Minecraft used to teach children molecular chemistry

Virtual world-building game Minecraft, played by tens of millions of children worldwide, could be used in schools to teach pupils chemistry. A group of Hull University students created an educational version of the game that allows players to explore specially created molecular structures and understand chemistry.

Arts education goes MOOC

A new platform, Kadenze, was designed to handle the needs of creative arts courses. The world of massive open online courses is getting a little more creative. The latest MOOC platform to launch requires instructors to fly out to L.A. to film their lectures. Each course is assigned a director, producer, designer, writer, musician, video editor, and customer relations liaison. The level of attention paid to production makes clear it is artists who are behind the venture — as they should be. Kadenze is a MOOC platform for the creative arts.

IBM’s Watson Could Make a Knowledgeable Tour Guide

IBM’s Watson, the machine-learning computer that won Jeopardy! in 2011 and has found work searching medical and scientific data for insights, could soon have yet another job: museum tour guide.

Poetry classes show MOOCs can have a personal touch

Online poetry classes from the University of Pennsylvania and Harvard University are showing that massive open online courses aren’t necessarily impersonal, and can draw students into smaller communities of teaching and discussion.

13 higher ed tech tools and approaches to watch in 2015

Higher education technology businesses can get lost in the weeds after their launch has passed and they’re no longer in the startup or seed funding mode. College administrators and their IT staffs can labor in relative anonymity as they try to improve their learning technology and approaches for students.

Gates Foundation gives UT-Arlington $1.6M for higher ed digital learning studies

A University of Texas-Arlington lab has won a $1.6 million grant from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation to coordinate higher education digital-learning studies by 10 institutions. The areas to be researched include competency-based learning, learning analytics, global higher education growth, scaled learning and massive open online courses, personalization and adaptation, and digital credentialing and accreditation. The goal of the grant is to connect digital learning research to practical applications, and to increase the amount of research and its depth.

NYC Department of Ed adopts Chromebooks for all schools

A deal between New York City's Department of Education and Google will see Acer and Samsung's Google-powered Chromebooks, as well as Google Apps for Education, used by more than one million students in 1,800 schools. Not all of these schools will be new customers, according to a blog post by the department's CIO, who wrote that a main reason the city decided to go with Google was because so many NYC schools were already using its tools. This news follows last week's International Data Corporation (IDC) report, which found that, in 2014, Chromebooks were the No. 1 seller among tablet and laptop products for the K-12 sector.

Coursera Expands Its MOOC Certificate Program

Coursera, the online education company, announced that it was expanding a program that awards special certificates to students who pass multiple MOOCs. The company unveiled the program, called Specializations, earlier this year. The idea was to create certificates that, while not supplanting traditional degrees, carry more weight than a certificate of completion from a single massive open online course.

Kindergartners can learn basic coding with ScratchJr

Researchers at Tufts University have created ScratchJr, a free app that teaches basic coding skills to students as young as five years old. Using the app, kindergartners can string together chunks of code, allowing them to alter characters and shapes — and ultimately build their own digital stories. The team behind ScratchJr. received $1.3 million in funding from the National Science Foundation.

10 lessons learned from MOOCs

Massive open online courses embarked on what was supposed to be their climb to world domination, or at least a complete transformation of higher education, in 2012. It was the "Year of the MOOC," as declared by The New York Times, and the so-called Big Three of MOOC providers taught their first courses that year. For-profit providers Coursera and Udacity launched in January and February of that year, respectively. And EdX, the non-profit collaborative venture of Harvard University and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, launched its first MOOCs later that fall.

10 lessons learned from MOOCs

Massive open online courses embarked on what was supposed to be their climb to world domination, or at least a complete transformation of higher education, in 2012. It was the "Year of the MOOC," as declared by The New York Times, and the so-called Big Three of MOOC providers taught their first courses that year. For-profit providers Coursera and Udacity launched in January and February of that year, respectively. And EdX, the non-profit collaborative venture of Harvard University and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, launched its first MOOCs later that fall. Fast-forward two years, and the predictions about the disruptive effect MOOCs would have on traditional colleges and universities have, so far, been overblown. But with two years of experience under their belts, MOOC providers and users are adjusting both their perceptions about online learning and the courses themselves...

First-Ever Alumni Coursera Course

500 lucky alumni will join Stephanie McCurry from Penn’s history department for a four-week online version of her “History of the Slave South” course. Beginning October 6, view fascinating lectures, engage, and learn with Dr. McCurry and other intellectually curious alumni through interactive discussion forums and a screen side chat. McCurry is a specialist in 19th-century American history. Her class, taught annually in College Hall 200, is consistently popular with undergraduates and this online version is sure to fill quickly.

Instructional Design Strategies for Intensive Online Courses: An Objectivist-Constructivist Blended Approach

Due to the time constraints of intensive online courses, instructional design strategies should be modified in order to retain the quality of learning without reducing the quantity of the course content. This paper presents how a blended approach combining objectivist and constructivist instructional strategies was used in the design of an intensive summer online course in the context of a support-based online learning environment. The implementation results revealed that students had a positive learning experience in the course and were highly satisfied with their learning outcomes.

How to Overcome Challenges to Complete an Online Degree

Online students who discuss school plans with family have a better chance of finishing their degree, experts say.

E-Learning Creates Value for Everyone

E-Learning is the current trend in turning the collegiate system itself into a business, and the movement is making headway around the planet. Today, striving for-profit companies and accredited universities identify that web-based education and learning can enhance their earnings ten-fold.

First Million Coursera Words Translated Into Russian Using Crowdsourcing Platform from ABBYY Language Services

Participants in the Coursera crowdsourcing project for translation into Russian have reached the milestone of one million words translated. Almost 5,000 volunteers are currently working to translate Coursera lectures into Russian.

Digital Feedback

Many lower-income students wrestle with doubts about belonging in college -- particularly first-generation college students. Yet while experts say doling out positive reinforcement could improve graduation rates, systematic methods of giving students a pat on the back remain rare. That may be changing. Colleges are getting more serious about broad strategies to improve student retention. Some have contracted with vendors to create technology-based early-warning systems that faculty members and advisers can use to identify and help at-risk students.

The 3 biggest parts of digital citizenship

Today’s students are part of a global school. Many take courses online with classmates from all over the country, and often, the world. A growing and essential aspect of this global education is digital citizenship – a growing concept that aims to educate students about the impact of their online and digital actions.

10 ways to realise the potential of e-learning

Can e-learning really deliver an education revolution across the globe? Our panel of experts share their thoughts...

Summer online courses becoming more popular

Summer is a time to take a break from school for many college students, and time away from campus allows students to return to their hometowns, begin internships or go on vacation. But for many, education does not end once the spring semester is over.