation of Corporate Universities. "What traditional universities do to a large extent is just-in-case learning.""

"The session was insightful, and several readers may find the tips shared helpful, which is the purpose of this post. Strategies shared in the session are applicable to online course design in general and are not exclusive to Canvas. I'll include the highlights of the session-an insiders look at MOOCs based on Andersen's experience supporting thirty MOOCs in her role with Canvas as Director of Learning, and the methods she shared for creating activities that drive learning and sustain student interest. I have no doubt that many readers will find what Anderson has to say instructive and helpful, even more so for to those considering developing a MOOC, and/or planning to teach one in the future."

"The relatively low completion rates of learners have been a central critique as MOOCs grow in popularity. This focus on completion rates, however, implies a monolithic view of disengagement that fails to acknowledge alternative forms of participation in MOOCs. Identifying subpopulations of learners based on their longitudinal engagement with the course allows MOOC designers to target interventions and develop adaptive course features. We develop a simple, scalable, and informative classification method that identifies four prototypical engagement trajectories: Completing learners, who complete the majority of the assessments offered in the class; Auditing learners, who do assessments infrequently (if at all) and engage instead by watching video lectures; Disengaging learners, who do assessments at the beginning of the course but then have a marked decrease in engagement, generally in the first third of the class; and Sampling learners, who enter and exit the course quickly, watching a minimal number of videos at some point during the course."

For week four of the Open University course on Open Education, we were asked to compare MOOC models: either ds106 or the Change MOOC with something from Coursera or Udacity, focusing on "technology, pedagogy, and general approach and philosophy."

Please join Ivy League LMS experts, Wendy Drexler and Catherine Zabrieske of Brown University for this informative webinar during which they will discuss five lessons they learned in their search for an open access LMS, how they formed their selection committee, involved faculty and students, and why they ultimately selected Canvas as their LMS. Drexler and Zabrieske will also discuss the latest on MOOCs in general as well as specifically how using Canvas Network as a platform for their MOOC "Exploring Engineering" has allowed them to create a more interactive course that engages students and keeps participation high rather than merely providing lectures and quizzes.

New York-based Adafruit is working to help reverse that trend, and to make it so that people aren't afraid of what's inside their devices, and instead become more comfortable with electronics components and the concepts behind how gadgets actually work. Adafruit founder and CEO Limor Fried was on stage at TechCrunch Disrupt NY today, and talked about how her company is going about achieving that goal. The mission helps the company generate revenue, by priming an audience early on to become buyers of the components, DIY kits and open-source devices Adafruit sells through its online store. The key is to start young, Fried says, and to take advantage of urges that children already have around exploring their environment and the things around them.

"Every semester, quite a few students will remark in the end-of-semester course evaluations that they wish they had gotten more specific, detailed feedback about their projects. Some students also remark that they found it really hard to give feedback, since they just weren't used to giving feedback to other students about their work. So, I've prepared this page to try to give you some examples to look at, helping you to see the MANY ways it is possible to engage with someone else's writing. The key is DETAIL, very very very specific details, rather than general comments like "good work" or "I really liked your stories." The more detailed and specific you can be in your feedback, the more useful it will be for the other person. Here are some examples of Storybook comments from last semester that contain very specific details and vivid, personal observations. Take a look and see what you think!"

""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.

"There's nothing I like better than when good content begets other good content. After all, producing content is a relative cinch. But producing good (or even great!) content? That's a lot harder. Which is why you've got to make sure you squeeze every last drop of engaging goodness out of every piece of content you generate. Or, as C.C. and I write in Content Rules, think REIMAGINED, not recycled."

""There are good reasons to be anxious about universities...selling their name in exchange for something, and (suggesting) that the learning is somehow separate, different or less valuable," he said. "If what we've got is not worth anything - is worth giving away free - doesn't that feed into the general suspicion of experts that everyone's voice is equal, especially on the internet?""

Jonathan is also the director of the BadgeStack Project, the first system designed for badge-empowered learning and community-building, and the first to issue Mozilla Open Badges. We'll talk about the changing nature of professional development (PD) in particular and learning in general with the rise of online meeting technology, and how informal and non-traditional learning environments are impacting how we think about education.

"Mr Nelson said that a key priority was to improve the online user experience, warning that "the state of most learning management systems is verging on embarrassing in the face of the smartphone generation" and that "grainy footage of an hour-long lecture, filmed from the back of the lecture hall, just won't cut it"."

Great article - thanks. The thought: "no room for complacency" is powerfully pertinent.

"The effective implementation and use of adaptive learning systems requires a broad, more inclusive conversation among institutions, vendors, and other stakeholders to realize the benefits of next-generation personalized learning."

"Order and assign textbooks, articles, or your PDFs in Perusall. Students annotate the readings and asynchronously respond to each other's comments and questions about the readings in context. With novel data analytics, Perusall automatically generates optimal student groupings and social interactions, grades students' engagement to ensure they are prepared for class, and nudges those who need help to keep everyone on track. "

"The Global Education Conference is a collaborative, inclusive, world-wide community initiative involving students, educators, and organizations at all levels. It is designed to significantly increase opportunities for connecting classrooms while supporting cultural awareness and recognition of diversity and educational access for all. Last year's conference featured 300 general sessions and 20 keynote addresses from all over the world with over 13,000 participant logins. "

In this article I'll show you five imaginative ways brands are using pictures to tell compelling stories that generate engagement on Facebook.

A one-hour program for new students that is called a "difference-education intervention." In the program, college juniors and seniors from a range of backgrounds talk about how they adjusted to college, and how they sought out resources and people to help them with decisions, issues they didn't understand and so forth.

"Whether you are a student or not, everyone is actively releasing and building collections of  data. We are, in a sense, walking end-users that are compiling personal databases, and as more information is generated, maintaining privacy in a big data world becomes even more crucial."

"While universities have routinely collected information about students for years - from their family backgrounds to what books they take out of the library - increased computer power and better digital skills now offer the possibility to piece it all together. It could fundamentally change the way institutions operate - as well as raising challenging ethical and privacy issues. "It's almost waste stuff, generated as a by-product of communications, and previously we did nothing with it," says Rob Englebright, programme manager at Jisc, which champions use of digital technologies in education. "Now we can look at it and form patterns.""