Saturday, March 31, 2018
Saturday, March 24, 2018
Weekly Sporto bookmarks (weekly)
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Recommended Reading: Fear of Looking Stupid -
- The one that made the headline of the article is faculty being afraid of looking stupid in front of their students, but two other important ones were fear of punishment from bad course evaluations (or "smile sheets," as they are sometimes derogatorily called) and deep "gut" convictions based on personal experience that they know what good teaching is and will prefer that instinct over the findings of a research article.
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R Cheat Sheets | R Statistical Programming Language | r-directory
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R Handy Reference Links | R Statistical Programming Language | r-directory
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Free PDF E-Books on R | R Statistical Programming Language | r-directory
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R Programming for Data Science
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elearn Magazine: A Fundamental Look at Cultural Diversity and the Online Classroom
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No Significant Difference - Unless you are a Jumper | Fendler
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Stephen's Web ~ An Online Engagement Framework for Higher Education ~ Stephen Downes
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Why It Takes a Village to Boost Industry Demand for Short-Term Credentials
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Study finds evidence of racial and gender bias in online education
- The study found that instructors are 94 percent more likely to respond to discussion forum posts by white male students than by other students.
- The study looked at discussion forums in 124 massive open online courses (all were provided on a single MOOC platform that the paper does not identify, citing confidentiality requirements).
- Over all, instructors responded to 7 percent of comments posted by students. But for white male students, the response rate was 12 percent.
- Simply attaching a name that connotes a specific race and gender to a discussion forum post changes the likelihood that an instructor will respond to that post."
- same in courses in science and technology and in other subject areas.
- Here the study found that female, white and Indian students were more likely to respond to the fictional students who were from their own group.
- white female students were significantly more likely to respond to posts by white women than were other students
- Because online courses are typically asynchronous, these forums provide a uniquely important venue for instructor-to-student and student-to-student engagement,"
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Online University Programs and Microcredentials Enhance Professional Learning - EdTech
Saturday, March 17, 2018
Saturday, March 10, 2018
Weekly Sporto bookmarks (weekly)
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'MicroMasters' Surge As MOOCs Go From Education To Qualification
- Each MicroMasters is sponsored by at least one industry partner, currently a list of 40 which includes GE, MicroSoft, IBM, Hootsuite, Fidelty, Bloomberg, Boeing, WalMart, PWC, Booz-Allen Hamilton, and Ford.
- With this nod from hiring companies, MMs become sufficient credential for a career step.
- This is a huge reframe for what counts as a valid qualification, therein a real shakeup at the pillars of graduate schools.
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MOOCs have successfully entered the game not just of education, but of qualification.
- In the world of MOOC qualification, the front-loaded learning of a traditional Masters fragments into iterative stepping stones of credentialing
- The MicroMasters as a standalone modular credential serves as academic currency in a continuous, lifelong-learning world.”
- This foothold includes embracing the logic of the platform, the digital-enabled connector that seeks to add value or cut costs by creating connections where these were previously weak or non-existent.
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5 Ways to Make Your Videos Binge-Worthy -- Campus Technology
- 1) Framing Questions
- And framing questions is one of the [structural] devices we use for that,"
- dumping questions with "black and white" answers and shifting to subversion of expectations by making the questions a "little more complicated" or presenting an example "that was counter-intuitive."
- We wanted to keep these questions in the video script but also make sure they were questions that didn't have obvious answers.
- Maybe they could watch these videos and not feel like it was a very passive experience
- animations are totally customizable and talented grad students can be pressed into service during the summer to create them.
- great way to get around copyright issues,
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The Case for Inclusive Teaching - The Chronicle of Higher Education
- The beauty of inclusive pedagogy is that, rather than making special accommodations that would decrease equity, it actually benefits all students, not just those at whose needs it was originally aimed
- It values course design. Inclusive teaching asks us to critically examine not just the way we teach on a day-to-day basis, but the prep work and organization we do before the course begins. Does our course design — including assigned readings, assessments, and daily activities — reflect a diverse array of identities and perspectives?
- Am I having my students read a bunch of monographs, all authored by white males, for example? And if I am, what am I telling students about how knowledge is produced in my field, and more important, about who is producing it?
- What assumptions am I making about my students’ prior experiences and educational opportunities when I ask questions in class or design my exams?
- What biases am I carrying, and how do I counteract their effects? Biases that both we and our students carry with us, for example, can influence class discussion in powerful ways.
- Inclusive pedagogy requires us to consistently practice this type of discernment, and to realize that all of us are embedded in a larger cultural context where inequities and power imbalances exist.
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A Product at Every Price: A Review of MOOC Stats and Trends in 2017 — Class Central
- However, for the first time we are seeing a slowdown in the number of new learners, which is a direct result of a shift in priorities towards users who are willing to pay.
- Though growth in new learners has stalled, the number of paying users has increased.
- As the MOOC platforms continue their quest for sustainable revenue models, MOOC providers have begun charging not just for certificates and other credentials, but for access to content.
- The pace at which new courses are being added has increased slightly (this might also be attributed to shorter courses being offered as part of a sequence).
- The big MOOC providers have now developed products and services that range in price from free (or partially free) to costing millions of dollars.
- Class Central has identified six different tiers that MOOC providers monetize on: free (or free to audit), certificate, micro-credential, university credit, online degrees, and corporate training
- content placed behind paywalls.
- Coursera has put graded assignments behind paywalls, FutureLearn has developed a time-based paywall, and Udacity (after proclaiming MOOCs are dead) seems to have given up on the whole concept of free and is aggressively moving towards monetizing content.
- Six years later, we know that MOOCs are not going to lead to the demise of universities.
- they are disrupting the labor market. The real audience for these courses is not the traditional university student but what Levin calls the “lifelong career learner”: someone who might be well beyond their college years, but takes online courses with the goal of achieving professional and career growth
- Quite simply, online degrees and corporate training are existing markets worth billions of dollars, and MOOC providers want a slice of that.
- Coursera ended 2017 with more than 500 companies signed up for its Coursera for Business service, up from 30 last year. EdX for Business is now working with 40 companies.
- Scheduling tweaks have made it possible for many MOOCs to be made available throughout the year so that learners can start them immediately.
- Now, for the first time, we are seeing examples in which on-campus students have the option to earn credit from MOOCs — even from universities other than the one they attend.
- More than 500 MOOC-based credentials are now available
- with the exception of Technology courses (Computer Science, Programming, and Data Science). This category grew by two and a half percent. Business and Technology courses make up almost 40% of all courses.
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What Does 'MOOC' Mean Anymore? The Latest from Class Central | eLearningInside News
- the number of MOOCs continues to grow; due to shifts in MOOC scheduling practices, more MOOCs are available for enrollment at any given time; the market has continued to diversify in terms of products and price points; and paid content has continued to increase, while free MOOCs reduce in numbe
- MOOC providers have begun to find their audience. MOOCs have moved away from casual learning (that brought with it low completion rates and little money) to training and retraining professionals.
- “It’s more of a marketing term nowadays and that’s why many content providers are trying to jump on it. But the providers with a more established brand want to move away from it and create their own terminology, i.e Nanodegrees, MicroMasters, Specializations etc.
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Relationships between Trust and Collaborative Culture in The Context of Tacit Knowledge Sharing
Saturday, March 3, 2018
Weekly Sporto bookmarks (weekly)
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IDB Digital & Alternative Credentials Workshop - Day 1 - Google Slides
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Digital Badges Transforming Non-Credit Education: Credit-Bearing Programming Next | The EvoLLLution
- Alternative and informal education provides just-in-time, targeted skills training. Adults struggle to find the time for training given their work and family responsibilities. Alternative and informal education such as noncredit courses provides the flexibility that they need
- Approximately 85 percent of our non-credit students already hold a postsecondary credential or degree
- They are not looking for an additional degree, but instead to update and upgrade their skill set.
- Two-year schools work closely with local employers to identify training needs and also to provide re-training as needed.
- In our case using digital badges to award microcredentials for noncredit learning was a better alternative than trying to launch a MOOC program.
- We also needed to build an internal structure and strategies to run a large badging program. This included dedicated faculty resources, branding standards, an operational flowchart and student/instructor training materials on digital badges
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Raising the standard: Open Badges 2.0 – digitalme – Medium
- what is the Open Badges standard and why is it so important?
- part of the City & Guilds Group
- “Version 2.0 of the Open Badges standard takes us one step closer towards creating global skills currency. It ensures individuals have ownership and control of their learning data and builds increased trust by adding third party endorsement to learners achievements
- From Endorsements to Version Control, the new Open Badges 2.0 standard brings with it some new and improved enhancements that are well worth your attention.
- Endorsements means that badges issued to groups of people can now be endorsed by a third party.
- Powered by Markdown (a lightweight markup language), Embed Criteria and Embed Evidence will feature in Open Badges 2.0.
- This brings a new dimension to badging as the criteria used to award them and evidence of skill to earn them become more machine readable
- The new standard will help badges become more discoverable and assist human resources and learning and development professionals in seeing every skill within their team.
- The new standard will also feature Full Portability.
- With the new changes, badge associated metadata moves with the badge.
- Open Badges 2.0 will be issued in multiple languages — a true reflection of the global adoption of open badges as a skill visibility tool.
- Another new feature for badge issuers is the introduction of version control. The new standard will allow for updates to be made to the badge framework and for these versions and the associated differences to be viewable
- As the news of the launch of Open Badges 2.0 rolls out so will the announcements of various badging platforms gaining compliance. To be Open Badges 2.0 certified by IMS as an Open Badges Issuer, Open Badges Displayer or Open Badges Host there are several tests to complete
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- An Open Badge Issuer must be able to prove that they can issue a valid baked badge and demonstrate how the badge is retrieved by the recipient.
- An Open Badge Displayer must be able to demonstrate that their platform can display a minimum set of badge metadata and support viewer-initiated verification of a badge.
- An Open Badges Host will need to show that they are able to import all formats of Open Badges as well as prove that badge metadata is not lost upon export of the badge.
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re-mediating assessment: Competencies in Context #2: LRNs for Micro-Masters and eCertificates
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re-mediating assessment: Competencies in Context #3: Open Endorsement 2.0 is Coming
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re-mediating assessment: Competencies in Context #1: New Developments at Portfolium
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How to record students attendance in Moodle course #MoodleTips - Moodle World
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Micro-credentials: Competency-based Recognition for Educators - Digital Promise
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Training the Next Generation of Reflective Educators through Micro-credentials - Digital Promise
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Building a trusted skills network in the humanitarian sector with Open Badges